001e e e good evening everyone we are calling the January 14th meeting of the onour school board to order we have a tobacco policy in place there is no smoking within 100 feet of school buildings please rise for the pledge district clerk will you please call roll trustee canson here truste Jerome truste Mitchell moral trusty goodr here trusty Hemingway Lynch here trusty Rondo here trusty Bishop here thank you thank you we're going to start off with our welcome from Bennett School principal Gabriel Bono good evening everyone welcome to Bennett happy New Year um I hope everyone had a phenomenal holiday uh I'm gonna start off I have a script for you this evening so don't fall asleep on me um I want to uh just acknowledge uh our incredible PTA and um under the leadership
002of Christy signore and Janice TI um they actually have put together some refreshments snacks for all of you um as just a token of their appreciation for um all of your volunteerism and you'll find it when you go to Executive session in room 11 so on behalf of them thank you very much um they've been killing it out there uh they have a phenomenal Fall Festival um it was it was once again a huge smash um the holiday Boutique um which gives the children the opportunity to actually go shopping for their their families for the holidays and um it just helps give children ownership and participate in that gift of giving um they also hosted a holiday craft fair which was so much fun and they couldn't have done it without the support of all
003the parents shipping in and running certain crafts it it was a great the event um they've also collected household items and canned goods for the victims of South Carolina um they just their their benevolence doesn't stop and I'm very grateful for all that they do um I'm also grateful for uh Ruth mende who is the director of the community events for the showan center um she actually dedicated donated uh one of her performance of her performers um for one of the concerts that were hosting this past fall she actually has um the winter hoop coming up at the end of the month and she's sharing a performer Rachel Davis uh with us we're gonna be having another music assembly at the end of the month here Rachel Davis's uh children music shows um show is
004a delightful Whirlwind of developmentally engaging songs and interactive Musical games that encourages Movement singing participation for all of our students so um we're just so fortunate I'm so fortunate on behalf of Bennett um that we have the support of the asokan center um we just keep on reaping the benefits of their generosity um just to remind all of you that you set up goals for for this year um in case you forgot and I wanted to just share with you how Bennett is supporting some of the go those goals um under the culture and climate we have um the Bennett Elementary Sunshine committee and um we started up the school year by having um a lunch in for our staff and then I hosted a trivia contest um I did stump them I as so
005many hard questions and the it's ironic I stumped them on just one and I'm going to ask all of you you're now getting a test what do you call the dot that's over the I and J yes sir a tit is correct congratulations all right the fact that you're all laughing right now and clapping that adds to the culture and climate of Benning um we have fun Friday we dress up thematically uh anybody can it's not mandatory but um we have you know there's a jersey day there's Hawaii day Hawaii day what's coming up this Friday I should know this it's on the website um let's see what else is the sunshine committee uh responsible for uh we have monthly breakfast as a staff um there is a woot woop cart a woo cart is
006actually Ed by Miss Morris's uh kindergarten through third grade class and I come around and I help them uh we go around and just pass out little treats for the adults um because can't be all fun in activities just for the kids because the kids the adults here are really big kids um me being one of the shortest biggest kids in the building um there's been holiday Gatherings um we celebrate birthdays for kids um there's a bunch of other activities that the sunshine committee um puts on and sponsors to add Joy to the building um we're doing our best to keep it positive and we are working between all of that fun as well um and with that I'm going to let um miss kovak and miss Coro talk to you about the academics well
007good evening board um as the benett math liaison I would like to take some time just to talk about the math academics that have been going on this year at Bennett um so as math Educators in our third year of teaching using our new illustrative math curriculum we've had the opportunity to gain even more insight and experience with the curriculum on our last superintendent's conference day um in December we we had the opportunity to gain a new perception on how to appropriately implement the five practices for orchestrating productive discussions during math lessons um to increase our academics make our academics um more successful and Progressive for our students um through through discussion not just the teacher talking to the to the students but the students talking with the teacher and the students talking among amongst
008themselves so the five practices that we've been implementing within our classrooms are are anticipate monitor select sequence and connect so the first step being the anticipation step during that step the teacher before teaching even Begins the teacher considers how students might interpret a problem mathematically um they think about strategies that the students might come up with both correct strategies and incorrect strategies and sort of plan ahead for what they might be seeing and hearing in the classroom um next step being the monitor step during that step the teacher pays close attention to the students mathematical thinking and the solution strategies as they work on the appropriate task during that lesson um The Next Step being the select task the teacher select students to share their work with the rest of the class um to get
009specific mathematics into the open for discussion and the selection of students during this step um is Guided by the anticipated strategies from the first step um they don't have to be the correct strategies they can be strategies that the kids are coming up with on their own and that kind of opens the door for that great discussion what is student a thinking how are they thinking outside of the box how did they get their answer can we kind of pull it apart right how can we take their idea and bring it up to where we want for example I teach fourth grade how can we bring it up to that fourth grade strategy that we're looking for um fourth step being the sequence step the teacher makes purposeful choices about the order in which the
010students work is shared to maximize mathematical goals so something in my classroom that I like to do with this step is I take more of the concrete strategies more of like the model drawings I start with those and then we kind of build up to those middle strategies and then I like to end with the more advanced strategies the strategies I'm kind of looking for for already um where the students should be um at the end of the lesson so the students can see where they should be progressing and then the last step is the connect step where the teacher helps students draw connections between their Solutions and the other students Solutions as well as drawing into the key mathematical ideas the objective the goal of the lesson and I know um all of our
011math educators are doing their best to incorporate these five practices um and they're doing so within their within their math units that they're teaching right now I had a chance to touch base with all grade levels um we talked about the units that they're working on and one one common theme that I noticed within each grade level is um all the different strategies that they're seeing they're already noticing um you know these really Advanced strategies these these I ways of thinking about math and how they're leading to these great math discussions within the classroom and it's even it's it's not just the advanced kids in the class that can Le these discussions it's the kids in the class that are still you know leaning on those those model drawings the concrete the Hands-On the manipulatives
012but they're able to add their ideas IDE to these discussions on the advanced strategies and that's what it's all about and um we're really liking what we're seeing by incorporating these five strategies and um we we just see the growth in our students and we we couldn't be happier so thank you hello uh I'm Amanda Shufflin Kovac and I'm the literacy liaison so here at Bennett and I'm here to to answer I guess the question of how do here at Bennett how do we help student achievement in literacy and so um right now quarter two ends um in a couple weeks so everybody in literacy right now we're collecting data we're analyzing it to make decisions to see how will our small group instruction change and we're looking at the nwaa right now the running
013we're doing Running Records phonics decoding assessment spelling inventory writing samples I mean the list can go on but what's really important is that when quarter 3 begins on January 27th we're really going to be using that data to in Dred um and so I have to give a a shout out to our mtss Liz phow we're doing grade level meetings here um and the conversations have been really powerful because it's feeling like a team it's a team approach with teachers um administrators and it's really um exciting that we're moving forward uh the AIS department has been training with am web for Progress monitoring um recently too and so we're moving forward in that um I love that Anora is really practicing best practice and latest research and I think what supports that is you know
014we have advancing literacy Christine Holly who's fantastic coming in and Dem demonstrating live lessons with our students with teachers present and then we're getting to do it ourselves um another thing you know we're in these um literacy courses that Columbia is providing for us there's and it's with um a lot of shifts with the science of reading um so one of the classes is called use decodable texts in small groups to help students draw on pheic awareness and phonics to support comprehension and I know that's a lot of words but when you think of like New York State just dropped the big six pillars it's talking about all of this it's like we're in these latest courses learning and applying it right away with our our students um another you know Mr Bono does after
015school workshops um for faculty meetings and our staff is confident enough to like turn key these trainings to other staff so a kindergarten teacher and a first grade teacher went to that decodable um class and everybody K5 who was literacy was there taking on like oh how can we do these decodable books right away um that's powerful and it's exciting um there's a grade three through six pheic awareness phonics and fluency for upper grades that we're in a course too and so um having that along with another course called feedback data analy analy uh analytics there we go and fostering cultures of agency and just bringing it's just like all of this what what's happening now we're already in it it's exciting um but you know and another thing like I know that even though
016on January 7th that New York State just dropped the how we're going to have the literacy instructional best practices and it's not going to start until September but I know that our staff will be talking about it probably our next faculty meeting and so I think it just shows how um engaged and how knowledgeable our St wants to be into because what is this about students it's always about students and what they deserve the best and I really strongly believe that we're all here in it for them and we are doing best practice so I'm going to end um last time I spoke to you I talked about how we believe in meeting all students in their zone of proximal development and I have a story that I shared with the PTA um at our
017last meeting and it was about a third grader who uh explicitly was taught a phonic skill that she was struggling in and it was the sound if you think about K the sound of K there's words that end in diagraph c k there's words that end in K and then there's words that end like multi-syllable words that are like Panic fantastic I see and I you know learning the best practices I explicitly taught this skill and then she had a time to practice in games and multi-sensory magnet tiles and and then she was using it into quotable texts in her group they were doing this too because this was using data realize this was an area of weakness um but what was so powerful about this third grader and I in my head too I'm
018like I'm a researcher that likes to try it out like is this real does this work like let's see she Not only was able to master the skill on her own independently in the classroom she taught the teacher and her peers better than probably I did and that's isn't that our goal too like students owning their learning so um I just think that that's like the that's those moments that we're really all about and um working with the PTA this year too and attending their meetings I know you're here behind us too it's amazing um our we're hoping to end um in March we're working with the PTA and the AIS department and our school librarian we're going to partner and do a math literacy night and I think that that will be another great
019thing so more information to come because we're in the planning processes but really trying to you know do all of that so here at Bennett we're continuing to soar we start off um each or we end each morning announcement with eagles let's sore little not no all right um we'll move on to uh one last goal that we're trying to help you achieve which is uh chronic absenteeism I will tell you after being the principle here for almost two decades um thank you thank you for this goal because this goal has chronically been um a concern of mine for years uh I'm happy to say that the district is um charged rosaly mnin who is um a district social worker and she's partnered with us me me um our school psychologist our school social worker
020our school counselor um our school nurse and our attendance officer to address um chronic aism it's it's very real um when students aren't here they're not learning it's just that simple and it's it's been a problem that's plagued um at least Bennett and um the whole entire district for a very long time currently we have 42 students out of 239 students that are chronically absent um it's about 18% right now uh we are meeting with rosaly on a monthly basis and we're implementing different strategies depending upon each family and and their needs um at a quick glance I don't have numbers for you I'm sorry but compared to the past couple of years where we are right now there's Improvement so um I I can tell you that there's Improvement I can't give you a
021percentage on that but we are we're talking we're meeting we're strategizing and we're partnering to the best of our ability um and I have to say that a lot of parents have been more receptive than talking to the mean old principal and Rosy just does it with a little bit more tact and she's not as authoritative as the school principal with that that concludes um my welcome does anybody have any questions for me have a great meeting thank you so much very welcome good job all of you excellent very enthusiastic all right we will move on to item 3.01 uh we will motion to enter into executive session to discuss the antia negotiations and to meet with our attorney may I have a first trusty Rondo second trusty Lynch all in favor that's unanimous thank
022you we'll be back in about 45 minutes e e e all right we are back from executive session uh before we have a motion to exit executive session I just want to thank the uh Bennett PTA for the delicious snacks that was very lovely of you may I have a motion to exit executive session and return to public session trusty canson second trustee Goodrich all in favor that's unanimous thank you next on our agenda is uh assistant superintendent for business Monica lir will present the budget development and enrollment projections thank you very much um happy New Year everyone welcome to the start of the 2526 um budget as we are entering 2025 um as I have done in previous years I kind of like to start the budget process with kind of how do we
023develop a budget and then we like to take a look at the um newest enrollment projections that come out around this time as well so developing a budget is a year- round process it is not a oh we're in general now it's time to start we are always looking at our budget in the business off office it is truly a yearr round process so as you can see it literally starts in September because in September we are looking at the budget that was approved in May saying okay did we do a good job of guessing what's going to happen in September from back in May when actually when you think about it it was back in March because March is when you approve the budget that goes to the voters in May so in March
024we're already trying to figure out where we are in September so when September finally rolls around we're like how good we do um you know we look at the programs and then we start I start working on rollover in October already reviewing the history um reviewing Trends and mandates mandates come come out um continually December we start reviewing the enrollment um assessing some non-instructional needs and having initial discussions with the administrators then in January is when we really kind of start digging into the numbers talking about Staffing um going through first draft the governor's budget should be released the end of January um I know she did her State of the State address today I did not listen to it I actually forgot it was today so um I will maybe get the Highlights um
025at some point and then we start reviewing the Bose's budget as well as we enter into February we're finalizing the Bose's budget the revenue budget the tax cap calculation is due to the state by March 1st um and then we do some additional presentations to the board that are February 4th and 18th meeting March we will get our final health insurance rates um look at our fund balance finalize our Revenue present the final draft and in addition to have resolutions for those Capital prop Capital project propositions in addition to any other propositions other than the budget have to be approved by the board in March so in April that's when the IEPs kind of get um completed for our for our out of dist potential out of District students um so any um um transportation
026for out of District students for private schools are due April 1st uh we fine- tune the budget and then we look to the board to adopt the budget around April 12th with the property tax report card I'm assuming is actually the day after the board adopts the budget so must have forgotten to change that date apologize for that um so as as you can tell we say year round we mean year round um these are really kind of some of the the other items as far as the Staffing the um the impact of any instructional program changes that assistant superintendent laen or assistant superintendent Allison are looking for for their departments um and then looking at facilities needs and uh what what we could potentially cover in the budget versus what we would look to
027do in a capital potential Capital project and then looking at other long range ini initiatives what we need for technology textbooks equipment maintenance that sort of thing so uh number one salaries that is our number one budget driver uh supplies and contractual expenses look at that by buildings I mentioned iosis I mentioned special ed Transportation retirement costs we have the Employee Retirement System and the teacher retirement system our health insurance um as well as our liability insurance and our workers comp insurance so what are our goals our ultimate goals goal is to get the highest quality of teaching and learning for all of our students that is the number one goal when we build a budget um our number two is also trying to maintain Financial stability um we try to refine the B budget
028as much as possible to really reflect what it is we are trying to to accomplish what it is we are trying to give our students uh we try to maximize efficiencies where it's possible while minimizing the tax levy increase um we want to maintain our Reserve funds because that helps us with cash flow when we have cash flow we not worried about borrowing so we don't have interest costs but we have interest Revenue interest is still actually relatively High which is actually which has worked in our favor and we also continue to look at long-term planning which is very important for budgeting so as far as the current budget facts that we know as we're going into 25 26 we have one contract that's expiring on TIA all the rest of them are in place
029so those costs are already um in the budget um we still have um some inflation issues that we're dealing with the rates for retirement costs ERS and TRS are looking to be relatively stable for this upcoming year we can um thank the market for that we are still looking at the teacher shortage um as I had this is the same um information that I presented last year there is still a decline in enrollment and teacher programs there are fewer benefits in tier six though they are looking to um just that they did adjust it a little bit and I think they are continuing to look at potentially um adjusting tier six benefits but as I also mentioned we have plenty of our active employees that are eligible to retire within the next five years there
030is still some uncertainty in health insurance projections are expected in March um it they have been higher than normal the last few months um so there's a little uncertainty whether they're going to try to use fund balance to keep that increase a little lower than than they than should so it's it's health insurance a little early but I did want to mention that we currently cover 240 active employees and 320 retirees uh the active employees however do account for about 55 a half% of our health insurance rates while the retirees are about 44 and a half and that generally because our active employees are families whereas our retirees are generally individuals we have a few families that are still in the retirees um but we have a lot more that are individuals we still have
031uncertainty with state aid as I mentioned Governor's budget should be released soon um and in addition to that sad to say no more federal grants for chrisa or ARP so where are we with our fund balance we have a very healthy f could you just do me a favor just um just explain what uh CA and stand for Community I'll be honest I may not remember Chrissa uh ARP was American Rescue plan Chrissa was Co relief rescue rescue relief they were both covid era grants that we that every school district I think in the country received um we received a little over a million for the Chrissa and over six million for ARP so just as a side note um yes it was a lot of money we however did not use that money to
032pay for salaries which will help us as we as we lose the money we're not losing you know anything we we used it for um we used it for the high school generator we used it for um projects of in the high school for classrooms we it for the Bennett HVAC project for things like that we use it for um professional development for for the teachers and and um so so again we we tried very hard not to use it for things that were recurring costs that would then affect our future budgets so going into our fund balance we have very healthy reserves we have um over 6 and a half million our capital reserve 750,000 unemployment four and a half an ERS Reserve only 29,000 repair Reserve way to go to spend down that
033Reserve um for that Reserve we Ed the money for the tennis court we Ed the money for the um the roof in high school and then also for the roof at West Hurley so very good uses for that money we have um 2 million in the teacher retirement reserve and then our employee benett Reserve um a little over a million and a half and that's the money that we hold for uh staff that maybe 12- month staff that have vacation recruit if they leave the money for their vacation comes out of that so going on to our enrollment study um I know you all know that we are comprised of six towns and two counties we are a large District we are a large District geographically um the methodology that is used to do this
034enrollment study is one that's been done this is the one that's been done um historically in this District as well as other districts and it and it uses um a uh you know a model where it um moves the cohort from year to year it looks at historical uh survival meth survival methodology what percentage of a second grade has moved to third grade what percentage of a third grade moved to fourth grade you know knowing that it's very rarely every student um we in this District have very volatile um surv sural rates which makes it difficult to project [Music] enrollment uh so again it's basically a magic 8Ball in certain areas and so you can kind of see here where it's green means it's over 100% where it's red means it's under 100% so you
035can see there's very little Rhyme or Reason you can see in 2021 um more that that year going from into the next year a lot of the grades were higher than 100 and that I would say would be attributed to co so these are kids moving into these are kids moving into the district and basically the reds are kids moving out so if you look at then historically and then you look at okay how do we project moving forward it's it's it's you know you basically you take an average um the one year that I think that we can safely say we are almost always over 100 is 8th and 9th grade we tend to get a lot of kids in from private schools by the 8th and 9th grade so then looking at our
036districtwide enrollment historically from 2015 all the way through 2023 no surprise um every year has been a slight decrease so here 23 24 2425 we're currently at 1,41 projecting forward um we're still projecting a decrease however it is starting to slow and I think the biggest um if you look at it we've had the biggest change historically in the earlier grades and now they're kind of pushing into the upper grades so we're we're now starting to see our high school classes go down but our Elementary classes are stabilizing once our high school classes start stabilizing we will see a we should see I can't say we will we should see a relative stabil stabilizing of between I don't know 60 60-ish to 80ish with obviously your random pop up and pop down which which happens
037all the time we've I mean I can't I think every few years we get that random class that's really big or we get that random class that's really small okay yeah this chart basically just shows the way the numbers flow and then just kind of the same thing looking breaking it down K5 as you can see we start leveling out 68 um has been kind of historically bumpy but I think we're starting to level out there as well and I forgot to put the chart we kept saying oh don't forget to put that in don't forget to put that in guess what I forgot to put that in um I will put it in before you put it and resend it but um you can obviously you can see from the numbers that really high
038school is going to see the largest decrease over the next few years um and really this slide I just want to I kind of like to I like to pick out a couple of like huh when I'm looking at enrollments and what happened in Prior years and current years so I was very happy to see that in 24 25 we projected um the cohort to be 72 and we got 71 so I'm like ah spot on but last year we projected to have 4133 kids in the high school we have 368 we had we we we had 109 9th graders in 23 24 we have 86 10th graders so just as a side note when I see something like that I'm like what the heck happened so Sharon wood very graciously and with a lot
039of time and effort went through all of the students and it was actually very interesting while there were quite a few that left some that came in there were also some that skipped right from 9th grade and went to 11th grade and then there were some that were in nth grade that stayed in nth grade and never went to 10th grade because of credits so they weren't considered so they might be a nth grader for two years but they get enough credits to be an 11th grader and so we realized in high school enrollment is very difficult to predict because it's not about the grade it's about the credits so that was actually something that I thought was very interesting um so total projection for this year was supposed to be 1,51 we have 1,41
040so we're about 10 low so as we move forward as we start looking at building a district and you know building to capacity building to we want to make sure we have enough of everything for every student we're going to have but we don't want to build so big that now we're spending money on things that we no longer can support because we don't have the students so we just said okay assuming a minimum of 60 per grade a maximum of 80 per grade our enrollment should relatively settle between 780 and 1,40 so those so so we're going to build to that more likely to the high end because I I'm a very cautious person when it comes to budgeting um but really just to kind of show you that we like to do enrollment
041projections we will continue to do enrollment projections but it is not in exact science and it never will be in this District because we have so much more movement in this District than a lot of other school districts have it's just the way it is so any questions I have one question just while I'm thinking about it um you mentioned um on page eight that um tier six for a new teachers has fewer benefits and you said that they were making some adjustments can you just talk a little bit about who makes those adjustments and what kind of adjustments we could be looking for so they adjust the who I'm I'm assuming it's SED I'm not I have I'll have to double check I'm not 100% sure who it's in it's part of the it's
042part of the governor's budget so I'm assuming it's somehow the state um one of the one of the changes they did make was the um was the vesting and then there was also something else that I can't remember I can I can find out and let you guys know thank you great trusty Jerome yeah I was just curious you mentioned like a lot of movement or volatility in terms of um students leaving right or coming in and um how are we different than other districts like what talk I'm just curious about what that means and why well you know it for our district I think it's because we have such high property wealth we don't and we don't have the um the like the work for not I can't say the work like the places
043for people to work in our neighborhood so if you think of a lot of other towns people live in the town they work in the town you know they stay in the town whereas if you live in on you're a if you don't work in the school then you really don't work enough like you can't work in the district there are very few jobs in the district um but we're we have always been a large percentage of second homeowners even you know in the 80s and 90s we had a huge population of second homeowners where where as most other school districts didn't have that so they don't have those people coming and going and then the prices are a huge part of it too any other questions trusty canson yeah I'm just curious about can
044you talk a little bit about do you know or if you can describe sort of what are the external demographic data that go into these numbers that in these charts I understand survival rates but right but if we're projecting out how many kindergartens are going to show up in four years the initial so the initial it's obviously it starts with our um with our birth rates which we get from uh Department of Department of Health I believe and then from that is okay historically we may have you know 80 kids born in our district and then in five years when they're eligible for kindergarten what's the percentage of those kids that are born in our district actually go to kindergarten our district and so they they average so they look at historically all the you
045know the percentages and say okay looking at that I'm going to predict 96% we'll go into you know is it I mean it's it's it's not science um I will tell you that I thought it was interesting when I averaged all those it averaged to like 99.9% so thought that was interesting trusty Lynch no oh same question anyone else any other questions thank you so much we'll see you at the next meeting very welcome and on to item 4.02 our mtss coordinator Liz phow will present on multi-tiered systems of support and branching Minds good evening um so welcome to my mtss presentation thank you for having me tonight and of course happy New Year and welcome back after uh our break so the multi-tiered system of supports mtss usually that's the first question mtss what
046is that um and it's exactly what it says and really looking at those tear so these are the things I'm going to talk about tonight and again really looking at that umbrella is what mtss is it's looking at our students not only academically behaviorally and social emotionally putting those all together so really tonight we'll look at where we've come over time what our mtss system is when I we talk about tears what does that mean interventions and supports our progress monitoring and really what our journey has been here at antora because it hasn't just happened overnight that's for sure uh we're using the branching Minds platform as one of uh it's a significant tool for us in this process and I'm excited to share that with you and of course questions for this evening so
047the first question really is is how did we get here mtss it's a new another acronym another set of initials that we listen to but over time it really has grown it was best described to me once is we think about for those of us that remember and I think many of us will the old VCR it was the best technology we had and then the VCR kind of grew into the CD player that was the next step and now we have dig we digitally download we have access to everything at the click of a button so really looking at it from that Progressive standpoint back back in the 1970s we had what was called the discrepancy model we knew at that point in time we had to help our students but we did that
048by looking at their IQ in one hand whatever that score was and then looked at their achievement and if they matched the kid was okay but if they didn't match oh we need to give them extra help it was a start uh over time we came back we came to the reauthorization of idea PBIS the positive behavior intervention that was one piece of that okay not just talking about academics now we're talking about Behavior coming in we reauthorized idea again and we came up with RTI so response to intervention so at that point in time we were once again we were starting to look at the tears of where our kids fell how did we know if they needed extra help but at that point in time we were really just focused on academics we'd
049look at their scores we'd know that our students at the you know certain percentile needed academic supports so we gave them AIS we gave them extra help um it wasn't until 2020 um and just before that when uh Essa came out I think it was 2015 2018 where they started talking about integrating all of these these different things it was the first time in any of the legislation regulation where they were talking about integrating services so not just academics behavior and social emotional and really that's what's brought us to today looking at mtss looking at that multi-tiered system of supports it's not just one support um here's a quick definition it's that support that wraps around the entire student body and this is the addition as well using data to drive those decisions um collaborative
050problem solvings you heard one one of our teachers talk about it today as we sit at our meetings and I'll talk more about them and really put our heads together looking at the data together and problem solve what do we need to do for our kids we look at our levels we'll we talk a lot about tiers um we look at our students tier one tier two tier three and we're looking at all of their data are their behavior pieces what is their attendance what are their social emotional needs and of course what are their academics the majority of our students or about 80% of our students should fall into that tier one group which is really where the teacher in the classroom can provide those supports whole class maybe a little addition additional small
051group instruction uh over the course of the day um tier two and tier three kids are our kids who need really some additional supports that really should be only that 20% that other 20% broken down into tier three the highest about 5% and the other piece in between and that's where our AIS teachers are Specialists come in you know you've maybe heard uh some of us talk about that's where you want to go to a specialist you want to go to that specialist if you have to have surgery that's where our Specialists come in just adding how seal and behavior pieces fall under mtss as well we've done a lot of work in the district we know with morning side and other pieces working on social emotional learning um really teaching those social emotional skills
052to help our kids navigate different situations they come across in everyday life on top of that we talk about behaviors how do we in a positive way support our students behaviorally by teaching and reinforcing those appropriate behaviors to prevent disruption to learning and we really need those two things put together for to have students that really are ready to learn that they're able to sit in our classroom self-regulate and be engaged in what's going on around them so we keep talking about interventions in this process and this is one piece like what is an intervention for us when we have our conversations they're very targeted because we're looking at the child individually specifically around their data and what we see and we target it based on what they need it could be programs it could
053be specific activities specific lessons based on what they need not just a general lesson and those tools and strategies coming back to what are they not it's not Global it's not one size fits all in any way shape or form uh we talk about putting kids in groups but appropriate groups putting kids based on appropriate needs so we're working on the skills specifically that they need it's not just homework help it's not just test prep uh it's not just reviewing what they did in class that's tier one the teacher can do that um it's not a place oh they're going to go to the library for extra help or they're just going to stay after school that's not an intervention as such um and it's not just a person it's what that person does another
054set of words we use a lot interventions is what we do it's supporting what that child's goal is progress monitor that's really how our teachers and we sit down to look at is what I'm doing working it's that quick snapshot it might be a check-in it might be a quick review whatever that is we want to track what we're doing to make sure it's working because if it's not working we need to find another road where have we started this has been we we've tagged it I think one of the slowest rollouts to be very purposeful because this is not something that happens overnight we all know that specific change to this degree takes years we it's kind of been drilled into us this is a three to five year process we're in month five
055but we did start the planning and the process back in August of 2023 um when we had launched it with the administrators we started those foundations with ntss working with branching minds they were a strong support for us as we developed our handbook um and developed um The District's core um core teams P specifically at the elementary school and we had our launch this September um December we started working with Middle School their core Middle School team and we'll be looking further into this that going for further um what are our goals ultimately is looking at Equitable and positive outcomes for all of our students using that problem solving method to look at those specific needs using that using research-based interventions and curriculum um and most of all using our data to do it and
056maintaining our commitment to to uh staying this path to stick with it so with that through this process you've heard branching Minds mentioned branching Minds is a computer platform that stores our data and ultimately that sounds pretty simple like okay so what they store our data but with that it's really become one of our a significant tool for us because we can at a touch of a button look back at a student and look to see how they've been doing where has have their reading Running Records B where have the where is their Benchmark data we don't have to dig through spreadsheets we don't have to go through old somebody's file from last year we don't have to call last year's teacher who might be in a different building we have it at the touch
057of our hands and that is powerful this an this is just an example of what um our teachers could see when it comes up every one of their students is is available to them and there's a quick profile page that will trigger right off the bat are there attendance concerns yes or no are there is there a learning plan is there a Section 504 accommodation plan is there an IEP is this student um is the student an English language learner um are there test modific so really a quick glance I don't have to go digging in their records in the student management system to compare their attendance or to you know calculate that if the student is at risk um I believe it's 20 is it 20 or 10% I forget the exact percentage where
058it Flags them but it does it for us another page again just kind of a different spot on the same page you would scroll down and we can pull up a students Benchmark data this is a quick quick glimpse of what you could see so right off the top you could see a student's map data which is what we use as a benchmark when I say Benchmark we test our kids in the district um K through Middle School basically three times a year that's part of our plan in the fall in the winter and then the spring and that's one of the ways that we track our students progress so right now we're currently um uh our kids are finishing up their winter benchmarks but I could turn around and look at student a right
059off the bat and right here I can see their last five benchmarks right off the bat I know where their levels currently are I know what their percentile is and are there any patterns is there a trend we can do that for math we can see their state assessments again it's right there available for us to see just an example for math we have our star data again NWA Maps data going back and to your right we could actually go further off the page if this into previous years if we needed to it will give us tier reports um basically looking at um our students data um we can look across buildings we can look across grade levels we can uh look at our different subgroups whether it be boys girls ethnicity um socio and
060E economic you know are we serving all of our students and are they performing the way we know we want them to be able to and it gives us growth charts this is probably one of the things I'm most excited about um I will be even more excited about it probably in February when I can compare all of our notes from the the the test this month but really to see not just how our kids are doing are they jumping from tier two are they getting into tier one but also are they moving within their tier this gives us that data really at the a press of a button so our teachers and uh Administration can see specifically how our kids are doing and are they growing in the direction we want them to are
061they able to move up a tier and if not are they at least moving in the right direction towards that within their tier so that'll be exciting data that we'll have at our fingertips we currently uh started our data meetings this school year more specifically we have three types of meetings that we hold using branching mins as our uh base and we have our grade level data meetings which we've had uh we've been having about every six weeks we had one just before the holidays we'll have one post our uh winter testing uh to go over really looking at where our kids falling we will look at those charts that I I gave you a quick Glimpse glimpse of and that's where we sit down and really talk about how are we going to group
062our kids what services do they need and how do we do it and having those players at the table has been so vitally important and it's made a significant difference when kids have more difficulty or we feel like it requires more attention than what we can do at the grade level we have the student specific data meetings um and again similar team might be a little bit closer to you know specifically around that student um and again just really what do we have to adjust and then our school leadership data meetings which we're just going to be starting over the course of this year is really looking at our data as a district and per buildings and moving forward um we we've hit the ground runting uh we're looking at middle school training our winter
063benchmarks are happening uh as web that is that progress monitoring piece you heard a little bit about um really it's just another tool that we're using for those snapshots so how do we know what we're doing is helping on the short term and then really continuing our meetings our grade level our individual studing student meetings honoring our system that we've chosen to put in place any questions for me if I may I'd like to just start by saying thank you so much to miss valow who took on this role that uh nobody else has done in this district and has really r with it and made this such a valuable component of our district and put to use all of the skills that she's used here in our district all of the years that she's
064been with us and I just want to very much appreciate and thank you for everything that you've done in this role because we really needed it and we needed a point person who could manage it and was familiar with all of our faculty all of our students and could jump in it and you have done a phenomenal job thank you thank you trusty Lynch yeah thank you very much Miss phow uh two questions one was just a um in terms of the timeline while it just launched in September I understand does that mean that you have as you say at the touch of a button the data going back multiple years um and secondly when is the roll out plan for the high school um first question yes we've taken um our previous data and
065uploaded it into the system so right now we do see multi-year for some of our data points um there are some things we're just putting in now that you know as we're learning um we've decided to add a few things but for the most part our solid information is in there now which is great and it goes back a number of years so that's been super helpful um and really I mean we've we're starting our work at the middle school now we actually had a meeting today talking about moving forward so um those those that's in the works trusty kudon yeah thank you it was very enlightening um my my quick question was those data points that you see in the individual students profiles on progress things like that is it safe to assume that
066any of that data can be aggregated so that the student is not identifiable and it can be you know viewed in aggregate if the board was interested in seeing how math is progressing math assessments are progressing could we get that data aggregated as opposed to an individual student there are different ways we could look at data absolutely and then certainly take away the like student personal information um we we could certainly look at those different things especially as you know we're growing in the process thank you assistant superintendent Allison just wanted to say two things um one just to also add to truste Lynch's question mtss is occurring in the high school um so I I didn't want to um I just wanted to clarify that they do have an mtss process and they do
067have mtss meetings I also wanted to point out that we were um recently uh had a meeting countywide with some of our Mid Hudson region Partners who pointed out how ahead of the the game antora is in terms of having misf follow in this position and taking the lead and and putting Miss phow as an administrator in in looking at mtss so I thought it was just a feather in our cap that not only is she doing a great job for us here but she's really seen as uh someone in the lead a leader in the field within our our region thank you other questions trusty goodr so does that mean that uh some of the other schools in ster County do not have are not using mpss I um so just to come to
068that every everyone is it is at kind of their own place and journey with mtss different different districts have different systems they have different funding sources they have different funds available different structures it's really complex so mtss it's a journey that even us you know we've been working on this since Amanda and I started here and it's it's a really complex process so we absolutely with this position and all the of the work that collaboratively we've been doing as an administrative team principles um everyone really working together to look at our practice and shift practice and kind of get into this different mindset so I would say everyone is working towards it um what that looks like in in every district is different other questions or comments thank you so much Liz it was great
069it's great for me because I've was in it for so long to hear all the good work that's being done such great progress I know it's not just you but it's everybody and the support of the district and your support has is huge and it's really what's best for our kids so it's it's good work but board is impressed have a great night thank you all right on to item 5.01 acceptance of minutes the Board of Education hereby accepts the minutes of the December 17th 2024 meeting May I have a first trusty Canen second trusty Jerome we'll go with roll call voting trusty kutson I trusty Jerome I trusty Mitchell moral hi trusty Goodrich I trusty Lynch I trusty Rondo I that's unanimous thank you all we'll move on to the super tennis District news
070good evening um so I have a few pages I'll try not to be too too long um so uh as we have discussed previously um the governor had signed legislation that dictated action schools must take when temperatures reach certain thresholds in educational and support services spaces but as a condition of signing that bill into law the governor indicated that it needed to be amended um and in that VIN legislation to do so has already been introduced um so with the legislation that's been introduced instead of prohibiting the occupation of educational and support services spaces if the temperature reaches 88 degrees as the original Bill mandated districts will be required to develop a policy that includes a plan to remove students and staff from these spaces we practicable in quotes um so what that phrase where
071practicable means is subject to debate but clearly um provides districts with additional flexibility when implementing this law commencing in September of 2025 um we are anticipating that this new bill will be passed uh by the legislature and signed by the governor in the near term um at our last board meeting there was a question regarding the potential negative impact on our building Aid if we lost federal aid and I just wanted to revisit this question to ensure that everyone understands first that our building Aid is not received from the federal government building Aid is a state aid funding stream but also for informational purposes we receive um about $1.1 million in federal funding and that is uh exclusive of the former Chrissa and AR funding that was uh temporary funding so the funding that we
072receive is basically for special education grants uh the majority of it comes in two grants Title One and section 611 I don't know why my eyes are burning right now sorry Title One funds can be used to uh improve instructional materials attendance school climate provide counseling mentoring and school-based mental health programs to list some of the allowable uses uh as a note Title One funds cannot be used to support preschool age children section 611 funds can be used to pay for special education teachers administrators related service providers materials professional development and specialized equipment so I just want to be clear our building Aid is not um at all affected by any federal um changes uh but the federal funding that we do get is about a million dollar so although not insignificant uh with a
073budget of over million that's not um going to necessarily uh make or break us uh it's about time that we start looking at our school calendar for next year so thank you so we have begun looking at next year preliminarily generally we base our calendar off of the uler Bose's calendar they have not yet provided their draft calendar but in our um joint super business officials meeting last week we started to have basic discussions uh as a side note the reason that we do try and be in sync with the Bose calendar when possible is so that our students who attend Bose programs have as much opportunity to receive their instruction as possible in our initial review we do note that for next year Labor Day falls really early it's on September 1st and the
074June regent exams end on June 26th so this appears to be a very long school year um but if we follow our traditional pattern with holidays we would recognize both rashash Shana and yam kapor in addition to the holidays that have been added recently Lunar New Year and juneth which are now required non-school days interestingly rashash Shana and yam kapor are not required non-school days that is our choice as a district but luner New Year and juneth are required non school days uh once again the winter break begins with Christmas Eve uh next year that is on a Wednesday New Year's Day is on a Thursday so again that would create a situation similar to this year where technically we would normally come back to school on January 2nd but that would be a Friday
075so uh it would be likely that attendance would be V very minimal if we actually asked people to come back on Friday January 2nd so uh just at an initial look it looks that we may need to reduce our snow day allocation to six but that's very preliminary it has not been reviewed with instructional cabinet yet that's on our agenda for next week but I just wanted to kind of put that out there so people start to think about it uh just as a note our technology director let us know that due to the power surges that we had last week the internal controller on the sign out front has gone bad so you may have noticed that that sign is not on um he is working to get it fixed uh but for now
076uh so that we avoid additional damage he has turned it off um there was an RFI inquiry as to whether the full districtwide fourth and fifth grade would fit into Bennett along with the existing K3 structure so our team did some um analysis and believes that this is not currently a viable option this model would require by hour math approximately 27 classrooms and then additional office space for additional mental health and related service providers who would need to provide services in order to support the additional student population that would be housed here the current building currently has 24 classrooms so creating this model would impact the assignment of the mental health and related service providers in a way that would split several individuals between the buildings because there would be a smaller case load in
077Woodstock that would not support them fulltime necessarily and then a larger case load here in Bennett so we would have additional staff members traveling but they would also need additional space um in order to serve the students that would be here in Bennett um this structure would also create a higher Transportation cost as it would recreate that um formerly redundant bus run structure which we would have vehicles in the Woodstock area picking up students for Woodstock and then additional vehicles on the same rots and Roads picking up those Woodstock students to bring them to Bennett so we would be covering the same routes with two vehicles this would also create a situation in which the Woodstock students would be expected to integrate into a building with an existing culture that they would only be in
078for two years this differs from the previous structure in which students from both primary buildings came together at the same time to create new relationships and join a new building um and lastly we wanted to just let everybody know that we are planning to um once again hold our summer skills academy at Bennett this summer we did suspend it last year for multiple reasons but the planning has begun for this summer 2025 session this will be a K5 program scheduled from July 7th through August 1st um as usual it will be morning only 8:30 to 11:30 um but we will share more information as we progress through the planning process thank you any questions for the superintendent great thank you um 7.01 I'm sorry yes 7.01 uh any Board District news okay moving on to
079our student representative um Olivia McHugh will give us her report good evening um so this week the high school and middle school have started taking their midterm exams and next week um will be regions week where the high school students will start taking reg region exams um some accomplishments from St students include the completion of the mural um welcome to the nest which you can find above um the high school gym entrance um Additionally the Science Olympia team um traveled to kab in their first tournament of the year um some upcoming events include um coaches appreciation days which is Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday of this week and on tour's community night which will be this Friday the 17th um and as the first year of the as the year of the academic school year first
080half of the academic school year comes to an end um the student government want to mention some completed initiatives um so the high school um they in addition to completing the mural initiative they also added um clocks in the hallways and at um outside lunch areas because kids don't have their phones so they now have access to the time and the middle school student government um completed initiatives including the Halloween dance with costume parties um as as well as organizing spear week and that's all great thank you so much for that report any questions for Olivia okay great and Olivia you can go whenever you want to do I I know we're running a little long tonight so we don't want to keep you out too late um uh item 9.01 is acknowledgement of those
081folks who spoke at the last meeting and Megan brener did speak um item 10.01 is public be heard our public uh Publican student comment the board appreciates hearing from the public including students on any agenda or non-agenda item please understand that by our adopted parliamentary procedure the board can't engage in discussion or answer questions during public be heard please know that we hear you and we take all of your comments into consideration the board does reserve the right to correct any inaccuracies or misinformation during public be heard please limit your comments to three minutes be civil and do not name any particular individuals or or promote any commercial Ventures or products people wishing to express individual student or Personnel concerns can bring them to the superintendent's attention in private and tonight uh Mark willins has
082signed up to speak hello hello um for those that don't know me I'm a graduate here of Anora High School a long time ago I'm not going to say when um uh my daughter recently graduated she's a sophomore Vanderbilt University and my son here is a junior I'm also the varsity basketball coach um and have coached mostly basketball but a few other sports here for about seven years um so I just wanted to quickly s sort of like bring forward a discussion maybe open a discuss about trying to help improve um access to our facilities for our community and our kids specifically on Sundays and um uh I know there's some barriers to that and there's some hurdles that would have to be overcome to that that I understand things like security access and custodial
083support um but I do think uh it would be a huge benefit to our kids and specifically honestly some of the younger groups Elementary age groups kids who are um maybe not always uh involved in uh school team sports and things like that I know across the board all of our Sports um are constantly fighting for space and Access Sports like M track who don't have access to whole vating space and shot putting space um and then in general um there's just a high demand for kids to have access so I I thought um I just wanted to mention and and bring to the table an idea of of how can we work together improve access to our our uh facility on Sundays um I do my wife happens to work at s she's a
084social worker there um I do know there's um been some success in other districts across the region in figuring out a way to do that it's having somebody obviously open the building and and having the right support there I think I know um you know as a coach um I'm certainly willing to support um uh students and athletes in that way myself I had an athlete text me Saturday Coach i' really love to come shoot in the gym Sunday can I get there and I'd be like hey we don't really can't open on Sunday otherwise I'd be happy to do it so um I just wanted to really just bring that up and um see if there's something we can do to improve that situation thank you thank you Mark would anyone else like to
085speak all right item 11.01 is uh discussion and possible action and the discussion is uh around the creation of a diversity equity and inclusion policy um I believe the superintendent shared with us um the um nisba proposed policy and uh also the the Highland School District's um Dei policy we reviewed the um briefly reviewed the Dei policies in policy committee the other day and were impressed with the job that Highland had done and just thought it would be um good to have the Board review those policies because they're quite different and um other local districts have mirrored their uh Dei policies more off of the nisba model um and we could just open it up for discussion trusty Rondo so when I was comparing them I really I really love Highland's definition of what the
086board would expect to see in the annual Equity report I think those bullet points help the guide the board to know what to expect and then you know for us to have questions if we have them and I think the definitions are intrical to understanding the motivation behind why this has to happen and why we need to adopt something so I would agree to or encourage incorporating the bullet points of what to expect in the review and the definitions as well into the nisba policy added into the nisma policy so you your suggestion would be to um blend the two okay okay any other comments about the policies I I would agree that their the uh beginning of their policy um really does set the tone for why the policy is being developed and and
087it also um I'm sorry not the beginning the the definitions the um the subject um and the dis the description of what the board is looking for um really sets the tone for the board and I think also the administration in terms of you know it sort of spells it all out so there there are no I well there's always question marks but no huge question question marks so is the board comfortable moving forward with the development of a Dei policy tresse canson isn't that a board didn't we adopt that as a board goal well yeah I but it was something that we're you know we're working towards so I just wanted to make sure that yeah that we're okay that we're all okay with so we will policy committee will start working on it
088and uh bring a draft back to the board okay all right good thank you um item 11.02 is senior exemption update so this is just kind of a reminder um that back in 23 uh that the governor gave schools the ability to raise the senior exemption up to a maximum of $50,000 we were currently at I believe 29 at the time so uh we had um in the discussion um I had recommended and the board had approved that we would do it over a three-year period so as not to make a huge impact in year one so we are now in that third year so at the next board meeting will be the resolution in approving um an increase to the cap of the maximum of $50,000 for the 25 and 26 school year and
089then I also wanted to mention that at the next board meeting we will also need to do a resolu solution for the secra the state quality review something having to do with the project um normally We Do It um we've historically always done a type two action I'm sure that sounds familiar to you and that is because we're having very minimal effect to the building we do a capital projects mostly its interior renovation work but because the work here at Bennett will require um an addition it's actually going to be have to be a type one which actually our attorneys explained to us has a little bit more work involved which is why we'll have to do it a little earlier so that that type one action will be on the next board agenda and
090then there will be a second Seeker resolution as we get to the March V I just wanted to clarify for anyone who is not familiar with the exemption that the $50,000 EX means that the taxable assessed value of the property that the senior owns would be reduced by $50,000 before the tax rate was applied correct okay and uh it's not for every senior citizen in in our school district you have to qualify you have to qualify there is an income level and then it kind of percent by percentages goes down on your income great thank they so uh community members who wish to apply should see their assessor yes um which is the reason we're doing it next week they need to go to the assessor by March 1 trusty Jerome oh just also um
091I contacted our local library and just made sure that she was also a point of contact on that TI so I'm what are we voting on next meeting we're voting on what are we doing to this school is that do we know yet I don't know when I V this this is purely um this is just purely it's I don't know how to explain that this action would allow us to move forward with a capital project proposition that would change the footprint of the building if that is what we so choose to do if we if we do this action and then for whatever reason nothing moves forward that's fine but we can't move forward without it yes is that helpful okay trusty Lynch yes thank you I was just I I think I saw
092this in your memo to the superintend um in our notes here but um we we have not yet seen an impact from the three the the decision we made three years ago is that correct in terms of any Financial impact to the district that would be outsized or somewhat surpris there would be an impact to the district there would only be impacts to impact to the taxpayers um we have heard of no we have had no complaints okay um we've actually had quite a few people call us and thank us yeah great wonderful thank you I just have a question um I recall that when we voted to do the $35,000 um um exemption that was also um I I don't know that the amount was also offered to uh firefighters and um I I
093can't remember who else but do you recall and and are those folks still eligible to receive this if if if they app they are but it's a different exemption it was and we just put it in the whole thing right in there was no staggering for them thank you any other questions or clarifications all right uh we're scheduled for a break do we want to take a break we'll keep going okay do you need a break okay all right let's take five minutes e e e all right moving on to item 131 approval of the consent agenda the board hereby approves items number 13.02 through 13.07 May I have a first trusty Goodrich second trusty Jerome any questions or comments okay we'll vote trusty Canon I trusty Jerome I trusty Mitchell Morell I trusty Goodrich
094I trusty Lynch I trusty Rondo I that's unanimous thank you trusty Bishop I reviewed schedule you and everything seems to be in order thanks for reminding me that's great on to thank goodness right um 14.01 approval of contracts and independent uh contract retainers the Board of Ed hereby approves items number 14.02 through 14.14 May I have a first trusty Jerome second trusty Rondo any questions or comments all right trusty Lynch yeah thank you I just wanted to ask about the um the 14.03 and the additional school resource officer um just want to make sure I understand that that cost going forward would have to be in the next budget because this money was um provided by a grant that we discussed at the last meeting so going forward if this Arrangement were to continue we
095would need to add that to the budget code absolutely in the 25 26 school year yes and then looking forward um if we were to consolidate then we would go back to one okay got it thank you so much so we'll vote trusty canson I trusty Jerome hi trusty MIT moral I trusty goodr I trusty Lynch I trusty Rondo I that's unanimous thank you so on to 15.01 we have a first reading of policy artificial intelligence and um 15.2 a first reading of policy 1322 ex officio student member of the Board of Education any questions or comments about that I know we're not voting it's just a first reading okay on to committee reports are there any committees that wish to report on meetings that were held recently um sure the communications committee met again
096um this month we um talked a bit about actually getting um the finalized written report of the long-term plan that we'd all seen and um trusty Bishop asked for that to be finalized and so that we could share that with all of you um we also talked a lot of course about content for our newsletters and as the news there's something called as you know the board Corner which is in the printed newsletter versus our board briefs which is the online newsletter um we decided that we would um because not everybody is uh receiving the board briefs you have to sign up for those for to get your email address sorted um we do want to make sure we cover some of that content in the board corner but we also don't want it to
097be a complete um you know replication of the same information so we'll take some of those headlines and then go deeper in the printed version on you know some of the more important issues uh particularly the optimizing antora work that uh we're contributing to so um I think uh if there's any comments about that we'd be happy to talk through that with the broader group but that felt like the strong consensus and then last um we asked for a uh uh preview if you will presentation of a new communication tool that uh has come to our attention as potentially um quite valuable to the community the the um app is called uh parents Square some of you have already used it um but we uh we recognize that it could be a shared service from
098the Bose team but it would still incur a cost so as soon as we have that um scheduled we'll let everybody know what the options are but essentially it's an online tool that all both parents teachers and and um administrators could use to better communicate in real time and have two-way communication about what's going on um at the schools including events and other things thank you great any other committee reports I will just mention that um the legislative action committee hasn't met but um we have received an advocacy update from New York State Schoolboard Association just notifying us that the um the um at the lobby day advocacy day at um at the state capital is coming up it's on I believe it's on February 12 and that's a Wednesday and the Friday prior to
099that they do a um a virtual kind of informative meeting on uh how that works for those of us who haven't done it so if anyone's interested in lobby day let us know um I am going to try to arrange to U be able to be in Albany that Wednesday and um we will let bosies know we let Shila know that uh who whoever's going is going and then uh Bose arranges meetings for us to meet with our Representatives um our Senators and assembly persons it's a great day it's active day but it's informative and I think it means a lot to them that we appear and meet with them means a lot to us that they have here and meet with us so all right on to uh old business is there any old
100business to discuss trusty Rondo so I know after our Retreat we landed in the holidays and we have our book that we were going to discuss the governance core 2.0 so I just wanted to bring it back to just see what our timeline is for reading a chapter and talking about a chapter and how you want to lay it out potentially moving forward I know we have a lot to do next you know four months but it's just something that I thought we should bring back trusty Mitchell morale hav really it does it have chapters like could we just do like one chapter and like highlight and take it super sloud sure that works for me does that work for everybody I mean I think that's doable so should we assign chapter one okay and
101um and it'll be in the minutes as a reminder and then we can discuss it we can have it for a discussion at at our next board meeting just curious do we need to discuss it publicly necessarily we don't have to discuss it publicly but I mean it's it's an opport it's the only time that we're all together at the same you know honestly at the same time so I think we can I think it would be a really a brief discussion yeah just you know discuss the highlights maybe some questions that we maybe someone could remind us one more like a week before or something I know that's like next week but still sure we'll send a reminder oh there you go do you want to do just one chapter a month like versus
102like one a meeting because I think one a meeting I think we can handle one a meeting that's what I figured I just didn't want to overwhelm any month some of us may not be on the board any longer by the time we get to [Laughter] the okay all right any other old business trusty canson um just just because I don't think it's been mentioned at all in this meeting yet but tomorrow night is the is the second uh big presentation on the development of the capital project should be of great interest to anybody who's following that project in the community and I hope a lot people come and participate trusty Lynch I just wanted to thank and acknowledge and thank um the superintendent for the um the dashboard that you included um in our
103I think it was in an update correct yes um and just wanted to um say how useful I thought it was but also open up discussion on if there was needed any discussion on whether it works for everybody it's what we envisioned and if having it in the update feels right does it because obviously superintendent gives us an update weekly but we don't need the dashboard weekly certainly so maybe just talking about the Cadence and that kind of thing is it as you collected the data was it um honorous in any way or did it feel like it was as we had hoped it was all stuff we already basically had and just pulled it all together yeah and uh the vast majority of it won't change let me rephrase that won't change more than
104annually would it be something you would include in each update or just or is something we should bring with us just thinking about how we would use it I think it's honestly it's for us you know it's for our information just to keep us I I apprised of the data um I think if at any point any trustee feels like they would like more information like different information or more in-depth information um it can just be requested through an RFI what do you think that's fine I mean or I can even just append it to every update just as a reminder if you want but I don't know how how many times you want to see the same would it be possible to just put it like on the back of this sheet that we
105get each during the meeting because sometimes I I use it as a as a reference point I keep looking in my phone but I'm just thinking sure I can share it's a Google doc so I can share it with the district clerk and I mean there's nothing you could print it out she can't see great thank you perfect that would be great if others agree yeah okay so it would be uh it would be the like the first meeting of every month because that reflects the end numbers at of every month okay good any other old business Jesse canson just wondering if we can get an update maybe this is an RFI I'm sorry but an update at the next meeting on the progress of the migration from board to community how's that going and
106we might be able to look at that so happy news we're currently in the migration phase um so they have taken over so that'll take um we probably have two weeks left so they anticipated the first week in February is when everything is going to be migrated over and then we go ahead and play and we learn how to use it um diligent Community team will sit down with the administrative team as well as myself so we can learn how to use it and then if any trusty would like to sit in on that meeting then of course we would do that otherwise they would be individually trainings with myself and then our projection is to go live and use it fully by March 1st thank you that's great thank you any yes trust you
107Jerome um thank you for mentioning the visioning session tomorrow everybody should be coming to those and um hopefully there'll be a good turnout to talk about the future of the district also I want to remind everybody that to get April 7th in their calendars because um meet greet and eat is on the horizon and already there's lots and lots being done and there's going to be great things in the silent auction it's going to be fabulous food and um we're GNA it's going to be exponentially larger than it was last year and um so we should talk about that as much as we can so we get a great turnout great thank you any other new business trusty Lynch yeah thank you um I had um an RFI over the last week about the use
108of our facilities in open gym space and I just wanted to um request potenti request in in um the administration to potentially put a plan together that we could respond to I just wanted to clarify something however though that it in the language that I was using in terms of open gy um that can mean something very specific and in the case I think of um uh margaretville thank you um yeah that's a specific term meaning that it's just it's open obviously to our community versus um potentially looking at a plan that would have both open gym but also 247 access for coaches and staff uh meaning that you know there could be an opportunity for because some of our coaches um have limited time that they can be with um their teams or whatever
109because of the fob entrance and just trying to better understand what some of those limitations are so just wanted to clarify that the the question was about you know using facilities um the gym space is obvious um but you know what what could we do that would both help um you know meet all of the the goals that we talked about in that that I mentioned in the I which includes obviously already you know great opportunities to bring the district together opportunity for um exercise obviously and getting kids off screens and giving them a place to go that's safe but then also thinking about um the needs of our of our athletes as well which um is more specific to um access to the gym not just open gym does that make sense uh yes
110and uh there's some some things that are not clear in terms of um scheduling for things like practices uh that when we schedule practices we provide transportation um if there are needs they need to go through the building administrators with requests so it's not really it's not really for us to set up a plan prob and JY it's for the people who are wanting it to go through the process so they need to do that and then we also need to be mindful of um the other Staffing that's required and even if we have custodial staff on site they still have to be able to clean the spaces so people can't be in them for the whole evening but um but I would request that the people who have specific um thoughts and ideas if
111they are volun hearing then we need to know that because we can't necessarily pay people for those roles and then we have to figure out who who the intended audience is um there's a lot of there's a lot of details there but it should start at the building level thank you very much for being receptive to it I think just so I understand I'm not sure I understand what that means because I know there's an added cost and that's where we would come in in terms of the board in terms of thinking about potentially requesting you know a service that's an added cost correct I it depends on what that cost is for and whether it's a gift of taxpayer dollars or whether it's for the school program thank you that's the difference okay got
112it thank you trusty Jerome I know there's so many details around this it seems such a sort of a simple requests but I know it's not but um I wonder whether this is something as we envision a new um optimized ontora I think that this is one of the things aside from some of the other you know we have our things that we've already paid for and then we've got the things we've got to do our laundry list of you know updates and then we've got these things that could be adding on to Bennett but or creating a a a separate lockable entrance for some something that was safe that followed requ requirements um for Public Access I know at the library they were going to have a door that could lock the rest of
113the library I don't know what that looks like but it's maybe something for the future of our campus because our we are really trying to pull people from the community do great things for the surrounding Community maybe it's something we talk about tomorrow as um it would be such a value to the middle school high school I think um it's a Val idea absolutely thank you trusty Jerome I agree with that but I also think you know there's three more years before we realize that dream and so I I think there's a lot of loow hanging fruit in terms of you know keeping a gym open for three hours on a Saturday morning when there's no games this seems like a no-brainer and it gives the community an opportunity to come together however there there's
114a lot that goes into it a ton of work hours a ton of scheduling a lot of oversight you know security concerns so I just don't want to pretend to think that it's not a big deal and I'm just asking what is in what is possible and recognize it yeah and I didn't mean to say that no I I agree sooner the better um in three years I just think it we it should be something that we think about as we optimize even if it's not part of a larger Capital plan but thank you thank you any other new business trusty goodr um so at some point in time I guess we have to have a discussion about Capital Improvement propositions and what they look like um I guess this is a question you know
115what what is what kind of time frame are we looking at when we need to have that discussion and what is the for that to happen I think our hope is that in the community session tomorrow we're going to kind of refine what the priorities are for the community and then I would anticipate U I'm going to look at assistant superintendent lir as well but I would anticipate that we begin talking about them at the next meeting because we are looking to refine them and decide what will be on the ballot at the second meeting in March I was just looking for the presentation that I did at the last meeting where we kind of had some dates in there um course I can't find it now gole okay um I have one more question
116so uh the next news letter is coming out when and will it have any information from the community forums hasn't no no it hasn't gone to print yet the newsletter it the board the board Corner content will be but the newslet will be out in uh beginning of February I believe so will it have any uh Community Forum information I'm sure it will okay good so I just looked at the um dates so February 4th we are looking to do the initial design and the initial funding considerations at the board meeting at the March 4th boarding meeting with the final design and the maximum not to exceed cost and tax impact with the recommendation as to the number of proposition to be included and then March 18th would be approving the propositions to be added
117to the ballot so those will be our next three meetings so if we're looking at designs on February 4th but we're not having a meeting till tomorrow like how is that even possible I don't understand I don't understand how the Architects or whoever can they have been turning things around literally in 24 hours they have been amazing we have the most amazing Architects we really do wow we really do but then I also know so we have a February 18th board meeting that I some reason don't have anything down here for so we do have another board meeting in there we'll get input tomorrow night and people somehow tomorrow night will decide what is going to be done and then I don't understand I just don't understand the timeline that's all right tomorrow night we're
118getting more input we're we're showing the community um how we interpreted what we got from the last meeting and what that looks like um so we have another Community Forum after that as well so we will take what we learn tomorrow night and bring it back to the board at the beginning of February and in February the board and the community will be working in tandem there's going to have to be some interplay I guess tomorrow night we'll see how the because so much was talked about at the last meeting that I was there from campus redesign to two stories on you know there was so much there how are we teasing out what the priorities are what's the process there how are we deciding that we don't have the entire run of show yet
119we'll be going over that with Sharon tomorrow okay okay so tomorrow will that will show a lot of that yes okay thank you any other requests for inform information okay may I have a motion to adjourn trusty Rondo second trusty canson all in favor great our next meeting whoops our next meeting is February 4th at the middle school high school we'll see you all then