001Algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Moving right along. 4.01 Superintendent Report. Mr. Loa, I believe we have the uh code of conduct. Huh? Not yet. Not sure what that means. Next 4.02 Superintendent Spotlight on program presentation of certificates. Thank you, President. Thank you, President McFarland. I'd like to welcome everyone here this evening to our board meeting. Uh I did want to thank uh our community uh for their thoughts and prayers. I was not here at the last board meeting. Uh my mother had a medical emergency and I had to go up to Buffalo for a few days. But I appreciate your thoughts and prayers. She is home. She's recovering. She's doing
002much better. But I did want to thank our community uh for supporting our budget and our capital project and we look forward to continuing to work with you in collaboration to make our district the best that it can possibly be. So I wanted to state that. Also this evening, spotlight on program, we have Trusty Capalari who's here. Not only is he a board trustee, but he's also a veteran, and we thank him for his service, as well as other members from the veterans that are here this evening. Trusty Copilari, you indicated that the veterans wanted to present uh a um I believe a pin. Uh that's correct. A certificate and another item. Very good. So at this point, I will turn it over to Trusty Capillary. Sure. Ladies and gentlemen, board and uh esteemed students
003from John J. Um a few months back we had an excellent we had this amazing opportunity of engaging uh group of John J students who were working on uh doing a uh veterans outreach research in which they reached out on their own to consult with uh various veterans much like myself uh about a whole range of services and uh try to get an assessment kind of firsthand from vets throughout the community. It didn't matter what town or what area. Uh, personally, this was uh uh both refreshing and uh definitely out of the box. So, I say this to you tonight, both as a trustee, as a community member, and as a veteran of a foreign war, thank you. Oftent times, a lot of this stuff gets unnoticed. And to see an enthused group of young
004uh folks interested in this is uh something that I can't uh articulate into words. In order to uh kind of get the full effect, we brought our commander, our quartermaster and one of our bar area managers from our uh veterans of Foreign Wars post 5913 here in Wingers to kind of come up. We want to present certificates to you. But before we hand them out, I want to read a little something from it. This certificate is going to be coming from our post on behalf of a veterans research project for the New York State Seal of Civic Readiness. It's going to specifically read, "For your outstanding support of our nation's veterans and outreach efforts to better understand our unique challenges." Your efforts are greatly appreciated by Post 5913, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the local
005community. I cannot think of uh a more rewarding uh attempt to kind of connect and bring things together. So, if you could please come up here and I will ask our commander and our quartermaster and manager to uh present these certificates. [Music] We're going to call these names in any order. If our commander Mike Riley could read the first name. Madison Anderson. We also have district certificates for these students that Dr. Mark is handing out. The next student, Alison Lenheimr. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Ethan Mulligan. Thank you, [Applause] Molly. The first of two Emma is in Nema and [Applause] [Music] And last but not least, please have a headset. [Applause] As you all sit down, before you all go back to your seats, we just want to say
006thank you. Thank you on behalf of this. Uh this research is going to be very important for years to come and hopefully you've paved the way for future. On behalf of that, we salute you. [Applause] Board of Education would like to also thank you again for you participating in this program. Thank you [Music] [Applause] everyone. All right. Uh 4.01 superintendence report. Mr. I believe it is now time for the uh code of conduct presentation by our assistant superintendent for administration and information systems, Mr. Darren Lim. Thank you very much. Good evening. I'm not doing the public hearing. Unless you want to just tell me what to do. That's all. [Music] You want to go to 5.01? 5.01. Okay. 5.01. Public hearing on code of conduct and attendance policy. Resolve that the board of education does
007hereby open the public hearing on the code of conduct and attendance policy at this time. Do I have a motion? Motion by uh Miss Trusty Johnson, second by uh Mr. Lumier. Any discussions? We all in favor? Unanimous. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you. Uh this will be brief. Uh this is of course our annual process where we review our upcoming uh school year's draft code of conduct as well as any changes made to the attendance policy uh which is required by education law. We do this every year. Um and the since having provided and put on our website the proposed draft legislation um or proposed draft code of conduct, uh we received updated information about the new state legislation uh uh uh regarding the Belltobell smartphone ban in schools. So, uh, what that legislation actually
008is doing is is requiring us to, um, create a new, uh, cell phone policy separate from the code of conduct. The policy committee had met and we sort of agreed that it would be a separate policy. Uh, typically what happens in the past is our code of conduct has dictated the terms in which we will, uh, be allowing or disallowing cell phone usage in schools. Uh and so um what this bullet is basically saying is is that um during the course of this 30-day public comment period, we will be amending the code of conduct uh draft that we have set up for 2526 to include language that's basically referring to uh the policy. So there'll be uh updated information about that as it comes out. uh we will be utilizing the language that was in
009the recommended draft uh that was shared on our website and with the board. We're using language from that in our cell phone policy. So, it's kind of like one is going to inform the other, but then we're going to have the code of conduct final draft reference the new policy that is being uh considered. So, more information will be coming on the Delta Bell smartphone ban and the language associated with that. There was one addition requested in our draft regarding dress code. Uh I guess there are a number of students who are you know using blankets as a coverall of some sort. Um and so uh that we were asked to uh put the language in saying no blankets are allowed to be worn during the school day unless at the discretion of building administration.
010This does not include using blankets during after school activities as appropriate. It's just a matter of people coming in and putting over their head and wearing them like you know all over that has has been deemed somewhat of a distraction. There is there should have been another bullet on this presentation. I apologize. Basically says there's going to be minor updates to our infraction list um which is noted on the uh district code of conduct draft on our website. Um, basically there's going to be um a couple of infractions that were already in place like uh threatening a student. Just adding some extra language to that to say inclusive of online as an example. Um threatening a student is now going to say threatening a student parenthesis physical verbal or online. Same thing with threatening an
011employee. It already said physical or verbal. We're going to add or online. And then one new infraction refusal of ISSISR. So we've noticed um a couple of instances I guess in the buildings where uh students have refused. They said I'm not going to ISR you can't make me. And so it just becomes this well you know let's let's put in the policy uh what we would like to do to address that um from a from a disciplinary perspective. So, um, just interesting that those that those things have come up and and the buildings are asking that we include that in our code of conduct. Uh, so that Oh, and yep, that's that's it. There's a little bit of language about how we're going to reference updates to the attendance policy, which we always have in
012our code of conduct. We're going to reference that uh with the updated changes that are being uh requested there. So in our draft attendance policy review uh which is also required on an annual basis. We just want to make note of there's one section uh in the middle of the policy that talks about intervention strategies to improve school attendance. Uh we had uh building administration uh attend uh the policy committee meeting when looking at this policy review um and just sort of referred to what is present day practice. Um, and so we removed some of the things that are no longer um being um you know being uh I guess uh what's the word being practiced uh for things like attendance like file filing a pins petition. uh the building principles have noted that you
013know pins does not and nor does uh youth services really address uh attendance issues as far as they'll address students not coming to school at all uh but not ones with chronic absenteeism for example uh but ones that are related to family related matters. So I'm just looking at um what the district does uh on a day-to-day or what they could do and let and letting the attendance policy reflect uh that practice. So that is pretty much the only well there's a little bit of extra but it's right below that line talking about um you know continued attendance issues may result in display actions at the at the discretion of the building principle just adding a couple of extra words into the sentence to hopefully make it a little bit more clear and then that
014is the end of the recommendations for the attendance policy for uh the 2526 school year. So in the conclusion of my report, thank you. Thank you very much. 5.03 community input on code of conducts and attendance policies. None. Thank you. 5.04 Four. Motion to close public hearing and resume regular board meeting. Motion. Motion. I got to read. Resolve that the board of education does hereby close the public hearing and resume the board meeting. Motion Keith Oms second by Peggy Kellen. All in favor? I. Unanimous. Thank you. Now we going back to 4.01. Alberta, I don't think you have any other comments. Do you have anything else? I have nothing. Okay, thank you. All right, moving right along. 6.01 public comments on agenda items. Anyone signed in for public comments? No. So, we will wave the
015reading. 6.02 communication announcements received by the board of education. Anyone have any comments? Let's start with Peggy Coin, please. [Music] Art in the park was very impressive even though they had to uh close it and take down the artwork uh at shortly after 11:00 because of the uh rain, which of course would ruin their artwork. But it was very impressive. what I was able to see before it closed uh was again a uh an indication of what good work our students are doing and the way uh the teachers put up cards to explain how these uh how these different projects related to the curriculum, the techniques they were learning, the uh art appreciation to learn about famous artists and to relate it to the whole curriculum and each grade. It was very impressive. Uh I
016uh there was also the history honors uh honors society at John J. the business honor society at John J. The memorial day um um commemoration at RCK. Business honors at RCK. Art honors at RCK. The junior honor society at Wacers Junior High. and uh the project learning uh activities at uh the Mid Hudson Regional Hospital. Very impressive. The students once are have been expanding the number of schools and students involved in the fourth year of this project. They came up with a mini golf hole and we got to try it out. Did you make it? You don't know ask how many strokes it took me. Trusty Migs. Yes. First, I'd like to congratulate the students who were inducted into the RCK Art Honor Society. As Trusty Kalen mentioned, there was a problem with weather on
017the day of Art in the Park. And the day of the um art honor society inductions was one of the opportunities that's being held indoors to allow the public to appreciate student art and the students were able to share their artwork with us on that day. There's also been a lot going on recently with spring sports. I'd like to congratulate the uh Royce Ketchum girls softball team on an an outstanding season even though their season came a little short. um this weekend. They played um an amazing um they played amazing games all season. Uh also the Wingers girls lacrosse team. I was there Friday night to watch their come from behind exciting victory over um North Rockland. They will be playing tomorrow in the section one finals down in Lakeland if anyone is interested in
018going. I was also on hand on Saturday to watch the Royce Ketchum boys baseball team win the section one championship down at Sunni Purchase and for the fourth consecutive year and they will be playing in a subregional game in Waverly this Thursday against Elmyra. And I'm going to leave the big event for you, Mrs. Johnson. Trusty Johnson. So, um, I would like to say that, you know, it was a great honor to be able to speak at the Art Honor Society and the Wingers Junior National Honors Society to be able to say a few words to our amazing students and as um, Trusty Kellen pointed out, our Mid Hudson Regional Medical Center with our project-based learning. Um, that program started out with three schools and about 80 students. This year we had, I believe it
019was nine schools, 37 70 students. I was going to go 380, but it's 370. Um, and every year these kids, uh, the ideas are brought up by the little ones and our high school students are amazing and are able to bring it to futation and it is donated to the pediatric warden and it just blows my mind. As Trusty Megan said, our our sports have been absolutely amazing and I cannot wait till Thursday. Um, also I was able to attend Brinkerhoff's Willy Wonka play the other day, which was absolutely fantastic. Um, I love those kids. They're just they're so cute. I love them when they're so small. And we've got some rise and shiners there for our um, Emilio to to get on to there. Now, my final one, which is our biggest one, our
020winner circle. Can I just say that it was by far still my favorite program. I I love that we teach our children about reading and writing and science and math, but wow, the looks on these kids' faces and the looks on their instructor's faces, it has brought such joy to everybody around. And I cannot say how grateful I am that we've brought this program to the this district. We're lucky we have two cars. We have two amazing build teams, two amazing marketing teams. Um, we did not win this year, although I think we should have. Um, but that's my personal opinion. Um, both of our teams overcame so many obstacles and absolutely built two incredibly working cars that I had the thrill of being driven around the racetrack in one of them. and Trusty Miggots
021in the other. And um it was definitely I can't wait for next year. I can't wait to see what these kids do. And I would like to give a shout out to um Director Shoutton and to also assistant director um Joe Lesie because they really really put a lot of heart and soul into this. and to our amazing instructors, our principles that give so much time and to all of the people that donated because these kids have to get donations to do the extras on these cars. And I want to thank our community for supporting our students in this program because um everybody that I've shown this program to out of state um you know all my family and friends all over the United States they want to know how they can get that program
022in their state and in their district and I said they can't have it. It's ours. So um and I thank pas and the winter circle for all of their amazing work. Thank you, trustee. Uh trustee, uh I'm sorry. Go ahead. Thank you. I just wanted to congratulate uh Bonnie King and the music department, arts department for all of the students, the Winger students that participated in the New York State NISMA uh in arts. Uh they had their their their test as you would say for music and singing last a few weeks ago and it's just as hard as playing a sport. They have to do their regular homework and then continue to practice their art or singing and sit in front of a adjudicator and be graded. And you could see the passion once they
023finished and walked in the hallway. either they did well or even if they made one mistake perfect or one mistake you can see their passion so congratulations to all the students who participated in this book thank you thank you K trusty cavaleri if I may go back just to the winner circle for a moment while we talk about a lot of the subjects it is through the winner circle that we see uh theory go into concept Uh it's very of it's very easy for folks to describe their successes and it takes an incredible amount of courage and fortitude and self-awareness to discuss challenges and how to work and overcome them. One of the most important parts uh we think of this is that these teams come together from very segmented elements and they kind of
024are forced to work together to overcome a common challenge and uh we're completely blown away by how young and self-aware they are because in this day and age of social media where everything is nothing but neck and the image and portrayal, we actually found it refreshing to hear them talk about the early challenges they faced. And it's not just uh it's not just the the Winger schools, it was the students altogether. Yes. And we're paying close attention to the other students from the other schools when some of our folks were up there talking and they were nodding their heads. Therefore, you know, uh, learning how to problem solve and overcome these types of issues is more of a life skill and something that's going to serve them quite well. We're excited for what awaits next
025year and the expansion of the program. We'd be remissed if we didn't say anything. Thank you, Trusty Captain. Trusty Lumia, as was mentioned before, I want to thank all the teachers for all the hard work they did in setting up for Art in the Park. The amount of work that these people have to do, it's incredible. It's unfortunate that the rain dampered the situation, but I want to thank the parents who were very helpful in taking all those hard art down. A lot of them really came and took the and a lot of the art was damaged unfortunately. And also I'd like to thank the custodians, the actual the buildings and grounds for the work they did before and after. And I'd like to congratulate the uh the musicians. The musicians did not You have
026to listen to these kids. They're professionals. First of all, they're professionals. I really enjoyed it. And it's too bad that it was cut short because of the rain. But, uh, it seemed like every year we have problem with rain every year. But, but again, the work that goes into putting that event prior to it, it's just incredible. So, I'd like to thank everyone involved. Thank you, Jose. You didn't get a chance to play with them, did you? Which you usually do. Anyone else? Thank you very much for all the input and uh I just I myself attended the uh project based learning up in the hospital and uh that's what keeps me on this board. Things like that, right? when I see these students progress and advance and work as a team to accomplish a
027goal, that's what keeps me on the board. So, I just want to thank all these students and all the parents that support these students. Thank you. Moving right along, 7.01, Special Education Annual Report. Mr. Richard Zip, I'm sorry. Before we do that, did you have any comments? No comments. Thank you. Hello. Can you hear me? I can hear you now. All right. Thank you. Give a moment here for the video to come on. Here comes our great thank you Mr. Sh. Um, yes. So, thank you. So, this is the 2425 yearly uh presentation on the state of special education in the Winger Central School District. Make sure I got my slides here going in the right direction. Um, so this is the team currently. I listed all the assistant directors. As you all can see,
028over the last several years, we've added many assistant directors. Currently, right now, we have 10. And just going back when I started my career, I think there were six assistant directors and one director of special education. So, a lot of improvements to the to the team over the last 10 years, I would say, especially over the last five. uh which is a good thing because something that we've talked about over the last couple of years is the impact of COVID uh learning loss and the mental health issues and how the special education population has risen. So clearly you know we have uh you know a lot of students to serve and having the additional capacity with the additional assistant directors is is really really helpful. Uh this is hot off the presses the I got
029it from the state data site and I listed out at the bottom. So if anybody wants to take a look at that and see some of the complete details they can. This came out last week and just so everyone is aware given the the data uh pulled from the state it's always a year behind lag to make sure everything is accounted for. What you'll see which is probably the first time in a while is an increase in our rural population. So for special education purposes, we include everybody who comes through our schools, which we talked about over the course of the year is roughly 10,500 as well as all the students who attend all the non-public schools within the WAR's catchment area. So for example, St. Dennis Columbus, St. Whoers, I mean St. areas of
030who wears. Uh they could have students from other school districts, but if they're within our catchment area, we could potentially service them with what's called an EESP, an individual education services plan. And because of that, that total population is what our classification rate is based on. And as you see on top right there for 2324 classification rate was 17.6%. that is below the state average but clearly you can see that that line that has been steadily going up and that's something we have been talking about over the last several years which is probably the direct well not probably it is the direct impact of CO over the last five years once again I put some numbers up there to give people a sense of uh history here the 2425 numbers are all estimates based upon
031some of the data so I kept about 11,510 consistent. Um I pulled from IP direct roughly what how many classified students we had at as of that date back in October 24 roughly 20111. So for this so for this time next year we have our state report uh there's a good chance classification rate will be somewhere around 18 18.3%. But if you take a look at the district over the years, um although classification rate has gone up, if you go back to 2010 2011, there were well over 1,800 students classified. So for a big district this large, we've had fairly large numbers of special education students. It's waxed and waned rough roughly, you know, plus or minus 100 students, but clearly since COVID, that number has gone up and and has stayed close to 2,000
032and clearly this year over 2000 2,00 111. Um, usually in the last couple years, I showed you a whole a whole bar graph with expected classifications in the district. I took a look at these. So I I took out the three major classification categories and kind of been on a separate slide. If you take a look at these 13 um nine of them, they're fairly consistent. They show some increase. Clearly autism has been a diagnosis and classification on the rise in the last I think 10-15 years. And clearly in our data that's probably the largest driver. Uh and it increase with these nine classification categories and the rest have stayed fairly consistent. If you take a look at these next three, these are the three I think since the last five years when CO has
033hit, we've seen the the biggest impact. Um most of the students now are coming in as speech and language impaired as well as other health impaired. Speech and language makes sense. We talked back in COVID uh lack of instruction, students being on um Chromebooks for instruction, decrease in in in providers of speech, especially at the preschool level. So, we're seeing that trickle into school and we've been seeing that trickle into the schools over the last I'd say five years. Other health impaired is kind of a catchal category. uh students with ADHD and also the the the behavioral disregulation disorders that fall into that category. And that's something we've also seen an increase in across the district county. Our students coming in, most of our younger students not having that ability to to self-regulate as we
034would expect and given a diagnosis like ADHD, they would be classified as other health impaired. So, those are the three categories that have shown the most uh increase over the last five years that have taken the classification rate up over 2,000 students. Uh these are our graduation rates going back to last year. So, um total is 75% that is above the state average. If you take a look at that, we have most of our students have been graduating with a region's diploma. um this year and I think next year we still have students who may have some of the special appeals visa v co so they're in that mix as well but most of our students graduating are graduating with a region diploma in the next next slide we'll also talk about uh the pathway
035that is a typical choice for students who are classified through special ed once again these numbers have remained fairly consistent we've stayed in a 75 to 80% uh graduation rate over the last several years and as indicated is above state average. As far as the pathways go, most students take the humanities path pathway, and that's typically going to be one English, one math, one science, and one social studies, and then either one more social studies or a science. So once again, you take those six tests, you need five. It's going to be four plus one. uh some of them do take the C dos which you could have a C dos plus one but you can see for most of us at the high school level they are taking the the U amenities pathway and
036that's the the most common one for for our students with disabilities. Uh this this slide I've had in the um presentation for the last 10 years. This is an important one too. So once again for a district this size uh we are not Wages is not disproportional with respect to um race and ethnic background and suspension rates identification of special education as well as specific disability categories. So for a district this size uh to be as large as we are and then and to do as well you do with this particular category over a decade really talks a lot about our processes and how we all work together to make sure we we do not disproportionately suspend students and to refer them to special education andor classify them. So this is a particularly uh good
037data point to have for a district. We we should all be proud of the work of all the assistant directors as well as all the teachers put to make sure these things have stayed consistent over a decade. A couple of pieces I took off the state report uh with respect to graduation rate. We did meet it. Um we also met the target with respect to dropout rate. So our dropout rate was fairly low and below the state target. uh we met the state target and respect the proficiency rate for fourth and eighth grade ELA math assessments. However, at the high school level, we did not meet the uh proficiency rates with respect to the algebra regions andor the English regions. So, once again, doing well 3 to 8 coming to high school uh not quite
038where we need to be. Um, there we go. And then take a look at the programs. Let me just go back and make sure that wasn't a duplicate side. Reporting. Yeah, I think it's a duplicate side, right? Yeah. Okay. Take a look at the programs we have across the buildings. So, over the years, we have increased our offerings across the buildings. Uh this is what we have through all our schools and and what what they offer. All of elementary schools except the three offer an integrated ctor class ICT. The three that don't are Oakrove, Evans, and Fiscu. They have complete self-contained continuums. Most of our other schools have a combination of ICT and self-contained andor just um ICT. The buildings that have a combination at the Ksix level of ICT and self-contained are Meyers Gay
039Head Vasinry uh and Fishfield Planes. Um so that's they tend to be where we keep our programs and house all of them. And then clearly once we get to both the secondary level both Wapin student high school bandwick as well as Royce and Catchman John J have the complete offerings. So resource room integrated ctor classes as well as several different options for for students who need direct explicit instruction v2 a self-contained program and this is just a different way to kind of um extrapolate the data taking a look at the classes uh once again K to6 and what they have we are adding next year not beyond one of the final slides here today our uh self-contained languagebased classrooms at Basser and Brink off. So those are two additional classes that we're going to add.
040Uh gay head is where the self-contained language based class first originated from. We did expend expand that to kind. So we have a program to feed into the north and a program to feed into the south. And we expanded that this year to have a a class at Brink and a class at Bassor to bring that kind of programming to more students and once again students that feed both the north and south feeder patterns. And these are the programs we have. same kind of uh breakout uh secondary through the junior high schools and the um high schools. So these are the breakdowns of costs um which have gone up or gone up slightly over the last several years. Um right now we're looking at I think 23 million total. I can see that glasses on
041the corner. Yeah. 24 million. Yeah. For 24 million 24 for 23 24 uh total cost is 24 million and 40 uh $44,000. I took a look back at some previous presentations over the last several years. I think going back to my first one 1516 I think the per student cost roughly 17 $18,000. So you can see as things are going over time costs are going up which is supposed to go up just to take it you know just just to deal with just typical rate of inflation and things of that nature but I think we do do a good job like I said your cloud classification rate has gone up I think in response to the co uh pandemic and the death amounts we are below the state average uh we're hitting our graduation rates
042but I think by and large things are going in the right direction and we're definitely taking care of our students Okay, the diploma options for students have remained the same. I did put down the co appeals process because we do have students this year and probably next year a couple of them who still have a couple of those uh special appeals is going to be part of their graduation requirements. So, they'll linger although it expired August of 23. There are students this year who are sophomores at that time period who probably have some of those to help support your graduation requirements as well as freshmen. So next year will probably be the last year we will see students graduate from Wingjers who have any kind of special appeal probably go back to their freshman year.
043Um and that will officially uh be be done and not be a factor. Everything else has always existed. So we have the regent diploma credit requirements. Students who are classify inclusive students with section 54 plans have what's called a safety net option. Any score between 55 and 64 in a regent exam counts as a local diploma. the compensatory statement option also exists. So for science um and history should someone get a score between 45 and 54 right maybe that's just their area of weakness as long as they have a passing score of 65 or higher on any other regions exam that passing score can tend to that weaker score and have it count towards a local diploma. So many options for our students with disabilities to to achieve uh success here at the high school
044and clearly the 4 plus one pathway. What I want to talk about is something new that came out this year and it and it's exemptions for major life activities, major life events, excuse me, and this is inclusive to all students, general ed students, students with disabilities, IEPs, 504 plans, L's, you name it. And it came out from the from the state this year. So, I added here's a slide because clearly it's going to give students and families some additional leverage should their children be going through major life events. So, I put a couple of examples up there that you could be exempt from from an exam. You go through something traumatic, maybe your house burned down. We have had students have have who've had a house fires and clearly you know given their ability to
045perform on a state exam which only happens a couple of times a year three times a year may may impact the ability to graduate. So given that late that major life event they could apply for an exemption to be granted one from that particular exam. We are going to encourage everybody to take the test because clearly it's in their best interest to take the test and to pass and do well on their own two feet, right? and to walk out of high school. However, for students who do have something traumatic happen in their life, step a family member, homelessness, house fire, maybe some kind of illness they're dealing with, it's nice to know now they have options that should they, you know, earn their credits and do well during the school year and not have
046to pass an exam that maybe they're just not ready for it at that kind of level, they have an ability to appeal that and see if see if an exemption is granted. Uh for students with disabilities should do not earn high school diplomas, the New York State Career Development Occupational Studies COS still exists as well as a skills and achievement commencement um certification. Those have been in place for more than the last 15 years and they continue to remain. So for many of our students who stay till the age 21 and or in residential programs, they'll earn one of those two certifications upon leaving high school. It is not an official diploma. So want to make sure everybody's aware it's not a New York City license, you know, recognized diploma, but it does recognize and
047award them their own particular goal advancement attainment visa v their IEPs. So for students that don't earn diplomas, they would be awarded one of those certificates. Um, as far as maximizing resources here and come to the presentation, kind of putting a couple things together, this year was has been year one of of the recoveries mental health grant. I can say it's been a real success story. We've got five uh student support services individuals in the district, three school psychologists, two social workers. We have two district behaviorists from a from a contracting agency that we partnered with through the grant. the grant provided for additional cape counselor we have at Vanick Junior High School as well as some presentations through community organizations to the students. So I can say the grant staff are well embedded and
048are impacting uh hundreds of students and potentially thousands of encounters. So clearly the grant is far as far as it's excuse me it is far exceeding its expectations so far. Um, something else that is new that is not related to the grant is for the first time this year, the district, as I mentioned before, has partnered with Open Doors Family Services of Westchester County and at Wajes Junior High School. This past February, we opened up our first school-based mental health clinic. That's going really well. Um, it's only been around for a couple of months. But the social worker in that program has a case load of students. they will be working through the summertime supporting families and students in in our community. Um, and that's looking to really next year start the year running with
049a nice cadre of uh students and families to support. And so far the feedback from the team at Wapers has been extremely positive. And once that one gets really up and running, the goal is then going to be to bring additional school-based clinics to other buildings with, you know, within the school district. Um, as far as next year and even this year, um, on once again something I wanted to point out, this year we added, uh, from the district the school social work and the school psychologist. So besides the five we've hired through the through the recovers grant, we've added two ourselves in house. And as far as next year, I said before, adding a self-attaining language based program in Kinry and Brinkov and expanding ICT classes across the district and that's going to happen
050in response to student need. A lot of that is driven through the annual re re review process, excuse me. Um, as well as school may or may not move in the summertime. So once again, given the state regard ICT class offers more than 12 students and depending on moving over the summertime, some of those programs and um classes may change and it may require the district to hire some additional staff. So that's an ongoing it's ongoing issue. It's it's kind of fluid, but there's there's additional U ICT teachers being hired uh currently visav the 2526 budget and I think I think that's it questions. Thank you for all that information, Mr. Zip. We might have some discussion here. So before we do that, I know we're down to two minutes. Can I ask for five
051additional minutes for questions? Everybody motion for five additional minutes. 10 minutes. 10. 10 minutes is the motion. All favor. All in favor? I. Unanimous. Questions? Mr. Lumian, I have two questions. Mr. Zip. In looking at the classification rate, what factors are One of the factor is actually increasing the the classification rate. Okay, let me go back to that slide here so I can it's on page. I'm not sure. First page. Yeah. So, um it seemed like it's every year it's going up and up and up. So, what are the factors that driving classification? Well, we as we talked about over the last several years, the impact of COVID on learning loss and student mental health, I would say has been the biggest driver as well. That's one of the reasons why the district now contracts
052with the county for the provision of CPSC services is that there's been a real der of providers in the county for our youngest children. So, um we've had students come into school that weren't able to receive preschool services, special ed services and got them but didn't get the full the full offering. And if you think about preschool, the whole point of preschool specification is to give students the services ahead of time so when they come into school age, they don't need them. Most of our students get speech. So if you take if you take uh 50 to 100 students preschool who aren't getting the services that they need and they come into school age, well now they're getting classified and getting services. Now you take a look at the impact of co as far as
053learning losses and the mental health issues. And I indicated the two uh classification categories that have increased the mo the most are speech and language and oi. And those are the two classification categories that capture most of those students. that's going to account for the increase in graduate uh classification rate. Another side thing as well, and that's why I added that one slide going back to the 2010 2008 uh 2011 school year with 1,835 student classified then we're only about 200 to 300 more. So, we're not talking, you know, going back 15 years, we're not 600 students more. And if you look at take a look at the overall population, we've steadily decreased. So I would say over the last 15 years we've probably lost 2500 students overall as far as the population. So if
054you lose 2500 students from your general population and you add 200 for class for classification your classification rate's going to go higher. It's and it's going to seem much higher. Whereas other districts their overall population is fairly steady. So it may vary by 10 15 20 students. it doesn't show up as much but you can have you can't lose 2500 students which to some districts is a whole district and then increase in response to COVID and that's where your classification rate rise is coming from the second question is true at the high school level in 22 23 we did not meet the state record in ELA and mathematics what are we actually doing so that we do meet the the target the state target I mean so I mean it's tough Right? So you have
055students who have disabilities right in ICT classes and the self classes and the goal is here is to give them exposure to the curriculum and while at the same time expose them to regious exams. So the good news is that with the safety net they're passing and earning diplomas. What we have to do is try to bring them up to the same age non-disabled peers so they have the same level of of skills and achievement. So that's always something that we're always working on to make sure that we can have some equity there. But that is a challenge especially at the high school level because we are dealing with individuals who come to the high school who have some level of disability that impacts their ability to access the curriculum which is why it's classified
056and that's why this data gives us those safety nets. So although we're working hard to try to maximize their ability to reach this exams, you know, it it's it's it's it's got some room for wiggle. Thank you. Trusty K. Would you explain uh for the edification of the public what is the difference between the communications classes and the languagebased classes? Sure. The communication classes exist primarily at Basser and Kenry and those are self-contained programs. They're 121 programs that that provide education services for some of our most um impacted students. So students who are on the autism spectrum scale but are not level one. Level one students on the spectrum tend to be students who've got intact intellectual functioning. Students who are level two, level three tend to have intellectual limitations. They can have poor to
057no verbal ability. So I'm talking about students who are much more impacted. It could be individuals who may have Down syndrome. Uh pervasive developmental disabilities which impact all areas of functioning. So it's cognitive speech, communication, socialization. So our communications classes really have probably the district's most challenging students who we try to keep and support that district. The self-contained language based classes are for students who don't have that level of challenge who we're hoping that we can give them a hard good dose of embedded literacy and language skills in a self-contained setting to get them ethic kinder and gay head into an ICT class at their junior high schools. So, it's a it's really meant to be a languagerich readingheavy program to re reiate those skills. So, then when they go to high school, junior high
058school, they can actually get into an ICT program and and be mainstream with their gened peers. Students in the communication classrooms typically don't go to those ICT programs in middle school given the nature of their disabilities. [Music] Thank you, Trustee Johnson. Uh Mr. that in a lot of these numbers um we see here the 11,500 and the 2,111 these do not include our preschool numbers that are included in our budget. Correct. Now this is just class school a students. So when we think about our special ed um department that we have and the amount of work, we actually also um service a lot of our preschool students both inhouse and out of facilities. So just something that people need to keep in mind that number 115 and 2000 do not include our preschool students which
059are also part of our budget but not part of these numbers because that's not what the state looks at. So it's just something that even though it's not part of the same, it is still the same. And I just want people to remember that there is more to that budget than just the um the K12 which definitely impacts those numbers which would make those numbers much higher as well. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Trusty Johnson. Trusty Migots. Yes. When we look at the um the other exit credentials for students with disabilities um with the CEOs, is that not a credential that um students can also pair with a diploma? A student can get a local or a regions or advanced regions diploma and pair it with CEOs. You can so if you see here on this
060one slide the fourth plus one pathway at the bottom I also added there or complete all requirements for the CAS credentials. So you can if you have a C dos and most of our students get that through attending BOSI say for the two-year program that counts as as one of the exit exams. So you have to at a minimum take one English, one math, one science, one social studies and you could use the COS as far as the 4 plus one or another science or another social studies. So you can see the students have many options and that could be one of them. Thank you Trusty Maggots. Yes, trust. Thank you for the presentation. So, I have two questions. Sure. Which, if you can name just one, what resources that the board has provided that
061has helped you with any ch with the challenges in the SED? And the second question is what resource would you need from the board to continue or to improve the SED? So, I think going back to what uh Trustee Johnson indicated, going back to the preschool uh world, I think what the board did two years ago to contract with the county and then for us to that allows us then to have a subcontract to provide to to provide preschool students with speech OT and PT was really big. So, so you can see over the last year and a half how our reimburseable rate for the county has significantly increased and that's because we're servicing more of our students and we're giving them, you know, giving them exactly what the IEP needs um for preschool students
062and the goal of that is that they come into school not needing special that that's the whole point of CPS. That's probably the biggest thing I think the board did appropriately so was to simply realize to take care of our students because it was a dirt providers at the county level and that wasn't changing. So, and those students were coming into the schools and without getting the services they were being classified anyway, right? The question is going to be why support them after the fact? let's simply try to frontload these services so when students come into kindergarten they can access uh the curriculum as non-disabled peers and not need special services too many so I would say that was probably the biggest thing that the board has done to support that and the other thing
063is just simply understanding that you know as far as ICT programs through the annual process those numbers change with students and programs and as I indicated you can't start the school year off in an ICT class with more than 12 students you just can't so when I go to the board and I say, "Listen, we've got some new entrance. We have to break up a section and add another teacher by regulations." I'm happy to say the board has always been supportive of that. None of you have raised any flags or concerns because that's what we have to do. And if that's what we have to do for our students, we're all on the same page. So, I think those two things together have been the most supportive. Thank you very much, Mr. Jeep. Thank you
064for the presentation. Thank you for the questions and answers. I think it cleared up some issues that we went ahead and mind. Thank you. 8.01 consent agenda resolutions. Pull anything. Does anybody want to pull anything from the agenda consent agenda? No, I don't see anything. Resolve that the board of education does hereby approve the following consent agenda items as stated. 8.02, 8.03, 8.04, 8.05, 8.06, 8.07, 8.08, and 8.09. Motion Peggy, Trusty Cavalero. Any discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. Thank you. I would like to thank the board of education for approving that personnel list. And I'm very pleased to congratulate and announce our new principal starting this summer at Vasser Road Elementary School, Miss Carolyn Fields. Would you give her a round of applause? Congratulations. Miss Fields comes to our district with 11 years experience as
065an elementary principal and we look forward together working with her and her staff. So congratulations Mrs. Fields. 9.01 that we are approval to change name of Club Winger Junior High School. Resolve that the board of education does hereby approve the name change of the Wingers Junior High School Pride Club to the Wingers Junior High School Civility Pride Club as submitted on the attached club chart. Do I have a motion? Mr. Lumian, second by Peggy Kellen. Any discussion, Cheryl? Yes. I'd like to say that I'm very happy to see this name change because I remember the days when this club started as Civility Counts, which was an organization countering bullying in the junior high school. And I'm glad to see that as this organization has evolved and changed to meet the needs of more students at
066the high school, they're going back to their roots and keeping that element of civility in how students deal with each other central in their in their name. Thank you very much for that information. Anyone else? So I have a first, I have a second. All in favor? Unanimous. 9.02 approval of club charter for RCK High School resolved that the board of education does hereby approve the new firstear club charters at Roy C. Ketchum High School as submitted dance team and LDR. Do I have a motion? Peggy Kellen second by Vir Capillary. Discussion. All in favor? I. Unanimous. Thank you. 9.03. Approval of attendance New York State School Board leadership in education event. Resolve that the board of education does hereby approve board members Peggy Kellen, Marie Johnson, and Cheryl Miggots to attend the 2025 NISBA
067Leadership in Education event on August 1st and 2nd at the Desmond Hotel in Albany at the cost of $15 registration fee, member fee, and any reimbursement for hotel accommodations, two rooms, mileage travel, tolls, parking and meals per board policy. Registration for the purposes of securing a hotel room is being requested at this time due to the limited availability of hotel accommodations. This resolution would permit the district clerk to register an attendee in order to gain access to the link for the room block. Do I have a motion? Trusty Lumiere, second by Marie Johnson. Any discussion? I see none. Do I have a vote? All in favor? Unanimous. Thank you. 9.04. Approval of professional learning plan. Resolved that the board of education hereby approves the list of professional learning plan committee members as detailed on page
068four of the plan. And be it further resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the board of education does hereby approve the Winger Central School District Professional Learning Plan, PLP, as mandated by Commissioner's Regulations 102.2. Do I have a motion? Trustee Kum, second by Mr. Lumia. Any discussion? All in favor? [Music] Unanimous 9.05 first reading of policies. If anybody has any questions regarding these policies, please direct them to Miss Kellen um before the next meeting so she can address them. request for additional additions to the agenda item 10.01. Any members have any additional items or discussions? I see none. Okay. No comments from the public, so I will wave public comment reading. What are you guys doing over there? Throwing water bottles around. Uh, I'd like I'd like to make a motion to adjourn.
069Resolve that the board of education does hereby adjourn the June 2nd, 2025 board of education meeting. The time is now 8:35 p.m. All in favor? I. Unanimous. Thank you.