001foreign [Music] all right [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] please [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] mistakes [Music] please [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Laughter] [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] house [Music] okay welcome I'd like to call this meeting to order of the school board for September 14 2023. um like us all to please stand for a moment of silence and I want us read this on September 11 2001 our nation was attacked during one of the most horrific acts of terrorism in modern history we suffered unimaginable loss and grief we also shared incomparable Unity strength and hope that would carry us through this some of the darkest days some of our darkest days each
002year because of this tragedy we observe Patriot Day a national day of service and Remembrance for the thousands of lives lost on September 11th earlier this week as we remember though earlier this week we remembered those Brave Americans on the 22nd year anniversary of 9 11. let us continue to stand strong and United as one and do not forget please join me in this moment of silence thank you Adam would you lead us tonight in the pledge to flag pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to The Republic which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice are all so greetings everyone it's nice to see we have a few people in the audience welcome um and also I want to read this reminder a persons wishing to
003address the board must sign up prior to the start of the public participation speakers must register on the form provided by the district at the entrance of the boardroom to maintain a first-come first-serve process for purposes of following up with speakers the speakers must provide their name address telephone number and or email address to limit comments to matters which may be properly discussed during public participations speakers will provide the topics any group or organization wishing to address the board must identify a single spokesperson thank you for that consideration and then item D is the reading of the fire evacuation procedure in case of a fire would everyone please follow the exit signs to the outside of the building please stay completely clear of the building to provide space for any fire department vehicles thank you
004for that item two on our agenda is the approval of this evening's agenda I'll entertain a motion please Elizabeth second Lisa any comments or questions about this evening's agenda seeing none all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed extensions motion carried thank you item three superintendent's update Dr terranova please thanks Mr DeLucia welcome everybody uh it sounds like a broken record every year but it was a fantastic start to this school year seems to be better and better each year in terms of the smooth undertaking we had all our we had our kids except for the Pre-K and kindergartners from the ECS come on September 6th and then our kindergartners and Pre-K students showed up on the 7th for their first day it's just an amazing experience and First Credit goes to our
005parents and guardians of our kids who prepared our kids to be at school and our strong contributors to that connection between school and home and certainly a huge credit to our faculty and staff for creating the warm and welcoming environment that they do every day and I know they put in many many hours over the summer and throughout the last two weeks to really create a great environment for our kids and again a huge thank you to the families who behind the scenes do such great things I would encourage the community to utilize our district website victorschools.org to access general information about our reopening of school our opening of school as well as specific building content it's a great website we're continuing to update that so uh just a plug for that and then two
006quick thank yous tied to the start of school we couldn't do this without a PTSA uh they do many things behind the scenes that nobody even knows about but as as huge contributions to our students well-being and Welfare and our staff's well-being and Welfare and I encourage everyone to consider joining the Victor PTSA and go to their website at Victor Peters Victor PTSA I believe it's dot membershiptoolkit.com to really strongly consider being a member because it's a fantastic group we had a wonderful meeting yesterday last evening large turnout and I know they're looking for more members for the PTSA and also a huge thank you to the Victor Educational Foundation who directly contributes funds to our district to support our kids they ran they had the annual 5K run walk devil Dash on Saturday and
007I know they raised a significant amount of money through that to support our district so big thank you to the Victor Educational Foundation I just have two other uh fairly brief updates one is you heard us talk about trying to change the speed limit on High Street last spring it's currently especially at uh High Street and Lane Road it's a 40 mile an hour speed limit as you come up towards the village in front of the school and then once you hit the village the kid cars are supposed to slow down to 30 miles an hour thanks to the again the Victor PTSA the Victor School District the town of Victor and the village of Victor government we all made a strong plea to the New York State Department of Transportation to lower the speed
008limit to 30 miles an hour both on lane road in front of the school but just as important if not more important that stretch between Lane and High Street and the village and we put in multiple letters and multiple phone calls I did talk to a New York State Department of Transportation representative about 10 days ago and they they were very close to making a decision not to accept our recommendation and not to change the speed limit and because and I I say it over and over again but this is exactly what the reasoning was they don't believe speed limits make a big difference with speed on roads uh and they felt like it would cause too much of a variability of speeds some cars would be going 30 some cars would be going 48
009miles an hour and it could cause more accidents when we talked to them about well it's a stop sign you're starting from on either end of uh High Street so you have to speed up to a certain a mile an hour and 30 is slower than 40. so the odds that the cars are going to be going slower is significantly increased they did you know start to think more about it I we ended up I appreciate Jack Maron supervisor of the town of Victor who made a phone call to the New York State Department of Transportation after my call I ended up talking to one of the um uh supervisors of the acting Regional director and they are reconsidering their our proposal to lower the speed limit so I don't have an answer to the
010board right now whether they're actually going to change the speed limit or not they said they would be getting back to us shortly but the initial reaction wasn't positive but they are taking another look at it and hopefully they'll reconsider because we do believe that lowering that speed limit makes it safer for kids and then my last update I was thankful to attend the Ontario County Housing needs meeting in Geneva New York on Monday Ontario County hired a firm to study the housing and rental market in our County and it was great information for me to see just to get better Clarity around the challenges of our families in this County and all the counties around us but Ontario County is very unique so the first issue is uh there's very few homes or apartments
011for rent or for sale 90 over 90 percent are occupied right now so there's very limited supply of apartments or homes in Ontario County we also are the only County other than Saratoga in Upstate New York that's growing so we're one of two counties in Upstate New York that's growing and we already have a shortage of apartments and homes in our County and in fact there's expected a 3.5 percent or there's an expected 3.5 percent growth in population each year for the next seven to ten years in our County the fastest growing group is our senior population and then you so you combine the shrinking number of available Homes and Apartments increasing population and then we have one of the most significant increases in home prices in the area I believe it's 6.7 percent each
012year since 2017. and it's mainly because people are the the housing market they're building bigger homes for the top 10 percent of the people that can afford them and then because they're not making enough money to build the smaller homes so all of this was came out in a report I don't have a solution to any of this other than the fact that it really enlightened me as superintendent and the knowledge of what again our families have to go through not just in this County but in all counties around trying to find a home for their family and their kids that's reasonable that doesn't put them in a serious situation economically the county is looking for ways to work with developers through grants to build smaller homes to take which would which would be really
013accessible for the senior population who would then move because many of them want to move to smaller homes they move to the smaller homes that are built which open up the other homes for families and it would be a win-win they've already talked you know did some some pretty specific studies around that but ultimately we do have as pretty obvious a crisis to some degree around the purchase or rent of homes and apartments and it's something that we just need to be cognizant of as we work with our family so it was great information and I appreciated being invited to that meeting that's my superintendent's report thank you Dr terranova item four is our presentations recognitions we have none at this time but I'd like to take the opportunity again to recognize my colleagues on
014this board we met this week a couple nights this week for our Retreat that's part of our professional development and it's also a way for us to get to know one another especially adding our two new board members Adam and Brian and they're still here so I guess we didn't scare them off too much so thank you colleagues on this board for your work public participation item five do we have anyone yes yes hi Mike modloskey president of the Victor Teachers Association I just wanted to briefly I haven't been here since may take a chance to welcome Brian and Adam to the board um look forward to working with you over the years and I'm continuing to build a collaborative relationship we've always had as an association and the board and also to thank everyone
015who helped to make those first few days go so smoothly Dr turnover we're glad you could make it to that opening day is very close and um and also it was a perfect blend of inspiration and education collaboration and I think sometimes most importantly that time for teachers to work independently to get ready for the the start of the year so you could tell that a lot of preparation went into it that was a great start and the kids came and everyone was ready to go and a great first couple weeks so thank you and look forward to a really great year great thank you for your comments okay item six acceptance of consent items we have six a through hi so I'll first entertain a motion to accept these items please a motion right
016Brian second Elizabeth any comments or questions on any of these items it's going to utilize uh Derek released this is a superintendent for a business just to talk very briefly about item H the approval resolution funding another 22 capital reserve that's okay and uh congratulations new dad again thank you Eric is a brand new father wonderful son Declan is what 10 days yep and this is number three right correct so you're officially outnumbered it felt like I was outnumbered before this but terranova is your mic on now it is uh so if you remember back in June we discussed the projected overage from the 22-23 school years some of that was made up from as the New Foundation Aid came in some of the positions that we put in the stimulus fund we made permanent
017so to prevent the funding Clift we built them in the budget in the meantime there's some overages staff shortages so back in June we had shared that we were expecting a seven million dollar Surplus and then last month we shared that after some back and forth with BOCES and the state doing their calculation the state believes that the BOCES Aid was going to be higher so we had to revise that recommendation to the Board of Education from 7 million to eight million dollars to fund the capital reserve and now that the audit is complete we are asking to revise that 7 million to the 8 million due to the additional BOCES Aid any questions on that yeah that's good news thanks thank you any other comments seeing none all those in favor say aye aye
018aye any opposed abstentions motion carry thank you foreign item 7A is campus news who would like to begin this evening no one good evening my name is Rob DeRose principal at the Victor Early Childhood school I want to welcome our new board members Chris and Adam we've been privileged to welcome 697 of the district's youngest and joy-filled Learners to the 22 to the 2023-24 school year the school year has gotten off to a smooth and fast start as we build off of the successes from last year some of the exciting areas of focus for our building include the super kids reading program in grades kindergarten and first grade students have been highly engaged and excited about learning the learning taking place during their classrooms Ela learning period students in kindergarten right now are learning about
019Cass who loves to cook as they learn about the letter c in first graders we're learning about golly a lovable and rambunctious dog who lives at the local gas station which is a lot of fun in our kindergarten and first grade classes teachers are also starting a win block this year at the ECS this stands for what I need time and it is a time for students to participate in differentiated instruction to meet the needs of all learners this year we also have some positive behavior videos thanks to the support of Aaron Isaacs our building leadership team our school Community team and our shared decision making team we have five videos highlighting positive ECS behaviors in our school locations students and their teachers are using these videos as ways to learn and review what it
020means to show our three behavioral reminders throughout the school day and across all settings after classes complete their lessons students will receive a bracelet with our school behavioral reminders listed these bracelets were designed by Stephanie Licata an active member of our school Community team which is led by our assistant principal Laura Reynolds and I place one of those bracelets at each of your spaces over at the Board of Education tables movement lab our school now on our second floor has a movement lab which is a space to provide students the opportunity for proactive sensory input to ensure that they're ready to learn classrooms can also sign the space out to engage in learning tasks while moving whether it's on a trampoline on a balance beam that's low to the floor or on wobble stools it's
021a really fun place but also an effective place to help students receive the variety of sensory inputs that they need to be focused and ready to learn looking ahead to the remainder of the month of September our students will be celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by learning new words and new or other languages learning about some world leaders school-wide read-alouds with Mr Cardona and Miss Costanza our School's enl teachers and stopping by to check out our bulletin boards in our main hallway these bulletin boards were created by our School's enl teachers Mr Cardona and Miss Costanza the end of the month will bring with it our first Community reads event which will focus on our school's theme for the year be my best self and go for the gold a recent parent survey conducted by character.org
022revealed that only one in about one in every five families use or teach the Golden Rule to their children after reading about this and knowing the importance of building a solid academic and social emotional Foundation at Victor's Early Childhood school our faculty and staff are dedicated to making the Golden Rule cool at the Victor Early Childhood school great thank you good evening everyone Heidi Robb a principal at the primary school we are also off to a great start at the primary school our students came in on the first day so excited especially our returning students I wish I had counted the number of hugs I saw as they entered the building but they were just so happy to be back and our second graders are just as excited to be in the building developing those
023great relationships with our staff at the primary school we have three expectations we care for ourselves we care for others and we care for our school and last week and this week we're spending some time brainstorming in our classrooms what that looks like and sounds like when we care for ourselves others in our school in our learning spaces on the playground and in our hallways after they brainstorm what that looks like and sounds like they post it in the hallway for other students to see and then the following two weeks we brainstorm what that looks like and sounds like in the cafeteria in our bathrooms and on the bus after again we put those in the hallway and then we use all of those student ideas to create a matrix so we have what those
024expectations look like and sound like around our building and it's created by our students um lastly I would like to just thank our staff for their hard work in preparing for the school year so much goes into getting those classrooms ready for our students and so I want to thank them over the summer many of our teachers engaged in professional development curriculum writing and and so much more our secretarial staff worked really hard for all that I'm putting into school tool we did our placement process a little different through parent Square so that was a lot of hard work preparing for dismissal for our youngest students is also a huge feat that our main office works on and then our cleaning staff and Facilities we completely moved our book room and created a new classroom
025and did so much in our schools looked great on the first day of school so thank you to everyone it really takes a village and I couldn't be prouder to be part of the primary school great thank you good evening I'm Ashley sicola principal at Vis we are off to a great start at the Intermediate School I want to begin by thanking our main office custodial buildings and grounds staff for their help preparing for a new school year Vis looks incredible and their help prepared us for Learning and fun to occur I also want to thank our parents for their help and support in transitioning their children to a new grade level or perhaps a new school the first few days of school can often cause a wide range of emotions for our students we
026appreciate our Vis parents partnering with us to provide support for their transition finally I want to thank our teachers and our staff members our Vis team learned prepared planned and worked together to ensure a positive start to the school year although we had a lot less construction this past summer at Vis an important project was completed we opened two new 812 special education classrooms as well as a new support room for students in the program to utilize throughout the day I want to thank Chris Marshall Karen Ryan Derek Feliz and Amanda Tripp for their help and support in the project as well as the board for their continued support and our special ed special education programming last week the intermediate staff students and several central office staff members including Dr Terra Nova on the big
027screen came together to celebrate our school community and literacy we kicked off our annual community read program by gathering together roughly a thousand students and staff members in the Victor Stadium our community read committee including our library media specialist Maggie Elliott planned a special event for our entire School we introduced our community read book this year spin the golden light bulb and celebrated as one Collective Community altogether this is an important reminder that these events matter to our students and our school community and we look forward to having more like them thank you great thank you good evening everyone I'm Brian the principal of the junior high school and welcome to the new board members to the start of a great year so a couple of things that we want to highlight first off in
028an academic sense our teachers really got right to work with our students and just yesterday we did a whole staff and faculty activity on helping really create what we're calling our tier one toolbox a list of interventions and strategies right at the start of the year that our teachers can tap into as they begin to work with kids in the classroom to ensure their high level of success I really want to thank our faculty for really digging in even though we're a little over a week into the year into some of that really hard work and also we've had the privilege to have four of our classrooms re-outfitted with 21st century style learning spaces so we have four teachers right now two in our math department and two in our world language Department that have
029really engaged in a different type of instruction and utilizing the furniture through that Grant to be able to kind of do that so we really want to thank those of you who supported the grant process and you know it's really something that other teachers are noticing and hoping to take advantage of as well uh we started a couple new things this year around the building one of them which is the hype song Mondays so every Monday faculty and staff can tell us what their hype song is and we'll play a few minutes out of the radio and kids can try to guess which staff members hype song it is and the first student to come down to the office to say whose hype song it was uh gets an ice cream pass through Alex Teeple
030to get a snack from the snack bar so we we just uh had our first hype song Monday it took until today for one of our kids to figure out whose teacher it was but it was great because they've been asking around was that yours was that yours no but mine's coming and it's a nice way to build discussion between kids from a real SEL kind of Baseline and a real sort of fun way and Leah sarnakis was the teacher who had nominated her song this year we have enough songs to go through the entire year and carry over into the start of next year at this point so while over 40 of Staff members have already contributed ideas which is very cool our first new club idea came to fruition today where a student
031came in seventh grader wants to start a podcast club and one of our English teachers Julia Kiesel who's fantastic at this kind of an idea agreed to sort of help support that so we're already adding new ideas driven by kids in our building which is very exciting and Matilda kicked off this week with auditions callbacks cast has been kind of announced and tomorrow rehearsals start so if you're in the theater realm you know what that means it's go time right out of the gate uh kids and adults working really hard uh looking forward to that production and then lastly just a few things coming up uh school picture week just ended kids did a great job clicks came in and did a really nice job for us again this year and we do have our
032open house next Thursday at 6 30 so we're excited to open the doors and invite our parents and Guardians and family members into our building so thanks for a great start to the gear and I'll turn it over to Brian siesto from the high school wait before you go I have one question yeah yeah what's your hype song yeah it's my hype song well or can you not give that away right now oh no I can give it away but I'm trying to decide if I should truly play it or not because I'm I'm a product of the late 80s early 90s and I was a metal head you can't tell it from the hair so I picked Master of Puppets by Metallica and I'm thinking you know the first part of that probably will
033go over okay but I can't maybe Let It Go for too long because it might get a little loud but that's my my hype song is uh and it's on the schedule for some time I think it may be February so I mean that's that's quite a hype song it is and well you know with the stranger things I don't know if you have kids who watch stranger things I think they're gonna know it because that was kind of part of one of the seasons one of the characters in stranger things played it so it's not that far of a stretch for kids in 2024 to remember 1986. stranger things somehow that connects yeah yeah that's that's the thing that brings it all together so oh here comes a man that lost his uh dry
034cleaning ticket I could live this down is Brian siesto I'm the principal at Victor Senior High School my hype song is baby shark eight days ago we opened our doors to 1 310 students in grades 9 through 12 and more than 160 staff members who are really excited to begin the 23 24 school year the students have made a great transition back to the routine of school our staff members are already getting into curricular content and forming new connections with the students we had a fantastic opening with our staff two weeks ago we put a heavy emphasis on linking our building goals with the district Strategic Management plan and we're continuing our focus on culture building and academic performance and this year we're especially focusing on revisiting our professional Learning Community or PLC structure which
035is something that we originally brought to the district about nine years ago and we felt it's time to provide some new professional development for staff members who have joined us since then so it's a good opportunity for us to do a reboot and the collaborative teams are going to be writing their team norms and working on creating two smart goals between now and the October conference day so I'll be updating the board with that as the year goes on we also had a great orientation program for our freshmen and new students last month I had the opportunity to speak with the parents of the freshman and welcome them into our Victor High School family of course our class of 2024 seniors are already showing their excitement to celebrate their last year with us and bond
036is a class tomorrow the seniors are going to participate in senior Sunrise where they are going to gather on the turf hang out and literally watch the sun rise starting around 6 15 in the morning senior connection was a huge success last month and the weather was perfect we're already planning the senior Halloween party and of course the traditional senior homecoming pep assembly dance Mrs Elise East and Mr Eric Dahlstrom are the two class advisors and they're doing a fantastic job drumming up excitement for the class of 2024. and this year as we mentioned earlier 9 11 fell on a Monday this year the last couple years has been on a weekend and our our teachers for our students this is truly history but for everyone in this room we know exactly where we were
037exactly when those moments happened and I I want to thank our teachers for incorporating the importance of 9 11 into some of their lessons on Monday it was a perfect opportunity it really highlighted the importance of our First Responders as well as our veterans both the ones who are serving current active military as well as our veterans so it was a great opportunity for us to pause and to give thanks and and we appreciate everything that our First Responders and Veterans have done for for our country and our community to keep us safe so that's our update for this month I also have an update from Mr Weimer our director of health physical education and Athletics Dewey said that the teddy Bowl was a huge huge success the football cheer and girls soccer team soccer
038teams partnered with Camp good days in special times to raise over seven thousand seven hundred dollars and provided honorary coaches and cheerleaders and experience that they will never forget and homecoming is right around the corner on Thursday September 28th a couple weeks from now we will be hosting our annual athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Victor Performing Arts Center starting at 7 pm with a meet and greet in the junior high gym starting at 6 30 PM tickets are five dollars at the door or online and we've partnered with the VCS Educational Foundation to host the ceremony and this year we have five inductees five alumni who will be inducted David ahonen class of 20 of 2007 is going in for football basketball and baseball Liz Hogan another member of the class of
0392007 for lacrosse Matthew Portland a member of the class of 2012 for ice hockey and baseball Zach Rivers class of 2008 cross country indoor and outdoor track and Casey strong who is a member of the class of 2010 for tennis basketball and softball so those are the updates from the high school and from Dewey this month thank you great thanks it's always uh great to hear these updates from campus news appreciate that item 7B is the summer programming update Karen Fincher Karen Ryan Karen squared K squared okay technical technical term hello everyone good evening uh Karen and I are here to share with you some of the wonderful happenings on our very vibrant campus over the summer this year and so this is just a brief summary of some of those programs and opportunities for
040kids some for credit recovery or course recovery or a little bit of extra support and intervention others for enrichment and enjoyment and and really making the most of Summer Mr Siesta must have shut it off okay here we go um so I would be remiss Karen and I are here really as Representatives um The Fabulous summer program leadership really took the reins of these programs over the summer um Christina Sykes who um by day is a phenomenal chemistry teacher at the senior high school or a science teacher a teacher leader but she's stepped up and supported the summer enrichment and Summer Academy program as the program administrator she's really engaged in that work and and that planning starts in February and March just to begin to build the program Kim McConnell is a phenomenal interventionist
041here in the ECS building and stepped up to support in a teacher leader role for the summer we concentrate the Summer Academy program between the primary and the intermediate school and so those two really worked and coordinated together to provide support to our teachers and our students and transportation and and and within the buildings through the summer and then Jeff pastritto is an exemplary special educator at the primary school and he was the teacher leader for Karen we'll tell you a little more about the extended school year program but he served as the teacher leader for that program so Summer Academy is a 12-day intensive program to really provide extra support and extra boost for our students in grades exiting K so our Rising first graders through our Rising 9th graders and students are identified
042for this program based on their academic criteria based on they might be currently in intervention or just as the year has progress they need a little more support we provide transportation to these students and so they come to us already to learn and our teachers do such a great job we add 225 students this summer enrolled students are grouped in cohorts the teachers really team up to provide some English support English language arts support and some mathematics support for students they have a community meeting they have about an hour and 10 minutes to engage in some content and a lot of that is through small group instruction and some independent application time and we had 163 students taking advantage of Transportation so seeing those yellow buses around campus this summer really makes you smile just
043again extending a huge thank you to all of the teachers that worked this summer within the program as I said the planning of the program happens in February and March teachers really start to get to know the students work to plan engage in professional learning around some techniques that help best support that small group instruction they're placed so that they're within their grade span and in the content area that they're most familiar with with that right level of support and so we had four exceptional teacher aides to support the program and some of the unique student needs within it and it really is a success because of the tremendous amount of work that these people put in then we also had summer enrichment and certainly we wanted to ensure that no matter if a child
044had to participate in that intervention we wanted to make sure that they had an opportunity to also be able to participate in enrichment so we had a week of enrichment this summer of four days for students to really tap into their creative side or to go a little deeper with some Humanities learning or some science learning and so we had teachers volunteer to be a part of this program they're certainly paid for their time but their creativity really fuels what the students do students have two courses to attend during the four weeks so at the midpoint of the morning they switch and kind of shift gears into a new new area so we had 192 students k-6 through an enrollment Lottery slots filled up very quickly we did provide transportation to all of these students
045but really the limiting factor is the number of classes that that we can offer you know the what teachers can provide and so these children were so thrilled to to be engaged in a variety of different activities from really slippery science and building different structures learning about different cultures Dance Theater they really had a great time and so again thank you to our amazing teachers who supported this work some of them hung in there they taught enrichment and then they came back to teach Summer Academy so again we really thank all of their work and just you can see some of the dance they ended up choreographing their own routine doing some science experiments and even Orchestra I'm going to turn it over to Karen good evening everyone our extended school year program is for
046our students with disabilities K through 12 and the overall purpose of the program is prevent regression for students with disabilities students meet the criteria for extended school year Based on data that's collected throughout the school year in the committee on special education reviews that data and it's really to help re prevent regression that was noted during the school year over the summer so we had 98 students met eligibility criteria we had 58 of our 68 students attend our on-campus extended school year program three students attended School the Holy Childhood this is the first summer that we partnered with them for some of our older students where the cohort would have been very small and this gave them a broader experience and to be able to work on those goals and then we had 27 of
047our students continued in their out-of-district programs for extended school year our in-house school program extended school program was a theme-based program this year it was under the sea they had weekly celebrations we had dance parties sing-alongs there was a door decorating contest where every door won and everyone got popsicles we had an in-house field trip we had the bubble man come to school and did a uh he put people inside of Bubbles and he the whole entire um student body that participated really enjoyed that and we also at our 712 level had a work based opportunity the students organized a lemonade stand in our junior high high school students came down to the intermediate and primary and um uh sold lemonade for um based on tickets that the kids gave we continued to partner with
048park and rec program for our 7 to 12 students they did swimming this year and they enjoyed that and we're looking to extend that to our lower grades next year um a hundred percent of our students maintain skills towards their identified esy goals and that's really important because the students are identified um by areas where they noted significant regression so we wanted to maintain those skills over the summer so teachers use data at the beginning of the program and at the end towards those goals and parents receive progress notes and updates in addition that also extended to related Services if a child noted regression in speech OT or PT they also our music therapy had those services we know the best part of our program are our students and our staff and we also would
049like to thank the staff that participated we had teachers and teacher assistants supporting students K-12 Mr postrito did a wonderful job in terms of ensuring that classes were covered it's a six-week program so oftentimes some of our teachers or Tas are on vacation but we had enough of a sub pool really to be able to staff the program the entire Summer and the kids had a wonderful time our regional summer program School Victor hosted that this year and that is a program that composed of five component districts it runs for six weeks we had 135 students enrolled in the regular course recovery part of the program an additional 70 students attended the week prior to taking a Regents exam so the whole program is based on credit recovery or Regents exam recovery and some students
050attended both of those and we had 35 Educators staff that program and we had three students who graduated and received graduation credits another one of our programs that ran this summer were for our Rising seniors we had 150 seniors participate in a week-long essay camp in this Camp prepared students to be able to start writing and drafting their college essays they used the Common App to look at what questions would be asked of them to submit for their college application they drafted they peer reviewed they received feedback from teachers and many of them are ready to go and this really helps a lot of our students who are trying to access early decision did you say seniors Rising seniors so our those are 150 students will be seniors this year participated in that program wow
051sure last but not least we have a tremendous partnership with Victor Parks and Rec and so this summer the junior high was uh the host for the parks and rec program so lots of activity lots of activities for students and a lot of coming and going of students what's nice about having that program here on campus is our students can still access whether it's summer Academy summer enrichment and then still be able to attend Parks and Rec as that provides maybe some care during the day or some rap for families in addition Camp invention is a phenomenal program it's a week-long science-based stem based program that's really organized thanks to Mrs Carol Prescott she does a great job being the liaison for that program and supporting the work of not only the teachers but the
052teen leaders as well in that program to give kids a little taste of of stem little Science and Engineering in the summer so that was our very busy and wonderful summer of 2023. great programs questions anyone comments uh yeah Karen I had one question I was just curious if any of those programs were capped meaning like do you want to expand on them and more students wanted to be yes yes the um the special education program is not capped it's actually um it's a state regulation that for those who are eligible to meet that criteria we provide those programs for them and in terms of enrollment for the summer Regional it would be based on some space issues but also then we look at how do we can staff that in terms of if we
053know the enrollment from schools because the districts put in a certain number of names by a certain time then we staff the program based on that yeah yeah and Academy is is through invitation and so any student that qualifies we're extending that invitation um and working really hard to staff it so that we can fit them enrichment is the one where we did cap we had waiting lists because um just the the teachers that were available to provide that instruction during that time frame we we had to work with what we had but that's one that over time we want to we want to continue to to see if we can grow and in what ways we can grow maybe offering different weeks offering different options but also being mindful of a short window of
054time and transportation some of some of the logistics but we don't want to get have the logistics get in the way of great opportunities for kids great questions I just wanted to extend my thanks to both of you I mean based on my math and it's not going to be perfect there was over 800 Kids on Campus this year getting these services and participating in these programs and that is excellent and very exciting to see so thank you both for the work you did there okay thank you item 7c is the use of the Victor Learning Center formerly 200 South High Street Dr terranova wow thanks Mr DeLucia so anytime we utilize a new building at the start of the year it's always good just to give a real quick update about it so to
055go backwards last year we found out that 200 South High Street was for sale thanks to the leadership of the Board of Education we attempted to purchase the building which is right on our campus the board approved that purchase and then the community ultimately approved the purchase through a vote uh we had guidelines around how we wanted to use it utilize it and one of the biggest reasons was to try to have another instructional space especially for kids who were out of school for periods of time so that we they would remain connected to our district we thought at the time that when the public approved the vote that we wouldn't be able to utilize the building for students until the second part happened which was the capital project to renovate the building but thanks
056to Mr valise's leadership along with Chris Marshall our director of facilities our construction team and Architects team we were able to get approval from the state to utilize the building starting this fall instead of having to wait for you a few years for a capital project to renovate it and again it was incredible work done by our facilities team under Derek's leadership so with that being said uh the why behind the it is now called the Victor Learning Center that is was 200 South High Street uh we have per diem tutors that are incredibly limited Supply so for as long as I've been here for three over three and a half years we would have kids that are out of school for short periods of time whether it's a week to a month to even
057a few months and they weren't being serviced and supported and they were losing connectivity to our school district and losing academic skills and it was just not a good situation at all and then when they would come back to school they'd be three steps behind where they they could have been so it's a major issue for us and and the more we have a lack of teachers and tutors in a shortage of them the more concern we had because we were having greater amounts of kids struggle when they were going to come back to school so we need to respond effectively and efficiently to our students needs to get more in-person time for kids who are short-term out of School so the goal was to provide a space where students can continue in-person learning while
058on campus with professionals when they have gaps in time now that could that could be because of uh behavioral concerns behavior issues where a child is out of school for a period of time it could be for medical concerns it could be for social emotional concerns or even students who are awaiting placement in an alternative setting but to be able to have this space now we have the ability to bring those kids in on campus and have a solid time each day for instruction and social emotional support where needed and that's a huge difference from the previous year I have to thank Amelia pass Amino Paz who is uh a special ed teacher in our district and has really been very interested in taking over the role as Lead Teacher of our Learning Center and
059then thanks to Dorothy D'Angelo's office the HR office we were able to find Karen Hess who has 25 years of experience working with students with disabilities and wanted to come over to try out Victor and so we were lucky to have the two of them so as you can see they intake the kids to come in they make sure there's a process through the buildings on which kids attend to this Learning Center and the process around it there's a lot of communication between family school and the Learning Center around the specific needs of the kids and how to operate in terms of the tutoring session we definitely because of their expertise both from an academic standpoint but from also a really sophisticated understanding of social emotional and mental health needs we're able to ensure that
060they have continuity of instruction there is also going to be a push to bring and we our staff's been incredibly receptive about this to come bring staff over to the Learning Center who directly work with the kids when the kids are in school to keep that continuity going and uh and then it'll it'll support the re-entry process students are typically tutored anywhere between two and three hour blocks and uh since school started on September 6th I think we have at least three potentially four students that have already been serviced through our Learning Center since the first day of school we're expecting us to support between 80 and 100 students this school year and again some will be there for short periods of time for three to five days maybe a week to two weeks but
061then we'll have other students that are going to be there for a matter of months the goal is obviously to transition our kids back to the mainstream environment but by having a facilities right on campus with exceptional professionals to work in those facilities and work with our kids to maintain that kind of connectivity and a connection to the school we really firmly believe that we're going to increase the chances that those children are successful when they come back to school and we're really looking forward to it again it just started we're two weeks old but we've already had multiple kids in the program so that's just a brief um overview of our Learning Center we're excited about it we're going to give more of a specific update later in the school year on how it's
062going any questions from the board um Dr terranova would we be able to those of us who were on the board when the purchase was made of the building saw the inside would we be able to include that in our building tours definitely it should be included in the building tour and again it looks a little rough on the outside because it's you know it hasn't been in use for a little while but the inside is completely safe it's been renovated they have air conditioning throughout the building and and don't forget as you're going to hear in about 30 seconds we also have a capital project that the renovation of this building is included in so right definitely I think it's a great idea thank you any other questions for the board great news great
063program thank you okay then item 7D is the capital project update by Derek Elise thank you and uh you have some positive news to share today so for the agenda we're going to review the status and uh you're going to hear a new term today called the preliminary review we're going to talk about what that is and what it entails and what that means to you guys and our next steps so after three emails to Wendy Clark who is the associate School business management at scd's facilities planning that went um ignored we escalated to Wendy's supervisor and now as of this past Tuesday we have a little bit more clarity on the timeline of the approval of the capital project we received that Wendy replied to us and told us that the SED plans out
064in starting to our preliminary review starting October 25th so what is a preliminary review uh it's a process in which SED starts reviewing our plans and of not just our Maps but also our intended use so they could be asking things such as a further breakdown of our classroom utilization further explanation of our additions and why and then feedback on the preliminary drawings as it relates to building code such as classroom sizes they have certain sizes based off of what's in there if it's a gen Ed classroom 1211 in this in the light so once they complete the process they will give us a preliminary aidability of the project and from there as a district we have two options we can either hopefully it's sufficient enough and we can accept and move forward or we
065can ask them to revisit some of their their calculations to try to get more additional state aid so during this process we're hopeful that it is a very brief process but since we met with you back in July the review process went from 12 to 14 weeks to 14 to 16 weeks so we're optimistic but these are some of the challenges that we are dealing with and just the side by side you can see it's taking longer so our next step so swbr that is our architect they are going to be begin the Seeker which is the environmental impact for these additions because they need to be approved before the board can approve a referendum to be voted that uh hopeful that we get receive approval in November and then at a November board meeting
066hopefully the regular schedule may be a special board meeting the board could review the seeker and the referendum and adopt those resolutions then we will start the community communication process that is a minimum of 45 days but depending on when it happens there's at the end of December is not an ideal time to do a vote so hope possibly holding a vote in January or February if successful in a vote we will begin the design phase with the stakeholders which takes about 12 months we are going to prioritize the 200 South High Street though to try to break ground this upcoming summer um but for the rest of the the project we're hoping to break ground in the summer of 2025 and completion of June probably more it probably will lead further into the summer
067of June uh of 2028 but we're hoping to be ready for the 28-29 school year any additional questions I would just add and I'm going to kind of clarify that clarify I'll ask you for your opinion on this I think you know because we've talked about it but there's a chance that we could still squeeze the voted in December although the state keeps delaying the information we need and the approval however Mr release and I talked about the fact that we don't want to try to cram a capital project through to the community in a short period of time without being as transparent as possible around what we're doing why we're doing how much it's going to cost why it's going to cost that much so to give us more time to be able to
068be as transparent as possible leads us to what we talked about which was the January and or early February vote so a is that you can correct me in any area that that you want in that one so in our discussion I mean we're obviously still very hopeful for a December vote but realistically we're looking for January February vote but we're still hoping that possibly everything that we've done once they review it there are minimal questions and they approve it relatively quick and the longer the reason we're taking some time with this too is to hopefully the state getting them to convince them to give us more Aid which would decrease any cost towards the taxpayer yes so the addition pieces are 40 45 million dollars and currently United States Aid formula because the state
069believes that our our buildings are sufficient we wouldn't receive any Aid so this process will get us some Aid and if they aid the whole project we would get roughly about 67 percent of that back thanks thank you I didn't know if the board had questions though sorry I interrupted that any other questions you did good thanks oh you do sorry I had a quick question could you without putting you on the spot I'm could you give a little bit of uh information about the intended renovation to The Learning Center what we were thinking of part of it so some of that's going to be learned through this year as we utilize the space on what the needs of that space will look like but one of the biggest things so when we were working
070with the the state since we purchased the building because there isn't a secondary fire egress we are capped at the number of students that could be in the space so one of the major things is they don't want to see the fire rescue windows that would be facing the campus instead they have already they've been honest with us they would like to see a man door to escape the in case of an emergency so we have to get it up to code to allow larger groups of students in that space it was used for different purposes and what we're looking for in the largest room has a gym floor and it has electrical outlets run for what I believe that um Tim DeLucia had told me it was for elliptical bikes that were in the
071space right their trip hazards currently we have desks over them so they're not but we would like to level that floor there was like a nursery area in there that would need to be removed and turned into a classroom space but very very minimal work as Dr timoth shared it looks rough on the outside but when you go in it's actually a pretty nice facility right anything else okay thank you you can go this time yeah all right the next item 7e is uh committee selection for the Wayne Finger Lakes both Seas liaison at your last meeting I wasn't here but you had tabled that I heard some of the discussion because I was watching the watching it live I'd like to begin with some comments if I may um Dr terranova and I spoke
072about this after I watched the discussion at last month's board meeting and as you know we were trying to change from Wayne Finger Lakes BOCES to BOCES one uh and and based on their sort of quirky rules the only time you can do that is if there's a change in and the superintendent of of BOCES well there is going to be a change in the superintendent at Wayne Finger Lakes policies so we thought we had an opportunity to apply to change to BOCES one however State Ed came back and my personal opinion is that they made the decision based on economics and not based on quality programming for Victor students what I mean by that is they said that if Victor left Wayne finger legs BOCES it would put that organization in a financial a
073place that was not good however we you know through Dr terranova and his staff we did a study of comparison of the programming that's offered by Wayne fingerly exposes and and BOCES won and the quality and and programming differences were significant so I think State ad you know made a decision based on economics and again from my perspective perhaps they don't care about Victor students dare I say that but it's you know it was shocking to me and and disturbing so what Dr taranova and I talked about is this position should be more than a liaison position it should be bumped up to an advocacy role and what we meant by that is the advocacy role you know what state ads said to us is you need to go back to Lane Finger Lakes and
074convince them to provide the programming that meets your needs so we want to go back to Wayne Finger Lakes both season say you need to step up you need to improve your program programming to offer to the students of Victor um so I want to be like a dog with a bone I want to be that liaison advocacy role and go back to them and challenge them to step up and if they don't then we can go back to State Ed and apply to change to BOCES one in addition to all of that frustration for me personally was the fact that during the last budget process they didn't accurately identify the proper BOCES funding the BOCES Aid excuse me because of our talented Derek we got it corrected but that also tells me that their
075business office needs Improvement so we need to be in their face about that as well so again I wouldn't mind being a dog with a bone and going after these folks what do you think wasn't there another piece in terms of Transportation as well that Monroe one is closer for our students yes it's inclement weather just time on the road compared to being in their classrooms so that was the other piece that was frustrating for me is that yes the programming was significantly stronger with one with BOCES one but it was also the amount of time that our kids are commuting and on the road that was another yeah absolutely but I think we need to advocate for um wasn't it isn't it almost 40 minutes it was a significant time change that's an entire
076class block when you get to and fro I think one of the things special time lost I think one of the things that Dr terranova mentioned was that it did not enable our students to get back in time to do another class right so so the scheduling was off with our campus time so yeah there's many issues here many issues here and you know I think State Ed made a bad decision and I want to point that out to ask you with that Mr DeLucia do you feel that staying on a full year is warranted before we're able to approach State out again or is there a six-month period help me with that Dr T is the question how long do we have to wait before we potentially appeal the state at again about well
077technically we're as as Mr DeLucia said you can only appeal these decisions when a change in either the BOCES that you're a part of or the BOCES that you want to go to occurs with the superintendent so um I think we may not be able to appeal this again until there's a change in Superintendent at the BOCES level obviously Monroe won superintendent Dan White's been there a long time and we are just they're just hiring the new Wayne Finger Lake supposedly so I would assume it would be at some point in the next few years when Dan makes a decision to retire but that could and that could be in a year or two that could be three or four or five years but I think it's important as Mr DeLucia said to really push
078the leadership I've envisioned our I what the initial plan in my mind would be is for Mr DeLucia and I to meet with the current interim superintendent from BOCES Kevin McDonald who is a BOCES superintendent in another another area who I know a little bit and I I have respect for and then the new superintendent once that person's hired and the four of us sit down and really talk about the concerns that Victor has I'm also articulating those concerns with the other districts in the Wayne Finger Lakes County and they have significant concerns as well about the program and it's not just a Victor issue it's the entire order so to make a long story short they would we would do that clearly State what we need and then again continue to focus with BOCES
079to provide the programming necessary because right now we have concrete examples names faces stories of kids both in General Ed and special LED that are not receiving the services they need to be successful and there's it there's just no excuse for it so we need to push that see if that changes and then when there is a change in a district superintendent if as as Mr Lucia said if they haven't made those improvements we have a much stronger I think argument to say hey we need to do something because this is still not working can I ask where the governance is with that superintendent guideline that it can only be done when there's a change in a superintendency can't there be some advocacy that that I'll call it legislation for for lack of knowing what
080to call it I mean I mean where was that written and how can that possibly be changed it just seems one there's such a great disconnect between a change in leadership I mean that's when you would want stability you don't want districts wanting in and out of of these BOCES when you have a change in leadership I I guess who who would be that person that you go to to Advocate to change that well again it's you know if for me it's a bizarre rule okay I don't know how else to say it um as far as I know it's a state ad rule um who wrote it who implemented it who knows but I would be willing to challenge that as well so that we didn't have to wait until another change in superintendent
081it it either Wayne Finger Lakes or BOCES one because we asked and we applied when the rule applied so I would go back to them and say Hey you know we did what you recommended and we're still not satisfied so I'm not willing to wait so I would challenge that and if we have to do it by you know going to our government officials you know however we need to do that I would I would start avoiding ankles well and just to wrap up also once that new superintendent is um you know beginning at winfinger Lakes if you think it would be prudent of our board if it's even done I don't know if this is possible but if we were to sit down and collectively voice our concerns about the programming if you think
082strength and numbers would help or cause it all if that's even appropriate I don't know sure I mean we have that we have that right to you know go to their board and their Administration and and state our concerns in figure Lakes both he's also periodically visits their component districts I don't know if we're on the schedule for this year but okay should they show up they'll get an earful I mean quite frankly if they do visits I can't remember the last time they came well it was like uh three years ago I believe okay they come to a board meeting okay be quite interesting if we all showed up at their board meeting in we could do that Unity they come to one of ours we could do that as well and you know
083we could ask to be on their agenda as well yeah I mean there's many opportunities for that engagement in my in my mind I think we should just continue to make this very public through all of us not just you we know you'll go out there and bite those ankles I have no doubts but I I think we all need to be vocal on our opinion on this so if we have an opportunity to bring them here go there we should do so okay we'll let Dr tme work on this and we'll uh develop a strategy okay we good with that thank you thank you thank you okay I'll get off my soapbox now and we'll do some good stuff here we're going to approve uh the following field trips so bear with me there's
084a number of them here this is great uh first one is girls volleyball to Half Moon New York from 10 13 to 10 14 23 to participate in a volleyball tournament the next one is Victor marching band to College Park Maryland from 10 20 to 10 22 to participate in the bands of America Regional Championship next one is four Senior High students to attend the nisma conference All-State Festival in Rochester from 11 30 to 12 1 of 23. next one ice hockey to Buffalo New York from 12 1 to 12-2 to participate in hockey competitions next one Seas Club skiing snowboarding trip to Lake George New York from 3 1 24 to 3 3 24. I want to go to that one next one Deca to Rochester New York from three six to three eight
085to participate in the New York State career conference next one senior high school music students to sellings Grove Pennsylvania from 419 24 to 4 20 24 to Susquehanna University to visit music master classes hope I'm not mispronouncing any of these things uh next one is Seas Club camping hiking trip to Saranac Lake New York from 5 17 24 to 5 19 24. and then finally Senior High School grads excuse me Senior High School grades 9 through 12 to Sorrento Italy and Athens and the Acropolis Greece from 625 24 to 7 3 24. wow great opportunity so a motion to approve these trips please Lisa Lisa second Elizabeth Elizabeth any comments these are great opportunities for our students I I just want to Echo your comments this is a this is exciting to see this much
086stuff going on yeah and to see our our kids out experiencing things and doing things now really unleashing so it's exciting to see it great any other comments Mike can I make one comment too I think it's really important to recognize uh Mr CSO and siesto and his administrative team and the counselors at the high school as well as our overall staff because each of these trips especially things like the um the trip to France and is it a Paris or Greece I believe or Italy and Greece and some of the other trips across the pond so to speak we are doing everything this year to make sure that to figure our way to get cost out of the equation for our kids we don't want trips like these just for kids of means we
087wanted the opportunity to have all of our kids participate in these trips so just a big thank you to Mr siesto and the counseling staff at the high school and the on the especially the advisors of these trips because again we can't take every child everywhere but we can certainly do make significant improvements in allowing for kids who may have some economic challenges or families that may have some economic challenges participate in the same experiences that other kids do so I just want the board to make sure the board knows that this is something we're working on and we would continue to make progress with it that's great was there uh for clarity there's an updated field trip from the music department for the Wind Ensemble that was both number three this is for four
088seniors but this is for the whole thing okay thank you yeah I'm I'm looking at the the first line 11th and 12th for the it's for the choir and the orchestra so I was a little in a disconnect there's two of them it's these are two separate ones okay yeah they don't I just didn't want I didn't want to approve field trips and miss one right so because our four senior students who qualified for nisma were just disqualified this week I believe um we need to get the approval in quickly because the check is due uh even though the the trip is until November 30th so this was a last minute Edition uh so that our four seniors could participate who uh qualified for it how about just an idea what the beginning of an
089new school year and I'm not looking to make extra work for staff or students but if any of these organizations or groups of students who go on field trips want to like share a little bit with us about what their experience was or even some photos I would love to see it because I hear about all these wonderful places and opportunities that they have and I'd love to just maybe see a little slice of what they got to experience again not to add more onto staff's plate as advisors but I would just really love to see a little follow-up from anyone who is willing to share yeah great thank you I'll take pictures at the skiing one yeah oh no Tim Kinski no I do if you need me to take pictures in Italy I
090can do that I'll offer up okay we're going way off any other comments okay seeing none all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed abstentions motion carry thank you item 7g is the policy review the first and final reading of code of conduct policy 5300 it was a minor change adding two names um any first I need a motion sorry motion please uh Brian Brian second Adam sorry Krista you'll get the next one my left ear is stronger than my right apparently um any any comments or questions on this one see none all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed abstentions motion carried item 7h is the policy review second and final reading for the homebound instruction policy 4327 motion please Chris didn't hurt at that time second Lisa Lisa any comments or
091questions on this one everybody saw that seeing none all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed extensions motions carry thank you and then uh item I is a policy review first reading for staff student relations Frederick I can't say the word patternization thank you well she said policy 9100. this is a new policy that we received never before here yeah this is uh and Maureen feel free to to add anything this is a recommended policy from um Erie was it Erie one Erie one yeah a recommended policy from Erie one that many districts have uh really to protect everyone in terms of Staff student relationships um and so this is a first reading it's it's it's a copy of the Erie one's recommendation with some added information that we took from a couple other
092districts but I'm confident that the process that these policies go through for review will uh we'll definitely look at it carefully see if there's any questions concerns ultimately we need a policy at the end of this that that again protects everyone especially our students and just clarifies uh you know the the whole concept of the separation between adults and kids appropriate in a school and schools have now gone toward this policy and just for Brian and Adam it's a brand new policy so new policies will go to the constituent group so VTA will get a copy of it are you all of our unions um PTSA and Pi will get it student council will get it in the high school building councils get it District Council so we'll give them the month to review it
093and then we'll bring it back if there are no comments it'll come back to the board as the second and final read if there are comments we'll let through those comments and do a second read and then probably a third and final read okay okay any other comments item eight meeting reports the first one is Monroe County School Board Association committee reports I did there was one yesterday it was a book challenges establishing an effective approach in this era of divisiveness presented by Hilton Central School District and Pittsford Central School District there's some great materials here what I would like to do is provide these materials to Dr terranova that he could review with his staff because I know we have ongoing efforts on that as well so I don't want to give too much
094information now prior to reviewing it with Dr terranova okay makes sense um so that's the only one we had I know that uh Dr Parks did the leadership at Monroe County School boards Association so we'll look forward to his report at the next meeting when he's in attendance anyone else have anything from that standing committee updates anyone no we haven't had any yet this year okay nothing yet right nothing yet yeah okay we're early in the season um okay then we move on to item nine upcoming events the next regular board meeting is Thursday October 12th at 7 15 pm anything else for the go to the district before I ask for a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn Elizabeth second Lisa who Brian I don't have it all in favor say aye aye aye
095any opposed or abstentions ocean carry thank you well done Mr delusion we have had a meeting look at that