001call the uh special meeting of the board of education of the Udica City School District to order. Um I'd ask that we all say the stand and say the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag United States of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Can the clerk call the role? >> Mr. Jason Cooper >> here. Mr. Donald Goss >> here. >> Mr. Joseph Oer Jr. >> here. >> Mrs. Tandu >> here. >> Mr. Banana, >> he's going to be delayed three or four minutes. >> Mrs. Danielle Pulla, she's on her way. She's also delayed. Mr. James Paul >> here. >> Okay, we have a quorum. I need a motion to go into executive session to discuss legal matters, employment,
002um issues of particular persons and student discipline. Can I have that motion? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> All opposed? Any opposed? Motion carries. We're going into executive session. for a motion to come out of executive session. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Need a motion to adjourn the special meeting. Second. All in favor? The special meeting is adjourned. I just want to have some seats up in the front. If you're in the back like to call the uh regular meeting of the Udica City uh board of education to order. Can we please stand and uh wait for the color guard? left face. Exactly. Okay, say the pledge of allegiance. Pledge of alleg pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One
003nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Ready face forward. >> Okay, be seated. Can the clerk call the role, please? Mr. Jason Cooper >> here. >> Mr. Donald Dolls >> here. >> Mr. Joseph Jr. >> here. >> Mrs. Tamil N >> here. >> Mr. Braden Mann >> here. >> Mrs. Danielle Padulla >> here. >> Mr. James Paul >> here. >> Okay. >> So, we have a quorum. Okay, we're going to do our immemorial section of our meeting. So, authorizations requested of the board of education to approve the following resolution for Barbara an Kennedy Klene, former board of education president, an employee of the Udica City School District. The board of education of the city school district records with sorrow the passing of former board of education president and employee Barbara an Kennedy
004Klene. Miss Klene began her career as an elementary teacher and went on to devote most of her life to education. After approximately 27 years in the classroom, she served on the board of education. Most notably, Mrs. Klene was president of the board of education for six years. Dedicated to serving the community, Miss Klein spent the last few years of her career as a substitute teacher, resolved that the board of education expressed expresses its sincere sympathy to the family of Miss Klein and that this resolution be saved upon the records of the district. Authorization is requested of the board of education to approve the following resolution for Joan Noel Solerno, former employee of the Udica City School District. The board of education of the Udica City School District reports with sorrow the passing of former employee
005Joan Null Serno. Mrs. Serno dedicated her life to education, inspiring generations of students with her knowledge, kindness, and unwavering commitment. Her competitive spirit, warmth, and enthusiasm for life was evident in everything she did. Resolved that the board of education expresses its sincere sympathy to the family of Mrs. Serno and that this resolution be saved upon the records of the district. So, I need a motion to uh adopt those resolutions. >> All in favor? >> Motion carries. This is a resolution for Adrien Xavier Xavier Howard. The board of education of the Udica City School District records with deep sorrow the passing of Adrien Xavier Howard. Adrien was a senior at Proctor High School and his passing has deeply impacted the school community. He'll be remembered and honored by those who knew him and his losses felt
006throughout Proctor High School. resolved that the board of education extends its sincere sympathy to Adrienne's family, friends, classmates, and the Proctor High School community during this time of mourning and that this resolution be entered into the official records of the district. Just take a brief moment of silence for those that have passed. So I need that motion for >> second. >> All in favor? >> Motion passes. Okay. Up next is our student representative Heather Conpsion. >> Thank you. Proctor events. The student council is organizing a spring pep rally scheduled for May 21st. Spring athletes will be announced along with some special activities. A movie night will be hosted by the student council at 400 p.m. on May 28th. In caliber in collaboration with Principal Paladino and various clubs, a school and community cleanup event is
007planned. This initiative aims to foster a sense of civic responsibility and support for local neighbors. Cleanups will occur weekly throughout the spring with additional trash recepticles to be placed across from Two Brothers area to combat littering. A conference is being organized to prepare middle schools students for next year's high school student council and to assist their future planning. Raider Awards recognition ceremonies will be held for Proctor in for marking period three, including the principal's list, perfect attendance, Proctor Pride, and Scholar athletes. The top 10 students will be announced on May 1st. Miss Paladino will call students to her office one by one and call their families right then and there. The top 10 will also be announced over the PA system. May 1st will also be recognized as decision day, celebrating students postgrad plans, including
008college acceptances, armed forces enlistment, and work commitments. Junior prom is scheduled for May 1st from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. at the Delta Hotel. Senior prom will be held on June 5th from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. at Twin Ponds Golf and Country Club. A fashion show is planned for June 6th at 6 PM in the Proctor Auditorium to help the softball team raise funds. UPD versus seniors game. The recent UPD versus seniors game was a success with UPD emerging as the victors. The incoming senior class are ready to challenge the reigning champions UPD. Thank you. >> Thank you, Heather. Anyone have any questions for Heather? Heather, as always, you're welcome to stay or go home and do your homework. >> You You're going to stay tonight. Great. Okay. Up next is uh presentations and discussions. We're
009going to have our presentations by our systems of care introduced by Rachel Dory. Um before >> I have a question. >> Yes. >> Hi, Principal Paladino from Proctor. Hi. >> I know the student council president just got done speaking, but this is hot off the presses and I couldn't let it go by the wayside because she's done a great job. So, very briefly, Heather will be att This is the catcher. One out of 750 students received the Gates Scholarship Awards, full ride to Georgetown out of 61,000. AMAZING JOB. Thank you. >> Congratulations. Congratulations. >> Thank you everyone. >> Wow, that's great. It really is great. I I know before I I just wanted to I'm doing this I'm going to do this multiple times >> um just to make sure that we know that it's
010being publicized. So five o'clock on May five, we will be having our school uh board budget hearing that will beformational and we will be able to respond to questions. So um I'm just letting everyone know from now that that will be happening. So, having said that once, I will say it again later. But in the meantime, Rachel, take it away. >> Hello, my name is Rachel Dory and I have the honor and privilege to work alongside our system of care partners and tonight you are in for a treat. All seven of our partners are here to talk about the impact and the um incredible services that they are providing to all of our 13 buildings, nearly 10,000 students. and we are rounding out our third year of this initiative. So without further ado, I'm going
011to hand it over to Jeremy and Justennia from ICAN. Go to the next slide. >> Tech problems. >> So, good evening everybody. My name is Justennia Wright. I am the director of schoolbased mental health and I am joined today by Jeremy Butler, chief innovation officer. And first and foremost, I would like to say thank you to everyone for coming today and for giving us the opportunity to talk about our program and the impact that we have had over the past three years. So our pro Oh, I got to stay here. Sorry. So our program is founded on five pillars. Um tier 2 supports tier two with tier 2 supports we have 14 student engagement specialists throughout the district providing support to at risk or high-risisk youth. Our second pillar, behavioral and clinical supports. We have
012behavioral support specialists embedded across special education classrooms throughout eight schools within the district. We also have clinical care coordinators providing support to those classrooms as well. Our third pillar, training and education. We have train we have trainers providing training to students, staff and families across the district with the emphasis and focus on restorative practices. Our fourth pillar, student and family engagement events. We provide community engagement events for students and family to foster a sense of belonging, community, and connection. And our fifth pillar is called our newest initiative, the red program, where where we provide academic supports, emotional I'm sorry, academic support, social emotional learning, and enrichment opportunities to students across the district as an extension of their school day. and I'm going to pass it to Jeremy Butler who is going to go into detail
013about the impact we've had with each of these pillars in the district. >> All right. Thank you, Justennia. Can you guys hear me? Okay, that's good. I don't have to get too close to the mic. Now, I to be to be totally upfront, I could take an hour for each one of these bullet points. I was told to try to keep it between five and 10 minutes if I can. Uh so, I'll be brief, I will leave time at the end for questions if anybody has any. Uh let's see if we can get this clicker to work here. Oh, we're going the wrong way. There we go. So, just had mentioned tier 2 support. So, when I was invited in to be part of Udica City School District system of care, one of the areas
014that the district identified needing additional support was with tier 2 students. And these are your kids that need some additional support beyond what we offer universally to all students across the district. And how we go about doing that is by providing student engagement specialists in each one of the buildings across the district. So, we actually have 14 student engagement specialists. I don't know if this clicker works at all. There we go. And we have two of them at Proctor High School. So, what the student engagement specialists are responsible for accepting referrals from the school social workers or counselors in the school for students that are identified as needing some additional support in the mental health or behavioral health space. So, currently we have uh about 600 I love this clicker. Do we have a keyboard?
015We can click There we go. 615 students that have been referred year to date. Just to give a little context around that number, this is our third year in the system of care. That's 21% increase in referrals this year to our student engagement specialists. You see that we have about 450 uh plus active students. So some of those students that get referred to us, the families don't want to accept services. So we're not able to work with them because everything we do is voluntary. Um some of them are successful after the interventions are put in place. they no longer need care or need support and so they transition out of the program and what our staff do during that time is they provide targeted supports to those students. So, when it comes up here in
016a second, this is actually going to take a whole hour, I think. Right now, we're servicing uh that number of students, but we're providing over 10,000 supports yearto date. And when we talk about the supports that we're providing to students across the district, what we're talking about are social emotional supports, group work. We're talking about deescalation, crisis intervention. We're talking about some additional supports because we want our folks to be able to support the school in whatever the school may need. So, one of the prompts we were given as we were asked to put this presentation together was to talk a little bit about what the day-to-day looks like for a student engagement specialist or for our staff in the school. And I think you're probably going to hear it from a number of the
017system of care partners. There is no such thing as a a typical day. Our staff come into the school day ready to support and help wherever they can. They have their list of clients that they're servicing and supporting, but every single day is is uniquely different. and whatever the needs or challenges of that day are, our staff are there to help rise to meet that occasion and meet that need in the district. So, over 10,000 supports. Again, the list doesn't want to populate up. Best of luck to the rest of the people that get to go after me. So, that just kind of gives you a broadstrokes overview of what it is that they're doing. So, again, if you think about deescalation or crisis intervention, every single one of those interactions is most probably avoiding
018an office discipline referral at the least. and possibly averting crisis at the most. As we talk about the second tier, the second uh support that we're offering or pillar that Justenni had mentioned and it'll come up here in a moment is our behavioral and clinical support. So, I can has a demonstrated history over the last 10 years of providing highlevel uh special education supports to schools across the region more specifically in Madison or Boseis and in Herkimer Boseis with our stars and arches program. the programs that we offer, the most intensive public education programs that exist in New York State. What Udica did, and I would say smartly so, is you've chosen to replicate that model in your schools without having to send your students out of district. So, for those two programs, on average,
019the cost per student can rise up to $100,000 per student to send them out of district to that program. Perfect. This is going to work a little bit better, hopefully. There we go. So you you kind of get a sense when you look at the wheel of how this model is constructed. And when you look at the model, you see um some familiar things, the teachers, the teachers assistants, right? The the building administration. But what IN is able to offer to your 17 special education classrooms across the eight buildings that you have them in in the district is a number of different supports. So we have 12 behavior support specialists that are right there in the classroom with those students that need additional behavioral support on a daily basis. And in some of the schools,
020so you see we have 12 behavioral support specialists. There's 17 classrooms. There's certain schools where right now our behavior specialist has to float between multiple classrooms to provide that support. And I'll talk briefly about Raiders Academy of Learning here in a moment. We also have two clinical care coordinators. And a clinical care coordinator is a master's level social worker and or someone with a licensed mental health counseling degree. uh their job is to coordinate care, provide group work, provide support to the students that are enrolled in those programs. Uh we have one in our Raiders Academy of Learning and then we have one at Proctor High School. Uh they also assist in coordinating services outside of the school district. What's also really unique and what's really unique for Utica is we have psychiatric supports that
021are built into the model that are there four full days per week. So, we have a psych provider on site that provides medication management to identified students that are enrolled in in that service in the program. But our psych support specialist, she can do more than just prescribe medication. She can provide psych assessments for students. She can observe in real time what behaviors look like in the classroom, which allows her to make better assessments of what the diagnosis is or what the child might be struggling with. Now, you think about that having someone that can provide men management. You might assume that that's going to lead to higher rates of of prescription writing. We've actually seen a reduction because we do everything first, taking a true holistic approach. So, she's focused on gut health. She's
022focused on sleep habits. She's focused on nutrition. And she's working with our team and with the families to make sure we're addressing all of those things first before we look at medication. And you'll see at the top of the circle home and community based supports because we know that for so many of these students that are in these programs, their help doesn't stop just at the six hours of of the school day. We know that when they go back to their homes, when they go into the communities, those needs are still pervasive and they need support. So being able to wrap around supports to these students, whether it be a mentoring support, whether it be behavior management outside of the school. Uh we also have a supportive work program that we've integrated for these special
023education students and for the students in the Raiders Academy of Learning. Now I've mentioned that several times now. The Raiders Academy of Learning is really unique in that the district has chosen to kind of create an alternatives to suspension model right here in the district. And what that allows the district to do rather than suspending a kid and sending them on homebound instruction for any length of time, which can be really costly, difficult to find tutors to go out there and provide three hours of instruction, right? We're bringing the students into the district. We're back at JFK. We offer a three-hour session in the morning, a three-hour session in the evening for up to 15 students per uh class cycle. We currently have 23 students enrolled. Now, the reason we have 23 is we've been
024successful at transitioning some of those students back into their general education setting. And I can almost promise you that that is happening at a higher rate than it would if we were pushing them out of district and leaving them in their homes with whatever supports may or may not be available to them. Third third tier or third pillar of this is our training and education support. So, you see that already year to date um and we're working off old numbers. We updated the deck today. We're over 260 trainings that we've provided to the district so far this year for almost 8,000 participants. And when you break that down, that's about 64 trainings for staff in the district for almost a thousand Utica City School District staff and about 165 trainings for students reaching over 7,000
025students in the district. And when we talk about uh training and education, one of the big focuses when Udica uh approached us about what this piece could look like was Udica had stepped out wanting to do restorative practice integration across the entire district. So to date, we've got about 96% of all of the UDICA staff trained in restorative practices first tier. We have the number is actually wrong. It's 61% are now trained in RP2. And we anticipate by the end of the year that number is going to be 98% in RP1 and 81% in RP2 with a goal of getting everybody in the district trained up to and through restorative practices three the third tier which is the most intensive and comprehensive of the models. Justinia also mentioned our student engagement and family engagement events
026and u this is something that's really unique and a little bit different. Uh over the course of the last three years, we've been we've been blessed to be able to host over 50 different events in the community for kids and families. And everything that we offer through this model is available to every student in the district. So there are no uh parameters or exclusionary uh things that are in place that prohibit any student from participating. But part of our intention behind creating these events was to create equal access and opportunity for students that often don't have that opportunity to participate. You see something up there in the middle of the screen called the winter break skate. We take students and their families to the Nexus Center and we rent that space and allow them to
027figure skate and ice skate for the period of a day. And you'd be amazed how many students step inside that building, step inside the auditorium and say, "I've lived here my whole life and I've I've always wondered what happens inside there. Now they get to go and they experience it." You see some of our empowerment seminars. We have the Rise Up series that we've created for young men in the community where we bring them together and we we provide positive role models in their community that graduated from Udica City School District that are doing positive things and and building careers and businesses so that they have models to aspire to. For our young women, we have the Girls to Greatness series. Um, very much in the same way, empowering young women, helping them find their
028confidence and their voice. Two other things that you see, and I I won't belabor everything on that screen, but you see Elevate CNY and you see the Udica Children's Museum. So, on Thursday, we'll actually be celebrating our one-year birthday anniversary of opening the new Udica Children's Museum. But prior to that, we have a mobile museum that we've been able to bring into the school. So, just last year alone, we had over 64 visits to Elevate and the museum with the mobile museum reaching over 3,000 kids in the district. U so pretty pretty powerful stuff there. Now, Justenni had mentioned the the Raiders extended day program. So, this is a Utica City School District program, and that's really important for everybody to understand. Uh we were invited to the table at the beginning of last year
029uh in January to start a pilot project for the district. Uh what it could look like if we provided three hours of extra programming for youth across the district, across the 10 elementary schools. When we piloted in January, we started with just 13 IAN staff. We partnered with Safe Schools Mohawk Valley and Utica City School District to be able to provide services for up to 30 kids across each of the 10 building reaching 300 kids uh from January till June. In the fall, the district approached us and and had an idea of what it would look like to scale that program up across 10 elementary schools for 100 youth per school. We started the program on November 10th. We had that conversation on October 10 or so in 30 calendar days I was able to
030hire 187 staff to work in that program. To date, we've hired over 248 staff. Most of those staff are Udica City School District employees that serve as teachers, TAs, secretaries. Uh they know the students. There's a high degree of continuity of care. They know the buildings. We're working closely with building administration to bring their vision within each one of those schools to life. And currently we have about 946 students that are currently active in the program. U now I I'm not a big believer in silver bullets, but I am a big believer in silver buckshot. And I think this is one program that reaches across so many domains and areas of need for kids in our community. The first and the easiest, we keep kids safe every single day for three hours a day, four
031days a week for the entire school year. And we're keeping them safe in the time where they're the least safe in the community, that 3 to six block, right? We're feeding kids. For so many of our kids, that lunch that they would have in school, that would be the last meal many of them would have. They get supper and a snack at the RED program every single day. We're providing one hour of quality, highquality academic instruction from certified teachers that work in the district every single day. And already, we only have quarter 1 and quarter 2 data available to us, but we're already seeing benefits on I Ready scores. I think something like 74% of students have improved their I Ready score across all 10 elementary schools both in ELA and math. We're seeing the
032same trend in terms of what's happening with GPA. Students are improving that. Uh we're seeing improvements in behavior. We're seeing improvements in in uh attendance. If you're at the RED program and 946 kids across the district are each day, that means you came to school that day, right? And if you have something positive to look forward to at the end of the day, you're more inclined to get up and and show up to school. So in addition to the academic supports, we're also providing um social emotional learning. So for so many of our kids, they didn't grow up the way that many of the folks in this room did with a play-based childhood. They're growing up in a phone based digital world where they're not learning key social emotional skills to be able to self-regulate,
033right? So we have extra time every single day to teach those skills to the students. And then beyond that, it dives into the events that we're doing. We're providing enrichment opportunities for kids that might not otherwise have that. So occupying them, bringing in Hamilton College to provide programming, bringing Sunni Paul in to do STEM programming uh for the students, working with fiscal partners in the community to do financial literacy workshops for the students. Um it creates this this vehicle to reach kids in a much different way. And I think it also helps on the teacher retention front, right? And we know that teachers burn out at a higher clip than any other profession in society right now. Something like 48%. New teachers are leaving the field, half of them within the first 5 years of
034joining. This creates an opportunity for them to be able to work with students and get them back on track academically. So it takes some of the pressure off in the daytime during the classroom. >> Just along just to sorry to interrupt along those same lines, the thinking behind the raid is extended the pardon me, forgive me. the award-winning Raiders extended day programming. We got to say that the thinking behind that was that if we took a cohort of students and we provided them with ancillary supports at the end of the day that that cohort would be better prepared than the cohorts that preceded them because they've had schooling for a longer period of time. And I think I can you've been great partners in building that support as well as using existing staff. I've heard
035things I thank you for helping us use our staff and you know build those things there. So I just want to talk about that the gains that we're seeing from the red program are not only um immediate in regards to the things that you were able to identify but we're looking to track this longitudinity longitudinally to see over the course of time how does this cohort that has received this treatment different than others perform in later years. So, it's an investment and I'm happy that you've conceptualized that appropriately. So, thank you. >> No, thank you. And the last thing the last thing I'm going to leave you with, it's not one of the five pillars, but this is everything else that I can is able to bring to the table for the district that isn't
036necessarily a purchase service. And so, in a moment, I'm just going to kick it over to our Snug team to let you all know kind of what Snug is, what Snug is doing. You see gear up there. I know Todd Cuba from MVCC is here. He's going to talk a little bit about that later, but I CAN is partnering with MVCC to uh provide supports and a leadership academy for your seventh grade cohort. We're going to follow those students all the way through over the next seven years through graduation. Uh you see some of our mental health services, our children's crisis residents. We do summer program. Last year, uh we ran an 8week summer program for students. We offer homelessness supports. And this summer, we're going to be taking Udica City School District students along
037with other Onidita County youth down to Glimmerglass to get a behind-the-scenes look at what that festival and that music venue is all about. So, with that, I'm going to kick it to Lisa Reginelli and Angel Martinez. Lisa is our director of transitional services, and Angel is our program manager for our Snug program. >> Thanks, Jar. Um, I'm actually going to have Angel talk a little bit about the program. Um, and then we'll do just a brief overview. I promise to keep it brief about how we've been partnering with the district. Good evening everybody. >> My voice is not as deep as Jeremy, so I'm gonna use the mic. Um, for Snug, many already know what we do. For those that don't, um, Snug is a gun initiative program under I can. Um, we work to
038reduce gun violence. We do it by mediating conflicts, working with the highest risk individuals who are shooting or being shot. A lot of people call them troubled youths. To me, these kids are just other construction, right? because when they become in our program, we realize that these kids got so much potential. Um, we try to prioritize those that are already in the field carrying guns, potentially hurting somebody or hurting themselves. Um, so our goal is to try to help change these kids' norms, expose them to new things, let them know that there's more to life than just being in the streets. Um, some of the things we do, I'm going keep it brief. Um, you know, we prepared them, you know, socially. Um, a lot of these kids, um, probably got 13 words in the
039vocabulary. Um, so we try to expose them to different wordings, um, prep them for jobs, um, do mock interviews with the youth, um, you know, help them with their IDs, permits, whatever they're passionate about, we try to implement that in our program. Um, a lot of these kids, um, are interested in basketball, so we started a basketball team last year just so they could participate in it, keep them active out the streets. Um, you know, we take them on outings, things they never got to experience. Recently, we took about seven kids to go see the New York Knicks uh, play at the Garden. That was their first time. Um, and seeing these kids, what people label as trouble, um, just seeing them and allowing them to just be kids. Um, seeing their faces and smiling
040and dancing, um, makes me realize that, um, the work we're doing is very, um, effective. Um, but, uh, you know, just a little bit what other things we do. Excuse me, it's hot as hell in here. Um uh so you know once a month we do a community event right some of the things you know we reach out to the community to see what some of the things they would like us to do or what they would like to see in the in the community. Um we do a lot of popup cookouts. We go to different areas set up you know grill engage with the people in the community just build the relationship with those in the area. Um, we have participant events, which I just explained. Um, we tend to do at least two
041to three a month with our participants. Um, and it could be whatever they're interested in. You know, we give them the options. But sometimes these kids just want to go eat chicken tenders and fries. So, we got to, you know, sharpen it up and do different things, expose them to different things. Um, we canvas our community. Um, we got to canvas at least 25 hours a month. Um, so you will see us in different sides of the town. Um, walking through the hood, walking through the west side, east side, um, you know, just building relationships with people in the community, let them know that we here for you. We're here to support you. Um, a lot of the parents that are struggling with the kids see us, um, and they they're confident in the work
042we do and, you know, they trust us. So sometimes they just express that they're struggling with their kids. Hey, my kid. I fear for my kids' life. I would love them to be in a snug program. Again, we know that there's other programs for behavioral things. We really try to prioritize those that are at risk of, you know, going to prison or dying. So, um, yeah, I'mma pass it off to Lisa and she going to explain a little bit more. >> Thanks, Angel. Um, so I I just to echo what Jeremy mentioned earlier, we are not currently part of the system of care. Um but we're under the I can umbrella and because of that um this year especially we've had I would say a lot of success partnering with the district um really collaborating
043especially in the last several weeks with some of the incidents that have occurred at schools. Um Angel and the team are working closely uh with Mr. Gelonic and able to real time react or be proactive to incidents that occur. Um, Snug has a very unique uh, I will say communication style. So, we really can't share who our participants are, um, what's happening, but we can receive information and react responsibly with that. And so, I can't thank the district enough um, for the collaboration that we've had, especially Mrs. Paladino. Um, we've the guys are canvasing um, every single Wednesday at Proctor, but then any other day that we're available. So, it's only a team of five um but we're doing the best we can and that same thing is happening at Donovan and JFK and then
044again that real- time collaboration um and opportunity to expand that as we can grow the team. So, um I think any anybody have questions about Snug or any question >> Yeah, sure. >> Ah, there we go. >> All right. >> Not questions, but I do just want to reiterate too. So, you're thanking us from the districts and I just I think I'm speaking to all of us when I want to say that we want to thank you guys because this was something that we've dreamed of for a long time was to open up the doors and to bring community. We know that we couldn't do it on our own and we needed help and the support from everyone. So, I just want to thank you guys so much for being the the, you know, part
045of those organizations that came in that helped and it's really worked. We've seen such a difference and we we've see all of the programs that are happening. We see all of the work that you're doing. Snug, you've been incredible and we love that you're there for every time that we need help and that students are in need. You guys are there with boots on the ground and that's what we need. And it's just been I don't even know the the right words just to express how grateful we've been and to see the change that's happened. >> I just want to highlight a conversation I had with Dr. Spence last week about um the city in general, right? We all have this idea that violence is at an all-time high. And actually the collaboration between the
046district, the city of Udica Police Department, uh, probation, the court system, all of our partners, we're actually at just over a 50% reduction in the last three years in gun violence in the city of Utica, and we should all celebrate that. There's also an important distinction that I want to highlight. One of the things that we've done to transition our moniker from being Udica united is Udica united every student every day. And that means that we take the kids in the ways in which they show up to us and we work with the students. And so this is really the theme here is that we're taking our most disadvantaged students, our neediest students, and are wrapping our arms around them. I said this in 2024, you can't suspend your way to a high successful graduation
047rate. You cannot suspend your way to transformation. So we have to be proactive. We have to be innovative with how we think about student discipline, how we think about restorative practices across the district by utilizing the levers within the system of care as well as our staff which accounts for the training and restorative justice training that we've implemented to really highlight how we can be impactful as a district and coordinate resources in a way that's going to impact student lives. So again the overarching theme is every student every day irrespective of how they come to us and how do we work to support those students under the conditions from which they emanate from. >> Thank you. Any other questions from the board regarding anything I can I know I took way more time than I
048was supposed to. So my apologies to the other system of care partners. We're good. Well thank you all. >> Thank you for the information. I'm sure once we kind of read through it but it looks awesome. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I don't know who's next. hillside. Rachel, did you want to hillside or Sorry. Come on. Don't have me >> Rachel. >> I know. I'm sorry. >> Good evening. My name is Jim Franco and I'm the COO of Safe Schools Moahawk Valley. With me tonight are our CEO and Lancing and our deputy chief program officer Melanie Adams. Uh we're pleased and honored to be able to speak to you tonight about the system of care and our partnership with Utica City School District. Our model is focused on school engagement, recognizing that students may
049disengage from school for a variety of reasons, whether related to attendance, behavior, or other underlying factors. We take a personalized approach to reestablishing connection and a commitment to learning. Our programs are grounded in research and evidence-based models. and the programs have demonstrated measurable success in helping students reconnect and recommit to their education. In the Utica City School District system of care, we have 18 youth case managers, one per elementary school, two per middle school, and four at the high school. We also engage in professional development and in the McKini Vento program, which deals with students living in transitional and temporary housing. The student referral process works as follows. Referrals are received directly from the school district, typically through a social worker or guidance counselor, providing us with the essential information needed and a clear understanding
050of each student's needs. Our youth case manager reviews the referral with their supervisor and the intake process begins. You may say Jimmy Franco is having issues with attendance, but why? What does that mean? We use an intake process to try and discover what is underlying that. We talked with school staff involved, including teachers, principles, and social workers, for information about the student and what you hope we can achieve with that student. We ask the parents to complete a parent survey so we can know what's going on at the home and any goals the parent may have for that child. We meet with the student also to discuss why they were referred and what goals they might have for themselves. After all that, our youth case manager reviews the information with their supervisor to determine which
051service level and which program is most appropriate with the student. and we finalized program goals and objectives for each student. The safe schools Mohawk Valley tiers of service work as follows. Our universal tier, as Jeremy mentioned, is open to everybody. There are no restrictions or qualifying markers. Our services are one time and have no end or start date. This addresses immediate needs such as crisis intervention, deescalation, and redirection, often using the elements of emotional first aid. Our tier 2 is targeted. These are students needing extra support which redirect mind to succeed in school. Our typical length of time with this is 60 to 120 days. The prevention programs are for students who although not likely at risk of placement right now have shown early warning signs. Warning closer attention. These may include shifts in classroom
052behavior, declining attendance, or decreased participation in school activities indicators that signal a need for proactive support and monitoring and partnership with the school district. In our intensive level tier three are students that are display behavior that is impacting their success in school. Our program usually last 120 to 180 days on this level. These students are exhibiting behaviors that without intervention intervention at this level could lead to an out of school placement. Our intensive program addresses disengagement including tardiness, skipping truency alongside behavioral concerns with family involvement whenever possible. >> Jimmy, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you know, you're talking about one of my favorite subjects, which is attendance. So, exactly what role do you guys play in terms of trying to improve attendance throughout the district and at what level, grade levels, are
053you um you know, focusing on? >> Well, there's a variety of ways and we're across the entire district with that. I'll go to our 2024 2025 data which shows out of the 959 students referred 308 for behavior 303 for disengagement 62 were for attendance. So we're usually at the prevention level for the kids that are referred to us for attendance. We'll work with them once we do that in-depth intake service. What's causing that? Sometimes it could be as simple as someone waking them up. A rise and shine initiative with our staff to be able to get them out of the home. >> So you have a rise and shine program. We have worked. We will do home visits. We will get them out of there if we need to. Again, at this particular point, the
054attendance portion of it is like one of our lowest that we're getting referred for because I think the schools are utilizing a lot of your attendance monitors. But we do support that and that's one of the things we do. We also support getting them um alarms through, you know, flip phones if we needed for them. How do they get waken up? When is mom or dad coming home for is that preventing it? Do they need a special bus? Is there a hardship that needs that the district provides? uh we can help identify those issues too and help connect them with that. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Our tier three intensive services includes our initial response team, family group conferencing, and student intervention plans. Truency intervention, behavior management, and school disengagement are addressed. We
055focus on behavior, attendance, and disengagement. We're student centered to create goals and objectives so they can improve the behavior and attendance. and it's individualized to get the best results. We collaborate with school staff and families to create the goals, monitor the progress, and adjust as needed. Our tier 2 services include check-in, checkout, grief and loss, mediation, mentoring, resiliency, and aggression reduction using the reset model. our service description. The skills that are taught and reinforced based on the student assessment include conflict resolution, resiliency, coping strategies, which is a lot of help for these students, learning them to cope with the situations in the schools, self-regulation, and self-esteem. Tier one are our universal services, crisis intervention, deescalation. We also engage with community service activities with them and reinforce schoolwide seal themes. The students are usually referred as
056the result of an immediate crisis or conflict. something's happening, they'll come to us to ask to deescalate the the crisis and use the elements of emotional first aid to get them calmed back down and keep them in the classroom and in school. Our service objectives, each of our services have specific objectives. We determine the best approach for service delivery, including meeting frequency, weekly focus areas, and monthly objective reviews that connect to the established goals with the students. Again, it's been asked often. So, when you get the students, what do you do for them? It's a very involved intake process where we have the goals based on our meetings with the school, the student, and their parents. And then when we meet with them on a weekly basis, it's how are we doing? Are we getting
057better? Are we reaching those goals? Is there progress? We may not go from 0 to 60 quickly, but are we seeing progress towards the goal that we're trying to get? We use goal trackers to establish clear objectives and monitor progress with regular review by supervisors. Skills and objectives are assessed individually for each student to guide targeted support. And our youth case managers meet with school staff, including attendance staff, parent leaison, social workers, and teachers at least bi-weekly to discuss each student's progress. In our service outcomes, we aim to build resiliency and mitigate risky behavior. We target improve behavior and attendance. We start with building social emotional strengths. We use a wraparound approach and incorporate person- centered trauma and care informed restorative practices and strength-based coordination into all our programs. We are trying to reduce the
058negative behaviors that got them referred to us in the first place. We are committed to helping students thrive academically, behaviorally, and as active, engaged members of the school community. I have to say 20 years ago, 25 years ago, a quarter of a century, safe schools was born with the Utica City School District. So we've had a relationship of working in the schools for over a quarter of a century. Our goal achievement goal monitoring is a team effort. Again, our youth case managers maintain detailed notes, those accountability logs for each student, documenting their goals and their completed activities to track progress and support their student success. Goal progress is reviewed weekly with supervisors and at least bi-weekly with the appropriate school staff so we can see if and ensure consistent communication and accountability. Student progress is
059monitored through a combination of behavioral indicators, including classroom conduct and suspension history, as well as attendance patterns such as tardiness and skipping alongside SSMV's broader program roles that we have with them. Again, jumping back to our 2024 2025 data, we had 959 students referred to us from the Utica City School District that we worked with during that year. 673 of them were referred as a youth case to a youth case manager working with them consistently in school. Of those referrals, 308 were for behavior, 303 were disengagement and 62 were for attendance. Of the students that we worked with with our use case managers, 87% of the students that we worked with improved their behavior as measured by classroom activity, ODRs, out of school suspensions, and inschool suspensions. 68% improved academically based on grades and teacher
060input. And to be honest with you, the secret sauce is this is if we can get them to come to school and we can get their behavior and their coping skills to sit in the classroom, your teachers do a fantastic job of teaching them. That's kind of like an ancillary benefit for it. It's not us doing the teaching, but if we can do those thing things, they do much better with their academics. >> Jimmy, what what's disengagement versus people not attending school? What's the difference? So again, if you've got if we start to see that chronic absenteeism, the earliest we can catch it, if they're starting to see Jim comes to school, but Jim's starting not to come to school, if we can catch him with that two or three times he missed this month,
061if we could see he's not listening in the classroom, he's not as engaged as he was, that's that early warning signs that either the teachers, the counselors, or the school principles are coming to us and saying there's something happening with him or her. We want to catch this quickly. Our tier three levels are those intensive services and tier two and disengagement we would call that prevention. They've identified something and they want us to work with them before it gets to that tier three intervention. >> I hope that answers the question. >> Thank you. >> Can I follow up on that for one second please? >> So does that disengagement also sorry I'm not speaking to the microphone. Uh does that disengagement also encompass students who are attending but not substantively doing the work or participating
062in the school day? >> Absolutely. That's especially what that is. And again, it's that early warning system. That's why with that one, we're looking again for anecdotal evidence, but we're getting it right from the school. In other words, when your teachers are making that referral to us or this counselor, uh, we're going back saying, "How are we doing? How is he or she doing?" So again, when we get this from the report cards, that one is more are we making a difference? And finally, 56% of the the students that we worked with improved their attendance. Again, as measured by daily attendance, tardies, and skipping classes. Our feedback from the people who work in the schools was phenomenal. They told us we had a 180 degree change with the students since the beginning of the year.
063Safe Schools Mog has done a great job at our school and achieving higher grades with students. SSMV makes a difference in our school. And three weeks ago, I was in a school where the principal looked at us and said, "Without the principal, the system of care, without safe schools, I couldn't run the building. There's just so much need throughout the day for not only the kids that we're working with, with the youth case managers, but for all that universal stuff. Here's the flight. Can you mediate it? Can you work with this kid? Can you calm them down?" Uh, all of that stuff that just helps make the building run. Also again in our 2024 2025 year our tier 1 universal services we had a,65 of those two. In the bottom we talk about our McKini
064Vento services and again that's us working with the district's identified children with transitional or difficulty with housing. Um 176 received supplies that included school items, clothing, snacks, hygiene items, and clo cleaning products. 42 families received $100 grocery gift store cards. 261 were mentored in our two tier 2 services. And 62 kindergarten through sixth graders participated in an 8-week book club discussing topics such as resiliency, coping with change, and compassion. For this current school year, even though we're not done with the year yet, we can tell you that to date, we've had 1,676 students referred. We have 575 out of the 17676 in our current youth case load at some point during the year here. 826 students received universal support and 275 received McKenna services for themselves and their families. Of the referrals that we've had
065so far, 47% were for behavior, 44% were for disengagement, and 9% were for attendance. Our service types, 236 students with intensive needs were supported by tier three intervention services. 339 students were provided with tier 2 prevention services. And 117 of the students in tier 2 are identified as McKin Ventoa. And we had an additional 984 students that reached the tier one universal services level. We utilize many of our staff who are credible messengers. Credible messenger is a concept used nationally in New York State as part of a research and evidence-based program. It's highly effective in transforming youth experience, behavior, and positive program outcomes. Our staff are credible meers messengers because we're intentional about hiring staff with lived experience, believing that an authentic connection with students and their families begins with a shared understanding. Our team
066brings a rich blend of professional expertise and specialized knowledge and personal lived experience. The ways we do this is some of our staff speak more than one language. They or their families are immigrants or refugees themselves. They may be former delinquent or troubled youth who struggled in school themselves. They or their family member may have been involved in the justice system. They or their family member may have struggled with drug or alcohol abuse themselves and may live in the neighborhoods of our students with their families and or have a disability or raised a child with a disability either physical, mental or learning. and they relate to youth and or family to build a significant relationship using age, culture, beliefs, traditions, experiences. And to wind it up, our professional development with the Utica City School District
067includes the elements of therapeutic crisis intervention, deescalation strategies, conflict resolution techniques, crisis communication, incident command 100, and incident command 200. At our McKini Vento services, we accept referrals as identified by the Utica City School District. We connect families to discuss their needs and make community referrals as needed. Up to 100 referred students will participate in an 8-week mentoring program to discuss resiliency skills and coping strategies. 40 of a 100 kindergarten to sixth graders will participate in a book club to support their needs from being in transitional housing. We want to thank you very much for the opportunity to participate with you. Again, we've been with the district for 25 years. when it opened up to the other uh elements coming in for the system of care, it's just broadened the scope and enabled to make
068a great difference in us working very closely to them. We're excited to be a part of this and thank you very much for that opportunity. >> Thank you. >> Any questions? >> Thanks. >> Thank you very much. Okay, thank you. >> Good evening. Thank you. Um, my name is Rod Green. I'm the executive director for Hillside Work Scholarship Connection. And I have my colleague Samil Hamilton here, the manager of operations for our UDICA program, along with Denise Stokes, who is our regional director, Naomi Brous, who is our youth advocate, Curtis Lee, another youth advocate, and Paul Stern who is our coordinator of college and career. So, first and foremost, we just want to thank uh Dr. Spence and his senior cabinet for their support. Uh the system of care leadership, um Rachel and Rex. Um
069obviously the Udica Board of Education for your support and extending this courtesy for us to talk tonight. Our other fellow system of care partners and we're going to just give a very brief overview of Hillside Work Scholarship Connection and we'll be tag teaming. Okay. So our mission is is pretty simple. um helping our young people uh graduate on time, be prepared for a variety of pathways post high school, be that four-year college, two-year college, trade school, full-time employment, military, and just making sure that they can become self-sufficient and fully launch into that pathway post high school. We do it through advocacy and mentoring, academic intervention and support, life and social skills development, job readiness training and certification, and then helping place our young people in paid part-time year-round uh employment experience with our partners and
070also post-secary preparation and planning. So, a little bit about our model and and the model is pretty simple. The focal point of our model is our youth advocate. And that youth advocate helps that student navigate through any challenges they might have at coming to school, engaging in the appropriate behaviors that are going to make them successful and keep them on that trajectory to finish high school and again transition into those pathways. And they're working in all areas of the student's life at school integrated right in and providing that support. um working with our parents and guardians and engaging them. Um and then also the connection into the world of work. Um we do have our eligibility which is criterionbased. Um industry term not our term but we are working with a population of at risk
071students. Uh we have recoined that phrase to say that we are working with at promise students. So all of our students are at promise for success there and those are some of the risk indicators there. Um, after young people graduate, we provide some support through tracking um, and other services two years post high school to help that transition. And so I'm going to turn it over right now to Sil. >> Hi, good afternoon. Currently, we are serving in three of your schools, which is JFK, we have one youth advocate, Donovan, we have one youth advocate, and we currently have four youth advocates at Proctor High School serving a population of 2 and 70 students. Um, no day as is one and the same as previously shared. We could be connecting with students in regards to
072providing transportation to school should they have missed the bus or they are late and we have noticed that there's a significant decline in attendance. Um we're not only connecting with the youth, we're also actually reaching out to the families, the counselors, the parents, um any other services or resources and other programs that we u may connect with in reference to see how the students are doing both academically. Um and we try to align our services to match. Um as we said before, we do service for college, graduation, career. That is our acronym. We are focused on how the students are doing. So typically uh we try to go off report cards or any type of assessment information that we receive to see how the students are doing academically in those classes and following up with
073the student to see if they need any academic support. So typically most of our students at the proctor level they may have a um study hall which is in our classroom. We can ask them to come in and pull out their homework. We can support them with those efforts um and making sure that they are successful in those classes. Um, we also work with building better assets. It's a book that we have connecting on life skills and how we connect with the students. So, should the students come in and maybe not necessarily have any academic work at that time, we're still doing active activities and different enrichments with the students while we have the students present within the classroom. Um, students also have the autonomy to connect with us after school with different enrichments. Um,
074as well as on Wednesdays, we do partner with the youth burrow. Um we do programming at the youth burrow. Um Hamilton College is also there. So we also have the autonomy to utilize their tutoring services while we're present um on Wednesdays and any other days if we kind of connect and schedule that. Um you want to connect the rest of the day? >> Yeah. So um really excited to have uh two of our youth advocates Naomi and Curtis come up and just really give you a glimpse into um you know what a atypical day is because there's no typical day. And you know, I tell people I'm a talking head, right? I get paid to do this, but um where the real work is, it's through the power of our youth advocates, their community connections,
075and really helping our young people uh get set up for enduring change. So, I'd just like to turn it over to them briefly to share a little bit. >> Greetings. Um the day in the life of a youth advocate in the schools, we oversee about 35 students and then some. Um a lot of what we do, we know that our students come not one shoe sizefits all. So the half the glass is half empty and full at the same time. Teaching them opportunities on how to fill the glass rather than looking at it half empty. And those things look like supporting them when they're having a crisis, providing TCI support, which is therapeutic crisis intervention. Also teaching them how to self-regulate and get back on track. Um trying not to stay into what's happened too
076long, but supporting them and teaching them discipline and life skills on how to move past what has happened. um helping them navigate through the moment if it's traumatic, not disregarding it, but helping them get through it. Also being intentional with sitting down one-on- ones, having an academic approach, using a smart goal chart, utilizing that opportunity because all students don't learn the same. So creating an opportunity for students to create how they can obtain the information that's being created by the teachers um and asking them to utilize the resources that they have available to them with their Chromebooks. Utilizing uh the internet to research uh the information that's being provided if they feel like they need a little bit extra help doing that research to find the information that they need to be successful. More importantly
077empowering them that the education is given to them. it's up to them to utilize it within themselves to attack it, address it in such a healthy way that they can be successful in meeting all their academic goals. And so that tends to not always be a dayto-day as smooth as I gave it. Um some days are more intense than others. Um but the main thing is just making sure that we are present and showing up for them and that they know that we're listening to them and providing them the support that they need to be successful. >> Another unique approach to our program is uh we work during the break. So we connect with students over the breaks. Um so we also are tapping into students to see how they're doing when school is not
078in session. That is a very key part connecting with students even in the off time. We also do Saturday enrichments. We just partnered recently with Sunni Pali on a few initiatives that help that took place on a Sunday. So we're kind of 247 in this job. We have our phones. We keep them parents and students have the autonomy to connect with us so we can support them as best as possible. Okay. We'll go through this. This is just a little bit on our org chart and we talked about it. Um so myself, Denise who you've met, Samil who is our local leader here, Paul as we talked about and then our youth advocates at the schools and uh Sataryi Hang who um is new is our college and career specialist. That's again working with um
079our kids to help them identify more of those plans post high school uh no matter what that is. Okay. So, a little bit of an overview on the student enrollment process. No. >> So, we um have an interest form that we uh connect with students. Once we receive that information, um we align with the school district team um to secure authorization to disclose educational information. This just assures that we have the two components that are the requirement in order for the students to be present within the program. Um and then once we have that information um we do what students and to be students can be referred by teachers, school administrations, parents, themselves, peers. Um we also do a lot of community engagement events where we're out in the community um providing information on what
080we do and the services that we offer. So students can very much or parents can see us within the community and they can get that interest form from us and also have the opportunity to connect with us and ask us questions about the program um specifics. Um once we have that information um we again focus on what two pillars do they are lacking or are struggling in so that we can assist them. Um and then we kind of go through the application process. We do even during the application process we do connect with parents. We do have a student and parent contract uh because we want to support the parents as much as we support the students or the guardians and just to let them know that we will be in contact. So we do
081have mentoring contacts so on a monthly basis um but it's been occurring weekly. We're connecting with parents within the home just so that we can have that communication on what is academically going on or if it's if there's a mental health crisis we are kind of communicating. So we do connect with students and parents um pretty much on a weekly basis. Okay. And then we're just wrapping up here. So, uh, how we monitor our service develop, uh, delivery is we have a database called ETO, efforts toward outcomes. And so, any, um, activity that we have with our young people, that goes into our database. Um, we use that to monitor our staff goals and metrics against contacts and student participation. Um and then we supervise uh and monitor that progress through ETO custom reports. Um
082in terms of student outcomes, um we utilize district data. So we partnered very closely uh with the accountability office to monitor school and class attendance, suspensions, and academic progress. Um and that's used to help us inform our sport services. So um just in closing, we just again want to thank you for three years of support. Uh I did include an appendix. So we had an opportunity at the request of Dr. Spence in September to present uh at the breakfast of champions and we really were able to align the work that we're doing to the tenants of the district's uh district uh plan there. And so we just always want to make sure that we're in alignment with what's happening districtwide. And a lot of the activities and as you've seen in the appendix uh do
083kind of dovetail with that. and we want to just continue to be intentional about that work. So, thank you, >> Ron. I just want to say um we were doing a lot of this work in Rochester, so it seems like as we evolve, we just learn more, apply new strategies, and continue to keep the ball moving. So, I just want to thank you for that, you know, having done this work in other places and spaces. And then in our next meeting, we'll just talk about some of our general themes. I know we're also in Buffalo, Rochester. So, you know, being able to take those things from the field that we've done in other places and put it in this center here, I think also helps inform our practice. So, shout out to you and thank
084you very much. >> Okay. Thank you again. >> Hold on one one sec. One second. >> I'm sorry, >> Rod. I' I've known you a very long time, 20 plus years. I just want to say that I wouldn't be sitting here today if it weren't for my work that I did with you with uh Hillside Work Scholarship Connection. I was a youth advocate in the Syracuse City School District. I was the first manager that Hillside Work Scholarship had in the Syracuse City School District. I understand the connection that Hillside has with the students, the families, and the schools. There's so many times that there's something going on with a student and the youth advocate is that bridge that they didn't know they needed, that they didn't know that they had. and that the touch is
085from school to home and that student realizes that they're they're they've got a network of support that will really help them be successful. So, I want to say thank you. I wanted them here when I was there so I didn't have to commute to Syracuse 20 something years ago, but they're here and I'm glad that they're here and they're doing the work that really changes uh the trajectory of our kids in this district. So, thank you. >> Thank you, James. Distinguished board members, Superintendent Spence and the other wonderful Udica district leaders, I'm Kev Markin, Udica Director for on point for college. And first, I want to thank you all for the fabulous partnership, the wonderful work you do, the students lives that you change. It's just amazing to watch all this go on. And I
086know everyone here, the partners, the organizations, so many people in the community really appreciate all that you do uh to make the students lives so much better. Onpoint provides very very comprehensive college access, success and career services forwarding the proctor students educational and career dreams. And one important step before I turn over everything for as we do a brief introduction. From September 1st of this last year, 2025 through March 31st, OnPoint has already uh enrolled 231 new students uh Proctor students in OnPoint compared to 134 for the same seven months the year before. That's a 72.4% increase. The need is there. The need is growing. We're thrilled to be able to partner provide those services and are working hard to provide sufficient support not only for those additional students but also too all those students
087go on to college getting certificates getting degrees whether it's a one year twoear four-year uh the students need support and other things from onpoint throughout that whole process that is even far bigger than that initial access and success which is important all the work and we provide very very comprehive ensive services to as mentioned are with tutoring, mentoring, all kinds of help and adisement. One good example to show how comprehensive it is, we even have dentists that provide proono dental services if they don't have dental insurance. So, whatever it is, we find wonderful partners and others uh to work with the colleges and others, the school district and others to work with our fellow partner organizations. One of the other things important about OnPoint is that it's 12 months. It's year round. So the summer
088melt that keeps on average of studies that have done lower income first generation students 40% of those who the last day of school said I want to go to college I want to get a degree I want to get a certificate 40% of them never cross the threshold to going to school in the fall with onpoint we keep that almost to zero we have numerous things to make sure they do things they get a computer be able to go off to college which is a wonderful incentive to make it we stand with any obstacle that comes along, we work with them so that we try to keep that as close to zero as possible. And those are lives that are changed forever. Uh 95% of students in poverty who um 95% of the students in
089poverty I move my hands a lot so I hit the the clicker thing. I apologize. 90% of uh 5% of the students who come from poverty once they get a four-year degree, they're lifted out of poverty forever. And so that's life-changing for them, their family, and the entire community. And again, the key part of that is the great work done at the Proctor at Proctor High School and in the entire Udica School District partnership with the other wonderful organizations that get them to that uh to that point. And uh one last thing before introducing Annie uh is the um n the member of of 2024 after we started working with the Udica school district for a year uh at the onpoint college celebration we honored superintendent Spence and the entire Udica school district for the
090tremendous partnership with our highest award the dream maker award. That's how much we appreciate be able to be in the schools, being able to help these students, be able to reach them more, for them to be able to stop by every day if they want to for whatever kind of help that they need. It's so important and we really appreciate it. And I want to from the depths of my heart, thank you for this wonderful opportunity for the great work that you do. And now I want to introduce uh the assistant director for onpoint for college Udica. He's been without point eight years, numerous awards, MBA from Utica University, resident of Udica, and most important of all, a very proud Proctor High School graduate, Annie Guerrero. Um, thank you Kevin for that wonderful introduction and
091hello everyone. Um, so OnPoint for college day students takes students from all the way from application in their senior year through graduation and beyond. We continuously support the students um in their in their journey. So we have three different areas where we support students that college access um and we don't do just college programs but certificate program, trade schools, anything that they want to do postgraduation of high school. Um and while they're in high school, they're considered our access students. So higher education access. Um and then once they start their programs, they're considered our success students. We monitor them uh reach out to them throughout the semester, visit them on the their college campus. Um and whatever obstacles they face throughout their college careers, we can assist them. Um and then we also have career
092services uh that we can provide starting um so for on-point eligibility, majority of our students are the high school juniors and seniors. Um but this is our general eligibility for our programs at Proctor. We start off with the college access uh with the juniors and the seniors. And for our STEM pathways programs through our career services, they can enjoy um enroll in ninth and tth grade as well. Um planning uh as long as they're planning to attend college or certificate programs, anything that they want to do past high school, there is no strict finan financial limitation as to who can join and reside in the colony that we serve. um college access at Proctor. Our students are very happy to come to our office and fill out uh paperwork, things that they need. Um we
093provide them with a checklist for their senior year and uh complete that checklist together with them so that they know what part of the process they um there are in and what still needs to be completed before their graduation from high school. Um we do pre-ol tours. Uh a lot of our students the first time that they go on a college tour is with us. Um, and we go all throughout New York State. Um, we also host a pre-ol orientation. So, once we know that they uh we finish that checklist, we know that they have their schedules. We know that their financial aid is all set. There's no uh gaps into uh their aid and how much um the cost of the cost of attendance is. Uh we know that they have completed every task.
094Then they are invited to our college orientation over the summer um and provide them with basic college supplies after that orientation. We go over dos and don'ts, what to expect in college and kind of ease that transition. Um we are at Proctor Monday through Thursday 9 to 2:00 p.m. And this is basically the as we seen the first two years the where the students um came in uh the large time that they came in uh and interacted with us. Um and then as well we have a UDICA office down on Genese Street that they can come after school or they can meet with us virtually as well, whatever works for them. Um we also help them to enroll in those special programs at the school because we know that students who have a a great
095support system um as they transition and then at the colleges do very well. Um, so for students to get referred to Proctor, they can do a self-referral. So they can walk down to our office and fill out an application with us. Uh, a lot of the teachers, counselors, let us know about the students and guide them to our office. They can do a um they can do an interest form right from our website and an advisor will reach out to them and start that process of one-on-one advising. Um, there's no typical day. So, at any point in time, students are in different um in different progress of their checklist um and uh getting to uh finalizing all their paperwork for school. So between September to April, uh we start the application process. Um making sure
096that if they're applying to those special programs that they submit all their paperwork, uh making sure that they fill out the their uh scholarships and uh especially like dollars for scholars, we let them know that they come to our office, they get a Chromebook, fill those out right then, ask questions, um and attending those college stores in the fall uh and as well as the spring semester. Um and then we do have our career advisor who comes to the proctor office every week, once a week to talk to the students um and see what their career plans are and build career action plans. Um from May to August, that's decision making time and securing enough financial aid. So in the fall, we start that October 1st opening up at the FAFSA. We make sure that
097they they start that process so that they can have their award letters uh from the schools by the time um that they have to make their decision. and again submitting the needed documentation to the colleges. Some of the challenges that the students face is that they are receiving emails from the school or letters home and they're not sure what to do next. We need this to prove that uh for your aid and they come to us, they ask us like this is what you need to do in order to get your full aid package. Um and we talk to the colleges as well and advocate on their behalf. Uh and then again we do have the on-point orientations over the summer and we continue career services throughout. Um so students signed up from year 1.
098Uh the data from year 1 and year two are all the way to June and for year three all the way to March. So we have a significant increase in our students. And with year three we uh decided to enroll the students in career services as early as 9th grade. That's why you see a few of them um sophomores and jun and freshman's. Um, but we had a good enrollment rate. Uh, they're very happy to come in and do their paperwork and talk to the adviserss on a daily basis. Um, and we know that it's a step-by-step process. They're not going to get everything done in one appointment. They'll come back, finish the rest, and it's very accessible for them at our office because they can come in during their um, scheduled breaks, time off
099to complete those paperwork. um college tours. They are enjoying the college tours every year. Um we have an we're still finishing up this Thursday our last tour for the semester. We do them in the fall and in the spring. Um and students are getting uh experience with the different colleges throughout New York State and what they have to offer, asking those questions to the admissions. Um and we help them give them a list of questions uh when we're uh prepping them for the tour like this is some things that you might be interested in. Uh and when they get there, uh they're prepared to ask those questions that are important, um and get a uh experience of what that every different campus looks like throughout the state. Financial aid assistance. So, we've been helping uh
100students with the FAFSA as soon as it opens up. Uh this year we've been recording how many students we've uh been assisting with the FSA ID um creation uh which is uh sometimes um um they're figuring out how to do that. They're very nervous about going into the federal and state uh websites and not making mistakes. So, we make sure that we get trained on every every semester before the financial aid starts with any changes that come along with the FAFSA um or New York State applications so that we are prepared to tell our students how to fill it out if they need assistance with it. Uh we host different workshops at the um Proctor High School cafeteria in the fall and the spring. And then in the summer we do a summer FAFSA fiesta
101event in the summer to make sure that all those students that decided to apply, you know, senior year last minute. Oh, I I decide I want to go to college in June. And they we can capture them, make sure that it's completed. Um and not only that it's completed but if there's any errors or any mistakes any emails coming back from the colleges that we can guide them through that process. Uh we are 12 months so throughout the summer that is very very busy season for us. Um as we get the students started and ready. Um so a big piece of our work is that high school to college transition and we usually get a lot of students that um first generation college student um don't have the support um and have no idea what
102to do next. So we do a interest profiler if they're not sure they we let them know you if you want to Oh hello >> I'm sorry I just had a question for you. >> Yes. >> How do the kids find out about you? like how how what what puts you on their radar? >> So, we do a lot of outreach. So, throughout the events in the city, we go to the different with um that they're hosting. Um we also uh talk to the to the counselors in the beginning of the school year um when they meet and let them know about the program. Um and uh we do uh like I said, a lot of outreach. Um we are a lot of word of mouth um for our um on outreach but we go
103to the different programs as well the partner programs and talk to their students as well so that they know because they can be uh enrolled in other programs as well as on point. Um, so we'll go and and do um a presentation and let them know. >> And I'll back you up there too just to give you like so for all the parents like the the communication is fantastic from the principles from the counselors like there's constant events workshops like as parents we're almost inundated like I think that's one of the complaints we get as parents like oh my god how many things are we going to send out because they've done so many workshops and they are fantastic. Our counselors are great. Parent Square is great about literally letting everybody know because by the
104time they start to get to that junior year, right, this becomes super and for anybody that has not done the college application or hasn't done it since you went, oo boy is that difficult and like there's so many different forms and it's constantly changing. It is not easy. So you guys have been wonderful and like their outreach is fantastic as a school. They hit a large number of students. So >> thank you. >> Sorry. >> No, thank you so much. um yeah the process for the application. So depending on what their school the our one-on-one it um meeting with the student and what their plans are whether they're going to do the application through the Sunni or the common app we break down those things uh so we make it as easy as possible for
105them. Um as well as breaking down the application for financial aid because we know it can be intimidating for some families. You know how do I have to put this information out there? how is it going to affect me if it's going to affect me? Um, so those are questions we try to answer for. >> But how's that communicated? Like are you communicating with the kids? Are you communicating with the families? Are you communicating with both? You know, cuz I mean I just some kids like you got kids that are procrastinating. They wait till the last minute and then all of a sudden everybody's hair is on fire. How do you deal with that? You know, I mean that that to be curious. So the students usually come to us and then it uh we
106discuss their plans what they want to do and if they're like I don't know how to explain this to my parent then we call the parents as well with their permission. Uh >> sometimes it's helpful if the parents the student really wants to go but culturally the parents don't always understand the system especially some of the female students and so we have a very diverse staff and bring people in to have those communications to make sure that if the student has an educational career dream to bring the parents technically appropriately into understanding that and they get a good decision so that the students goals can We met and and fored we whatever whatever we do to need to reach out everybody involved and team up with the counselors and people and others as well as
107family members whatever we need to do to try to reach those students help those students and make sure that we connect as many as possible have an open door so that anybody that wants to sign up including sometimes too parents which could be transformative for the children that they see they sign up and then the other can you help me too and And then they see their mother and they're studying together. We had one where the two proctor students and their mother were all going to school at the same time and all graduated with super high honors eventually. But that's often times too that we're not restricted to that. Need to get the parents themselves even going to school or older brothers or sisters or others that can be help. And sometimes that's very inspirational
108to the students that are currently um in school. Mhm. And a lot of our students as well, their siblings have gone through the program, so they let them know about it and their friends too. Uh between our four adviserss in Udica, we um are uh skilled in different languages, Spanish, Bosian, Karan, Croatian, and Arabic. So we can connect with the families as well um and guide them because they're also nervous about the process and sending those students away for the first time far away from home. Um, so let's see. Um, so our college attendance for the class of 24, 25, and 26. Right now, we don't have the 26 because they're two days from the, uh, decision-making deadline of May 1st. Uh, but these are some of the attend um, acceptances that we've uh, received
109from the students have received this year. Um, and they are branching out. they are uh with our assistance they are being bold about the applications that they want to fill out to the schools that they want to go to. uh because we ease those questions um that they have and let them know like if you apply for a private school you might get in this you know these private schools there's need-based aid so you might not have to worry about uh financial aid um if you go there and you apply just shoot it out there see what the response is and let's and let's work with that um majority of our students do stay within the area MVCC one being one of our biggest um attendance for for our students. Um and even if the
110ones that decide not to enroll, this is for fall enrollment um at that those years. But even if they do not decide to enroll, that could be for various different reasons such as they want to take a semester break defer their admissions to spring or they want to take a year break or they decide to go into the workforce. But we tell them once a on-point student, always an on-point student. So they continue to be part of our program and we outreach periodically to see where they're at, pick up where they left off and a lot of them do end up going for um their uh programs at the different colleges. >> Quick question. Do you keep track of for the two-year community colleges, how many of those students uh finish their associates degree and
111then enter the workforce immediately versus how many then go on to a four a bachelor's degree and where? >> Yes. So, in our database system, we um we add the colleges that they're in, make notes, and then when they transfer, we put them the transfer school there so we can track where they're going after they're finished for their two-year. Um, and a lot of our students that do start locally at a two-year school, they go on to do stackable credentials, bachelor's, masters, PhD programs. Um, some highlights of career services. So, uh, this is Jen over here at a career services advisor. So far this year, we had 10 students secure jobs. um 21 students in our STEM pathway program which provides um students with opportunities such as workshops uh connections to the um the uh
112conferences and STEM uh workshops in the area such as the project Fibonacci. We had several students attend last year which is a great STEM uh STEM conference. Um STEM opportunities. We have a scholarship database that we share with our students so they know what scholarships are out there and in which areas and they have that ability to apply and we help them with that application process. Um at at a proctor students attend uh participate in a tour for inner advancement center. So we do also employer tours um and take them to the the different uh um STEM or different companies in the area that they could potentially go to for their careers. Um and also the career services department does a lot of uh professional developments uh workshops throughout the year. Uh we invite different
113uh professionals to come and talk to the students and let them know like this is my trajectory to being um in this career as well as we call them career slams but career affairs. So we're working with them building the resume cover letters to submit them to the um employers in person and have that connection and discuss with them. uh potential job opportunities. Okay. Well, that is my presentation. Thank you. Any questions? >> Thank you. >> While the next presenters are coming up, can we turn down the temperature though? It I'm not going to I can't paraphrase exactly, but it's way too low. How do young scholars grow big dreams? Let us show you. A cooperative program between Udica University and the Udica City School District and with the support of New York State's Liberty
114Partnerships Program. Since 1993, Young Scholars has impacted the lives of thousands of local students. Students enter the program in seventh grade, and this starts a six-year journey towards high school graduation, and Young Scholars is there with them every step of the way. Our foundation is direct, intensive academic support. Our students have year-round access to learning resources and robust summer programming at Udica University that enriches their education while preparing them for the challenges ahead through college preparation and career exploration. But academics are just one piece of the puzzle. We know that young people develop through deliberate structured activity outside of the classroom. Young scholars join a supportive community that empowers them to grow, pursue their passions, and have fun. They grow as leaders through service to their neighbors while exploring the world around them through cultural
115and social enrichment activities. All of this with two end goals in mind. to graduate students with advanced regions diplomas, but more importantly to prepare students for life beyond high school, whether it be college, trade school, or career. With a 94% graduation rate, touching the lives of countless students and families, Young Scholars will continue growing this legacy for decades to come. Learn more about the Young Scholars program by visiting our website today. >> All right. Um Jordan Peters, executive director of Young Scholars. Um I'll just reiterate and I'll promise to keep this very brief, but I'll reiterate that this partnership between the district and the university has been in existence since 1993. So over 30 years ago, a group of educators within the district and Udica College saw a need and a novel way to address
116it. And what resulted was a blueprint for a comprehensive year-round program that delivers academic support along with social, cultural, civic engagement, college prep, and professional development opportunities. That's a blueprint that we still follow today. In short, Young Scholars is a constant positive presence presence in the lives of our students and their families from the time they join us as seventh graders until they graduate high school and well beyond. For many students, the underlying goal again is to graduate students college and career ready. So, Young Scholars is a lot of things to our students and families, but the basis on which we are founded is an academic support organization. We imp improve lives through education and we do this through two primary touch points. Designated classrooms in the two middle schools and proctor where our full-time
117site staff are assisted by undergraduate tutors from Udica University. The second is our required summer program at Udica University. For three weeks in July around 180 young scholars in grades 7 through nine join us on campus to receive instruction in English, science, math, and social studies from UCSD teachers. No grades or testing, just fun and preparation for the coming school year. Concurrently, approximately 60 older, younger scholars are participating in other summer programming on campus or in the community and paid internships. Our most important hands-on work is done by our site staff who work in Donovan, JFK, and Proctor. By design, these site staff, with few exceptions for mental health professionals or specialists, are graduate students at Udica University. Typically, they're earning their master's degree in education. These profess uh professionals work a normal school day
118that mirrors the teachers with whom they share the school and they are trained to build collegial relationships with those subject area teachers to supplement and support their classroom work. As a secondary outcome of the program, young scholars stit uh site staff very often transition to becoming teachers within the Udica City School District once their graduate degrees are complete, providing a pipeline of classroom ready teachers for employment within the district. Young scholars are nominated for participation in the selection process by their sixth grade teachers who are instructed to identify students who demonstrate academic potential but have concurrent risk factors proven to impede progress towards graduation and post-secary enrollment. During selection, not only are students required to play an active role, but so are their parents. And that is where we begin laying the groundwork for at
119least a six-year relationship with students and parents and guardians by emphasizing that they are a key part of their student success. And to quickly address a common misconception, uh, Young Scholars is not seeking to enroll the district's top performing students. Um, this nomination and selection process exists to identify students who need supplemental support and are likely to derive maximum benefit from the program's resources. Each year at the conclusion of the selection process, we bring in a new student cohort of rising seventh graders totaling 60 to 70 students. During the 25 26 academic year, we've been serving 61 students at Donovan, 58 at JFK, and 206 at Proctor. In total, with a CA within a calendar year, once summer programming is taken into consideration, where we are working with both graduating seniors and incoming seventh graders,
120we touch the lives of over 400 students each year. Outside the classroom, our students receive access to a breadth of opportunities that enhance their connection to the program, each other, and their community. Students in good standing are afforded opportunities such as a three-day trip to Washington DC, a camping trip, the Youth Climate Summit in Tupper Lake, shows at the Stanley Theater, group dinners, speaking engagements, and much, much more. Lastly, we know that the program works because the data tells us so. The number we are perhaps most proud of in addition to what you see on the fact sheet in front of you all is our 94% graduate graduation rate which far exceeds the national average. >> Jordan, how are you first of all? >> Hi James. >> How's the baby? >> Good, thanks. >> Good.
121I just want to ask um what is the selection process for you guys? How does that work? >> Yep. So, it starts in the fall. It's a long, lengthy process. We work with sixth grade teachers, explain the program to them. It's old hat for them because they hear the same spiel from us every year. Um, but we want them to nominate as many students as they possibly can imagine could fit the criteria that we're looking for, which again is students with academic potential, but concurrent risk factors that we know could impede um progress towards graduation or secondary enrollment. Um, so with that in mind, they nominate as many students as they would like from the classroom. Um we then vet those files and ultimately uh around springtime they go to an independent uh panel of
122community members who go through those files under our direction and they make the decisions to remove young scholars staff from the process and any potential bias since we actually play an active role in the process including interviewing of students. So we know the students. So uh you know that's just a part of maintaining integrity and fairness in the process. >> So so the teachers basically nominate. Okay. Correct. Great. Thank you. Yep. Anyone else? >> Thank you. >> Good evening. My name is Todd Cubicham, director of college pipeline programs at MVCC. I don't have a PowerPoint tonight, but I thought maybe I'd be more attractive if you just looked at me while I was talking. Okay. So, uh, but I've got good news. I've got good news. So, I have three programs that I'm going to
123report on. It's Upwardbound, STEPP, and Gear Up. Okay. The Upwardbound program provides opportunities and fundamental support to its participants to succeed in pre-ol academics and preparation for college entrance. Upwardbound serves high school students grades 9 through 12 at Proctor from low-income families and/or students from families in which neither parent holds a bachelor's degree. It is funded through the United States Department of Education and we are under attack of not being funded. So, um, if you can, if anybody can write letters for us, we'd greatly appreciate it. If the school district can do something on our behalf, I' I'd be thankful. The goal of Upwardbound isn't to increase the rate at which participants compete secondary education and enroll and graduate from institutions of post-secary education. Upwardbound offers extensive tutoring, mentoring, participates in various local community service
124events. The college campus visits also tutoring at Proctor occurs Monday through Thursday all nine periods by our program specialist. Upper bound staff facilitates after school tutoring and workshop schedules are Monday through Thursday at MVCC. Bi-weekly Saturday colleges occur at MV between 9 and 12. and upper students. Uh, upper bound students also participate in a six-w weekek summer college with a a curriculum consisting of main core subjects, language, and an opportunity for group uh projects. So, one thing that's important for me as being the the budget guy and to keep the money coming in is our goals and intended outcomes. So there's there's uh five um performance criteria that I have to I have to report on every year. It's academic um uh GPA um the approved the approved rate uh is higher than 75% and
125at least 65% of those students um have to achieve that in the program. uh secondary secondary school and retention and graduation the approved rate is 80%. And then secondary school graduation with rigor rigorous curriculum I use the the region's advanced designation. Okay. 23% and postsecary enrollment 65% immediately after graduation. The one that I'm really proud of with this particular program and somebody was mentioning it with a with another program is I have to follow these students for six years through their postsecondary journey and to see how successful they are and the approved rate is 55%. And you know you would think this is something I don't have a lot of control over you know because I'm not with them. However, um I was looking at the 2014 cohort of Proctor students that graduated from high
126school. It was 100%. In six years, 100% of those students either received a two-year degree or a four-year degree. In 2015, we had uh 23 graduates. That was an exceptional class. A 100% of those students either received a two-year degree or a four-year degree. And in 2324, 83% of those students either received a two-year degree or a four-year degree. And in 2020 uh 20 23 24 it was 82%. So this program is really operating on a high level. Uh it's it's if you were to look at the budget and the amount of students there's 67 students in the program. It's about $4,700 per student. And we do a lot of tutoring. um uh it's it's really heav he heavily based towards the academics probably more so than the other programs. Okay. So anyways that's upwardbound.
127Okay. Uh SC or science and te technology. Oh by the way we've had this program since 200 2007. Uh, the STEP program is a New York State Department of Education grant-f funded enrichment initiative designed to foster academic excellence, to nurture students preparation for college, to cultivate student independence, to enhance students college experience, and to increase awareness and opportunities for economically disadvantaged youth in math, science, technology, and health related fields. So, there's a number of students being served in all of your buildings. Well, well, the middle school is in the high school. Proctor, there's 88 students. JFK, there's five students. Uh, Donovan, there's seven students. We're about as we're supposed to have 161 students. I think we're at about 65% of where we're supposed to be right now. But this is the beginning of a new
128grant cycle. And I'd like to thank Sil because she helped write that grant for five years. So, thanks. Thanks to you. You bet. Um, applications can be picked up at the step lab. They're available during school ve uh uh visitations. Uh, one thing I'd like to say, our afterchool programming has seen a tremendous increase of participation. We're seeing probably on the average of 37 students a night coming up from uh from Proctor to participate in after school activities and those activities are the same as as Upwardbound but it's pretty much all STEM focused and um it also over the last couple of years the New York State um uh included any profession that's uh requires a state license. Okay. So, some good news from uh some good data from step in 2324 100% six there
129were 16 gra there were 16 students that were seniors 100% graduated 87.5 uh% went straight to college and 25% went into STEM fields. And you know that's particularly important now because with Micron coming into the picture, Wolf Speed and all those ancillary businesses that are going to be required that are going to require to have people uh have STEM education, this is going to be even more important. And in 24 and 25, we had 26 students that were seniors, 100% graduated, 84% went straight to college. and 50% went into STEM fields. So, the program is is is working. It's doing what it's supposed to do. I also had a site visit two and a half um two and a half weeks ago from New York State and all the performance metrics that we were supposed
130to meet, the eight of them, we passed with flying covers, colors. So, it's it's a good thing. gear up. Okay. Hey, new grant. Okay. We're just starting to come into the school uh the schools. Um this program is vastly different than all the others. It's based on the cohort model. We're we're starting to serve this year seventh grade students. When they graduate to eighth grade, we follow them to eighth grade. We don't backfill to the seventh grade. we found through all the way through graduation and first year of college and a lot of those services the some of the services that we'll be we'll be doing with them and this is from my annual performance report so I'm going to have to do that job site visits job shadowing activities focused on career technical education
131and apprenticeships completion tutoring and homework assistance summer programs educational field trips, workshops, financial financial aid workshops, financial literacy workshops, uh and support the development and imple implementation of rigorous academic curricula. Special programs uh for tutoring in science, technology, engineering, and math. Um, assistance with post-secary education course selection, assistance with choosing and declaring an academic major, assistance with academic, social, and personal areas of need, referrals to providers of appropriate services, tutoring, mentoring, and supplementmental academic support. This is federally funded program. It also includes the Rome City School District. A bold move, a bold grant to write which uh myself and a colleague Steve might remember, Linda Tedmont. She helped helped me in writing that grant and we're really excited to be back into the Udica City School District with uh with Gear Up. Can't wait. Any
132questions? I you really it's three different programs and I'm sorry I can't spend enough time on each one. >> Great. I thought you were very informative. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um hi uh everyone. My name is Nicholas Thomas and I'm a Proctor High School student. I attend Hope Chapel Church and I want to say that I am very thankful to have a superintendent such as Dr. Spence who cares and actually listens to us. Their resources and after school program saved me. So I would like to say thank you. >> Hello, my name is Ziker. I am a student at Proctor High School and without all the programs and after school programs, I don't know where I'll be. I want to say thank you to Dr. Spence because without you and all you did,
133I don't know where I'll be at right now. Thanks for not throwing me away because I'm worth it. Hi, I'm my name is Han. I am a proctor student and I attend Omis full-time. I'm a member of Hope Chapel Church and I want to say thank you to Superintendent Dr. Spence for all the positive change that you have made in such a little amount of time. Although I was not one of the troubled students, I have a lot of friends and family that are struggling and thanks to Dr. I am a witness of positive changes in those my family and my friends giving us a better opportunity for education bringing all the resources to all of the schools especially after school programs Dr. Spence we the students thank you Well, first first I just got
134to say as the uh late Tupac said, Dr. Spence cares if don't nobody else care. So I just want to I want to say thank you for coming tonight. Thank you so much. >> Good evening everyone. My name is James Gerald Scutchin Senior and I own a mansion and a yacht. I was told I had five minutes, so I'm going to stick to that. I'm here to talk about anger management. We heard a lot about kids going to college, but I'm dealing with kids that who have slipped through the cracks, ending up on probation, have electronic monitors on their ankle. They got one foot in the solution and the other foot in a banana pill. When they slip, they're going into the system. I just retired from the penile system from over 30 years. So,
135I try to explain to them what's going to happen, but I'm just going to talk about my program right now. The program is called Scutchins Family Youth Services. We provide 10 sessions of a 1.5 hour psycho educational group called the aggression reduction program. The pro the program runs from 2:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. twice a week at Thomas R. Proctor High School. We also have a class in the Udica Library. They allow me to bring the kids from probation nearer in a room to teach them. The thing about them, they are Proctor High School's students as well, even though they're not in the schools. So, we have to give an account for them. Scutchin Family Youth Services focuses on building social and emotional assets by promoting skills such as self-awareness, self-management, and responsible decision making.
136These programs equip candidates with the tools to navigate challenges, develop healthy relationship, and regulate their emotional their emotions effectively. We serve them lunch, breakfast, or whatever it is the time they come to us because there's an incentive to keep them in their seats. The goals intended outcome are to increase use of coping skills among participants, reductions in reported stress, anxieties, and emotional outbursts, improve classroom behavior and emotional self-regulation, increase student self-awareness and ability to express emotions appropriately. Outcome measurements process to determine success/goals attainment. Ongoing observation of participation within classes. Attendance of class. Students must demonstrate mastery of course material achieving 100 on the final test to graduate from the class. They can they can reach up to 150 on the test but all they need is 100 to graduate. Skill acquisition demonstrate ability to self-regulate.
137feedback from school staff probation and families applications and referral process. Scutchins Family Youth Services currently receives referrals through probation, the school district, associating agencies, the courts, and parents in general. That's how we get out our um referrals. And most of them, if not all, are proctor are proctor school kids. So, we're we're tracking that right now. future ideas, thoughts to strengthen students participation, field trips. I was the first person to bring the scared straight program to this area years ago. They won't allow me to do it now due to co. So, I told uh uh Lieutenant Campbell at the time I was dealing with um Officer Laughing House. I don't know if y'all know them, but they said um we can't allow you in here with the kids no more. I said, well, let's change
138the name and call it jail awareness. We need to bring them in there so they can be aware of what they can expect when they pass through them bars, sit in themselves, smell the atmosphere, get get a taste of what it is that they're heading for in terms of a education or going to one of these good colleges that we heard. community speakers. I bring people into the class that some who have graduated, some who are in the community, people who they can identify with like the judge. I just had Judge Facelli come and speak to a class of girls and some other individuals that we've graduated and that she put in the program. So, they was kind of like, "Wow, you know the judge." Yeah, that's where your referral your referral came from. documentary
139related to aggression reduction. I showed a scared straight program and I'm looking to u um collaborate and communicate with some of these system of care people that you've heard today. Continue encouragement to the parents to increase their participation. The parents are necessary to be a part of what's going on because they're learning stuff like different bailout options that they're going to use in the class. And the most common bailout option is to walk away. I had a young man go home and he walked away from his mother and she snatched him up and said, "Don't you walk away from me when I'm talking to you." That made me realize I got to involve these parents in this language so they won't take it as an offense when this child is imple implementing a bailout option.
140However, we have a 10-week uh course of sessions that we go over starting with motivation. What is your motivation for taking this course? There's several types of aggression. Physical property, verbal, and starting conflicts between others that these kids fall in the category self-power. There's two types, positive and negative. Triggers. Triggers are what set you off. a button that's pushed, bailout options, when I lose control, building self-esteem, supports we can use from others, feelings and communication, stopping people from becoming victims. That's what we do in our class and we're honored to work with the Udica School District. I want to thank the board for taking time out to hear our presentations. I also want to thank Dr. suspense. Um, especially when he came, I met with him and he was doing a bunch of town hall
141meetings and I was able to sit around the table and get some information. But we serve a diverse community. We got the Burmese, Vietnamese, Cambonians, Africans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Bosnians, the Ukrainians is here. We got the the Italians. We got the uh the uh French and whatever nationality you are sitting around this table. Well, we got one high school. That's all we got. So, in closing, I like to give honor to God who is the head of my life. This is my wife, Gloria Scutchkins. We both uh are in ministry. We have our own ministry and we was just awarded this proclamation from the town of Rome Sunday. We work in Rome as well. And I thought this was a pretty good gesture to let us know that we're on the right track. Anybody got
142any questions? >> Listen, I just I just got to say this. Can you keep talking for another 30 minutes cuz I'm learning something. >> Are you going on tour anytime soon? >> I got I got a question. You haven't you haven't man you haven't uh mentioned perseverance, manhood. >> Those are called principles I live by. Manhood, scholarship, perseverance, and uplift. It's important that they see that in me. >> We got to have you come back. >> Yes, indeed. >> Um, I also want to know while I got you here, I'm waiting for the uh gentleman of Omega Sci-Fi to incorporate the Omega Gent program at some point in our lineage. Uh, Mr. Good Brother himself. So, if you can reach out to the brothers for that one, we appreciate that program, too. >> Very much.
143I appreciate. >> Yes, indeed. Give your hands a hand. >> Have a nice day. Hold. Before we move, I I just want to ask a question. Um, >> sure thing. >> We There's a lot of information given out this evening from a lot of different organizations. And what I found, I'm not from here, but what I found in this city is that we can become tribal when we deal with one another. and we don't want to reach across the aisle uh to help one another kind of help our kids. Um, is there a way that there's some cross-pollination here where a lot of these system of care organizations can work together, collaborate to put more arms and more eyes on the kids that are in need? Because I see that a lot that one kid
144is in one program and another program or they're told that they can't be a part of that other program because they're here. But unfortunately, those kids are still part of the community and the more services that they can get, the better off they are and the better this community becomes. Uh, so I I hope we can kind of talk through that at some point to get us to play together in the sandbox and help our kids. Yes, Sam. >> Yes. Many of the system of care programs are part. So >> how about all I want all of them shape or another we are connecting. So if we have atrisisk youth we may reach out to the customers and family and say we have an atrisisk youth that is experiencing difficulties within the home setting. We'll
145reach out and we'll collaborate. I can has been extremely helpful with our youth who may need items such as getting a graduation um prom suit outfit um helping with hygiene products. I know we're trying to reach out to Danielle Corporation as well to receive those hygiene products. Um we also recently did for women's month it was I collaborated with I can to also do a women's empowerment. I do know in the past um I can and STEM at Mohawk Valley Community College have done a lot of work together um in reference to that as well. Um and then if students are struggling within the building and we know that another system of care offers that service, we reach out. So Hills also collaborates with OnPoint. Um so if we have a student that's interested into
146a college tour, we'll reach out and connect with OnPoint and say, "Hey, we have a college tour. um you have a college tour that's coming up, we have a student that's interested, is there any way that we can collaborate? And everyone usually says yes. So, in some way, shape or form, these system of care partners are already partnering together. Maybe not everyone every single time, but there are a lot of hands that we tap and we collect and we connect with one another. If we see a student struggling academically, we also support. Does someone have a tutoring program that they're offering? So, many of the system of care partners are already connecting and working together. So that's Hillside reaching out. Is it reciprocated? So >> reciprocated. It's reciprocated across the board. So I'm just speaking
147of Hillside because I can tell you what our collaborations look like and how we partner. Example, rise up. I can reach out. We'll send out emails to each other. Express and we have different events that we can collaborate and connect on. If we see each other within those within the meetings, we connect and we kind of share ideas. We do sit around the table. um for instance young scholars they have been able to say hey we want to connect with you so the sixth graders that we don't have because we service students 7th through 12th grade so the sixth graders if they have a cohort and after that number of four her goals if they have remaining students they'll reach out to us and say hey we have remaining students do they fit into your
148criteria for your program so a lot of the system units in some way shape or form are already touching points with each other to connect >> to answer your question on point we have collegiate access networks since 1970 where we've knit together different organizations all collaborating. We help the students not only the ones with the system of care but even beyond that to the corporate foundation other educational ones and appreciate all the involvement we do in the school system over that over the years and that's one way that we do a lot of extra collaboration also as well on points open to anyone to sign up so everyone and we actively go out to the system of care partner and others uh to try to encourage them to send over ones to on point so
149that we can partner up and just As you were astutely pointing out, the ideal situation may have multiple layers because only one challenge can stop a student out from graduating high school, from succeeding or from going on to college or succeeding in college. But if we all work together to try to cover each and every challenge, that's what needs to be done. So a very astute point uh James to bring up and but I think we're doing more and more every year and that's part because of the encouragement that Rachel Dry and the rest of the wonderful team led by the superintendent others provide this great encouragement in that to achieve the great goal that James was alluding to that we have that full collaboration with lots of partnering and every student and everyone has
150all their needs met and that's key to really getting the students to be able to achieve their education. and career goals. >> Thanks. >> Okay, any other questions? You were Rex, were you about to say something because I saw you at the podium? >> I was, but I think they really addressed the the fact that we are bringing them together at the table and having these conversations and and really creating that that conversation piece. And now some of our uh partners are actually doing meetings outside of the district, meeting with each other and creating their own opportunities as well. So it's it's really growing itself and creating quite a network within our partners. Um and to the point that we have other partners who are now connect contacting us wanting to also become part of
151what we're doing here because we're seeing the success that we are. >> Good. >> Thank you. >> Anything else, Rachel, or are you good? >> All right. Thank you, Rachel. >> I I'm going to I'm going to just take a five minute recess. >> I need to I apologize to those who are here for the uh public comment, but we need a fivem minute resets. It's been a while. Our agenda is public comment. be asked to state your name and address. You have a three-minute limit. Public comment portion of the board of education meeting is designed to give members of the public the opportunity to address the board related to school district operations. Each speaker shall be allotted three minutes to speak with the total time of public comment not to exceed 30 minutes per
152board meeting. >> No, it's three minutes per person. The board will not permit in public session discussion involving individual district personnel or students. Persons wishing to discuss matters involving individual district personnel or students should present their comments and/or concerns to the superintendent of schools during regular business hours. All speakers are to conduct themselves in a civil manner. Public outbursts, criticisms, and other distractions from the speakers presentation will also not be tolerated. Individuals who cause a disruption to the board meeting will be asked to leave. It's not the practice of the board to respond during the meeting to questions posed or comments made by speakers. Therefore, while the board will certainly take any questions or comments you might have under advisement, we will not be responding tonight to any questions you may have. Having stated that,
153up first is Dr. Miner, Cheryl B. Miner. >> I think Oh, she just signed in. Okay, >> up next, Howard Potter. >> Howard Potter, 11:38 Hilton A. Um, I think we learned a lot tonight by all these different organizations that came out. Uh, the amount of positive reinforcement they're doing after school and some Yes, >> I didn't mean to interrupt you. I thought Dr. >> Oh, >> we thought Dr. Miner wasn't >> Okay. Start. Yeah, start start him. Start him over. >> Yeah, she must be going to committee. So, start us clicker over, would you please? >> There you go. >> So, again, apologize. >> Oh, no, that's fine. So, basically, you know what I was hearing, I was going to talk about a bunch of different stuff, but I think what's been said is
154there's a lot of support in and around our school district. Um there's a lot for us to be thankful for and that's why I push and I advocate for us to talk about safety and security within and around our school buildings. Right? If they're doing all this after school care and all this rehabilitation now I've done independent living. I've done anger management skill sessions in the house good sheeperd. I've lived it for seven eight years of my life. That's why I'm up here speaking on these things. But what they're doing is very critical. And you know, when I hear that they can hire 184 or 187 staff within a short time period, you know, it makes me wonder, what can we learn from their organizations? I mean, we're not talking about just general positions. We're
155talking about therapists, you know, people dealing with anger management, teaching, they're hiring our own staff in these programs. And prior to this, we were having a hard time getting our staff to work in some of these programs for whatever the reason was. So, I think we can learn a lot from everything that they're doing. And I think we should get them more involved inside the school as far as we can because they seem to be doing it. But again, I wonder if we do improve safety and security, how can we improve the dropout rate? Because they're doing all this after school care and we're still at 121 kids at a dropout at a 17% rate that increased. You know, we only had 477 kids out of 713 graduate, right? there's there's more progress that has
156to be made and I just don't understand and no one can seem to to give the data or the answer to how we're going from 70% graduation rate to 67%. With all this after school care with the red program doing all these amazing things, right? Um the board approving going from 20 to 30 kids to the bridge program which helps lower classroom sizes for senior class, right? which then gets them graduating and into the workforce and a lower cost of education after, you know, graduating high school. These are all important things that I think if we sit down at the table and we gather with these people that are doing this this extra work outside of the school system, I think we can learn a lot from them. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Howard.
157Up next, Matt Matthew Kilborn. >> Good evening. >> By the way, Matt, happy birthday. >> Thank you very much. Not the time, not the not the way I exactly wanted to be spending my birthday tonight, but uh thank you for making waking making me and everybody else wait an extended amount of time and not sticking to your time constraints. I'll try to stick to my three minutes the best I can though. Good evening, President Havika, board members and district administration. My name is Matthew Kilborn, 150. As you can see, I don't even want to be here. My name is Matthew Kilborn. I'm a taxpayer resident and father of whose family has suffered repeated intentional civil rights violations at the hands of superintendent Spence for daring to exercise our constitutional rights. Public comment is a core
158first amendment right. Residents must be free to criticize district leadership and operations without retaliation or censorship. Yet this board has repeatedly terminated my lawful comments directly violating my First Amendment rights simply because I spoke the truth. Superintendent Spence has orchestrated a clear and escalating pattern of unconstitutional retaliation against me and my family. The Superintendent Spence filed multiple false reports with the Udica Police Departments. Those false reports led to an unlawful raid on my house, a blatant fourth amendment violation of my right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. And then after that, after I won my herpo case based on the evidence used against me, after that my daughter endured an excessive and unnecessary suspension that denied her fourth 14th amendment due process and her fundamental right to an education. When responding, Superintendent Spence,
159I sent him a formal civil civil rights demand letter under state se state statute 1983. He retaliated by further having me investigated for extortion. That investigation is now closed. You've done pissed off the Udica Police Department. You've done pissed off the district attorney's office. And you've done pissed off a lot of parents in this district. >> Could you could you at least stick to educational issues? Matt, I >> these actions, the due process denial to my daughter of 14th and the fourth amendment raid on my home, the retalatory extortion probe, and the repeated silencing of my public comments as you're attempting to do right now. perform an intentional campaign of civil rights violations that chills the right of every resident who seeks accountability from you mother >> my first amendment right not >> first amendment
160right >> Mr. President >> I have a right to finish >> that was a warning I want to finish >> nobody said that there's where's that in the policy where's that that's violation of my first amendment right violation of my first amendment right I can swear all I want I want I demand that this board immediately launch a full investigation in superintendent's pattern of first policy. We don't respond to comments whether they're not true, misleading, just fallacies. It's our policy, the board's policy that we don't respond those comments for the record. >> We'll just take a minute while they deal with Mr. Pil. like to make a motion for a brief recess while it's being dealt with. >> Maybe you should call your boss. Mr. President, I move for a brief recess while the situation
161is being dealt with. >> We are going to go into recess until the disruption has been taken care of. For what? >> Are you going to sign a trespass? >> All right. Now we can get back to uh announcements and reports. PTO, PTA, shared decisionmaking committees, student councils, cse chairs, title one, UTA. >> Okay. >> Hello board members and administrators and public. I'm Connie Hustler. I'm the UTA VP at large. I'm an occupational therapist in the district. I currently work at Columbus School, but I have worked in every elementary school. Never worked at JFK. That's the only school I haven't set my feet in for for work purposes. Um, I'd like to acknowledge this past Wednesday was administrative administrative assistance day and we could not survive without them in our schools and our admin office.
162We really appreciate all of you and I'm sure we all appreciate them. They do a lot of work behind the scenes that we don't see. As a union, we were challenged by administration that other teachers would not want to come to Udica to work if the Udica teachers didn't portray a positive outlook. So, we created a public Facebook page to promote our involvement in the community. We've tried to post our community involvement such as the fix fixed tier six rally. There was multiple um Udica people that went sleep in heavenly peace where our the beds we made went to our students handing out books um from NISA in the UTA or in the St. Patrick's Day parade. Um our teachers in the community with our UTA banner upcoming events um we have a golf tournament
163coming up. Um countywide job postings special days like Earth Day and what different schools did. And we're planning an autism walk. And I have a slide at Sunni Pali. If anyone would like to join us, we have a UTA team. Um, speaking of our golf tournament, we also have a slide for our golf tournament if anyone would like to join us. This the funds that we raise go to a scholar, a senior scholar at Proctor that's going to school to be a teacher. And they keep they keep the funds for four years till they graduate as a undergrad for teaching. So, it's very important to us that we raise money. Um, it's in in the name of Larry Castadero and Norm Stamboli. This year, they are being honored at the golf tournament. This year, the
164school district is working on instructional priorities and smart goals. We have posters in every school and we are all working towards these goals. Tenant 2, goal four is reduce teacher turnover for teachers that are that have fewer than five years. However, we know recruitment is difficult and the changes to the classification of professional jobs is going to cause future teachers to struggle to get loans. They're going to take out more highinterest loans. Um, it's going to really affect who goes into teaching. Um, we also have a high rate of teachers eligible for retirement coming up. Anyone hired in 1998 will have 30 years in 2028 and they will be able to retire. I was hired in 1998. N Yes. 1998. And it was the first year UDICA had an orientation. It was three days. It
165was at at JFK and they hired over 70 people because the tier ones were phasing out and they hadn't had an orientation in they said probably five 10 years. So it was it's a big group of people that came in. Oh, I have a little So this this is just UTA members that are going to retire or have 30 years in over the next five years. So in in coordination with trying to get teachers to come to Udica, maybe we can do something to get our teachers to stay instead of retire. I I don't know what that is, but maybe we can all work together to to create a better environment for them to stay and not think about retirement. I'm one of those. So, okay, my next my next slide is about the teaching
166day. The teaching day. We all know teachers and staff have been tasked over the last six years since COVID with more responsibility, more data collection. We have asked teachers to add restorative practices to their daily their daily schedule. We've so social emotional learning tenant five goal 10 to implement a districtwide social emotional framework that also fits in there through our positivity project. School counselors come in monthly into every classroom and do interventions. System of care referrals. We have I can workers and safe schools workers that help take care of our kids that can't maybe experience lunch in a big group. So they take small groups. Teachers refer them. It's a process. RTI data collection for students at risk. Our copers are often broken, taking more time out of our day. And there is much more
167differentiation going on in our classrooms than there ever was because of the different levels of students. Students are in school six hours or approximately six minute 600 360 minutes. So let's look at a typical school day. I use a K4 schedule because five and six change classes and it's a much more complex schedule for them. So ELA is about 90 minutes. We use a super kids curriculum. The map the curriculum map is very fast-paced and it takes the full time for teaching reteing everything that they have to do. Math is six 60 minutes. I ready is 30 minutes. Their special is 30 minutes. Lunch is 40 minutes. Social studies and science is 30 minutes. They go to the bathroom as a group, three bathroom breaks a day. That's 30 minutes. Um the positivity project is
16810 minutes a day. And they have sometimes flex time 30 minutes a day. And that's when RTI AIS um related service pulls students out of the class. And that's a lot of interruption. People come into the we try to do it all at the same time in my school so that everybody leaves together. That leaves zero extra minutes in the day. Teachers are working on tenant one goal one improve goal one and two improving attendance. Parent square to the parents. They're always communicating. They're checking attend with the attendance teacher. They're they're making sure the letters are are processed and sent out. So, and and we are piloting UFly and the Dibbles program which is going to be added to this schedule and we're already packed. Where is it going to fit? What are we going
169to take out of this schedule for that to fit into this day? And I'm not I'm not dissing the program. The program could be wonderful. I don't I don't know the program, but we just need to know how we're going to adjust our day to fit it in. We're we're supposed to according to ten at 3 goal 7 teach the curriculum with fidelity and I see teachers doing that all day long. We just don't know where where are we going to put more into this schedule. Um the schoolwide motto is be responsible, be respectful, be safe. As you will see, we're going to release this survey on Thursday to the board and uh um everybody, staff does not feel that the district is responsive to their needs. The district is not respectful of staff in
170many instances and we do not feel the district takes our safety as a priority. I was um in the hallway and a very reputable teacher walked out of the office. she had something that she was told she had to do immediately and this was her comment if they would only let me teach. That's what teachers want to do. They just want to teach our kids. They don't want to have more and more responsibility put on them and then to have someone turn around and say, "Well, you're not teaching." That's what we want to do. That's what we're here for and that's what we all need to work together for. Thank you. >> Thank you. UAA. >> Well, good evening board pres president, superintendent Dr. Spence, board members, and all who are present this evening and
171on behalf of UAA, thanks for the opportunity to speak on the budgetary items included in the budget as a result of Dr. Spenc's direction and vision for what is already working. I'm Cheryl Miner, principal of Watson Williams Elementary, school leader in the Udica City School District for 32 years and is grateful to be here to explain some of the things that the UAA are grateful for. I thank Dr. Spence and the board of education for prioritizing key areas that directly impact student success, including strengthening school leadership by including additional support for assistant principles in the largest elementary schools, which will help ensure more effective instructional oversight, allow for more individualized support for students, and enable teachers and staff to receive timely guidance and assistance. distance. This investment will enable school leaders to be more present
172and responsive to students and staff, ultimately fostering a stronger, more supportive learning environment. BA just capitalizing on what has already been said by the UDICA teachers association proposing district-wide researchbased professional development to enhance instructional quality, leadership capacity and student support systems that will lead to a higher student achievement and measurable growth and outcomes across our schools. being a champion of change and continuing our Raiders extended day red after school program which greatly supports families to pro by providing academic enrichment and social emotional support after school. F focusing on the continuation of summer school enrichment programming in STEM and in the arts which increases access to learning opportunities for all students. And last but not least, investing in ongoing technology upgrades to ensure we have the most modern tools in our daily learning environments. Dr. Dispense,
173I commend you and the board of education for sustaining your mission and extending your vision to provide a high quality, safe and supportive learning environment that reaches all learners, enhance students graduation rates, and helps students become lifelong learners and productive members of society. Again, thanks for all that you do. your investment in the students and staff of our district and for collaborating to ensure these initiatives succeed. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you, Dr. Miner. >> Okay. Um, UTC Teamsters Local 182, Local 200 United, SEIU. >> Hi everyone. >> Hello. >> My name is Christina Sutter, SEIU TA Chair for the all the TAs in the Udica district. And this is going to be short and sweet. I am happy to report that we've had some few positives since the last board meeting. We've
174had a temporary we have a temporary fix to some of our staffing shortages and we are looking forward to creating more permanent solutions for that staffing. So, thank you. We had a productive labor management meeting with admin and talk through solutions to some long-term issues. We also had some meetings scheduled in the next couple of weeks that I'm sure will be productive as well. We feel that we have established a good communicative work atmosphere where we can collaboratively work out our solutions to the problems that we bring to the table because that's our goal. Let's work on our problems. Again, as a member of the new SEIU leadership, I need to applaud all of my fellow co-workers from security to building admin and everyone in between for their neverending dedication to the education of our
175students. I work with some incredible people. We need to remember that we need each other. We need to support each other and we we are a great incredible team. I also want to thank you Udica City School District admin Dr. Spence and the board of education for continually offering us a seat at the table. Thank you. Good night. >> Wow. Thank you. Mo Valley Buildings and Trades. Okay. Um are we doing a treasures report today? >> Heather said yes. >> Okay, Heather. Now listen, before you are you also doing a budget status report? >> Uh I believe so. Yes. >> Okay. Well, the only reason I'm asking is because you know we are going to be having a budget hearing on May. >> So this is just the regular report that our treasur would provide.
176>> Yes. I just wanted to mention that we are having a budget hearing >> on May 5th at 5:00 at Proctctor High School in the auditorium. >> No, we're here. >> What time? Isn't it here? >> 5:00. >> On what day? Isn't it >> May 5th? >> All right. >> What's that? >> It's here. >> No, >> it's going to be at Proctor. >> We're We're expecting a lot of people. Yeah, we need space. >> We are. >> Okay. >> I'm here on behalf of our treasur tonight. he wanted to share with me. Uh he and his wife have just become first-time parents. It's very exciting. Blessed new life. Um he's very very excited. Um been very very dedicated and responsible the past couple of weeks even though he's so excited. But um he did
177finish his December, January, and February reports. Very excited that we're up to date on schedule. Um we've been through an internal audit lately and so they were very happy to see that we've been meeting all the internal controls. Now, one thing I want to share that we he and I spoke about today is one thing you don't see in these reports is that he does prepare them, but I do go over them and review them with him and we look for we look for efficiencies and and different things that we could do to to be better. Um, so there is a review of these reports before you receive them. And the last thing he wanted me to mention to you, he's been investing. Uh, we've received two rather large checks uh for for state aid
178uh one in January and one in March. Um, he also wanted me to mention and I think this might have been discussed previously, the ESSA ARP funding that we had expected, the 3.2 million came in in early March as we had expected. Um, that too has also been invested. Um, so >> so we didn't lose that money? >> No. No. >> Oh, well, there were reports to the contrary. >> Yes. So, it was always expected. We kept constant communication with with the state and they had assured us and reassured us that it was on its way and it did indeed come in early March. So, I don't know if you have any questions for me. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Heather. Me too. >> Amry, is she here? We're talking Plato recovery right now.
179>> First is late. >> We're going to talk about Plato recovery. So again, Plato recovery is one of the levers that we have within the organization to make sure that our students are graduating in a timely manner. We're looking to expand that. And so for the board's view, because we're actually asking the board to take action, we want to just give you an overview of what that work looks like. Again, we have a a variety of students with complex needs, and our job is to expand the opportunity structure by giving students every uh um means to be successful in traverse through the system. So, Amarie will talk about that particularly at the high school, and it's one of the things again that we're looking to expand an existing structure. >> All right, turn over. Okay.
180>> Sorry, Principal Palibino. >> Good evening again. >> All right. So, I'm not going to review our mission and vision. I think we've all heard it and we know it. Same with our instructional strategies and our goals. We've talked about those over and over. Um, I'm here to educate you on the Plato recovery program. We've had some questions about that. Um, pursuant of the commissioner's regulations. Um, students can earn a credit for an incomplete or failed course. And I'm not going to read it. I'm just going to talk. I don't like just reading from a slide. If they I so you can read it and then I'll check it out. Um, so basically if they take a class and they fail it, they have to they can sit on Plato recovery. They have to sit
181for the class though. So So say it's a living environment class, you have to sit for it. And then if you fail the class and say maybe pass the regions, but you still need the credit for the class, you could take Plato recovery. and we currently use it's called Plato Credit Recovery. Edum is the company and the program allows students to take a course they did not pass. Um before they take the class though online, they have to take a test. So if they learned and mastered some of the um standards, they don't have to go back and redo those. So they can take their tests and it pushes them right up to where they need to learn. They get the rest of the standards, they take the test, they pass, and then they get
182their credit for their class. And I know Mr. Felchy can speak to this because I know he was there when they did it in 2009. Um, it was the first high school to start the Plato recovery and it was a great model that the Boseies actually adopted it and they they use it also. Um, it's offered during the school year just for seniors right now in danger of not meeting their requirements. All right. Qualifying students are enrolled at Play-Doh and they have a lab in their schedule. They have one full-time Play-Doh specialist right at the building so kids can go in. We can keep them after school. Um, we just do everything we can to get the kids on. We're constantly calling them. We track them with data and we have a school counselor assigned
183to Plato. again, tracking the data, calling home, sending the attendance officers home, using the parent liaison because you want to get those kids their credits obviously so they can graduate on time. Um, so analyzing our current cohort, our 2022 cohort, um, we want to expand the credit recovery to offer Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:30 to 4:30 to give kids extra time because we don't want them to wait until June, you know, we don't want to say, "Oh, we're going to wait right till the last minute. Hopefully they get this cradle Plato recovery done. We want to get those kids in, keep calling, get the parents, go to their houses, do whatever we needed to do because last summer, you know, we had some students that needed to get it done. And like we were going to
184the houses, we were doing everything we could to get the kids in, overcommunicating, getting tons of people involved in it. And it's a lot cuz we have one Plato recovery teacher. So I said, "We got to get her help. She can't do this by herself." So I had a lot of frequent meetings with her. And then we also had Saturdays because there's a lot of kids maybe that have to work. So we want to provide busing for them to come and we have about 100 students are participating in the sessions and we're going to fund it through title monies. So we're able to do that through extended learning time. So they have money's built in for that anyway. So here's our components for the program. Again it's title funding the teacher aotment counselors security administrators
185parent leaison transportation about 10 teachers over the course of those three days few counselors obviously security on the Saturdays um administration to oversee the program parent leaison the kids don't they don't show up and call home we don't get a hold of anybody they're going to go right to the house they're going to find out what's going on and the transportation for this Saturday so that's our total for the budget But again, it's title funding. So, >> what are your specific questions on >> I said I have a question. Are we doing any >> Are we doing a regent um review? >> Yeah, there's regent review going on right now >> at the same time on Saturdays just >> with this. >> No, the school's going to be open, right? >> They have some Saturday.
186Some teachers do have Saturday, but not like from every single regent that we're offering. No. like certain teachers do it on their own and they offer it to the students but it's not like a there's more to come. I have a lot of ideas but you know >> okay >> you got to give it a little bit of time. >> I have two I have two questions. Um is attendance a criteria to be enrolled in this program? Like what is the criteria to >> Well, if you if you fail a class and you sit for Plato >> Yeah. >> like you're in school, it's on your schedule for and you can work on it online too at home. Some some students work on it like at midnight. >> They just want they have to get
187it done. >> Um >> I I think sorry maybe to just to wrap that up. Do you have >> do you have to the class that you fat >> does the student have to meet certain attendance >> criteria exact class in order to be eligible to take Plato in the first place? Is that the question you were trying to ask Dana? >> Yeah. Like I just didn't know like what makes you that there was a >> when you fail a class we just look at the final average >> you know so we're not looking at their discipline record we're not looking at their attendance you're just looking at their academic >> average technically would be anybody who does fail the class is eligible for this program there's not >> right now currently seniors >> okay
188>> so I just want to ask this kind of clarify for me because initially you were saying >> you have to sit for the class so I don't know if that's an attendance Well, now I think she means >> Well, no, like you you physically have the class in your schedule and you go to class whether you go or you don't go. >> Okay. >> Right. >> That's where >> cuz I know like doesn't summer school attendance play the factor and it's no >> right. Okay. That's >> I forgot. >> When they are in Plato, they obviously have to attend to do it. They have to get on the program and it tracks them where they are and you can monitor it throughout. Um, so obviously we're going to work in the summer. There's certain
189kids too like they have a five-year track or sixear track. We, you know, way before I started, some of these kids are still trying to get their credits. So it's not just kids graduating this year. You still have kids trying to finish up in the five years or the six years cuz you know, you still want them to finish. Um, and we I've put in a request for the budget to expand the um, credit recovery next year for juniors. Cuz what I found out being at Proctor for the short time I was there, there are students that by the time they get to a senior, they might need like eight classes. Like that's a lot. So, we don't we want to catch them up quicker. So, going into the next year, they'll be more successful.
190They won't have as many classes and hopefully the graduation rate will go up. That's >> Oh, I had a question about transportation. Is that still aidable? Like because it's I don't know. I don't want to say an optional but it's like will the busing be the 21,000? Is that eight or >> so? It depends on the funding source. >> It's title funding. Title funding. >> Yeah. If it's if it's federal dollars and it's it doesn't No, that Okay. That's what I thought. Yeah, that's okay. So then I think this is a this is follow up onto the budgetary matters. It's $41,186 for this year this expansion. Have we identified the source of where we're it's just all is it new title money or is it being used from somewhere else? >> We have extended learning
191time and we're extending learning time. So we're >> it's the ELT grants. We have the title four title one. Yes. >> Okay. All right. Any other questions on this? >> More to come. >> I'm in favor of expanding it. >> Not this late. >> Thank you. >> Good night. >> Um, do we want to Up next is the superintendence report. I need a someone wants to make a motion. That's fine. >> I'll move to go into executive session, discuss legal matters, personnel. >> I'll second it. >> Any other uh all in favor? >> I >> opposed. Second. >> All in favor? Okay. Uh, Dr. Spence, would you like to recommend your superintendence report? >> Yes, I would. I'm offering it at this time. >> Okay. Okay. And we will be adding pages 60. >> Yes,
192that's correct. Um, we we will be adding what's the last number in the page? Braden, what's >> 60 6162? >> 60 6162. And that is the resolution for Adrien Xavier Howard, which we actually did earlier. a resolution to appoint the Udica City School District Assistant poll clerks, election inspectors for the annual election vote and public budget vote for May 19. Um, and speaking of that, I need to correct myself in terms of the location of our budget hearing. That will be actually in the boardroom um on May 5th at 5:00 p.m. That's May 5th, 5:00 p.m. in the boardroom here. There'll be notices put out um actually probably after this meeting and there'll be mailers and other things. So everyone is welcome to come and ask us questions. Um in addition to that there is
193a resolution to approve the agreed upon procedures internal audit testing. We're going to have Miss Moat just kind of give a brief explanation when the time comes um to about that and the resolution to approve the agreed upon procedures internal audit testing corrective action plan. There is also a resolution to approve a termination. There's also resolution to approve paid administrative leaves. Another resolution to approve paid administrative leave. Um I have been advised that page 22 and page 39 at the bottom um will both be >> 22 at the bottom. 22 at the bottom and page 39 will be removed for uh initial consideration. So I or individual consideration. Can I have a motion to adopt the superintendent's report as outlined by me right there? >> Move it. >> Second. >> Okay. Now, um I'd like
194to ask Miss Moat if you would just explain what is the resolution to pre approve of the agreed upon procedures internal audit testing. Give a little background on what that was and then talk about what the um what the uh uh yeah So annually we're required to have an internal risk assessment and what that is by outside auditors and what that is is they come in and they take a look at all our segregation of duties all our internal controls and they test certain things to see where the risk is. So some things are deemed low risk, medium risk or high risk. They also do a number of interviews with administration um to find out if they're following these internal controls, if the proper staff is doing it. And then they come back to the
195audit and audit and excuse me, finance committee. Um and they on behalf of the board take a look at what are the areas that they feel that are risky that should be further tested and it was decided about maybe nine months ago after that internal risk assess assessment was done that payroll should should have a deep dive and I think that that was something that most of the board I know um Miss N and Miss Padulla uh had a sensitivity to and and that was because we were having some difficulties in the business offices as it related to payment of time cards. Um, under Dr. Spence's leadership, we were able to hire an additional employee, which has alleviated the majority of problems and timing of getting time cards inputed correctly under correct account codes um,
196and having people paid on time. We've been very, very excited about that. But as part of that process and as part of that those agreed upon procedures, they took a look at everything from do we keep prop proper records W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W4s, are we making sure that if someone's married and they filled out married on their their their um um W4s that they're really married in the system um took a look at health insurance deductions, compared those to what the the u the forms that were filled out by the employees. Took a look at payroll changes. the
197HR department makes a variety of payroll changes just like tonight you are approving hiring new people, someone has to go in and put the pay rates in and and the timing of all that. Um I'm pretty excited to say as a team uh the HR department, the benefits department and the business office worked together and and we felt that it was really great results that came out of this. The one thing they kind of did isolate which we after talking with um Sarah we we definitely agreed on was that the business office should take a second review once a payroll change is made I can go in and take a look at a payroll change form so that anytime someone someone's pay rate or um uh frequency is being changed that there is a second
198person checking to make sure that it's correct. So, we've we've uh isolated a individual within our office to be doing that and we're excited to get that implemented and I think it was a it really was a great recommendation um from the firm. Um so, we were very excited by the results of this. There were a number of samples that were taken. It took us a long time. It took us a deep dive for a lot of stuff and I didn't know that we could get it done in the time that was allotted, but we did. And I'm just proud of the whole business office, the HR office and benefits. Very good work. >> Thank you. And so did you tell us what is that basically you summarized what the uh corrective action plan was?
199Is that >> Yeah, the only other and it was an isolated event where we couldn't find a particular W4 for an employee and that just means that's a withholdings, right? They're still an employee. It was from seven or eight years ago. There were several of them actually from seven or eight years ago. I don't think there was anything current. I don't recall. I don't think so. But it was a very small uh amount based on the the population that they were testing. >> Okay. Does anyone else have any questions about this? Okay. Anybody else have any questions or comments about the superintendent report that we've had as proposed? All right. All in favor for adopting the superintendence report as reflected with the changes. >> I opposed. It's adopted. I need a motion to consider page
20022 at the bottom. >> So move. >> Second. >> Okay. All in favor? >> Any abstensions? >> Okay. Do I need a motion to consider the bottom of page or I'm sorry, page 39? >> So move. >> Second. >> Okay. All in favor? >> Any abstensions? >> Okay. The motion passes. We are now through the superintendent report. Up next reports to special committee. Part of the superintendent report. You will see that there were some special elections for the OSE. Um and those will be uh members of other boards of other districts that will be elected. Believe that we are adopting the budget as well. Um I think our next meeting is the second two second one. So I'll be there. Um audit and finance we uh We just finished the work on that budget. I
201mean on that audit. We we will be um at the budget hearing. Sorry. We'll be at the budget hearing on May 5th, 5:00 here in our boardroom. I had to change the lo, you know, I had to revert the the location back to here. Okay. Anything from capital projects, buildings and grounds, health and safety? >> We actually have a meeting scheduled tomorrow. >> Excellent. Career CTE, anything to report? >> No, we meet we meet again in May, I believe. >> Okay. PA committee, we had a meeting last week. Seems so long ago. Um and they were discussing the um eligibility um changes or or policy um I think that's still being worked on. Hopefully we'll get something uh squared away. Uh policy committee anything to report? >> Yes, we met earlier this month. We have
202actually under new business. We'll have four two policies, two regulations to adopt as amended. uh next policy committee meeting should have been the 5th, which is now the budget hearing. So, we have to find a new date for that. Um I'll either try to coordinate on the way out to figure out a date or send an email tomorrow, but that probably needs to be next week or very early the following week. So, we'll figure out a date for that to talk about uh student governance policies. >> Outstanding. I'll look forward to it. Um code of conduct. Anything to report? >> Nothing to report. Haven't met. Uh we've met once this year. We looked at doing this quarterly, but um we haven't had a meeting as of late. >> Okay. Communications, equity, and outreach. >> Yes.
203Our meeting was not the policy tried to bump, but that's been bumped, too. So, we just need to res. >> Excellent. I need a motion to approve the March 24, 2026 special meeting and March 30, 2026 special and regular meeting minutes. >> Second. >> Okay. Any corrections, deletions, additions? Hearing none. All in favor? >> Opposed. Continuing business. New business. Yes. New business. I'm going to just list them all together as one motion. Make a motion to adopt policy 1001 uh as amended and policy 7531 as amended as well as regulations 1001.1 and 1001.2 as amended. >> Okay. Need a second. Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carries. Any communication? >> Tanal. >> Okay. Motion to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing the employment history of the particular person.
204>> Okay. Need a second. >> We're going in. >> Session. >> Second. All in favor? I >> need a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to >> miss it. Well, we are adjourned.