BOE Meeting - Monday November 10th @ 6:30pm

001Okay, we'll make a motion to come out of executive session at 6:41. >> Katie second. >> Diana, all in favor? >> Opposed? 70. Thank you. We'll now call to order the Monday, November 10th regular meeting of the board of ed at 6:42. [clears throat] And we will begin with the pledge, please. >> [snorts] >> Okay, just some housekeeping. Please take note of the emergency exits on the side behind you. There's no smoking anywhere on school property and if you're planning to address the board, please sign in on the sheet provided. This meeting is being streamed on our district YouTube page and we are going to begin with correspondence. >> Just want to remind just checking can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Thank you everyone. Um, the OSPA delegates meeting is virtual and it's on Tuesday,

002December 2nd at 7 p.m. >> That's all I have correspondence. >> Okay. Commendations. >> So, honorable mentions. We at Valley Central High School, the senior faculty te took place on October 16th. At Valley Central High School, the National French Honor Society induction was Wednesday, November 5th. The Shakespeare Club at the high school presented the Tempest on October 23rd and 25th and the National Honor Society induction took place on Thursday, November 6th at the high school as well. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. I actually have a commendation also. So, um, couple weeks ago, we went to a board event and there was a bunch of engineering firms there and a young lady who was an architect came up and was talking to us and she happened to be a Valley Central graduate. And so, she

003was talking about a ESL teacher who she said changed her life. So, afterwards, I reached back out to get some more information and I just wanted to share um what she what she said. her her name was Ingred Cauldron at the time said, "Please pass along my heartfelt gratitude to Miss Enriquez and Mr. Bulman." Miss Enriquez was my ESL teacher in high school and Mr. Bleman taught me 10th grade science. Their patience, encouragement, and belief in me made a lasting difference. Please also let Mrs. Mrs. Martin social studies know how much I appreciated her guidance and learning to be strong and assertive while I was still mastering English. I would be grateful if you could share my sincere gratitude with them. So, thank you very much. It's nice. Okay. All right. We will move on

004and we have uh East Coldenham with us tonight for a student presentation. Thank you. [applause] Guess I should have done that before I hit the button. >> Good evening. Thank you for having us tonight. Uh with me tonight and presenting to you tonight is the student council. I got it right. I've been seeing SGA for the last two years. And the student council is newly elected as of last Thursday. Right. And here are your officers. So congratulations to you. and they're going to talk to you a little bit about what they plan to do to work with me this year to help make East Coldenham a better place. And with them tonight is Mrs. Brown, the student council adviser. So, I'll turn it over to her. >> Thank you so much. Good evening, ladies and

005gentlemen, and to the board. Thank you so much for allowing us to present tonight. The kids are really excited to share some of the things that we've done at our school. Um, like Dr. McDonald said, "These guys are the four officers who were elected for student council, and we have 18 members on our student council, but these guys chose to um come and help me out here tonight and share a little bit about what we do. Hello, my name is Jimmy Antinelli and two weeks ago I was voted in as the new student council president at East Colam. This is my second year on the student council and I am excited to have a leadership role this year. For our election this year, we have to give a speech to all of the third, fourth,

006and fifth grader grade students. We also made posters around the school encouraging people to vote for us. These are my friends who were also voted in. TJ Capensus is vice president. Killian and Dolce is treasurer and Elise Gomez is secretary. We are all looking forward to a fun-filled year. >> Hi, I'm TJ Camosakis and one of the ways we encourage school spirit and a sense of belonging at EC is by creating interactive bulletin boards. At our at our student council meetings, we decide with Miss Brown what the next bulletin board theme will be. Every student in the school gets to make a shape for the board. Students love to walk by and see their pieces of display. Some boards we have done are April showers bring April showers brim flowers share the love and we

007are snow different. Hello. Hello. I'm Elise Gomez and at East Coldenham, we want all the students to feel like they have a voice. Every month, each student council representative visits their assigned classroom. This year, I am the representative for Miss Brown's class. I go into the classroom to tell the students about upcoming events and spirit days. I also ask for input from the class about ideas that they have for schoolwide build more and spirit days that they would like. Then I report back to the student council and we vote on all the ideas. Hi, I'm Killian and Dulkick and the student council at East Gordonham has an amazing impact in our community. Every November, we hold a Thanksgiving food drive. We not only provide baskets of food for EC families, but the remaining food items

008collected gets donated to the McGomery Food Pantry. Last year, we increased our collection from 460 food items to 815 items. In June, we hosted a cereal box Domino challenge. We collected boxes of cereal in we collected boxes of cereal and set them up in a huge domino chain. Then we knocked them over to over for the whole school to see. Last year we increased our collection from 75 boxes to 208 boxes and the Domino Train made a huge circle. It was awesome. We also donate all of the cereal collected to the McGomery Food Pantry. It will be my job as treasurer this year to record and keep track of all of our collections. From 2023 to 2024, East Coldham participated in a recycling challenge with the company TX. If we collected 1,000 lbs of soft

009plastic, we could earn a bench for our school made of TX materials. Student council members were in charge of separating the plastic bins from the garbage that students sometimes put in the collection bins. It was a dirty job, but [snorts] but we knew it was for a good cause. Every month we emptied the large recycling bins and weighed the plastic with a hand scale. In December, we hit our goal and earned the bench. The company even sent us sent us color choices and we got to choose which bench we wanted for our school. Since then, we have replaced the soft plastic collection with a plastic water bottle collection. And we are still and we are continuing to recycle. Along with collecting food at the Thanksgiving and cereal before summer, we also hold several events during

010the winter. Last year, we collected 72 pairs of pajamas. These pajamas were given to students in need at Christmas time. We also had a mitten glove and hat drives. When these items were donated, they were horn on clothes lines around the building. If a student did not have appropriate winter gear for the cold weather days, they were able to take and keep what they needed. We love participating on the student council and helping out to make EC a great place to go to school. Our other fifth grade members include Bailey, Grant, Emma S, Kinley, McKenzie, Edison, and Emma B. Our fourth our fourth grade members include Owen, McKenna, Axel, Josephine, Lucas, Cameron, and Giana. We hope you enjoy hearing about the student council at East School. [applause] >> All right. Thank you very much. That

011was great, guys. Thank you. [applause] Okay. Uh, next we'll move on to the consent agenda. Can I get a motion to approve? >> Second. >> Fran discussion. All in favor? >> Opposed? 70. Thank you. Next, we'll move on to reports and we'll begin with our student representatives. for the recent activities in the high school. We recently had our color run which was ran by the VCHS National Art Honor Society on October 26th. The 2026 musical was also announced for the high school which will be the newsies. Auditions for that will be happening soon. The French Honor Society had their induction on November 5th and the English Honor Society had their their induction just recently on November 6th and the VC math team won against Pine Bush High School on November 5th scoring 11 points. We

012are also excited to announce up upcoming events at the high school such as the Spanish Honor Society induction which will be held this week on November 13th. Parent teacher conferences which are scheduled for November 24th and 25th. Our student recognition night for the high school will be on December 2nd and our student recognition night for the middle school will be on December 4th. Our JV and winter sports start on Monday, November 17th. and all our elementary schools are currently will be hosting book fairs. In BC in BC sports, the varsity football won against Kingston, qualifying them into the playoffs after a whole decade. They also defeated Beacon, leading them further into the playoffs. Just last week, varsity football went to playoffs against Monro Woodbury on November 7th for the first time in a decade. Varsity

013volleyball advanced to the section 9 championship, which was being held at Mount St. Mary's on November 9th. Boys and girls section 9 cross country met on November 4th and went very well. Jack Dudzik meddled for the boys team on October 26th at the OCIA Championships. The girls swimming and diving team had an outstanding performance at the OCIAA Division One Championships where four of our swimmers placed in the top four of the division. And that's all for the students. >> All right. Thank you. >> Okay. I think I think the girls volleyball play tomorrow, right? >> Yes. >> 10 a.m. >> Nice. Okay. All right. Next, we'll move on to superintendent schools. >> October 16th to the 18th. I had the pleasure of attending a Atlas um ALASS conference and that is a conference for administrators

014and superintendent and at that conference I had the pleasure of presenting to potential superintendent and there were people who are studying to be superintendent and uh sitting on a panel and speaking to them about the pleasure of being a superintendent and board relations and there's a great opportunity to highlight Valley Central. now they all want to come and work here. Um I also attended the NISPA conference with several board members. Um had an opportunity to s attend several sessions to learn about many different uh new things that are coming across and also share with other districts what they're doing and their best practices. On October 28th, I attended the Halloween concert at the high school and heard lots of spooky and scary music and was able to enjoy the way the students and the staff

015dressed up in costumes and played lovely music and they definitely challenged themselves and did an outstanding job. As our student reps u mentioned, our varsity football playoffs happened on November 7th and after 10 years, our varsity football team made the playoffs. They they deserve a round of applause [applause] as usual. They worked very very hard this season and was happy to see them on uh the 7th at Maro Woodbury. Our swim and dive section uh section 9 championships happened this weekend. I had the pleasure of being there on Saturday and um firsthand senior Molly Hoover was crowned the section 9 champion in the 100 butterfly with a time of 59.69. I was happy to see Molly win. Uh Molly also finished fourth in the 50 freestyle. Senior Eleanor O'Neal took the bronze medal in diving

016with a personal best score of 496 points. Both Molly and Eleanor will continue to compete next week at the New York State Championships in Webster, New York. Valley Central overall finished in fourth place as a team, their highest finished in many, many years. They also deserve a round of applause. [applause] And our girls volleyball team beat Pine Bush on Friday night, November 7th, and they have the OP. That was section 9 championships and they will be playing tomorrow at Mount St. Mary's at 10:00 a.m. So please, if you have the opportunity, please join them and and cheer them on. They are working extremely hard and I already told them I know that they can do it. Thank you. [applause] >> Next, we'll move on to Superintendent for Business. >> All right, we like that guy.

017All right, move on to assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. >> Thank you. I'll be very short tonight. Um, we did have our November 4th conference with over 40 different sessions available to our our teachers um at Boseies as well as in-house. And the feedback that we've received so far, we have about almost 200 uh people that have given feedback has been very positive and thankful for the different opportunities. I do want to stress that one of our goals is to provide differentiated targeted professional learning for our teachers and staff and we are doing our utmost um to follow through with any feedback that we are getting and making sure that we're meeting our teachers where they are so that we can also m model for our teachers to meet our students where they are.

018Um additionally to that I know I said I was going to be short. Additionally to that, we had our tech steering committee, our our first base meeting for uh the school year at Walden. We had a decent turnout of about 10 parents. It was very nice. Uh we used to be fair, we used to have one, but um but we are seeing we are seeing an increase and hope to continue to see an increase at our face meetings. If you don't know what FACE is, our it's our family and community engagement meetings. They are at each one of our elementary schools and our high school. We do send out an agenda the week of. Please take a look and please join us as well. It's a lot of good information and just a nice conversation

019as well. We also had our grading committee and our DEI as well. That's all. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next, our assistant superintendent for human resources. >> Good evening everyone. Uh at our last meeting, we hired four PAR professionals and one administrator. On this agenda, we are hiring or we are recommending for hire three par profofessionals and one custodial worker. On October 16th, I had the pleasure of attending the high school senior tea event for faculty. It was a pleasure to attend this timehonored tradition and learn more about its history here at Valley Central. On October 24th, I was invited over here to Berea for the Berea Baristas event. Uh it was wonderful to see how happy and excited the students were to see the opening of that initiative. Uh, so thank you to the

020Burria community for inviting me to that. And that's it for me. >> All right. Thank you. Next is the New York State School Board annual convention update. So we'll just go around Robin if anybody has anything that they'd like to share. Fran, start with you. Um, if you haven't watched any of Steve Hartman's um, videos around kindness 101, it really is very uplifting to watch really positive human interest stories about the good that's happening in our country. Um, and also listen to Timothy Shrivever who spoke about the dignity index. very interesting concept about how we can all um sort of do better in terms of how we respond um to each other. Um that's called the dignity index. And I attended um a workshop on zero emission school busing. Very interesting to hear about some

021school districts, what they're doing, how they're approaching, you know, getting their districts to a zero emission level and some of the challenges and frustrations of them, you know, process that they've gone through and attended a very interesting workshop on collective bargaining and how we need to be, you know, aware of what's happening in terms of, you know, um, expenses and things like health insurance rates and and you know something to keep in mind as sort of coach. >> It was very busy couple of days. Um couple things that uh stand out are the um was the fire set chat with the commissioner. um you know, it wasn't as inspiring as I was hoping she would go into maybe portraiture of a graduate or really how uh we're going to be tackling the next couple of

022years. Um hearing the financial outlook is a little bit scary about the money um in the next couple years. That's won't be coming in. Um and that's coming from the deputy super uh the deputy uh commissioners. Um also, uh I attended the Red Hook. I I enjoyed learning from the different school districts that are presenting. Um especially from Red Hook where she talked about what works and what doesn't work. Um one of their concerns was uh the fields. Uh so I feel like we could use them as a resource. um they were very vulnerable in and and talked about um you know the challenges they've had but overall it was a successful uh conference. Well, again, um I attended several sessions at the NISSBA conference. Um a lot of them have already been repeated, so

023I'm not going to go into those. Um I attended the keynote speaker, um Tim Trevor, who went over the dignity scale. I think it had a big impact on all of us who who were there and listened to it. had a lot of really great things to say. Um I also attended a couple of conferences on pretty much board governance. One of them was the dos and don'ts of executive session um and what's your question which was really about um questions from the board um need to be targeted toward board governance and how to ask those questions and what kind of categories that they would fall into. I also attended the same conference that Angela attended was the innovations and community engagement with the Red Hook School District. They had a lot of really um

024great ideas about how um to engage the community more in um in the school district and how to converse with um the public um conversations between the public and the board and how to make those conversations easier and to run more smoothly. And I also attended the fireside chat with the commissioner of education. I also want to mention too that there was a very large expo where we can browse um through many of the vendors and they do give us a lot of um little free goodies. So we did colle make a collection of those and those bags are at our student reps desks for you for gifts from us from the convention. So, pretty much ditto what everyone else said. Um, my I went to several um of these. My favorite was probably the

025Red Hook one about the engagement. I think that one thing that we do need to work on is strengthen our relationships with the community and that was a really great case study as to how they did it and gave us some really good ideas moving forward. >> Great. So, yeah, I I attended a lot of the same ones. So, I'll just talk about one that I thought was funny. It was about cell phone policy and um I don't know what district it was but the kids had their cell phones in their backpack and the teacher was busting them because he was walking around the room saying sorry what's the weather today and when the phone answered the kids were getting busted for having their phone. So anyway, okay. >> Siri. Siri, that's what I said.

026I said sorry. >> Oh, sorry, Siri. [laughter] Okay. All right. So, uh, we're going to make a a little bit of a change to the agenda. We have some students who are here to do a club presentation for us. And so, to help them uh get out maybe a little bit earlier, we're going to bump them ahead of the achievement presentations. So, at this time, I'd like to ask the Wist Takers, I said that correctly, the Whistakers Cooking Club to come up and uh share with us, please. [applause] Trying to see. I'm trying to get your slide out better. No, I'm just trying to see. I couldn't see. >> So, I've never used the color, but just decide. >> All right. Hello. My name is Megan Oric. I'm one of the speech therapists here at

027Berea and I am the anticipated advisor for a wonderful new club we are hoping to start called the Whisk Takers Cooking Club. and I have with me some wonderful fourth and fifth graders who have helped put the presentation together and worked very hard to share what we are hoping to do. I did just want to really quickly introduce them. We have Liam Williams, Grace Hart, Ella Park, Delilah Randazzo, and Alicia Morales. So, I am going to turn it over to them to start the presentation. The Wis Takers Cooking Club mission is meant to engage students in hands-on food activities that promote teamwork, creativity, and practical life skills. The goal is to introduce students to basic food preparation skills and exploration through simple age appropriate recipes. Our club goals is to introduce foundational cooking and food

028safety skills, discuss recipes, ingredients, and cooking techniques, encourage curiosity, and willingness to try new foods. Promote teamwork, responsibility, and self-confidence. There is a strong student interest in the cooking club. Over 60 enthusiastic fourth and fifth graders are ready to join our club. The Berea Elementary student kitchen or Grace's kitchen is safe and welle equipped space for our cooking. We are familiar with our environment. Club meetings. Meetings will be held one time each week with rotating groups of students. This allows our club to meet student interest and demands. The launch pending board approval. The WHIST takers will begin January of 2026. Ingredient funds. The PTO is willing to grant donations to the cooking club. Format. Number one, introduce recipes, ingredients, and culinary skills needed for the meeting. Number two, engage on hands-on recipes with time to

029taste the finished product. A, incorporate visuals and adaptive materials as needed. B, include nutritious focused discussions and sensory exploration importanties. Number three, clean up and discuss future meetings. Students will work together to prepare a dish and wait to share with friends and family at an end of the year event to promote communication through and social skills through shared experiences to build a sense of community and celebration within the school. In conclusion, the Wist Takers Cooking Club aims to foster hands-on learning, student engagement, and community building through cooking. With strong interest from our students in the strategized use of our school kitchen, we invite your feedback and support to launch this exciting new club. >> Any questions for the whiskers? [applause] Any questions? All right. Thank you very much. That was a great job. Thank you.

030>> I I did want to share that one of our very enthusiastic fourth graders was so excited to start that she did bring some cookies that she wanted to share. [laughter] >> If you would like them passed out, would you like >> I'm sure that will influence our decision. [laughter] >> Got to test the product, right? >> Do you want to? These cookies are called Nana's cookies that me and my nana used to make when I was little. She used to take care of me and we would make these cookies together when she was taking care of me. I would like to pass these out because this is very special to me. [applause] Just so you know. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. They look good. [applause] Okay. All right. Thank you

031for that. Uh so we're going to we're going to jump back to the agenda under reports and we're going to go over to the Orange County School Board Association update. >> Yes. Um I attended the meeting on um November 4th. Um it was an in-person meeting at the um um Orange Boseies in Gan. Uh and the topic of the um the meeting was the New York State Education Department portrait of a graduate. Uh the um deputy superintendent um Carrie Stroka was the presenter and I thought she did a fantastic job presenting. um I have more of an understanding of this than I did last year when the um people from state ed came and talked about it. So uh the key things I thought that she said was this is not a new initiative. It

032wraps around what we are already doing for standards. Um and it it's not changing the standards in any way. What it is doing is it's changing how students will demonstrate what they know um their knowledge, their mastery and competency. And it also um mandates a community connection so that uh students are learning um or are are understanding what they're learning and how it relates to the real world. Um and the other important thing that she mentioned was that regent testing will never be gone. It will always be an option to demonstrate um competency. Um the important thing that they wanted school board members to know is um to start thinking about how we're going to reallocate funding to support um the portrait of a graduate program. Um so some for example some um items that

033she mentioned were um making sure that we have data and privacy agreements with all outside providers. um staff training um and then also insurance for internships with um outside companies or organizations for students. Um the other um through the open um items part of the meeting um someone mentioned that there's a new book out um it's called Why School Boards Matter. Uh it's by Scott R. Levy. Um it's very recommended to read. Um and then someone else also mentioned um that their school board was doing sort of like openhouse office hours. Um so it wasn't a meeting. It was more of an informal um where people could come in and and just um ask questions. Um they they sometimes have a booth at a festival, a local festival with some schoolboard members to um listen

034to um um parents and community members. Um and that was pretty much it. >> Oh, I also have the um what was passed out. I can scan it in and share it, which was great. Thank you. >> Good. Yep. >> All right. Next, we'll move on to the technology committee. >> That's mean. This is a new one for me. Um technology committee, we met on October 16th um with the new head of the department, Dr. Broncado. That's his name, right? Yeah. Okay. Um very nice, very nerdy, which is what we want in the tech department. Um [laughter] so, we talked about some fishing issues that have been going through the uh school district and what the tech department is doing to try to stop those. um different campaigns and training for the staff. We talked

035about multifactor authentication, which is that thing where you log in somewhere and then you have to get a text to your phone so they know it's you. We're phasing that in in the school district to help give us another layer of protection. We talked about a Prometheian refresh. Even though to me it seems like we haven't had them for that long, we really have and so we need to work on a plan to start replacing them and figure out when their end of life is. And then last, we started to discuss 26 2026 through 2029 technology goals. Um, we're going to work on those and finalize them. That's it. >> Great. Thank you. >> All right. Next, we'll move on to the guidance advisory committee, Bob and Diana. >> Um, the guidance advisory committee met

036on October 29th. Um we started the meeting basically with a discussion about um how the district can help out um during the government shutdown especially with the ending of the SNAP benefits. Um Miss um the teachers were talking about um expanding food bank donations um possibly um adding um the direct withdrawal to help with that. So those are just some options that they were thinking about. We also went through some of the data points. Um we looked at the highlights of student data and um out of the graduation survey results which were 348 graduates. There were 77% were planning to attend a 2 to four-year college after high school, 11% were planning to enter the workforce, 4% going to the military, 8% were planning something other than war college or military. and there were 1,396

037college applications that were submitted. Um, there was also an update on attendance and this was some really good news because um, our chronic absenteeism rate went down from 22% down to 13.4% which is pretty significant. Um, it's a lot lower than last year and it looks like that we might be turning the corner and we're going getting nearer to those preandemic rates from before. So, that's all good news. Um then there were some updates on our ongoing ongoing programs and initiatives such as MTSS and the portrait of graduate. Of course I think all committees are talking about that in one way or another. Um there was discussion about student mental health and wellness and the training and parent education plans that are um being made and college and career readiness ef um efforts for the

038college and career fair. Um there are 25 career presenters in eight colleges that were at the fair. Um the high school college fair had a great turnout. There were approximately 80 colleges in attendance and the students were wellprepared with the questions and they were very um appropriate there and they were very well engaged with all of the presenters there. There was discussion about the conference day on November 4th also. >> All right. Thank you. Next we'll move on to grading committee. mine will be much shorter than some of those. Um, we spent most of the time reviewing our grading policy and uh reviewing policies from some other districts, seeing what we like, what we didn't like, um, with the goal of making some changes hopefully in some edits and updating our policy. So, uh, stay

039tuned. >> Great. Uh, next is DEI. So at the DEI committee meeting, we talked about um revisiting membership engagement and roles on that committee and really connecting the work of the committee with culturally responsive sustaining education framework and portrait of a graduate. So there's uh a revitalization of that committee um and next steps. >> Great. All right, we'll move into community participation. We'll start Bob on the end down here. >> Yeah. So, I was able to go to the play. Um, I thought it was an awesome production. Um, shout out to Mr. Miller and his crew and the and all the the performers in the stage. I don't know if you had a chance to see it. The the set design was amazing. it um it was just a real great show and they did

040they did a really good job. >> So I was able to attend the senior faculty tea on October 16th. Uh lovely event always and just exciting to see you know connection between students you know seniors and faculty and staff. Um wonderful uh display of connection. >> J I was able to uh attend the um girls varsity volleyball um game last week against uh Kingston and I am looking forward to going to St. Mary's uh Mount St. Mary's tomorrow to hopefully win watch another win. Uh so on October 16th I attended the senior tea. Um also on the same day I attended it was a virtual NISBA business meeting. It was uh about a 5 hour plus meeting. It was a marathon. Uh there was about 350 delegates. I'm the Valley Central delegate. Uh there was

041about 350 of us from the state that participated and we debated issues and voted on the proposals. A total of 37 proposals were submitted for consideration and 23 were recommended, 14 were not. At the conclusion of the session, 24 positions were adopted. You should have all received them. If you did not, let me know. I could uh resend it to you. All righty. Uh also, I attended a couple of volleyball games and uh it was a very exciting Friday night. It's the first time in history that uh Valley Central won this title and tomorrow they play uh at at uh at the mount. Oh, I also attended Shakespeare and I echo Bob's uh statements. Just the set design was beautiful and the actors and actresses were just I I don't know how they remember all

042those lines and speak in in Shakespeare, but it was great that I also had the opportunity to attend the senior faculty tea. It's always a pleasure to attend that event. Always great to see the kids and so much food. Um I also attended uh the Shakespeare play, The Tempest. And I have to mention not the acting was absolutely phenomenal. We have so much talent in our district, but what what really um surprises me are those special effects that are done. Um they're just so clever and it's just a small thing what they did with those umbrellas just to make it look like a storm. It was just absolutely amazing. um you know with the way they were doing and I've been going to these Shakespeare plays every year and they just seem to be getting

043better and better every year. So it was just wonderful and so enjoyable. >> I also went to the Shakespeare play the Tempest and if you happen to see a very handsome but not very good ship captain that was my child who's in the audience. So they did a great job. It was a great play. Thank you. And I was able to attend the football game down Monroe for Okay. Um, we'll move on to public comment. No. Okay. All right. We're going to move on to our achievement presentations and we're going to start with Berea. >> Yes. So, tonight we have the opportunity to hear from our four elementary principles. They will have eight to 10 minutes to just really talk about their areas of focus this year um in alignment with their school improvement plan.

044Last board meeting we had the opportunity to have the secondary team here. So I welcome them and you are in for a treat. Just going to get situated where I can see the screen. Good evening, members of the board of education, central office team, staff, students, and community members. My name is Carara Rap, and I am the proud principal here at Berea Elementary School, and I'm excited to share with you Berea's school improvement plan for the 2526 school year. Our district theme is building collective efficacy and you'll see that woven throughout our theme as well. Here is our district uh vision and mission statement. And you're going to see pieces of this woven into Berea's school improvement plan, especially um empowering innovative, critical, and collaborative thinkers as well as championing curiosity and setting high expectations.

045So we have a theme also this year at Berea Elementary School. It is level up. It was voted on um by the staff and students and adopted as our schoolwide theme for this school year. And we're going to level up in three areas and that's academic growth, student and staff well-being, and family engagement. And we believe that these areas are essential to creating a thriving learning community. So priority one is an academic goal and the big picture for our objective one is really to support our broader vision which is to help every student become a critical thinker. So, Berea's priority one objective is by May of 2026, students in grade three through five will demonstrate a 20% increase in proficiency on the constructed response items in ELA on the state assessment as compared to the

0462025 baseline data of 54%. So constructed response questions are essentially short answer questions um where students will write a claim and support with evidence. It requires them to think critically and demonstrate understanding through evidence and explanation. Why are we focusing on this area? Why is this area important? Because improvement in this area will strengthen literacy across all subject areas. This is a skill that students need to have. um you know writing a claim and supporting it with evidence in math, in science, in social studies. Um so that's why this is a very important area of focus. Here's some of our baseline data and we're going to drill down a little bit deeper in the next slide and look specifically at the constructed response items. Um but here we have and it's kind of tough to

047see but Berea is um the light blue color there and that is the overall percentage proficiency on last year's state ELA test. Um and two of our grade levels were below the state average. So we really wanted to focus on those areas. Our action plan focuses on implementing a template that was constructed and designed with the help of our consultants that's really aligned to the state rubric. We're going to calibrate with our building leadership team and teachers and we're implementing we're administering a baseline constructed response item this week just to get a baseline and we're going to collect quarterly sample constructed response questions and provide prescriptive actionable feedback. This year, Ed Vistas, who's the company who oversees the scoring of the state assessment, gave us what really is like gold. They gave very, and I've

048never seen this before, but they gave very detailed prescriptive feedback on each CRQ item, each question, making recommendations, very specific recommendations, um, trends that they saw across the state where students could improve and specifically for our district. So some of the things that they saw with uh for example there was excessive copying and pasting. So something like that is really lowhanging fruit and something that we can address students may not even be aware of. Um and that was an issue in just about every item. Um sometimes a lot of the questions they provided one detail instead of two. So these are things that we're going to focus on and see an overall improvement in the scores. So here we drill down a little bit and we're looking specifically at the constructed response questions. And as

049you can see there is a lot of room for growth. On the left hand side that's a graph showing um then the percentage of SC students who scored full credit. So we have a lot of room to grow and we see that as a positive thing. Um and through this prescriptive actionable feedback we're really hoping to see a lot of improvement. the graph on the right, additional baseline data, that's what we're focusing on, and that is the percent proficient on the CRQS specifically. And so that was an average of 54% and we're aiming to improve that by 20%. Our next goal, priority two, um, which is our community belonging and VC pride objective. The focus for this objective is creating an environment where every student feels connected and included and staff members feel positive and

050supported in their work environment. And this is a kind of two-part goal or two-part objective, if you will, for Berea. By June of 2026, the number of students who reported feeling lonely will decrease from 12%, which was 28 students, to 0%. And the percentage of staff who report an inclusive, positive, supportive environment will increase from 73 and a half% to 90% as measured by the climate and culture survey. And why are we focusing on this? Why does this matter? Um because research shows that students who feel a sense of belonging are more engaged, achieve at higher levels, and develop a a better social emotional set of skills. A positive staff climate directly impacts teaching effectiveness and student outcomes. Here's our baseline data for priority 2. And like I said, it's in two parts. So, this

051is really the student data. And we had 28 students who reported feeling lonely. And those 28 students were students who reported feeling lonely frequently or all of the time. So, we did and I understand that going to 0% is a lofty goal, but we really we have such a phenomenal support team here at Berea. We want we think it's it's it's a goal, a good goal to have that where every student can feel connected because we have those resources here. um our action plan for the student objective. We're going to create a focus group of students and conduct listening sessions to identify needs around those relationships. What will make you feel more connected? We want them to have voice. We want to elevate their voice and hear their input. identify a blueprint for we're going

052to decide on an initiative and we're going to implement and monitor that initiative that they decide on and we're going to provide individual support to those 28 students. That work has already begun. We've already started our team has already started meeting with those students and making sure that we provide the opportunity for them to connect. This is the baseline data for the staff. 26.5% of staff seek a more inclusive, positive, and supportive environment. This was our lowest staff indicator on the climate and culture survey. And we're really mirroring the same action plan, a focus group where we're going to conduct listening se sessions, identify an initiative, implement and monitor that initiative. And our last objective focuses on clear and transparent communication. The focus of this objective really centers on strengthening connection between school and home.

053By increasing interactive communication, we ensure that families are informed, engaged, and active participants in their child's learning. So our objective is by June of 2026 we're going to increase interactive communication with families through Parent Square by 20% from 48% to 68% as measured by parent square analytics in order to foster clear transparent and collaborative dialogue between school and home. Why are we focusing on this? Because research consistently shows that strong family school communication improves student outcomes, supports positive behaviors, and enhances overall school community trust. Our baseline data, this is how um parent square really characterizes interactive communication. So there you have, it's kind of tough to see, but those are unique users comments, appreciations, and direct messages. So we gathered our baseline. We're going to provide refresher training. Parents Square also um provides individual analytics

054so teachers can look at their um individual analytics for interactive communication and we're going to provide support um around those and the features of Parent Square. For example, things have already come up at some of the staff meetings, how to easily upload and share photos and what tools we have available to us. And then we're going to set a quarterly engagement target and celebrate this positive growth with staff. Thank you so much for your support and we look forward to reporting back to you toward the end of the year to share our growth. Do you have any questions? >> Question. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. [applause] Next up is East Coenham. >> Good evening. I want to thank the staff members who came out tonight. Uh it's very appropriate that

055they're here with us. Uh let me get out of your way. The SIP process at East Coldenham was very much a collaborative process. So to have the at least a part of the team here who helped to build it uh means a lot. So thank you for coming out today. So the Valley Central vision and mission statement I'm sure we're all aware by now. Uh we have a saying at East Cold and Ham. Uh it's kind of a guiding principle that we live by. It is that we are all connected and we're going to see how that winds itself into everything we work on tonight. At East Coldenhem, we have a vision and a mission statement that I'll leave up here for you to read, but I'll boil it down for you. It very simply

056tells us that our school is a place where everyone belongs, learns with joy, and works hard to reach their goals. We foster curiosity, kindness, and readiness to take on challenges together. The vision and mission statement in four points says that we learn with curiosity and give our best every day. We grow as readers and thinkers. We treat everyone with respect and ensure a safe and welcoming environment. And we work with families to help every student to shine. As I said, our vision and mission statement tie nicely with the district's vision and mission statement and our guiding principle. We are all connected. And when we live these values, we strengthen our connections and make our school community stronger. Our three goals are similar to the other buildings that you hear tonight. Uh our first priority by

057June we aim to increase student performance in vocabulary, literature, informational text by 5% in each category as measured by the I Ready subsets. What we've seen with NWA and I Ready is that our students typically have issues with these three categories. So in order to address these issues, we are going to have continue with our targeted small groupoup instruction where we saw major improvement last year. continue with professional development specifically in the CKLA implementation, progress monitoring using I Ready Diagnostics, the learning paths and classroom assessments, and family engagement events focused on reading and parental involvement that we'll circle back to in just a bit. Our sense of belonging goal by June, we aim to increase students sense of belonging schools by 5% in the area of feeling respected as measured by our annual culture and

058climate survey as well as surveys that we'll do as checkups throughout the course of the year. We want every student to feel safe, valued, and included in East Coldenham every day. The good news is we're not as far off as we thought we were to begin with. However, we need to always remember that we don't work with COGS. We work with children and every child matters. So, if there is ever anyone who does not feel respected at school or that they belong in a school, we are not doing our best for that student. So the 5% we will develop our social contracts within the building in all learning environments, classrooms, cafeteria, recess and school buses where students uh will have a voice in setting the expectations and rules and have ownership and be able to

059show and receive respect from each other. Our EC shining stars program was started a little while ago and we are reinvigorated with that. We are recognizing students positive behaviors, efforts, and kindness and reinforcing that every student matters. And our character ambassadors continue to highlight our academic, social, and community achievements, helping every student feel seen and a sense of belonging. for our communication goal. Uh we set out early last year when we started talking about our SIP and we we said that last year we focused inhouse. We were working on our communication inhouse and the logical next step for us was to reach out and improve our communication with parents. The district very graciously gave us parent square and made our job very simple and then made our job very hard when we looked at our

060third priority and had to go back to square one. But that was great because what we decided was we can communicate all we want. What I continually hear from parents at PTA meetings at drop off and at pickup is that they miss being connected to the learning process. They want to be back in the school building. And it's a strange dichotomy when we just put in security vestibules to say come on in, but we have to. We shut our doors in 2021 and said stay six feet away. And we really haven't come back out of that shell. And this is the next logical step for us. It's been great to see already uh our third graders. Last uh Halloween, we had a number of parents in reading stories, doing activities, and making bird feeders connected

061to a vertebrates uh unit. And it was great to see the parents involved and the kids excited to see the parents in the building. So, some other things that we've been discussing putting in place is breakfast with parents. We recognize that we have a number of parents who drop off their students every day and we have a window of time where we could have parents come in, sit down and have breakfast with their child in the cafeteria. We want to continue to uh boost our community reading days and increase the opportunities for parents to come in and read to students. Our one school, one book program is something that's really taken off over the course of the years. This year we're reading we're reading The Wild Robot. And our idea is rather than to send

062kids home and have them read at home to have families come in and read with us a couple of times at least. And to really make it more of a community event, a community centered event. And classroom events that I already mentioned, uh, Halloween was a great time. Uh I was very happy to see parents in the building and thrilled to see how teachers were able to take a fun day and connect it to the academics. Uh so again to the teachers, thank you for that. As always, thank you for your support and I'll take any questions if there are any. >> Question. >> I just have a comment. Um, I really like what you're talking about bringing people into the school because that um, when we went to the NISPA conference and one of

063the things that one of the events that I went to was about the communication and the engagement and that's what they talked a lot about was having people come into the school for different events. So, I I like that. I like that you're on that track. >> Thank you. >> Because it's shown to work. >> Yeah. And I think it's the best way to get immediate feedback. >> Yeah. Yep. >> Great. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. [applause] Next up is Montgomery. Put that up there because I'll end up hitting the keyboard. Messing everything up. All right. Good evening. Thank you for having me. I am Matthew Canino, proud principal. Can I take this off here? Proud principal at Montgomery Elementary School. Tonight we will discuss Montgomery Elementary School's goals, objectives, and key actions

064for the 2526 school improvement plan. You [snorts] will see our plans focus on improving student success, sense of belonging, and communication. So, as Cara said earlier, um part of the district theme is for building collective efficacy. Um which translates to us working together as a community to elevate student success and love of learning at MEES. Our theme this year is MEES where bright minds shine. So, we use this as a way to bring our staff and students together um build school spirit. the PTA and well the PTA used to the teachers now purchase. This is the design on our school shirts that all the staff members own. We wear them the first day of school. We wear their on dress down days. Um um I always try to wear bright colors this year. I have

065neon sneakers that I wear on Fridays. The kids love it. Um just to bring a sense of community and joy to school. Um as the others have said, we're focusing on three priorities this year. Our first priority is elevating student success and engagement. Striving for a learning environment at Montreal Elementary School that are affirming, welcoming, and promote a growth mindset. So during the 2526 school year, we'll focus on strengthening tier 1 instruction by utilizing CKLA strategies leading to a 10% increase in the number of students meeting grade level proficiency and reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition as measured by I Ready. Um this equates to 46 more students on grade level. Um, we chose this this goal or objective because we have a new learning curriculum this we have a new literacy curriculum this year and

066um based on our scores um we have 33% proficient in vocabulary on grade level for grades three through five. Um 35% in comprehension of literature and 28% in comprehension offormational text. So by utilizing the new curriculum to its fullest potential um we're looking to make a five a 10% increase in these areas. We're working very hard on team planning utilizing our consultants to work with teachers to get the most out of the curriculum and focus on all students tier one instruction. Weaving engagement strategies um like sentence starters, gallery walks and reciprocal teaching that we've been working on in previous years and implementing learning walks providing timely feedback to teachers um along with other initiatives for this year. Um learning targets, questioning and again student engagement. [snorts] for priority two is all about community belonging and

067sense of pride. Montgomery Elementary community will feel a sense of belonging and valued. Students and staff will feel heard and included as measured by a 5% growth in each area on the end of the year climate and culture survey. Um, similar to what Cara mentioned earlier, ours, this is kind of a two-tier priority. Um we're focusing on sense of belonging for teachers and with children um a reduction in the sense of feeling frequently loaning lonely. Um we have you'll see on the next slide um 260 students took the climate culture survey [snorts] 96 indicated a sense of feeling lonely at some point. um but 18 expressed a sense of feeling lonely frequently or all the time. So we want to reduce that feeling frequently all the time to maybe a limited amount of time or

068not at all. So, we set a survey out for staff [snorts] to see who would be interested in being a mentor to these students and we are working with our student assistant counselor to do mentor these mentors in meeting with students for weekly and bi-weekly check-ins, do feeling checks and be a sounding board for the students to make them feel more included. So, some more data that we took from the climate culture survey was from the teachers on how they felt on consistent how consistent and open is two-way communication between school leaders and staff. This was a little more than 50% um feeling consistent and inconsistent. So that's something that we will continually work on um through regularly and timely feedback provided for staff related to a observations, admin walkthroughs and weekly learning walks. Um

069we did we were the first building to do admin walkthroughs. We had um 12 classrooms that we visited. I've met with approximately eight of those teachers to this point to just give them feedback on what all the administrators discussed, highlights of what they're doing great and small things that we can work on to improve. Priority three is all about clear and transparent communication. Montgomery Elementary community will feel informed about district and school events and updates by June 2026. Students and families will feel more informed regarding important MEES and district information as measured by a 5% increase in related 2526 end of the year climate and culture survey questions. So this is an area that we've been doing pretty well in. Um, student survey results show that um, we are very effective or effective in most

070areas, but again, we want all students to feel like we are communicating well. So, we'll continue to work on that. Um, and then we haven't done the parent survey yet. Our survey results from last year were positive, but this is an area that we can all always work on. It's a lifelong goal to be a better communicator. So um through use of parent square which is an amazing tool that the district has provided for us. Um teachers are using it regularly. I get updates on my phone. My phone's dinging every single night when I get home from work. Ding ding ding ding. Parent square updates that teachers are sending. Um so parent teachers are using this daily and weekly um to share pictures, fun things that are going on in the classroom. um updates of

071upcoming events and as well I'm doing so as well on thoughtful Thursdays um celebrating things that the teachers are doing fun things that we've done in the school throughout the week and then sharing all upcoming events and um things like parent teacher conferences that are coming up times and I get lots of responses from teachers um thanking for positive response and sometimes questions that evening one or two parents might send a question trying to clarify something that's on there and I try to respond quickly um and they are always very thankful for that. So that wraps up our plan for the year and how to support and improve Montgomery Elementary School. Questions or concerns? >> Thank you. [applause] >> [laughter] >> And next is Walden. All right. Is this thing on? Okay. Uh I'm really

072happy to be here. Thanks again to the Valley Central Board of Education, district leaders, staff, parents, and other valued guests. Thank you for your ongoing commitment to our schools and community. My name is Gregory Heidman and I have been fortunate to be principal at Walton Elementary School for the past 10 years. When people talk about Valley Central Community, I'm grateful to live that experience every day through the meaningful work we do at WES. As principal, I believe every child deserves to be celebrated as a thinker, a learner, and a citizen in the making. At Walden, we champion curiosity by meeting students where they are, setting high expectations, and creating a culture where every voice matters. When curiosity drives learning and collaboration fuels growth, our students become the confident, creative thinkers that our world needs today.

073I'm honored to present Walden School improvement plan on behalf of our Walden Elementary School community. Tonight, [clears throat] my goal is to share with you where we are, where we're headed, and how we all play a vital role in this journey. We'll examine current challenges, explore opportunities ahead, and outline a clear action pathway so that together we can ensure every student in our school receives the support, resources, and opportunities they deserve. Our work is aligned with the Valley Central School District's vision to cultivate innovative, analytical, and collaborative thinkers within a learning community where all individuals are respected, confident, and prepared to leave purposeful, choicefilled lives. Our mission also isn't to inspire curiosity, uphold high expectations, and empower every member of our community to achieve excellence while embracing the joy of lifelong learning. Together, these principles

074serve as the foundation for every decision we make and every goal we set in support of our students success. Our guided message this year is every student, every connection, every step forward because growth happens one step at a time through connection, reflection, and shared purpose. Our first priority focuses on ensuring that learning environments are affirming, welcoming, and promote a growth mindset. Our objective is that by June 26, students in grades 3 through 5 will improve their achievement on the constructive response section of the New York State ELA exam by 5% from our baseline that was established last June. As you can see from the data, we have a long way to go and that is why we chose this objective. Uh, our students are missing a lot of points on these constructed responses and we're

075going to give them the tools they need to be more successful. To achieve this, our teachers are collaborating thoroughly by developing common formative assessments to check students progress throughout this year. using depth of knowledge questioning to push higher level thinking. Embedding inference detail detail conclusion strategies in CKLA planning in grades 2 through five. You might see or hear me see IDC. That is the acronym again for inference detail detail conclusion because that's what our children need to provide on state assessments in order to fulfill the twopoint state rubric. expanding the ID ST strategy beyond just ELA is important and Miss Rap said this earlier. Um we need to go beyond just ELA to build critical thinking across disciplines including in our special area classes. This work builds teacher expertise, helps students transfer their skills from

076one subject to another. These are true indicators of deep learning. Our second priority emphasizes belonging, empathy, and connection. Even though we've seen a decrease in students feeling lonely over the past few years at Walden, there's still a lot of students that feel lonely. And that's it's sad. It's it's hard to know you have your little ones in school that just don't feel connected to anybody. So by the end of this school year, we aim to reduce the number of students who report feeling lonely from 61, which was our baseline data at the beginning of the year from the culture and climate survey, to 30, again measured by our school climate survey that will occur in the spring. We know students learn best when they feel known and valued. So we have some neat things that

077we're launching this year at Walden to accomplish this. We are doing a crossgrade peer buddy system designed to foster empathy, cooperation, and community pride with themes that actually parallel our new CKLA literacy curriculum. So students in are matched up, our kindergarten students are matched up with third graders, our first graders are buddies with fourth graders, and our second graders are buddies with fifth graders. At the end of October, we had a schoolwide buddy celebration to kick things off. The uh CKLA theme for the month of October was friendship. So, every student with their buddy made friendship bracelets in our cafeteria. And yes, beads went everywhere. But it was fun. I had a great time. I even got to make one. Um and then the next thing we're doing is a check and connect system. You've

078heard about this probably in some of the other buildings. Um, we are using the results of the climate and culture survey to identify the students that are frequently or sometimes lonely at Walden Elementary School, pairing them up with a staff member this year. Um, so we can follow through and help those children out and make them feel more welcome and and involved in the school. So through this initiatives, we're helping every child feel they belong and reminding them that Walden is a place where friendships and learning strive side by side. Our [snorts] final priority strengthens collaboration, communication, and trust within our professional community. By June 26, school leadership will cultivate a professional culture where teachers plan, reflect, and communicate best practices to strengthen the implementation of the new CKLA literacy program. Our objective is to

079increase teacher confidence in teaching this new program from 2.95 to 4.0 on our end of the year teacher survey and ultimately to improve student achievement in reading. We did take the survey at the beginning of the year from our teachers. Uh we did have some pilot teachers that are very comfortable already, but a lot of our teachers were either at a one, two, or a three overall. We are going to accomplish uh all of this by providing co-planning sessions, coaching cycles, and data meetings that build teacher capacity. Regular team meetings to sustain communication and support. Peer classroom visits and reflective discussions to share strategies and celebrate our successes. When teachers learn and grow together, we know that student achievement follows. And that's the the um the essence of collective efficacy. In summary, our school improvement

080plan is more than a set of objectives. It's a promise. A promise that every decision we make is driven by what's best for our students. A promise that we will continue to build a culture of trust, collaboration, and continuous growth. and a promise that we will celebrate every success, big and small, as we move every student, every connection, every step forward. Thank you for your continued partnership and support. Together, we're building the momentum for lasting success at Walden Elementary School. Thank you. [applause] >> Thank you very much. All right, that brings us to the end of our presentations. We'll move on the agenda to old business and we're going to begin our clean energy discussion. So, this uh was carryover from earlier meetings where we had presentations on renewable and clean energy. And so the

081[clears throat] purpose of this discussion is to talk about what we would want research on. Right? So we need to zero in on what we're interested in, what schools we'd want that information on. Once we agree upon that, we'll see if the majority of the board wants that information. If they do, then we'll work with the engineering company and they'll get us an estimate on getting an estimate. [laughter] Get an estimate for an estimate, right? So, uh, so we're just going to go around the table and again, I think as a group, we need to agree upon what. So, when I say what, I mean clean heating, cooling, right? You guys have the slide. uh geothermal, solar panels, whatever, whatever floats it, right? So, um we'll go around. We need to reach consensus on that

082and then we'll decide if we want to take action. Uh well, I'm going to start down here on this end and then if if you guys mention something, somebody has questions, we'll just have a discussion. Okay. So Bob, I'm going to start with you if there's if there's anything that interests you in looking at clean energy at this point. >> Well, we just got the uh some of that information very recently, so I think I need a little more time to look through that before I make a decision. Okay, Fran, >> I would love to continue to explore solar energy um both at the new because I know it's been presented that that will actually be a >> Yeah. So I think for the purpose of this discussion I think let's keep Walden separate because

083I think and I don't want to speak on behalf of the architects but the engineers but I think when you build a new school there's certain things that you're going to do anyway. So I think for the purpose of this discussion we should talk about all the other schools based on the fact that Walden will likely be built with clean energy. >> Okay. >> As a as a premise. >> So I I would love to get more information about um solar energy particularly not roof solar energy but other places that solar panels can be put um like at the high school considering carports and So >> like that. >> Okay. At every school or just >> I mean I don't know what you know given what I'm what I'm reading in terms of what kind

084of um grants there may be. I don't I mean I think we might want to look at this as a pilot in one school find out what their cost would be what what kind of grants there would be and then for us to consider possibly rolling it out in you know phases. >> Okay. What school would you want to start your pilot in? >> Probably um to consider it at the high school and maybe not the whole, you know, parking lot, but maybe a piece of the parking lot. Um again, like to consider what the savings would be and what kind of energy can be produced. um or if we're and or if we're looking at towards zero emissions, you know, busing, then to consider what we would be able to generate in order to

085support battery. >> Okay. You're crossing over though. Stay. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, >> all is connected. >> So, solar at the high school as a pilot looking at potentially the fields and also carports. >> Yeah. >> Okay. All right. Anything else? >> Not at this point. >> That's it. >> I mean, >> okay, Jane, >> I think based on the information that we have in front of us, it's very hard to make a a very pinpointed decision on what school we want to put this infrastructure in and if what infrastructure at all. Um, honestly, I don't think any of us here are experts on renewable energy. Um but I know that um Naerta is and so I think it might be useful to maybe see if they can come and do an energy audit

086for us and see where the most um coste effective solutions might be within our entire district. Um so I mean I was kind of thinking of of it as sort of an overall um district plan. you know, finding out what our current energy usage is to begin with and then, you know, at finding out from NAERTA, is it possible for our district to become net zero eventually? Um and if you don't if we're not if it's not possible to become a net zero um you know user um maybe then we need to to establish a baseline of energy use and then have a plan to reduce from there like like every year we're going to reduce 5% of our energy usage. um or look at all the time that we're doing capital improvements, you know,

087so for example like um the year one improvements I was looking at. So Maybrook, you're replacing windows, so hopefully that comes with a energy savings. Um however, in the middle school, you're adding an air conditioner, so that's coming with a cost for an energy usage. So maybe you're trying to do your improvements where you're coming out as a net zero energy um use. Um so I mean I think that's that's more I think we need to have a long-term plan first before we can start saying I want to look at solar uh car ports at the high school. >> Okay. So you you would like to have NASA to do an energy audit and then you would like to make sure that any capital improvement has some is taking clean energy into consideration. >> Yeah.

088Or or looking at it as a net zero emission um energy usage. >> Okay. >> For each capital improvement. >> So that so the the ask for the engineer firm at this point would be to work with NAERTA to have an energy audit. >> Correct. >> Okay. But you're not interested in solar or or >> I am interested. >> Are you interested in France pilot? >> I'm interested in all of it >> if it makes [snorts] um economic sense. >> Okay. And [laughter] >> so this was a tall order of a discussion. True. >> Um, and when making my decision, and you know, obviously none of us are experts in this. Um, I did look at the five-year um, the five-year plan, and I just feel like we have so many priorities. I know you

089said we're not going to talk about Walden, but we have to talk about W. I mean, it's going to be a major bond. >> No, I mean, just from the clean energy. >> From the clean. Okay. But that's going to be, you know, just making sure that that project goes through. um and just ongoing challenges with our athletic fields. I feel like we have a lot going on in the next five years. So, I don't I don't want to be too ambitious. I want to focus on what we can. I do agree with Jane um with getting NERTA involved. And what I'm referencing to is uh the CPL um the CPL presentation we had and um the storing of um the batteries and where we're going to put them and um with with um our

090electric buses that that are coming and also maybe looking at Red Hook and seeing how they're they're handling um they seem to be a lot of to have a lot of green energy initiatives. So, let's just before we, you know, but why reinvent the wheel, I guess I'm saying. >> Okay. So, you have nothing at this time. >> Uh, nothing >> For the architects, no. >> Okay. Thank you, Diana. >> I'm pretty much going to reiterate what Angela said. I agree with a lot of what she said. Um, I believe that the solar energy does have merits. I am concerned about initial costs and how long it would take before we actually see savings in the long run. Um, I also looked at the 5-year plan and we have a lot of priorities in this

091district. Um, I want to make sure that we have the resources to get Walden Elementary through. I think that needs to be a priority. Um, also our fields and everything else that's on that list. Um, I am not against putting this project on the future projects list after we've already accomplished everything else that we already pretty much committed to um for future capital projects coming up. Um, so I don't have anything for the architects. Katie, >> uh, I also looked at the five-year plan and we have a lot of work to do as far as maintenance and upgrades and capital projects. And I think that if we're going to look at this as a whole or even for the entire district, it's like another whole project on top of all that. So, I think what

092I would ask of the architects is as we move through our five-year plan, wherever we can incorporate any of this renewable energy sources within what we're already going to do, >> [snorts] >> um, that's what I'd be interested in because I think that marries what we're already planning on doing with some of this stuff and then kind of get the ball rolling and then we can always look at this in more depth later on. >> Okay. All right. So, I have nothing. Also, um I we have a lot of stuff that we already need to do. I am not in favor of spending taxpayer money to do research on the cost of things that the estimate would be outdated by the time we got to do it and the technology would probably be outdated by

093the time we got to do it. I am in favor of making sure that we keep that in mind as we move through our capital projects. So, I have nothing specifically for the architects. So I think we all agree for capital improvements. We should take that into consideration as we move forward. So then the two things on the table for majority vote is looking at a solar pilot of fields and carports getting an estimate on that for the high school and also looking to do a NAERTA energy audit. So we can vote on those se separately. Uh, let's do it separately. Let's do it separately. So, I'm going to look for We're just going to go around yes or no whether you're in favor to uh ask for a price on the solar uh pilot

094at the high school for fields andor carports. So, Bob, yes or no? >> No. France, yes. Jane, >> No. Angela, >> no. >> Katie, no. Diana >> and I'm a no. Okay. So that's one yes, six nos. Next is um [clears throat] >> but there may be funding for the naerta audit. >> That's fine. >> Okay. >> Energy audits like residential free of charge, right? We know if they >> Well, we'll if there's a majority, we'll find out the cost of it, >> but somebody might vote differently if they knew there was no cost to the district. >> Okay. So I guess the ask would be how much [snorts] would it cost to get to that? >> Okay, so let's do this then. Let's ask if if you're interested in pursuing a nice energy audit

095and finding out what the cost of that would be. Bob, >> I'm interested. >> Okay, Fran, >> yes. >> James, yes. Angela, >> yes. >> Diana, >> no. Katie, >> yes. >> And I'll Yes, the cost to find out. So that's a 61 to pursue uh request to find out what it would cost for an order to do an energy audit for the district. >> And that's for the entire district. Correct. >> For the entire district. >> Okay. And then so if you need more information, we'll discuss it. If not, we can find out what that would be. Okay. All right. Very good. Thank you. All right. Moving on. So, next is the second reading and adoption of policies. I'm not going to go through each one. They're they're posted on the website. Everybody should

096have gone through them. So, I'm going to uh ask for a motion to adopt. >> Angela. Second. Jane. All in favor? >> Opposed? 70. Thank you. All right. Moving on to new business. We took care of the wish takers, so uh we're going to move on. And can I get a motion for the adoption of smart school bond act project as a type two action? Jane second. >> Katie. All in favor? >> Opposed. 70. Thank you. Next is the adoption of resolution certification of uncollected school taxing. Can I get a motion to adopt? Diana second. Fran. All in favor? >> Opposed? 70. Thank you. Excuse me. >> [clears throat] >> Can I get a motion for the approval of the amendment 2526 preschool services agreement with Orange County? Motion to approve. >> And a second.

097>> Jane. All in favor. >> Post. 70. Thank you. Motion for the approval agreement with Epic Athletics. Motion to approve. >> Katie second. >> Andra. All in favor? >> Opposed. Okay. 70. Next is a motion for approval of the 2627 budget planning calendar. Motion to approve. Katie second. Diana. All in favor? Question. Yes. before that. [snorts] >> Oh, wait a minute. So, let me let me Oh, it' be the December meeting. That's There's only one meeting in December. So, it' be December 8th. >> Yeah. Uh, I think that meeting is >> Yeah. No. Yeah. That's that's not like a final decision meeting. That's just >> So this is board initiatives that we would like to see. So like let's say you want the dignity, right? >> Yeah. So so we'll start talking about in December

098and then in January we'll talk about some more and then this way the point is that when they're building their budget they they know that they need to take these things into consideration. >> Um I don't think so. Right. Because we we would really need to >> Yes. That is what we did last year. >> That's the fact. Yes. >> Yes. [laughter] >> Yes. >> But it has it will happen at the December 8th meeting. >> Yeah. So So we'll have to discuss be prepared for December 8th basically. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Just one note is we're still trying to confirm that date for the long range plan with um Jason. >> Okay. So that that date may change, but we're hopeful it'll stay on that January. >> Okay. All in favor? >>

099Opposed? 70. Thank you. Okay. Any new items to bring on to the agenda? >> Okay. >> Anybody else? >> No. Okay. Go ahead. >> So, I want to discuss the uh recent climate survey. Um I guess I have a couple questions first then I'm gonna have a motion. >> Okay. >> Um Mr. V, why do we do a climate survey? >> Why do we do a climate survey? Because we >> purpose >> we believe um that it is important to hear the community, the staff and the students and their perspective on the climate and culture. >> And what do you do with that information when you get it? We look at that information um as a district and then also as a school as well as with parents and we share that information. We also

100put things in place as you heard today. Each one of our principles put something in place based on their climate and culture survey. We prioritize what we are addressing. >> So you look at that information um by building. I suppose >> we look at it as as a district and by building and by item. >> Okay. And then from that information you determine what you need to work on, right? What needs to be better or worse or or or maintain the same if things are going well. >> We prioritize because a lot of items on the climate and culture. So yes, collectively with the administration, we decide what we're going to do with that data. >> Okay. Okay. And then I imagine that you use that information to evaluate your administrative staff to see how

101they're doing. >> Absolutely not. We do not use climate and culture to evaluate. It is a subjective survey and it's perspective. >> Not a disciplinary thing, but as a tool to see what needs to be worked on. >> Evaluations are not disciplinary. It is strictly that we use that data to items that we're going to work on and it has nothing to do with teachers or or administrators evaluations. >> Right. But you're using it to work on like if if something was deficient, you would say we need to work on that, right? >> We use it to work on particular items. Like for example, today you heard many of the uh principles talk about loneliness that our students were experiencing and so we use that as an area that we will work on to build

102a sense of belonging >> and it gives you an idea of how well things are running in the in the district. It does, but it also we also look at other pieces of data because not everyone answers the survey, right? So when you have to look at the proportion of who's answering it and what they answer um and it is not the same thing as for example I data which is an objective piece of data. It is based on subjective information. >> So so we're going to I mean we're going to get the presentation is on December 8th, right? Correct. So is is there is there specific information that you're looking for now at this time? >> Well, I guess first I guess we need to find out like is there information that is available?

103Like have certain parts of the climate survey been completed? >> The staff and the student survey has been completed. >> Okay. And it was referenced tonight. >> Yes. >> In a public setting. It was referenced and information was shared >> about it. Correct. >> That is how they're using the data. Yes. Awesome. Awesome. So, I'm going to suggest or ask rather that since and especially since it's been presented here at the board that um I make a motion that the climate data survey results that are available um that have been shared with buildings and have been some in some way shared with us today that that information be shared with the board as a Okay. And so what are you looking for? Anything available or you looking for simply what was what was completed and

104shared with the the buildings in the south. >> Okay. >> Nothing new, nothing created. I think that will not only does it help Miss Aila as the chief administrator of the building getting a pulse of what's going on in the district. uh it will help us as well as we are also in charge of creating policy. Maybe there's policy that we need to establish based on the information we receive. Um I think it'd be valuable information for us to have. >> Okay. And so are you looking for staff and student? The community parents isn't complete yet. So are you looking for >> just what is ever available? Well, I'm not asking for anything that's not available or for them to be recreated or >> staff and students. >> Yeah, sure. If that's all it's available.

105Absolutely. >> And then I'm not saying that we don't um have that presentation whenever everything's available. I just think if the information is available that the board should have it. >> Okay. All right. So then we can go around for board members if you want to ask questions or clarifications of Bob's request. I guess just what would we do with that information? I guess is my only question. >> Well, I guess I would ask back why would we want to wait, >> right? Knowledge and knowledge and having that information can only help us and inform us in terms of any decisions that we may make in the future between now and then. >> So, I I can say I'm not interested. I for me it's a baseline survey. So, I'm I'm not interested in in

106seeing this information at this time. I'm fine with waiting for December 8th, but that's >> I guess that was kind of my thing is what decisions do we have to make between now and December 8th that I guess from your perspective? >> Sure. I mean, to be fair, I asked for this a month ago when it was completed. So, now we're two months later, you know, by the time we're going to actually get it. And this the survey is a snapshot of what's happening in the district in that moment. What's happening in December is going to be different than what's happening good or bad, right? It could get better, which I hope, right? No matter how good it is, it can always get better. >> That information, >> right? I mean, and having it two

107a month ago would be more important better than having it now, which having it now is better than having it in a month. I I guess I'm not sure that there's any decisions for us to make based on that data right now. >> Well, without having the information, you don't know that. >> Okay. All right. So, any other questions on the request? >> So, that's why I'm asking, you know what I mean? That's why I'm asking the question. >> okay. So, does anybody second the motion for the request of information >> soon? Well, he made a motion, so I need to second it. And then if it's second, then we vote whether there's a majority to gather. So, does anybody want to second the motion? >> But we're getting all the information December 8th. >>

108Yes. >> Okay. I can wait till December 8th. >> Okay. So, there's there's no second. Okay. All right. Thank you. Anything else that we want to discuss before we adjourn? >> I had one request. um the new cell phone policy that's in place. I was wondering if we could get sort of a summary of how that's being h how that has rolled out and how the implementation is going. >> I know. Well, I mean, I can answer that, but I'd like to know, you know, from the whole district perspective all the way up from um you know, how many referrals are we getting? How many um cell phones have been confiscated? How do the students feel about it? >> What's that? Yeah, >> I would have to send you that information so I can get

109an update. Um, I can tell you from the previous time that I spoke to uh the principles at the elementary level, I think there was only one incident at one school and then at the second at middle school it was two and then at the high school it was 14. Um, but I will get you an update of >> Oh, so wait a minute. Does anybody else want that information? >> Oh, sorry. Well, I mean, >> okay. So, that's what I'm saying. If if if more people are interested that then what we can do is add it as a agenda item as a presentation, right? So, >> well, I don't know if we were planning quarterly or what we were doing, but so let's let's go do the majority people. Would the majority of the

110people like to see an update on cell phones and how things are going? >> Um, That's a yes. Fran, >> yes. >> Andrea, >> uh, yeah, >> Diana, >> okay, that's a majority. Katie, >> sure. >> Okay. So, for a future agenda item, we'll discuss having an update on cell phone. Okay. Anything else? All right. So, uh, that brings us to the end of our agenda. Ken, thank you for being with us and streaming. And I will take a motion to adjourn at 8:25. Fran second >> Diana all in favor >> oppos 70 thank