001What? Oh, thank you so much. I'll rise for the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag United States of America to the republic for it stand one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Mrs. Adia, can you please call the role? Brian Arnold, >> Jennifer Boy >> here, >> Linda Gaines >> here, >> Jeff Hate >> here, >> Sophia Bené Hollis >> here. >> Donna Logan >> here. >> Maryannne Megan >> here. >> Mia Newsome >> here. >> Eileen Snook. Marian Quinn. Item D, the reading of the district mission. Our mission is to empower all students to be self-directed lifelong learners who willingly contribute to their community and lead passionate, purposeful lives. May I please get a motion for the approval of tonight's agenda? >> Thank you. Second. One of you
002is a second. Good. Um, any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I opposed. Abstensions. Motion passes. um correspondence. Anybody have any correspondence? I actually received um a letter in the mail from a community member inquiring about our staff preparedness and internal protocols surrounding the non-local law enforcement making requests at our schools. I plan to reply to that letter shortly and I'll copy the board and Dr. Bonante. I've asked Mrs. Sajida to scan and send a copy of the letter to each board member tomorrow. Um, any other correspondents? Seeing none, moving on. Board President's remarks. Well, welcome. It's so nice to be here at Beakman. Um, we're disappointed that we didn't get our building tour yesterday, but I'm sure everyone's thrilled they got their snow day, you know, so that's good. None of the kids
003are crying. But, um, we we've been really enjoying the school tour. So, we're kind of hoping that maybe later in the school year we'll have an opportunity to reschedule and come back. um because it's been a really rich experience seeing the different personalities of each school and I know you have a lot of your staff here today. So um thank you if you're all prepared for us to come. We you know we we slam in with so many of us. So um I'm looking forward to that. Um a big thank you to your um PTA and and for the snacks look delicious back there as always. Um always a favorite on our tour, the Beakman the Beakman snacks. So, uh, thank you very much for that. We feel very welcome. Um, I also want to
004give a shout out and a thank you to our maintenance staff and our transportation staff, both of whom have had a heck of a winter. Um, both getting our kids to school safely and making sure that our grounds are prepared for our cars and our staff and our people and buses and all that. So, a big thank you goes out to all of them and all the work that goes into that. And that's it for my remarks for tonight. Um, Dr. Ponte. >> I know many people may be encouraged by the snow. I am no longer encouraged by the snow, so I'm no longer on that list. But thank you, Mr. Coranto, for the efforts that you put in as well as with your staff to host the board of ed or to be at
005least prepared to host the board of ed yesterday. Uh we will reschedule at some point later in the school year and I know you're going to share a little bit about uh what's going on in the school in a few moments here. So, thank you for your preparations around that. Uh in light of yesterday's snow day, so we've used all of our snow days at this point. Um I have a budding meteorologist at home who likes to inform me at the prospect of any snow and he's informed me that it's going to snow tomorrow between 5 and 9:00 a.m. Uh and that I should be aware that that might impact the start of school. Uh so that being said, uh as I mentioned to the board a couple of uh weeks ago, John has been
006working with uh a few folks internally to develop a plan for providing remote instruction, but that we would first uh use actually two more snow days uh before we uh shifted to remote learning. So, if we have a snow day, as just as an example, this is not an announcement or a commitment uh but if we were to have a snow day tomorrow, um that would then um we would have a give back day. And I'm just kind of looking to John and Melissa. Our first give back day, I think, is the Friday of Memorial Day, May 22nd. Uh and then there's room for one more snow day. My son has informed me that next Tuesday, uh into Wednesday, there's the prospect of snow. I've informed him that weather models don't hold any longer than
007three or four days. Uh but if we were to have a snow day next week, the second give back day would be the um Monday, April 6th. Thank you. Uh so we would use those two days and then if there was a third uh we would shift to remote instruction and John provided the plan internally today to all staff. So, he's outlined that and uh we're going to wait uh just until potentially we use one more day, which who knows could be till tomorrow um to inform families of that just because we realize families may not tune in, if you will, to what our plans are uh until that time. Uh I know different districts have different plans. So, there's a chance that a district may have already shifted to remote learning. Um you know,
008we felt to uh it was important to approach it this way. I appreciate the effort that John has put into developing the remote instruction plan. I include in my prayers every night that we don't have to use it. Uh but we're ready to go if we do. And uh that's that. So just coming full circle uh with the board uh since we spoke about it a couple of weeks ago. There are plenty of presentations this evening. So I won't say anymore. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Um, that moves us on to Mia and Newsome, our Exopysio student board member report. >> Um, I don't have much since we just met a week ago. Um, the only update I do have is about student government. We are hosting a spike ball tournament on March
0096th, so coming up pretty soon. And there's like prizes for the winners and it should be a fun event. But that's the only update I have for now. Thank you. >> Thanks, Mia. Does anybody have any questions for Mia right now? Okay, seeing none. Do Did you say yes? Oh, sure. Yeah. >> Um, so I feel like it's usually a game that's played at the beach, but you can play it like on a regular surface, too. And it's kind of like, oh my gosh, how do I explain this? It's like this netted. It's a It's like a net and you try have to like hit the ball off of it and like your team is like placed around the net and you have to like hit it off the net and to your teammates if
010that makes sense. Yeah. >> Yeah. And it's like a little >> visual. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> All right. Any other questions? Okay, moving on. Uh that brings us to the first of two sections for public comment. Do we have anybody for the first section of public comment? >> We do not have anybody for first section. >> Okay. Then that brings us to reports and discussions. >> Yeah. At this point, I'd ask Mr. Coranto. And Mr. Quanto, I just want to acknowledge the Beakman staff that is here this evening. I'm sorry I did not in my initial remarks, but always have a good turnout, it seems, from our staff members here at Beman when we host the board meeting. So, it's great to see everybody. and I'll turn it over to Chris who wanted to
011share a little bit about what's been going on in the school. Thanks Chris. >> Thank you Dr. Bante and Miss Meen. You're right. We were sad that you couldn't make it but I know we'll make some time to make that work. So we did have a full schedule ready for you guys uh that we can always make happen any other day. So uh to the board of education, Dr. Bonante, central office administration, and those that are in attendance either p in person or virtually joining us from some other land, welcome to Beman Elementary School. We're happy to have you. Uh we look forward to sharing all the amazing things that happen here at Beman uh as far as learning goes on a daily basis. So each year I want to focus on a specific uh
012Arlington district core value. So this year our focus is on potential can only be attained through commitment, resilience, and high expectations. Potential is active. It's not passive. This is not something that we have but something we must build through action. So, we're focusing on resilience in motion. And that could be either mastering a math standard or which has become very popular at Beman this year is solving a Rubik's cube. >> We've had high expectations for all of our students and I'm going to go through a little bit of what's new here at Beman. One of which being our universal prek which we're very excited to share with you. Uh all the way up through our fifth graders. We believe that with the right support they can really reach their potential. Uh even if it's something
013that they struggle with, they could always reach to their potential. So, I'm going to start with UPK. So, we consider this our starting line. This is brand new this year. We welcomed 36 new students to Beman at the age of four, some even a little bit younger based on their birth dates. Uh, and it was a lot of learning for all of us, but really one of the things that when I spoke to Miss Hammond King very early on last year, it was very exciting to say like we could have kids even younger joining our school and get into school experience prior to coming in kindergarten. And I'll say we have a really good balance of students from regionally this area. And I say that because we're pretty far, as you know, we're pretty far
014from some of the other areas in the district and some of those UPK sites that were previously offered. And I said to Miss Hammond King, I said, I have a feeling it's going to be pretty popular. So, just be aware of that. And there was a lot of interest in Beakman when it first went out. So, we have 36 students from around this area. Several from farm, several from Beakman and a few other handful of schools as well. Uh, and when I first started talking to the staff when we were hiring staff for these positions, every communication was we want you involved in as much as you possibly can. But we also know that like our first whole school meeting was a lot for them. They were brand new to our school. It was within
015the first hour of the school day. It was a little bit much. So, one classroom made it down. The other classroom was like, we still just have a little bit of stuff going on in the room, so we're going to hold off. So, we involved them as much as possible. They actually even had a student who entered our steam fair last week uh as a pre-K student. They joined our school dance. They were here for bingo night last week. So, we try to involve them in as many things as possible so they get that school experience before school actually starts. But that comes with patience, right? So, when you're starting a new program, it's a lot of conversations. It's conversations with healthy kids who we're partnering with talking through logistics. We think we understand it
016all on paper and then when things start to happen, you start realizing we have to make some adjustments, right? So, uh the patience of the staff, not only the preschool staff that were starting a new program and building it with us, but also the patience of the staff. We have kids that were entering that were really having a tough time. Four-year-olds get upset when they leave their parents, and we understand that. So, the first couple days were a little bit noisier than the rest, but as time went on, they settled in. And if you go down to that arrival here every morning, we call it the parade of littles. They enter in the far side of the building, and they are so quiet, you wouldn't even know that they're here as they're passing by. Uh,
017so they really adjusted really well to our building. Uh that also comes with patience on the parents uh behalf because we thought we had a plan for a drop off of 36 cars that was super close to our arrival time and we realized it didn't work. We had to make an adjustment, communicate to parents. They adjusted very well and what we have now is working well. So uh patience on on behalf of a lot of people because something new like this takes some time. Um I know that the uh UPK also does a lot of things that we do in our building like mystery readers. They welcome in parents to come and read to the kids. I actually was a mystery reader two weeks ago. Love that event when you get the chance to sit
018and live with the little kids. So PK is really our way to expand the access of our students to our school and we happen to have two classrooms here and I'm looking forward to that expanding potentially in the future and I know that Dr. Bonante has talked to me privately about we want this to be something that's really part of what we do as as not only Bears but Arlington Admirals. So I'm excited about the EPK. The other thing I wanted to share with you was the engine for growth. Uh this is high expectations that drive our work. we embarked on a a a plan with our teachers to really start focusing on learning standards and making sure that what our instruction is is tied exactly to what it should be. And so we started
019the 15-day challenge work this year starting with the leadership team having initial conversations and those leadership members really helping to push that onto the grade levels in terms of this is important work. Now, how do we do this together? And that collaborative work has really yel yielded some good results of conversations where they're focusing on what kids are learning, what they should be learning, and tracking along the way. So the idea is we're not waiting to the end to determine if students were able to get it or not. We're taking smaller steps along the way to determine are students progressing the way we want them to or what can we do in the meantime to make sure that they are accessing the curriculum the way they should. Uh so that comes in a lot of
020terminology. I know that in some of the previous uh board presentations they talked about learning targets. there was talks about common formative assessments. It's basically for our way to make sure that our students are getting targeted instruction in the areas that they need. So, this 15-day challenge uh is in the infancy stages. We just started this year and our plan is to each year improve upon that practice. And the last piece I want to share with you is the leadership of this building. And it doesn't just come from the principal seat. There are, as you can see, several staff members that are here today. Many of which are a part of this work actively. We have staff members through the curriculum office that attended national conferences and the pictures you're seeing up here are them
021actually teaching their colleagues what they learned. So in the bottom you have Mrs. Bove who is sitting behind me leading the entire faculty in a movement activity about counting. And we know that through our uh multi-ensory approach in reading it also can apply to math where if you touch body parts and you teach students your toes, your knees and you count with them, they're more likely to remember that. I actually even saw that in music class the other day talking about music notes. So this was Mrs. B leading the faculty in a movement and talking about numbers for our early learners. And up top you'll see that Mrs. Cowan who also is sitting behind me led a uh development about using actual manipulatives to create geometric shapes. Something of which I had never seen before.
022She had learned at her conference and shared with the staff. Uh these are not things that we are going and buying an abundance of but it's a resource available. So, this is an example of our staff turnkeying what they're learning and improving upon everybody. And I put a Rubik's cube up there because one quick conversation out of our December whole school meeting about facing challenges and doing hard things has sparked a movement in this building that I didn't expect. We have students walking in every day with Rubik's cubes. Some of which have told me, "I now can solve twothirds of it. I'm working on the last phase and some are just working on the first phase. We want them to know that it's okay to fall down, to not understand it, to practice, to get
023better at it." So now we have I would say six to seven students that can now sell Rubik's cube that could not in the beginning of the school year. And we actually had one student that was brave. I'll keep his name out of it because there's public here that was brave enough a fourth grader to stand up in front of the entire school and solve it. For those of you who have ever tried it, it's nerve-wracking and to do it in front of a whole school I think takes a lot of bravery. So these are the things that we're teaching kids. It's hard. It's good to do hard things and if you don't get it, you keep on trying and you'll eventually get there. So that concludes my initial remarks. I know we have a
024lot more conversations that I'm looking forward to having once you come and see the building in action, but I want to make sure I thank a few people. Not only to the board of ed for being here and supporting everything that you do for our school. Dr. Bonante has been a great resource for me in learning and just being a professional. So, thank you Dr. Bonante. Our central office administration who I feel like I contact daily about things. So, I appreciate your support. Uh Miss Peron, who's also sitting behind me, uh constantly going through like all right, how are we improving? What are we doing? What do we have to adjust? Miss Peron does a lot of work for our school that are behind the scenes that not everybody sees. Uh Mrs. Seeddi and Mrs.
025Greco are also sitting back here. They work in the office and really support a lot of things that we do every day. And there's lots of uh faculty and staff that are also here. So, thanks for coming today. And I want to also point out the custodial staff. So, yes, Miss Meen mentioned it. They've been working long hours recently and they still made sure that everything was set for today. Took a lot of effort to get there. So, thank you to everybody, our PTA board for providing their food food refreshments and everybody for coming. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Morato. >> Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm sure we have a few. Does anybody have a question? I know usually we have questions related to our tour, so I think we'll have slightly
026different questions tonight. I don't know if anybody has any questions they'd like to add or >> Jeff. >> So, we have 36, which is basically it's 18 per classroom. So, it's 18 max. That's why we have two rooms. We could potentially push to have some more in the future. I know that there was talks about trying to also um offer it in different places of the district, but we could potentially have more. Yes. Oh, sorry. To answer your question, yes. Um because we have a max seat capacity, the ratio is basically um 9 to1. So, there's a teacher in the room and a teaching assistant. That's why we're able to have 18. That's why we had a 36. But there was almost double that interest for this building though. Yeah. Donna, >> I wondered how
027you said you hired staff for the rooms. They're in they're in the building. We're we're teaching classes. How does what is the relationship with healthy kids? How does how does how does that work? >> Yeah. So, the healthy kids program is also here with our before and afterare. So, we already had a an open relationship with them, but it is a different uh part of the company. I thought it would be all the same. It's not. There's a a program of director for our before and afterare. There's a separate one for UPK. So we had Miss Ham King and myself had many meetings in the spring of what that would look like. We worked with the director Ann Young all throughout the summer. So she would basically um they put it out for posting, they
028would get the applicants, they would thumb through it and then they would present to us candidates that they wanted to potentially bring in and then we would sit on the interviews with them to determine who were the appropriate people for the positions because we were looking for specific people when we're looking to bring in our youngest learners in here. Um, and so it took a little while. We didn't find exactly what we were looking for right away, but we had the staff in place and plenty of time for the school year to start. And then, uh, recently there was a change in leadership. There's a new director, uh, Miss Paris, who's now running the program. So now we're just kind of in that phase of me reconnecting with her because I had a established relationship
029with Miss Young, but now I have to address that with a new director. So they've been great. U, they've been responsive. Uh when I say patients too, some of the other pieces were a little bit challenging of before and afterare because now that's the UPK director having to work with the before and afterare director to make sure they had staffing for that and that didn't happen as fast as we wanted it to. So the parents were patient as we were working through trying to make that happen. >> How many of the the the school day students are before and after or either or? >> Oh, uh six. I believe there's six in total, but it varies based on the day. So some days it's only two or three, some days it's upwards of six. They
030can only have eight in the room, though. That's what they're allowed to have >> in the before and after school. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Because what we learned was the prek students cannot be with the first through fifth grade students. It has to be separated. So we were able to potentially have K and pre-K together and then one through five separate. So the prek students are separated. They have a separate space. >> It's not a lot. It's not a high percentage. >> No. Yeah. And I think part of that was because we weren't ready for it right away as we had had hoped to be. So I think families had to find other alternatives early in the school year that maybe they weren't willing to change at this point. >> Thank you. >> That was
031a great question because I I had the same question too. It's I think it's it's terrific. It wouldn't have occurred to me that you got to interview the staff that came through Healthy Kids. That's a kind of a bonus, right? That we get to make sure it's a nice fit for your building, right? Um anybody else have any questions? Sevilla >> mine is for Dr. Bernantes. So I'm hearing that there are 30 other s 36 kids who were turned but our numbers for the projection for enrollment is flat. So how does that >> uh I just want to make sure I understand when you when you say our numbers are flat for enrollment which numbers are you referring to? >> So I thought that our enrollment was not going up. >> Generally it's not correct.
032>> Right. Yep. >> So then it depends on the zone. >> Oh, well I would I would point to just a couple of things. So generally our our enrollment's expected to stay flat or consistent district-wide. Uh so we have about I'll just use the number 500 kindergarteners that we expect to come in into uh Arlington next school year uh districtwide. It does vary by zone though. you may see a decrease in some areas and an increase actually in others and just a function of our size and uh how big of a geographic region we we serve. Uh I would say that in certain attendance zones we're actually seeing a slight increase. Uh and in other attendance zones we may be seeing a decrease but overall we're we're flat. As it relates to preK though, uh
033prek uh we currently are providing uh 205 students with prek services across I believe five site locations. So two in Arlington uh Beakman and Traver Road and then three um community partners who are servicing our students, the majority of which are at Holy Trinity uh in the in the town of Pikipsy. So, uh, but we presumably have 500 eligible students out there, uh, who could be accessing preK programming. They may be still be doing so privately. Um, they may be doing so or they may not be accessing preK at all. Uh, or they're in one of Arlington's programs. So, uh, we have 205 in district. We want to open up two more classes next school year, uh, which would bring us right around 18 per class. So, 36, assuming they're fully enrolled. So 36 plus
034205, that's 241 um uh students next year. And uh we're talking if we have more interest, is there room to still have another class or two? Um but that's something we we're issuing the RFP for prek right now. Uh so the timelines don't always match up. Uh we're still awaiting the state budget to be finalized which has that increased prek funding in it. That will help. Uh but again, that's somewhat dependent on what goes on at the state. Uh, so it's a little bit of um uh um it's a little ambiguous or nibbulous right now, I guess, in terms of what funding we're actually going to have for the program, but we feel confident that we could open up at least two more classes. Um whether where to put those classes is something that, you
035know, we're we're we're sorting through. We want and and see that obviously having classes available here on the eastern side of the district. There was a need or a demand and we filled them no issue. Uh there's some other spots in the district we may prioritize because there's not really uh a viable prek program uh that is currently offered in that zone. Uh and that's something that John and I and Jennifer as uh uh Chris had mentioned were talking about just today. And I just want to acknowledge Jennifer Hammond King who behind the scenes is one of our directors and she works underneath John. And uh Jennifer oversees all of our prek programming throughout uh or across those five sight site locations and really is our go-to and helping us sort it out so we
036can offer more seats to more kids. >> Yep. >> Anybody else have any questions? I'll just make a comment. I love the Rubik's Cube thing. I have a daughter who's like a still she's 21 still a Rubik's cube like person and it's so great because it it is all consuming but it's in the real world it's tactile it's not a game it's not a computerized thing I just think it's great so >> the benefit is we've seen less students looking for other ways to entertain themselves like devices using root computer is a positive so >> yeah because there's always there's always something like we should have like a little museum of all the things like I'm old enough to Remember the crazy bands? Everybody remember the crazy bands? Those little animal rubber bands or whatever.
037Anyway, >> thank you everyone. >> Thank you. Yes. >> This is making noise on the ticket. Let's see. That moves us on to um Oh, um Board of Education summer retreat dates. So, I just wanted to notify the board, we have July 7th reserved for our board reorganization meeting. Uh, and typically or at least the last two years, we've attached one of the days of the board retreat to that day. So, we'll have the board meeting usually in the morning and then we move into retreat uh in the afternoon or I'm sorry, the remainder of the morning and early afternoon. Uh, we typically reserve two days though. So on the check with the board, would we prefer to do the sixth and the seventh? So the Monday and the Tuesday or the Tuesday and the
038Wednesday and then Fran and I can finalize uh reserving a space for those two days. And if you don't have a preference, that's fine. We'll we'll pick and then >> Sophia >> Tuesday. >> Yeah, I kind of am leaning towards that, too, because the sixth is a little bit close to the 4th of July. There you go. >> All right. >> Great. That was easy. >> Was and if we can just keep moving along then I'll move into budget. >> Move right into budget and probably it'll take the similar amount of time. >> Sure. So we have a few I don't think so at this point. We have a few presentations this evening. Uh John is going to start with an overview on some of our programs. I provided a broad overview last week uh
039or two weeks ago. John's going to go into a little bit more detail related to our program uh plans for next school year. Uh then Dr. Keelley is going to provide an overview on our technology budget for next school year. Hillary will provide an overview on staffing and then Kevin will provide the revenue and expenditure update that we have as of tonight. Mr. Or I'll turn it over to you. >> Thank you Dr. Bonte. >> Good evening everybody. So, we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about not only the curriculum instruction assessment budget this evening, but more the broader instructional plan moving into next year. So, it will jump around a little bit. Um, feel free to stop me if there's something you want to talk further or if you want to
040hold all the questions to the end. Um, can handle that either way. You >> I would say let's try to let's try to keep you going. if you have a natural stopping point if you need a clarification while he's talking we can if not we'll hold our questions >> perfect so um I guess just to echo a lot of the gratitude that you've heard um as our principles have met with you this this these were the areas of focus this year as we headed into 202526 and these programs winner circle our continued investment in our PLC process and growth um looking for opportunities to become more efficient within our system. UPK, which you just had a nice discussion about. Um, and a number of these pathways, these were areas that we were identifying last year
041during this process, and they're areas that are going really well throughout our system. And so, we're just expressing gratitude for the commitment from the board, from our faculty, from our community to support these initiatives. Um, these are really great areas where our students are ultimately benefiting. Um and and I just there can't thank you enough for your continued support of our instructional program for our students and for our faculty. As we move into next year, keeping an eye on our stated goal of 80% proficiency, these first five areas are topics that I'll be discussing through this presentation. We're looking to continue our PLC growth, our PLC training for teachers. Uh we're in the process of evaluating and assessing our math curriculum K through eight and our literacy and ELA curriculum K through8. We're going to
042be introducing universal design for learning which I'll talk about in a second and um taking a very phased implementation approach to that to support our broader goals of MTS MTSS MTSS and our tier one instruction and interventions. Um, and then also on, and we'll talk about this in a little bit, is these new New York State graduation pathways that are on the horizon and the pull and demand that that's going to have on our faculty at the secondary level. Tonight, I'm also going to talk a little bit about some regulatory compliance that we have and some opportunities for the district to move towards compliance in our area of elementary physical education. Before we get into this, and I was expecting a much larger screen, so the three Prometheians are throwing me off here. Um, I
043just want to draw the board's attention to something called the What's Works Clearing House, which is a a repository of really rigorous instructional studies that were that are housed by the Department of Education. um the the standards to have a study accepted are extremely rigorous and they only publish them if they demonstrate efficacy in terms of improving student instruction. Um and I'm I'm drawing attention to this because first of all you can search by topic and you can look up all the things that we're going to talk about. Um, but also because we're not operating in kind of a thought silo where we're just thinking this might be good practice. Let's give something like this a try. The recommendations that we're making and the and the processes that we're looking to implement are grounded in
044research. They're grounded in best practice. Um and and I just it's it's important to point out that we're not sometimes we have to do things a little bit differently and also sometimes what this will show is that research over time can be disproven. So there might be practices that we're hanging on to and we're defending as this this is something that the research suggests that we should be doing. um but it's actually fallen out of practice and and we can point to uh studies that support trying to do things slightly differently. So moving into universal design for learning and support of our MTSS work, universal design for learning is if actually you drop down to that third bullet focus on engagement, representation, action and expression. It is a much different way to think about approaching
045instruction in the sense that your end goal is the same. We set a target, a learning target. There's a very clearly stated objective that we're working our students towards learning and accomplishing, but the pathway for them to do it is a little bit more open. It allows for some freedom in terms of how they're able to express their learning. there's opportunities for them to demonstrate their understanding. It's not as simple as choice. It's not like walking into uh the grocery store and saying, "Well, here's you can you can choose a protein and you have meat and more meat and there's a veggie protein there, too." There's you it's coming in and saying, "We're going to cook a meal here and we need it to be balanced and you yourself get to write the menu." And
046I'm talking Jeff's language right now. I can see Jeff is leaning into this conversation. Um, but it's more it's more analogous to giving students an opportunity to reach the goal in a manner that is more um they have a lot more agency around achieving as opposed to as a class step one today we're all going to do this thing, step two, we're all going to do that. It takes time to shift those strategies. It's not something that we can just begin in September. This is how we're going to teach. So, as we begin to walk down this road and introduce universal design for learning to our faculty, we're going to start with our administrators and make sure that they have a solid foundation in universal design for learning. And then we're going to really lean
047into our new teachers. And this will be a main focus of our of our new hires and our new teacher induction process with some opportunities for professional learning um and introduction to scale through the whole district for next year. On the other side of that are shifts that we're making with our instructional um I'm sorry our assessment platforms and our data warehouse. So last year I talked about eliminating performance matters. that was a platform that came in was very expensive, cumbersome program um that we were actually having a lot of struggles with because it just wasn't working as we were as we were told it would. So this year at our elementary level, we've we've transitioned to a a program called link it. That exclamation point isn't me celebrating it. That's part of their trademark.
048Um that's their their you know what they call themselves. uh but we are seeing a little bit more success with it and there's another component to it called the intervention manager which we are going to operate with next year. It creates a very um standardized process for referring students through MTSS but it starts in the classroom. So I'll just give you an example. The first thing is that if a if a teacher identifies that they're having some challenges with a student, every teacher in this district, every student in the district, there will be a very I'm going to use the word checklist. It's not a great description, but there's a there is a very straightforward have you tried this, have you tried that, have you tried this that the teacher is able to account for
049and that sticks with the student. So let's say 2, three years from now, the same student is demonstrating some challenges. They've moved on to one of the middle schools. Teachers will have access to be able to go back and see, well, what have other teachers done to try and support this student's learning? Uh and and have a record of that. So they have skill. They'll see what worked and what didn't. At the same time, it'll act as a pre-referral process. So forward referring his committee on special education, it creates more of a dialogue uh and a bit of an iterative process between the classroom teacher, the interventionists, the the building principal and it'll allow us to slow down jumping immediately to a tier three or tier 2 intervention where the student is being pulled out
050of the classroom. So these are two shifts that we're looking to bring in next year really support our MTSS work. At the same time, the these are this has been a multi-year process. So, our literacy review committee next year will be in its third year and our math review committee will be in its second year. These proc the these photos are from both of those committees, some of the people in this room are in those photos. Um what what we've really tried to orient ourselves to over the last couple years is making sure that our teachers and administrators have a voice in in not only reviewing but making decisions around curriculum and instruction. So we're we're assessing and evaluating our current practice, our current curriculum. We're looking at the research at what's put out by
051the New York State Education Department and we're looking for gaps and opportunities to fill those gaps. um and any any instructional decisions that we're making around curriculum and resources at the K8 level, we are having those conversations in these committees so that we're not making those decisions in a vacuum. We're never going to reach consensus. there will I I don't see an outcome where we're gonna if we find ourselves in a position where we're going to make a decision to shift a program. I can't see a scenario where every single person uh agrees with whatever we pick. But what we've done though is at least created an opportunity for share people share their concerns, share their um feedback as we're as we're assessing this. So this has been a very critical part of our process
052this year. I mentioned a little bit about the blue ribbon commission uh at a couple different times that we've talked throughout the course of the year, but the graduation shifts that are on the horizon are significant. The challenges that we have right now is the state has told us their vision, but they have been very slow in releasing guidance. And even in the guidance that they've released, what they said they were going to do to what they've actually done, we've seen some significant variance. So if in the top right corner where it's new uh educational focal points for 2627 these are two examples of that. So the state has said that they're prioritizing personal finance and financial literacy and climate education. About 18 months ago they were preparing districts for those to be standalone experiences
053for for schools. I think that as the reality of that set in and they received feedback from districts across the state, it became more along the lines of you have to embed financial literacy instruction into your already existing programs. And the same thing is true for client climate education. So we've already begun that work and identified sorry we've already identified areas within our existing curriculum where we can achieve that but also uh increase and improve that. So as we talk about this I'm really presenting that example first because what whatever we say tonight could evolve and certainly we'll be talking about this at some of those retreat dates that that you just identified. Um but another really big shift on the horizon to just point to is the shift around the regions exams. They they
054have identified a timeline where they are anticipating no longer making regions exams be a barrier to graduation for students. They will be an accountability measure for schools. Um but they will no longer prevent a student from moving to the next level or from graduating from high school. And that is a tremendous shift in New York State. It's also an incredible opportunity for us as a district to completely reimagine what our high school experiences look like for students. We, again, as I pointed to with UDL, it's not something we're going to be able to do overnight. It's going to take time for us to really identify pathways and experiences for students. but two uh pathways they continue to point to and and identify as being a really more than likely um strategy that they're using to
055satisfy the new graduation requirements, but they're also pointing a tremendous amount of emphasis towards the portrait and their portrait of a graduate. So, if you remember a handful of years ago, we developed our own portrait of a graduate. That's at this point really the New York State portrait of the graduate is something that's going to drive a lot of that work and those conversations. And at the center of that is the culturally responsive sustaining education framework. So over the next couple years as we continue to talk about our secondary experiences, that's going to be at the heart of of some of those instructional decisions that we have to make. physical education regulatory compliance. Um, it's my understanding that this is a topic that every 5 to 10 years or so surfaces in Arlington and I'm
056not the first assistant superintendent to stand here and talk about this with you. Um, I do think though that we have an opportunity over the next couple years to bring our elementary schools into compliance. We're currently averaging about 80 minutes per week for elementary students in terms of physical education. The minimum requirement is 120 minutes a week. So, we're we're consistently under that. There are some grade levels and there are some pockets of programs in the district that are in compliance. Um, but by and large, we are out of compliance. We have had a very um comprehensive group of people, administrators and teachers from multiple different curriculum areas looking at the regulations, looking at our existing schedules and looking at opportunities to bring the district into compliance. And I do think that if we approach
057this with a phased implementation over a couple years, doing two schools every year for over the next four years that we could be in a place where um we're not upending uh existing staffing. We're we're we're a point to like Traver and West for example. Right now we know that they have a huge building project on the horizon at the end of the year or in four years. we can wait for them to complete that project. We know that as the two schools consolidate, there's going to be some staffing adjustments period. So, we should just, my opinion is we should just wait until that building, those two buildings are combined. It's the right opportunity. And in the meantime, focus on making some adjustments each year over the next couple years. It gives us time to
058monitor the impact on student programming. Um and at the same time it gives us an opportunity to ensure that the students in our eight elementary schools have a very equal experience in terms of accessing their specials which is currently not the case there. They there there's a lot of difference between the buildings. This is what that sample six day schedule would look like just so people can visualize. You would have three pees, an art, a music, and a library. Um this would also not affect the instrumental music in the fourth and fifth grade. We would still be able to maintain a commitment to those programs. Um and our principles have also chorus is probably the area uh that would see the greatest shift, but our principles have maintained a commitment that they would still figure
059out a time to bring the general music classes together to do some rehearsals before there were chorus performances in those schools. as we made that shift over over time. Okay. To transition into more of a budget lens here. Um, summer school is an area that I I've I've been listening to a lot of the presentations and we've had a lot of conversations about how we have some gaps in terms of our budget that we need to close. Last year, we budgeted roughly $340,000 to run a summer school program for just under 300 students. that represented sixth uh sorry 7th grade through 12th grade. The middle school pro the middle school students don't earn any credit from that program. They don't it doesn't benefit them um in terms of preparing moving them towards graduation. Typically the
060high school program is run to keep students on track to graduate students who are failing courses through the year. I am confident that by having that program, we could still run a program for 11th and 12th grade students at at actually less than half of the cost um for well yeah just about half of the we ended up spending 300,000 yet. So that's where the 300 is coming from. We budgeted 340, we spent 300. So for um roughly let's say 200,000 we could easily make sure that all of our students are still on track to graduate. It wouldn't wouldn't jeopardize the let me back up not all of our students by focusing on 11th and 12th grade. We wouldn't jeopardize our graduation requirements and our graduation um percentages within that year because we could ensure
061that our 11th and 12th graders stay on track there. At the same time, we can take next year to really create some opportunity within the school year to catch kids earlier who may or may not be your typical summer school student um by having a more robust internal credit recovery program. We're also making some shifts at the AIS level to we know we've got some rising nth graders next year who are going to need AIS support and we're making some curriculum shifts at that level to extend supporting them to hopefully prevent even more slide in the future. So I think that this is an opportunity for us to reduce some costs um do things a little bit differently and still maintain uh for 11th and 12th grade students not necessarily impact their opportunity to graduate.
062And I also think as we monitor that it may be an opportunity to phase out a large sales a largecale summer school program over the next couple years. Another shift this year, uh, LMS has continued to use I Ready. UVMS is piloting. They're very similar programs. Um, we're using them for benchmark data on math and reading scores, but for the handful of years, let's say five years that we've been using I Ready, at the middle school level, we've met really significant resistance from students. uh our teachers report frustration with the program. They do not feel like it's transparent for them. So a student will take the diagnostic and they get a report on how the child did, but they don't know the questions that the child was asked. They don't know how the child responded.
063EL uh is a completely different program in in sense that it's very transparent. So the teachers can see the questions, they can see how students responded. They um the the students themselves are much more engaged with it. We've seen students even on snow days, we've get we get reports from the company periodically and on snow days we've got 2,000 questions being answered by students from home on snow days. That's not happening with I Ready. Um, so by moving both schools over to EXL, we would save around $75,000 and that's money that we can reinvest into the purchasing the link intervention manager and providing the universal design for learning training throughout the rest of the year or for next year. Next is talking about our grants. So just to orient you a little bit to what
064you're looking at, the red number in parentheses is how much we lost this year compared to last year. So this is our current allocation 782,128 for title one. So we were 890,000 last year. So we've seen except for title three, we've seen these numbers all trend down a little bit. The positive news is that we do have a commitment from the department of ed that next year they will also fund these programs whereas there was some uncertainty around that in the fall. Um however a shift is this year uh three of our five title one schools didn't actually cross the threshold to be considered title one schools. So the only So LMS and UVMS are both I'm sorry LMS and Arthur May are still title one schools. They met the threshold but Westro Titusville and
065uh Overlook did not actually have a high enough percentage to be considered a title one school. You are allowed to. And what we did was we grandfathered them in this year. So they're they're still receiving title one services. We still are running extended day programs. We can still run our summer programs, but we're going to need to monitor um that the percentage of free and reduced lunch students for next school year because we would see some programmatic shifts. Um so, right now, as I'm identifying intervention salaries and extended day programs, that could potentially only be in two schools um next year. And these are are general costs for the curriculum instruction department. Most of this is materials supplies andor instructional supplies. There's a little bit of professional learning built into to that. What we've really
066tried to do is put as much into aable cost as possible. So some of those textbook some of the materials like investigations math uh the Wilson Foundations and Funhub licenses were able to put all of that into textbook money which is fully aidable back. So every dollar spent we received back the following year. Um and then others of it like the winter circle project that's at our that we run that through the Boseis coser and so that's um this year we're getting 63% back on that. Next year, our aid ratio changed a little bit. We get 60% back, but we're trying to to put as much into aidable cost as we can as we do this work. The I'm not changing. Deon, can you give me a switch? Okay. Um, some just some general information
067about some of the pilots. So, the elementary teaming pilot is still out there. We will be looking next year to make a decision about whether or not we're seeing any instructional lift in terms of that pilot. Um we know that people appreciate it. We understand that there's a general perception that it's going well. Um but we really need to first of all make sure that it's not costing us any additional money to operate that pilot as opposed to what we're spending in our our other schools. Um and and so we're just going to be focusing next year on whether or not We're going to continue with that moving forward. Middle school ELA curriculum. Uh, as we identified in our, um, annual report, our middle school curriculum is an our middle school performance is an area
068of growth for us. That's that's an area that we're looking very closely. We know that that's in order to reach 80%. They have a long way to go. Um, and so we're trying some different things. in particular are there are members of our sixth grade that are using a product called Amplify ELA which is a high quality instructional resource. It's grounded in research. Um and we're looking to see how that performs. At the same time, we have members of the department asking to really try and continue to build out the Arlington curriculum um and and want to see if they can raise instructional scores without needing to use a high quality instructional resource. So, we're honoring that request. um and we'll be working and supporting them next year to really try and bring their students
069up to the same level as potential as we know that our elementary schools are demonstrating our students are able to perform at um those two math and ELA curriculum committees that I pointed to. One of the topics that they're discussing is whether or not we need to be looking at some new curriculum at those levels. There may be some teachers who opt to pilot something next year. We're not fully there yet. We're we're also not sure financially if that's something we could even afford to to run next year. It's not I'm not looking to put pressure on the budget by adding those in, but we do we know that there are some areas um in I'll point to investigations math in particular that has some gaps um and there are programs out there that are
070are better uh and and don't have the same deficiencies that investigations math does. So that's some of the work that that committee is doing. And then as Dr. said last week, um, our elementary schools have have really leaned into the responsive classroom model, but our secondary schools do not have a consistent character ed program. And so, we're going to spend some time next year evaluating and identifying a curriculum resource for those programs. And this is the last thing that I have to talk to you about tonight. If if you recall three or four years ago and for many years before that, anytime a student at Arlington High School took a concurrent enrollment course, a class that they could earn Duchess Community College credit for, they could they could take that class and they would get
071those credits for free. They didn't have to pay Duchess anything. Four years ago, that changed and Duchess began charging tuition. And as a result, we did see a little bit of a fluctuation in terms of some of the students who who would take DCC courses because prior to that, and it was open access, didn't matter. You could take it. Duchess has a hard and fast rule that if you take a dcc course, you have to pay for their credit. They do offer a reduced rate for students who um are free and reduced lunch or free or reduced lunch, but it's still around $100 to have to take that class. Boseies this summer began working on what they're calling the early college access coser. And what this does is it allows a district to pay the
072tuition for students who are in concurrent enrollment courses, not just Duchess. So, we have concurrent enrollment courses with uh our marine biology class. Kids can earn credits through St. Thomas Aquinus. We're in the process of identifying some courses with the Mount St. Mary's and our English department that students would be able to earn credit for. So, this covers all concurrent enrollment courses, not just Duchess. the district would pay the tuition and the the portion of aid for the teacher's assignment that of the course that they're teaching and then there's some Boseis fees in there but then we receive aid back on that in the following year. So, what you see in front of you is if we had participated this year, the district would have paid out roughly $384,000 in tuition and we would then
073receive back the aid below it and the net cost for us to cover the tuition for all of the students in concurrent enrollment courses would have been around $13,000. it next year that actually has potential to turn positive because the aid ratio on the salaries will increase and we also uh anticipate some of the tuition to go down a little bit just because of the number of free and reduced students participating in it. So, it's possible. There are districts there's a couple districts in our area that took advant to the Koser who um are actually seeing it return revenue um versus an expense. So, it is an outlay of of money next year, but then the following year we start to receive aid back on it. And I I think it's a good opportunity for
074our kids and it um presents an opportunity to I think contribute to our families and something we should be considering. So here we go. >> Okay. We did so well holding it all in. >> I could be working. Appreciate that. >> Yes. Linda, thank you for the very comprehensive uh presentation. It was It was good. Um I need help understanding summer school. >> Sure. >> So, if we're going to focus on 11th and 12th graders to get them to graduation, what happens like to the ninth grader, the 10th grader who who's not doing well in a class, they needed summer school to um you know, have them pass so they could go on to the next level, English or math or whatever, or even middle school students. What happens in that? So there's I'm gonna
075I'm going to speak very broadly, okay? Because there's definitely >> this is not going to be true for every single student. >> There are a lot of students who are repeat summer school attenders and take it, fail a class, they do get to move on the following year because of summer school. They fail in 10th grade, then they get to move on. They go to summer school, get to move on. So some of it is looking at our system and thinking are we are we creating an opportunity where for 40 weeks of the year our students are not engaging in their learning because they know this six week safety net at the end of the year is there. And so we'll see kids mentally quit a little bit earlier than they would if summer school's
076not necessarily Yeah. there. Um at the same time in terms of our programming we are going to be looking to implement things like real time credit recovery for kids. So so that it's not just this six week you only have to come to school 28 days uh and you earn back your full credit. You are going to have a teacher have someone with you. Um the other thing is a lot of our summer school teachers are not Arlington faculty anymore. it's about 50/50. So the rel the relationship piece isn't necessarily there. Um so we we it's not like we're saying good luck, you're on your own. Um at the same time though, I think there is a level of accountability speaking broadly where there are students that at this time of the year have have
077stopped taking class seriously because they know summer school is an option for them. Um and so it's to some extent an opportunity to re-engage them. Um there's also a level of I mean one of our core values is all people are responsible for their decisions and their actions. Um this this is an opportunity to reflect back to someone. If if a student is giving it 100% and still failing, that's on us. If a student is not engaging in the learning, there may be still an element of that that's on us. Um, but if if they're cutting, if it's an attendance issue, if they're um, you know, making decisions that don't support putting themselves in their best learning, it's better for them to run into that consequence while they're still with us and potentially have to
078retake that class again next year than it is for us to continue to just socially promote them with the social net, with the safety net of summer school, and then send them off into into the real world where they don't get those types of second chances. >> One second. I think Jeff, do you have a followup and then Phil would like to just Phil's gonna jump the line in a minute and ask? >> Yeah. >> Um, able lab. So a so it it can the the challenge with the way that the ABLE lab works is it's run after school. So you have students who already have a full period of instruction. Sometimes they're already struggling with those courses and then we're saying to those students and now you have to stay after and make up
079more school. And for some kids that works and for other kids they have to get their sibling off the bus or they have a job because they're helping earn. Um and so a similar model to AEL in terms of the credit recovery but I think we have opportunities and I would need to work with our high school faculty on this one and our administration and our teachers. But there's opportunities within the school day to create lots of schools have models where during the school day there is a a area where a student can go and and work on a course that they need to make up assuming that they're not sitting in it and retaking it. Um that doesn't put other burden and pressure on their day. So a lot of the students that we're
080talking about again broadstroke they all by the time they get to high school they already have engagement issues with high school. So for those students when you're saying now you need to stay after school it it's not necessarily going to work right and those are the kids that would now become dropout risks. So the idea being we want to create space within the day a program and a model within the day where we're catching those students. um we're we're putting our arms around them, not someone that we're hiring out, you know, who just graduated from college and it's their first job and they've never been in front of kids before, but now they're working with our summer school program. Um so that we maintain that relationship that we're able to really monitor how those students
081are doing uh and and be more responsive in real time to supporting them. But yes, able lab able labesque just my preference would for it to live within our school day. I think it was covered. So, thank you. >> Um, do you want um Why don't we see if anybody has any more questions in the area of summer school? Why don't we try to group the questions and then we'll move around because it was a lot to cover. Does anybody else I have a question about summer school? the last thing you said, one of the things you said, um, how you'll work with them to develop this credit recovery and and I I'm not sure um, like I guess I have an idea of what it is, but I'm not 100% sure that that's what
082the idea that's in your head is, you know. Um, and as we come into a summer, you talk about a child that maybe looks at the math and says, "Yep, not going to not going to pass, you know." Um, but they're not getting much warning that there's no summer school this year. Is it this year we're not doing? So our our budget starts July 1. So this change would be that this summer there wouldn't be any summer school. And so um are you feeling confident that we're ready in the fall to begin with whatever level of earnestness is required or is there also something that needs to start now? >> There would it would it would be starting now. Um we so there's a few things if I could jump around a little bit. So,
083I do think we have enough time now. And there's some high school people sitting behind me that could I don't know if they're shaking their head or nodding their head or darts are coming at you. >> I was watching your expression. I was curious what expressions they were making as I was talking. >> Um, but the, you know, there there are still some kids right now that if the if their administrators and their counselors pull them in tomorrow and say, "Look, summer school's not a guarantee. You need to really buckle down and engage." they have enough runway that they could potentially not find themselves in the position of needing summer school. Um so so that's the one issue. Two, we would immediately begin this work. Uh it's not the type of thing we would sit
084on and wait till the spring to to have this plan in place. Three, sometimes these some of these students that we're talking about would actually benefit from taking the class again as opposed to taking a shortcut of summer school or a credit recovery program. So for a student who's missed 60 days of school that, you know, if we're really serious about them learning the material of that course and demonstrating proficiency, neither of those options are good options for them. The good option for them is to retake the course. And so that is a that's a shift that we would be implementing. Um and and programmatically 9th and tth grade has the most runway to do that. And from a staffing perspective just using round numbers if we have 10 sections of nth grade global studies
085this year and normally we would then just anticipate well we'll need 10th 10 for 10th grade. We're going to say again using round numbers and I'm not suggesting we have a 50 kids that are currently failing nth grade, but let's say we are and that would be two sections. We would run 12 and 8 next year instead of 10 and 10. So it it doesn't put an extra load on staffing requirements. There's flexibility within that. It does require us to think a little bit differently about that. Um, but no, I I think we would need to really begin having these conversations immediately and but we still have enough runway where we will pull some kids back from the line and at the same time there'll be kids that we need to we also may find
086I'm just as we're talking if we commit x amount of dollars to summer school and we're going through the planning phase because the other thing that happens at the secondary level is sometimes you We call it uh thinking about math for example in geometry you might have nth graders 10th graders and 11th graders we might be able to say well we'll run a section of geometry and students who are eligible for that and you may find that we have some tenth graders in that geometry section as well. I don't know if we necessarily have to say absolutely no ninth and tth graders, but I think from from like a planning lens, if that's what we walk into, it at least creates a framework for us to look at some of this redesign. >> I I
087feel like you're going to jump in. I I sent that screwed it up because my peripheral vision. >> No, it's good. I just I appreciate the questions and it's a good line of thought. I think it's also an illustration of sometimes when you're in a a more stressed uh budget development year, it forces conversations around topics and and forces us to reinvision how we're running programs uh that uh could be done more efficiently and perhaps more effectively with it. There's just a couple things I wanted to mention. Uh John's probably described more planning right now around summer school than we've actually done. Uh and it's really important that we have the space to work with our staff because it's really uh uh while there's a a fiscal or budget reality to it, it's really something
088that we need to co-plan uh with our teacher leadership and our high school administration. Uh I think I I heard you say, John, and as you're getting a drink of water there, uh that we will always need some base summer program and opportunities for kids. That being said, the program we have been running uh very traditional in its design uh and likely we're at a point where it can be revisioned and I don't think a a point you made but perhaps also just anticipating changes in graduation requirements and uh other opportunities that are available to us for students to earn credit or recover credit I should say as they're going through the school year as opposed to um at the end of the school year. Uh there's some really good opportunities. Able was one of
089them. Uh you know, there's some issues with ABLE that we see in terms of access for families, but there's others during uh during the school day that could be offered as we work through that with our staff. Two other things I would point to there. There is a reality that um it's almost March and some of our kids wouldn't have this opportunity. I know our high school staff generally uh if a student's giving um a good amount of effort even between now in in February and the end of the school year, I know our high school staff to really be working with those kids uh wherever possible to attain credit if they do so. Uh so John's pointing to having other programs available during the school day as being good for kids. I would also
090say um as uh the the the adults in the room, right? Sometimes eliminating what has become a fallback for our kids is also good for kids. I I think and I know we're we're speaking very generally, but the fact that some of our kids can uh forego the 40week experience for the six week experience undermines what we're doing between September and and June. and it has uh and and that's our concern is that uh we want to we think we can scale it back. It'd be good for kids who maybe aren't making good decisions to re-evaluate the decisions that we're making while still maintaining a base program for the kids who are going to need it in order to graduate while we're in the mode of uh creating something else. Just wanted to add those
091thoughts. >> Thank you. >> I I just did any want to jump in? I was just I just have a couple of I don't know that you really even need to get into I just had a couple of thoughts. One would be um notice the parents, right? If children if they're used to their children going to summer school, like the communication to our community about our shift and how we're handling summer school. I guess I have curiosity about I know we have a lot of topics, so I'm just sort of over it. I have curiosity about what middle schoolers were getting out of middle school, out of summer school and what um what how that whatever loss they were experiencing that they needed to have um even if it was like social touchston level for
092some kids. And then um I I guess uh you don't um I'm a I'm a you know my if if my kids listen, which they don't, they would know a firm believer in some level of grit and tough love. But like not but that's not everyone's experience. Some people just have a personally a a a bad year or a hard time with a course or personal, you know, mental health issue going on that they're struggling. And I don't know that we we want to make sure we have safety net and we're not compounding those problems for students by saying you have to repeat one, two classes, three I don't know how many that would be. Um that's a concern that I have. And then the the last thing and um is we had instituted um
093several years ago a boot camp for kids who were trying to bridge over into AP classes. We were trying to really broaden the spectrum of people who could take AP classes and we offered them like a miniature was it two week boot camp before school to say hey these are your organizational study skills like you haven't had this before my understanding the feedback we got was that it was successful you know I guess I'm wondering is that also a victim of this >> we haven't done that in a few years that was co money >> um and it's been >> I was still thinking it was >> three to four years really done that >> all right >> three for sure. >> Okay. All right. Well, that's it for my questions. I you know, so
094hopefully if we continue on this, you know, I guess the board is going to want to maybe hear how it develops, particularly as you talk to people in the high school or people in the middle school. >> Yeah, that's fair. >> Um, anybody else have any Jeff? Jen uh it doesn't jeopardize their graduation if we were to say so are you saying 9th and 10th and not 11th and 12th um Sure, it could if we weren't going to try and implement interventions to to help them recover that credit in place. It's not we're not saying we're just not going to do this anymore. You're on your own. Um the the decision for 11th and 12th was it'll it gives us enough runway to put something in place for 9th and 10th that's a meaningful experience
095that we think is a better experience than summer school. I don't mean a better experience because there's probably a lot of kids that think summer school is actually a good experience because again it's six weeks instead of 40. Um but if we were to pull the rug now for 11th and 12th grade that would have some ramifications for graduation for those students. By by saying we think for ninth and tth grade we can do this differently. Um we have plenty of time to still get those students the credits that they need to graduate and more importantly actually ground them in the learning better than I think they're getting in summer school. >> Sure. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think the goal I think realistically we will probably to even Marian's point like there
096there are kids again we we're not we're not this is broadstroke we're talking very broadstroke there are kids kids end up in summer school for lots of reasons there will we will probably always have some form of a summer program but the goal would be to be able to do it at a fraction of the cost of what we're currently spending on it and at the same time increase how we intervene for students during the school year without adding a financial burden to that. There may we may need to buy a couple licenses or we already have some credit recovery licenses. We may there may be a cost small cost to increase those licenses um but not a fraction of what it's costing us to run silver school and and also just to finish that
097point we could service more students in that model than in summer school. I think Sophia had a question. >> I have three. >> Okay. >> Well, I'll do one. >> Are we still on? We're still on summer school. >> Say, I associate you with charts with numbers and I am very disappointed today. >> Oh, usually there's charts and numbers. >> Charts with numbers. >> There was a chart with numbers. My title chart had numbers. >> So, I think that I can >> Well, I didn't bring the screens. That's Devon. >> I'm kidding. Title one. >> Yeah. >> Oh, so wait. So, you're we're moving off. Just hold on. So, we're moving I we're going to go topic by topic. We'll go to that topic next 100%. Does anybody have any other things they want to
098say about um summer school >> just because it'll help to group our questions, but you get to you get to pick the next topic. >> All right. >> I went to the I went to the chart with >> Thank you. >> Okay. So, we are we are officially moving to the slide whatever number that is. So we said LMS and ASM will continue to be title one. >> Correct. >> And the ones that didn't pass for next school year are West Title and Overlook. >> Yep. >> And you're going to grandfather them for one year. >> They were grandfathered for this year. >> Oh, they didn't for last time. >> Correct. >> Tell me what is the effect in the families? like what like I am a mother somebody who was on a title one
099school previous to last now this is my grandfather year >> what will happen in September >> so it's not really anything directly that would as I'm saying that it could have a direct impact on the families what would what so in the 2627 plan where I wrote intervention is salaries extended day programs summer programs family engagement those events fall off of the non-title one schools. So they don't have they we you can't use title one money to fund an afterchool program at a school that's no longer classified as a title one school. You can't run a summer program. So we do not the summer programs that we were just talking about, but we do run summer learningmies for the elementary schools that are title one um with title one monies. So those they would they
100will have them this summer. If those schools still stay below the the threshold which I think was like 32 or 3% um free or reduced lunch if then they we can't run those programs in those schools in the following year. >> So the family will have to pay for lunch. >> no lunch is a different completely separate thing. So >> um it's it it is really just access to an extended day program. So right now, right now a couple days a week, we run a title three, which is our English language learner afterchool programs um and our title one afterchool program. So they're staffed with teachers and TAs who stay after and they work with students on um for the ENL program it's for the their language acquisition, but in title one it's math and
101and um reading. Uh, and so those programs are the ones that get funded with the title one money and we just wouldn't be able to run those ones >> for those three schools in the >> for those three for next school year >> and the parents know. >> Uh, no, not yet because we don't we have to wait to see whether or not they cross that threshold. >> And you know when >> it will be in July. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> I have a follow-up question to that. Sorry. and then I come to you. It does this have anything I'm looking at Kevin too. Does this have anything to do with the fact that we're not collecting free and reduced lunch applications anymore because of the free breakfast and lunch? >>
102So that was our concern too. It is it it it's possible. I don't Kevin you might be better positioned to respond to the Phil there. >> We're all pointing. Everybody's pointing. That can't be good. >> Why let me let me see if I can respond and then and then jump in. Um that this There are different metrics being used to measure this. It's our understanding that it's really the SNAP benefits now that basically there that is what the state is using to identify whether or not um schools are over those thresholds. So it's it's it's all the data is in one place as opposed to the state having their record of everyone who's receiving um support for meals and then schools also having a different repository where we're saying but we have these students who
103are saying they're free and reduced lunch. So it's a consolidation of the repository and it's the state. So, do they look do they look at if our attendance areas and look at all the SNAP recipients in that area or are they only looking at our family? So, if I was an elderly person, which I don't consider myself to be, and I was on SNAP, right? Um, you know, would that would that count towards our community being no? So, somehow they have our exact family list. presumably we and it's a little bit of a black box, you know, we're not sure. Um, we've heard and we've inquired about how the calculations going to be made. Uh, we've received some information regarding that. In the interim, we've also done our best to still collect the information from
104families that are in our district to uh potentially present back to uh whatever agency uh that be if we feel that it that number is an under representation of need within our communities to better position us to to advocate. Uh but as John described it is is accurate um uh in terms of the information we've been provided as to how uh title one designations will be made now moving forward. >> Okay. >> Do we know how far off we are? Oh, you had a question. Go ahead. >> It was the same question as sharers, but >> can I ask you how many years those schools have been classified as title one before this year? >> It's a good question. Um, some of them have come on and off. I think Overlook has been on and
105off a couple times. Um, I would I would have to go back and and get the specifics for that, but it's it's been since I've worked here. >> Yeah. And I just add that Traver West, Overlook, Titusville, Art May, uh, LMS have been on and off. Art May is probably been the most consistent. Uh, I don't ever remember Art May not being a title one, uh, or receiving Title One funding. Uh, Traver West certainly has in years past. They're right on that threshold um, year-over-year and overlooking Titus Bilar as well. I I think from our perspective, the only thing I would add is uh we're cognizant as a school community that there's a better uh there's a greater um density of need within those schools. So even if even if overlook as an example in
106Titusville uh did were not designated as title one next year. Literally it would be because by by percentage points uh not by a significant shift in uh population. So, it's a reflection that there's a a density of population of economic need within that community as well as the Traver West community and and the Artme community. Those schools all funnel up to LMS. So, then the need uh exists there. Um so, uh we've been able to compensate through the general fund through non-title one funds and supplement programs in the past. Uh that's that's varied uh over the years. Uh, and I would say, you know, you're all asking really good questions around it that I know come from a place of concern. It's our responsibility just to make sure that those schools are are well positioned
107to support uh the students who are coming into that, which I think is always on our mind as a leadership and I know our teachers and our principal minds as well. Uh, the only thing I'll point out as a former former principal, there's a level of economic need in every community uh in Arlington. So, I just don't want to lose sight of that. While the density exists in in you know in those communities there is a level of economic need here at Beakman. I don't know your free and reduced lunch numbers Chris just off the top of your head 20 24%. So again using the threshold of 35 it's still a pretty significant level of need in terms of number of students you know uh depending on the size of your school that could be
108you know equal to the number of students uh uh in in another school. So whether it be Bale Farm, Knoxon, Beakman, um they have a level of of need within their communities as as well. All of our schools do. >> Jen, >> just have a question about the SNAP. I guess my question is is previous years other students within the district not just students on SNAP would qualify based on other needs for free and reduced. So I'm just curious how much that went down because of only looking at SNAP. >> Yeah. I mean, just from my own knowledge, like students who were Medicaid eligible might not have been on SNAP, but were then eligible for free or reduced. Just >> Yeah, I don't It's a fair question. I'm not sure. I'm I don't I definitely
109don't have that information off the top of my head. Um I think we could certainly follow back up with that. I would need to engage our business office and our data services to really try and wrap my head around the difference. But and we're just so to be clear like we're not driving this shift. This is this is the state's metrics that are shifting here. >> And the governor's budget supports free meals, universal free meals, >> going into the future for next year. Just to make that clear that we're we use the benchmark of free meals. We're not talking about like every, you know, everybody's eligible, >> right? >> Okay, spin the wheel. We have another topic. Does anybody have another >> What? >> Mia. Okay, you get to pick our next topic. Um, I
110was just going to say that um, I really appreciate the whole thing that the Boseies Coaster is doing with uh, eliminating the tuition because as someone who takes four concurrent enrollment classes, it is very expensive. And I know it's truly a fraction of the price of what you would pay for those credits when you go off to a university, but I do know a lot of people personally that chose not to take those classes because they didn't want to pay for it because there are a lot of kids who will go to college for a very cheap cost or maybe nothing at all due to like um aid from like FASA and C CSS. So like they don't see any point of paying for those classes now in high school if they know their family's
111not really going to have to pay much or anything once they go off to school. So they don't take those classes in high school and then they may not be as prepared as some of the other students and I don't think it's fair to be more prepared or less prepared just because of your like financial status. So I do think that that's a great thing. Yeah. >> Great. Thank you. John, can you just remind uh us if you happen to know it uh the cost per credit for BCC right now? >> Um per credit it is I think around 90 something dollars per credit. So your average course is about $270. Does that sound right? >> Yeah. >> Per semester depending on what you're taking >> per semester. Right. And so we've got some of
112so our language courses um are six credit classes. So it's $500 and something dollars that the families are paying for actually closer to six, right? That they're paying for for that, >> right? So definitely part of our mindset in developing the budget between prek and uh the Boseis coser is it becomes a cost offset for families. um that if you're enrolling your son or daughter in prek, you know, privately, that's anywhere between probably eight and $12,000 if it's 5 days a week. Uh so by offering more prek seats, we're eliminating potentially that cost for families or maybe you're not accessing it at all and it's there for you and you get all the benefits of having your child enrolled as a four-year-old in a viable prek program. Uh similarly with the concurrent enrollment that could
113be, you know, upwards of $1,000 or more for a family that they're spending in tuition for their child at high school that then is now eliminated. And I think especially knowing that the the levy is going to become a part of conversation here uh that we're asking the community uh obviously at whatever rate to make an investment in the school. We're showing the community that wherever we can, particularly for those individuals who have kids in school, um that we're reducing or eliminating costs for them that they may incur as part of having their child enrolled uh in our school. >> Thank you. That's all good. All right. Um what does anybody have any other topics on this? Let me just leave through. Um, >> oh, Donna, sure. You can >> cough or something if I
114don't see anything. >> I had to cough, but that was not to get your attention. Um, uh, UDL. >> Yeah. >> I I think it sounds really cool. Your your cooking example made sense, but I'm thinking how would that apply to math, you know? So, or whatever else. I just I think the concepts I get it. It's, you know, it's it's cool. I see there's I'm sure research based, but I just was trying to understand like what like can you give us as a practical example of how you might change what we might think of as a current style lesson to a UDL lesson and how that would kind of bring everybody along. >> Sure. Um on the spot. So the I think the immediate examples that come to mind is if we're let's just
115say that the whatever the topic is I'm going to speak very generally here. Whatever the topic of the lesson is um and actually this ties in really well with some of the shifts that the state is flagging in terms of the secondary shifts for graduation measures as they're talking about competency based mathematics or competency based instruction. So, it's less about here is a sheet of paper with a bunch of math problems on them. I'm going to show you how to solve this one and then you all sit here and solve the rest of that. Certainly, that could be an option. Part of UDL is there for some students that is a great, fantastic, I learn really well that way. Um, so you you would still have that as an option for students to solve it.
116At the same time, after the teacher demonstrates the problem, it might be now I want you to an option for a student is you're not going to solve this sheet of problems. You're going to write 10 problems that focus on the same skill that we're working on. And then you're going to explain in writing how you're going to um how you would solve these or why you chose these problems. And so the student is applying their reasoning and their thinking to the mathematical equations that they just developed. At the same time, it might be while some of you are solving those problems and some of you are writing and explaining your thinking, I'm going to be over here and we're gonna conference and you're going to explain to me what you understood me just saying
117as the problem. Uh, and and as the teacher, I'm going to be evaluating your thinking and providing you feedback on that so that you can go off and and do that. So, it's creating a dynamic learning environment where everybody, we're all doing the same thing. We're all working towards solving the same concept or the same problem. You as the learner have a lot more flexibility and agency around what that does. And as the teacher, you're creating more pathways and opportunities for your students um within the classroom to demonstrate their understanding or to to apply their thinking in ways that aren't so scripted, if that makes sense. Um does that help? Okay. >> I had a question about the universal design. Um, and I don't necessarily expect a great answer, but I do, uh, we'd heard
118a little bit about it previously, um, one of the things that comes to mind, I thought it was interesting how you said you're going to phase it out and you're going to phase it out initially with the administrators. >> Yeah. But um to see this got to go pervasive throughout all the you know all the curriculum spaces and all that it is seems like a um seems like we would need to provide a a fair level of support to um to the teachers doing this work. Um and I guess it ties in my mind I also heard you talk about instructional pilots. >> Yeah. and you talked about um academic if you're seeing academic results from that and I guess um I just would say uh I would be curious um to hear if there
119are other other things you're also looking for as far as what considers those pilots to be successful. There might be an incremental cost, but we have experienced as a board, you know, some um some excellent teacher groups and some support. When you talk about implementing new math curriculum, new reading curriculum, universal design, you you talk about all these things, I know that I probably wouldn't want to row a boat by myself. You know what I mean? I just I just think that there needs to be like a thoughtful process of of well, if it hasn't shown more growth than this class by this year then and it costs 10 bucks more then no. I guess I just would like to see that it's a more multi-pronged look at what it provide what it might provide
120us if that makes sense. Sure. >> Um and and uh >> so that's a little editorializing. I try not to editorial. >> I appreciate it >> but sometimes I can't help myself. Um, does anybody have any other comments on universal design or instructional pilots? That's how I'm at graduation. People are just constantly showing another waterfree. Although the night graduation helps with that. Um, then does anybody have any other topics they'd like to ask John conversation about? Can you go enjoy that bottle of water in peace? Donna, no. No worries. This is what this is about. So, um, the winter circle, >> I I remember that what we heard that sounded exciting when we talked about last year. I just I just guess I just wanted to hear more about it. Maybe Mia could even talk
121to talk about I just wonder what you're you're a half a year in. >> Yeah. >> Three-year program. I just wanted to hear a little more about what's happening and what you think the effects are. >> Yeah. I don't want to steal me as thunder if you're connected to it at all. Are you Yes, >> but I'm a baby back from it even though I'm not in it myself and I'm not 100% sure of everything you do, but I do know for sure that the kids that are in it love it. >> Yeah, I I think the I would concur. I think we've seen it really take root. And what's interesting about it is not only um is it providing our students so we're running three different classes. There's the build class, there's the marketing
122class, and then there's the video production class. And the three different classes have to work together to really produce different components of the project. Um but what's been kind of fun is that how they're engaging with some of the other schools in the region that are participating in the program. So, not only are we seeing this um little boost of culture within the district, but it's also creating connections with schools around the region that that um we wouldn't normally interact with. Um I think that there would they would be happy. In fact, I don't know when your visit to the high school is, but I would imagine that Winter Circle Project is one of the classrooms that you would be visiting. Um they've been doing a series of virtual races. So, there's a racing simulator
123that they have to um compete with the other schools. Um I think it's once a month there's actually a race and they do different racetracks and they're racing the car. It's a virtual simulation of the car that they have built. So, they're learning how to drive that and understanding the dynamics and it's it's um but they're live streamed and different classes will watch it and um it's been really interesting to see how that goes. At the same time, they've also been going on these really great field trips into the uh the world of auto mechanics and and also industry and corporate America. So they were I think two weeks ago they were down in the Javit Center at a I think it was at the Javit Center. It was definitely in New York City at
124a field trip where it was all about promotion um marketing and the stu our team actually won the marketing um award or recognition that they had the best advertisement campaign for for what they were looking for. But that not only came with hey watch our video and give us feedback. They had to speak about it. They had to talk about their presentation. Um they had to sit in a room with industry experts and engage in a question and answer much like this around uh around how they're doing. Um and so it's really it's really been a great experience for our kids. It's um and I think what what has been fun when I go in and see the room is you um you don't you see a room full of kids that you wouldn't necessarily
125if you were going to you were going to look at a room full of kids and think like oh I bet you you work on cars. You don't see that at all. You it's all these different kids in this room together working on this project. Um and it's it's really been It's been amazing. Um, I'd h I'd be happy to coordinate another visit. I'm sure >> Dr. Board visit to the high schools later on this school year, which you'll we definitely if you're attending that, I'm sure Mr. Murphy would have a stop by uh to see the car. Uh, but beyond that, when the when the when we actually have the meeting at the school, it it's very easy for us to meet a little earlier, stay a little later, and show you uh show
126you the car and the vehicle. But I think having the kids talk a little bit about it because it's all oriented around the kids uh promoting the car. Um they would love to I'm sure at any point I it's pretty tough to go into the high school and not um engage with the kids who are working on the car and just to make it clear they're building and marketing a real race car which is kind of cool. >> Now aren't there capstone like events for it? So I maybe if it's appropriate the board could be invited to them. >> Yeah that well the one is at um Limerock I think. Uh, so someone's gonna >> drive. There you go. >> Yeah. Yeah. They don't get to drive the car, which is kind of the sad
127part. Can't drive the car. >> Someone has to drive the car for him. But >> Mr. Flanigan gets to drive the car. >> I would at least like an invitation. >> And I would a quick plug to all tied into this uh indirectly. Um, they they have a great Instagram feed, I think, and a YouTube channel. Yep. >> So you can see all their stuff. They're the marketing groups putting stuff out all the time. Y >> so if you look up Arlington Racing Yeah. I think on Instagram uh and YouTube uh you'll find that >> Yeah, that's great. >> Does anybody else have any questions for John right now? That was a nice high note to leave on. >> Only three more presentation to go. Thank you, John. >> Thank you. >> Deon, you'll >>
128Well, we're on a break. We'll extend Can I get a motion to extend the meeting to optimistically 9:30? Thank you. >> Thank you. >> No, we're going to dismiss me at nine. >> She has school marks, so she's >> had a long ride. >> You know what? We're between. If you'd like, we could dismiss you now. >> You It's fine. Fine. Whenever you'd like. It's fine. >> Okay. Do we don't have to formally do? No, >> you could just go when you want, huh? >> I think so. And then um do we vote? All All in favor? >> Opposed? Absention. Motion passes. All right. So, kept me 9:25 if we're still here. >> Sorry, I interjected on your action. >> Um, >> Dr. Key now is going to provide a overview on technology. >> Thank
129you, Dr. Key. >> Kevin's is a one-page overview. >> Good evening everyone. Uh so in planning this year's technology budget as you can imagine we've been facing a lot of challenges and pressure due to inflation probably in all areas of our budget. So we've planned the budget this year very carefully and working with our partners especially in curriculum to find ways that we could uh be more efficient with uh our purchasing and in many cases reduce some of the software licensing uh that we uh are proposing tonight. Um, one of the things though I wanted to call to the board's attention is my next slide. Oops, going too fast there. Um, is a new program that really doesn't have any sort of cost. It's very minimal. Um, in the Arlington High School work-based learning program.
130So one of the things we worked with this year and it was about probably all last year in planning was to bring a tech internship as offering as part of the workbased learning program where Arlington High School students get the opportunity if they choose to participate uh to intern with our technicians during period 2 each class day. Um and one of the things that we were able to do this year is as those students came into the program they shadow our technicians. They get to see what it's like to work in a K through 12 uh technology environment. Uh they are hands-on. So over time through the first half of the year, they got to learn how to uh repair Chromebooks, um uh do inventory, uh help enroll Chromebooks into our databases and our tracking
131systems. Uh and they played an integral role in helping our team deploy student and staff devices just before uh around the holidays. Um, as part of the broader workplace work-based learning program, we worked with the workbased learn learning coordinator to bring students up to the Sunni uh Albany nanotechnology uh college uh and that's what you're seeing on the display boards um at the nanotechnology college. It's a college uh where uh industry comes together companies like IBM and Micron and others uh people that develop microchips uh and they have labs there and they work hand inand with the college students. So our students as part of the Arlington workbased learning program got to go on a field trip uh visit the labs uh in one of the pictures lowerfand corner on the screen they're looking at
132an electron microscope and one of the professors is explaining how that gets used. uh in the upper right hand corner uh they had students dress up in the clean room suits and they explained the students how even just a hair uh like a nanometer of a hair could totally compromise a chipset as it's going through the manufacturing process. Uh and then they had uh and in that picture the students were also holding a wafer which is hard to see. So they passed all of these things around and a chipboard in the lower righthand corner is another unit they passed around and they explained a little bit about what uh the college offers in in getting experience and going into industry around uh microchip making and manufacturing. And I'll ask Devon to just briefly play. It's
133a short clip, but look at the ceiling uh the video. Um there's a robot that comes across the ceiling and so I'm going to provide context to you. uh at the nanotechnology center. We weren't allowed to film the clean room, but those robots come in and out of the clean room. And so what they do is they pick up the wafer from each station of the manufacturing process. And our students did get to see the clean room. We were just not allowed to photograph it for security reasons. They have it all glassed uh encased so that you can see through and you can see the people working, but a lot of it is robotics and the robots move from station to station all across this ceiling. So on a night when we're talking about cost
134and expense, here's a program that really doesn't have much expense at all. Our technicians are doing the work, the students come, they learn, they shadow, and they get to help out. So I just thought I'd bring that to the board's attention. Uh as we begin planning our budget each year, uh I want to remind the board that we have some initial funding commitments in the technology budget. Um and the first is mandatory fees from Boseies. Uh this year those fees are estimated to be $36,000. Um and the other fees that we start with are equipment leases uh going back over the past five years. So we carry a certain amount of money based on equipment purchases we've done in previous years. We do that to spread the cost out over time to limit the impact
135to the district and the taxpayers. Uh so right now our lease payments going into this coming school year will be approximately $1.7 million. uh totaling a little over $2 million in expenses before we've even talked about anything else that we want to do this year. So, when we talk about the budget tonight, keep in mind that when we're starting, we're starting with about a $2 million budget already of commitments that we we've made. Um so, in regards to strategic budget adjustments, so we're feeling those inflationary pressures. Um and we really wanted to keep the budget close to flat as possible. uh we have systems in place where we can analyze our software usage. Uh so we went to our metrics and our analytics um and we support stakeholders, we support teachers and students and all
136sorts of office staff and various platforms and programs that they use. So it's not up to the technology department to scale back on a certain program. In this case, we worked very closely with Mr. Orcott and the curriculum department to analyze uh certain pieces of software that we felt were redundant um that we had capacity from other pieces of software or now the emergence of artificial intelligence that can do some of those things to reduce the licensing for four pieces of software and completely eliminate them. And the charts that you're seeing although they're hard to read they basically show less than uh 50 students or staff throughout the year using these pieces of software. And we were able to uh figure out that most of the stuff that the software is offered um we have
137the ability to do that through our Google Workspace for Education licensing artificial intelligence to the platform was designing uh presentations. Uh you had pair deck and screencastify screen recording. There's other ways to do screen recordings. Uh and so we focused on these pieces of software. We've already reached out to the staff that would be impacted uh to give them a heads up. our technology facilitators, the people that help train teachers throughout the year, they're on standby to help them assist and uh maybe approaching uh their lessons and and the instruction that they'll do next year in a different way. Um but we're going to see a savings on the four pieces of software roughly $76,000. And then Mr. Orcut spoke earlier, we talked about software in the Boseies line. That's the I Ready license reduction
138uh from the middle schools. Um, so there's a pretty big significant savings just by reducing uh some of the software costs going into this budget year. The overall budget reduction that I'm going to show you in a moment is $217,000 uh from what we proposed to the board last year. Um, and one of the ways that we're able to do this is by utilizing some of the federal funding that's available to us. One of the fed uh pieces of federal funding that's available to us and we often utilize and leverage is the federal program. The - programs give districts uh significant discounts on purchasing network related materials. So think cabling uh network switches uh wireless access points and the like. Um, and for this proposed budget for uh this coming school year, uh the -ray
139project that we're going to be doing is upgrading the cabling to our wireless access points. The reason we're going to do that is we just concluded a wireless access point upgrade just before the winter break. Uh the new Wi-Fi access points, which we hope will be in production for the next 10 years, are Wi-Fi 7 capable. Wi-Fi 7 was a standard that was passed about a year ago by the FCC um and allows uh people that buy those devices uh to utilize what they call a six gigahertz network. So it means faster speeds down the line for our devices. Um the experts are predicting we're going to need more throughput and bandwidth to our devices uh in order to leverage the artificial intelligence technology that's evolving right now and emerging. Uh so we want to
140make sure that we're in a place where we can start to utilize the new access points fully uh that we have on the ceilings and and beaming out the Wi-Fi access to all of our students and staff. Um and the Wi-Fi uh cabling project will go from cat 6 cable to 6A which allows us to leverage our 10 gigabyte uh backbone. Our network is capable of funneling 10 gigs whereas right now with the cat 6 koon we can only funnel up to one gig. So it really positions us for the future and will leave put us in a place to deliver cutting edge technological experiences for students. And when we leverage the -ate funding, we predict or project that we'll save about $432,000 which is already reflected in the budget that I'll present in a
141moment. Um as I mentioned earlier to start tonight's presentation, we're facing inflationary pressures which is primarily driving increases in the lines where there are increases. So computer hardware rises slightly. Um and again it's just reflecting um inflationary uh increases as well as uh RAM. Computer RAM, believe it or not, is rising exponentially right now. Uh so I'm not a stock expert, but I hear it's a good time to buy a stock in RAM. Um the reason being is the chip manufacturers and the manufacturers that produce the RAM are pivoting to support artificial intelligence. they're not producing as many chips or RAM chips that we need for things like Chromebooks. Uh so the costs are rising and right now our vendors when we're having conversations with them, they're only guaranteeing quotes for two or three weeks,
142which is very unusual. Uh so there's a lot of uncertainty there. So we built in a little bit of extra funding in the computer hardware line. It's also important to call attention, and I think I've done this in the past, that $24,000 in the computer hardware line is allocated per regulation to the private schools within the boundaries of the district. Uh so just keep that in mind as well. The professional and tech technology uh contractual services line is going up slightly again due to inflationary pressure. And the only real item that we're adding there is we'd like to do a network vulnerability test this year. Uh because we've made over the last three years significant investments in our our backbone, our network technology hardware. So we've put new switching in. I mentioned we put the
143new wireless access points in. Um and we want to make sure uh that we're safe and secure in the in the uh updates that we made. Uh this is following guidance from the New York State Controllers's Office. It's long-standing guidance that every uh once in a while we should do a vulnerability test like this and it feels natural to do that now. Uh we estimate the cost of that to be roughly $25,000. Um in the computer and instruction line, you'll see an increase there. Again, inflation is what's driving that specifically around the classroom printers and the toner that's used. Um each building gets certain amount of funding for uh toner towards the classroom picture uh classroom printers as well as other computer related instructional supplies. Um and our tech leaders who oversee a lot of
144that funding with their building principles have been reporting back to our department that they're running close or out of funds in many cases. Uh part of it is the inflation. Another part of it is, and we've been doing uh a project over the last uh two uh budget cycles to replace printers throughout the district because our district has several models of printer that are no longer um the company's no longer in business. They're called Oki. The company went out of business. It's becoming harder uh to get the drums and the toner cartridges that you need to replace it. Supply and demand. Uh the cost is going up. So we're allocating more funds there uh for each of the buildings uh to support the supplies that they need. Uh under material supplies and other we're seeing
145a decrease because we're moving some items that we used to purchase through that line through the Boseies line to generate more aid which helps offset the cost of the budget from year to year and I'll talk about that a little bit below where we talk about the estimated Bosey's aid. Uh the computer software line to no surprise is now going down because of the reductions that we've made with our curriculum partners. Um and then BOSI services we're not doing as many large uh network related projects or bigger projects than we've done over the past two years. So that line has also dropped slightly. Uh the subtotal for this year's uh projected budget is a little over $6 million down $217,000 from the budget that we pro uh pre u presented to you last year. And
146then our estimated Bosey's aid from the previous year is around $2.6 million. So that's the money and Mr. Orcott spoke a little bit earlier um when we spent like with the coaster for uh the curriculum program when we spend money through BOSIES the following year we get a reimbursement back. So based on our spending uh from last year we anticipate or project $2.6 million coming back into the general fund that helps off offset the overall district budget. uh and that's generated through the technology purchases. So we're really cognizant when we develop a budget of trying to leverage all the funding sources or revenue streams that we have available and when you include the subtraction of the Bosey's funding we're really the true budget impact is around $3.3 million. The projected Bosey's aid based on this
147budget is in line with where we've been for the last two to three years and we anticipate about another $2.6 million in revenue coming back into the district. the following school year in 2728 um based on the budget that I'm presenting tonight. And I just want to thank you again for all of your support and your time. And at this time, I'll take any questions. >> Thank you. Anybody want to kick us off with questions? Okay, that'll be me. Um I'm wondering how many students take uh take advantage of your work-based learning? That sounds great. >> Sure. It's small right now. So, it's the first year. We have three students that come during period 2 every day. Yeah, they work handinhand with our technicians. Devon is one of them. Um, and they've learned to repair
148Chromebooks. Um, they've organized uh audiovisisual equipment. They actually helped uh Devon as he goes around and checks in on some of the copy machines. And so they're learning hands-on and shadowing. We have some curriculum work that they followed at the first half of the course uh through the Google classroom about safety and and how do you handle Chromebooks, how do you interact with personally identifiable or sensitive information that you might encounter as part of the job. And so it's really hands-on immersive experience and we're hoping to continue partnering with the high school, the workbased learning program, the curriculum department to expand that in future years. >> I think it's great. I think it sounds terrific. I think it's a wonderful opportunity. And I think that every time you turn around, that's what employers want. That's
149what colleges want to see. They want to see that you've actually um interacted with people and and objects and and really put done the hands-on work. And it's nice that we're giving these students that opportunity. I hope you have an opportunity to offer that to more kids. That sounded terrific to me. I also just thought it was a very thoughtful presentation. I really like the fact that you're um going back and questioning what we're really using and if uh and to find ways as we see, you know, when when we talk about, you know, um you know, the reductions to things that are uh important and how hard, you know, everyone's working on the budget. It's nice to see that you're making that contribution to see where we're maybe spending money but we don't need
150to spend without even impacting our users. So, I appreciated that. Does anybody else have any questions? Jeff, >> uh the the high school has the typical course selection process. So, they're meeting with their counselors and it's it's being offered in the course catalog and the conversations with the counselors and then I guess they make their way to the class. I'm not as involved with the uh advocation of of joining the class. Yeah. >> Mike, could you just speak? You mentioned network vulnerability testing. Could you speak to uh the issues that maybe or an issue uh that another district has had? You don't have to name the district, but which highlights uh the potential exposure that a district uh uh or the problem a district could encounter and at what cost to resolve those types of
151problems if we're not keeping our our network up to a certain standard. >> Yeah. So, when we talk about vulnerability testing, we want to essentially look for gaps or holes in our network infrastructure. And especially after you've done a few large projects, uh there could be something that's misconfigured that maybe our team or a vendor did not pick up on. Uh what happens is if we don't do that testing and and identify those gaps and rectify those gaps now is down the line a bad actor could discover those those um gaps um and if they infiltrate the network what has been happening specifically to school districts immediately in our region and of course nationwide is um a bad actor can get into the network um launch an attack and uh typically ransomware and ransomware is
152where they travel from typically account to account or machine to machine and they encrypt the data data on those uh machines and or servers. Uh it could be individual workstations, it could be a a larger file server. Um and what encryption means is that it's essentially password protected, but only the bad actor knows the password. Uh they hold the data or the information for ransom. Uh they often threaten to blackmail the district by releasing the data. It could be sensitive or confidential data. It could be student personally identifiable information, a mixture of both. Um, and typically in a scenario like that, um, the computer systems could be down for a prolonged period of time. In our immediate region, in the last five years, I'm aware of two districts that were hit very close to Arlington.
153Um, and both of those districts at the time, they did not have their full network access or computer access restored to end users. We're talking students and teachers for about three months as they worked through the remediation process. Um, and oftentimes the district's insurance provider will get involved as part of the cyber security co coverage. But what happens after an attack takes place is the insurance reciprocal will assign an expert, a cyber security expert to come in and then they have to start restoring and rebuilding your systems. It takes a tremendous amount of time, effort, and money. Uh, and that's why we want to be proactive in doing our testing to try and make sure that that doesn't happen here. >> I would just reiterate too, Mike, I mentioned this to the board earlier in
154the school year lecture. I'm assuming you were president at the meeting, but uh we had an audit earlier this year through the state education department, I believe, which really reviewed any point of vulnerability across a variety of areas. It was it was a lot. uh you know that better than than I do, but I just have to commend the you and your team and your approach to managing our network because certainly as a participant in that audit, it was evident that we're maintaining a certain standard and you've maintained a certain standard for our network security uh over the years. So, job well done. >> Thank you. I think that's all the questions. Okay. Thank you so much. >> Thank you everybody. >> Just keep moving along. I think Mrs. Roberto is going to come up
155now. So, uh, just some context as, uh, Mrs. Roberto is coming. We've, uh, the program budget, uh, really reflects and John reflected some title funding, but there's people behind the program that we're running. So, uh, obviously the largest cost that we have as a school district is around personnel uh, and and, uh, so in order to we're we're always re-evaluating or evaluating our current staffing levels. and Hillary's going to provide a little bit more information on uh anticipated impact to staffing as we're developing the budget or the recommended budget for next school year. >> Yes, good evening. Uh thank you for hanging in there. Um so I'm going to provide an update on our enrollment and staffing as we look for next year. This is really meant to serve as a highle overview. Um more
156details will come in future meetings. And I'd like to thank Erikica Puller, our director of HR, who is here today. um she is vital in helping um us with everything we do in HR. Um so to get started, this is um just a slide that shows our current enrollment at all three levels. While our enrollment continues in a downward trend, it has mostly stabilized. The numbers are similar to our numbers the past few years. Our total population 7,604 students. Last year we had about 40 more students across the K12 continuum. Our current sixth grade class starts a trend of cohorts of under 600 students. So >> say that one more time. >> So our current sixth grade class >> Yeah. >> is under 600 students. It's just under 600 students. It's like 59 something. And
157um our kindergarten class has 518 students. So we are going to continue to decline gradually over the next 12 years absent of any changes any you know large-scale housing or you know businesses that move in. But you know it's it's um it isn't a downward trend but it's not dramatic at this point. So this slide uh just gives a historical view of our enrollment and staffing numbers. 14 years ago we had almost 9,200 students and approximately 700 teachers. Since that time we have experienced declining enrollment and we are down approximately 1,600 students. Um, while our enrollment has decreased, our teaching full-time equivalency or FTE is what that stands for has actually increased. This number is inclusive of our PPS providers. So that includes social workers, speech and language, psychologist, things like that. Uh, but that
158703 number also includes those. Um, so really showing this data because we do have an opportunity to make adjustments without those adjustments having a major impact on our student experience or our student programs. As an example, these are our class size ranges for our elementary levels. So this current school year uh the number on the left uh the 16 for instance kindergarten we have classes of 16 we also have class of 25. So a range is between 16 and 25. Um as we make some adjustments um for next year uh you will see that the range gets a little bit tighter in some areas but it's not dramatically different. um it is still a very reasonable class size and um we've been able to support that in the past. We anticipate that we can support
159that moving forward in the future. Um so kindergarten for instance, it's going from a range of nine students to a projected range of four students. So just a little difference there. Um we're working to get those within a tighter range. um that is a little bit more difficult for some of our smaller buildings that only have two or three sections. Um so there's always going to be a little bit of of fluctuation there. Um but that's kind of what we're aiming for. And we're we're trying to work within the class size parameters um of K to 1 being around 20 to 22 of grades 2 and three 22 to 24 and grades four and five 24 to 26. Still very reasonable. It's what our community has come to expect and um you know it's what
160our teachers um I would say are are pretty used to as well. So as we are working with our principles and coordinators on staffing matters we're always trying to keep in mind how do we protect our academic programming uh aligning our staffing assignments with certifications expertise and our student need. um we do have to balance our class size and make sure that our um specialized services, so our special education services, our ELLL services, um our AIS intervention services, that those all remain intact for our students. One of the programs that John spoke about earlier is our elementary PE program. That's certainly something we're taking into account as we consider staffing. Um, and we're trying to think of ways we can um, strengthen our PE program and increase the staffing and PE, making sure that we
161do that in a responsible manner. Um, we're trying to align our decisions with our district priorities, making sure that we are maintaining those programs that make Arlington special and unique. And anytime we're making staffing adjustments, we're trying to manage our community and our organizational impact. And we do this by um really trying to communicate with the individuals and buildings who are impacted. And all of this is very time-sensitive because we want to make sure that the board is fully um aware and supportive and um is giving us, you know, the the go-ahhead for the the suggestions that we're making. Um so we have to align those communications with our budgeting process and that can always um always be a little bit tricky. Um but we're always doing our best to minimize the disruption um to
162our staff and any kind of um staff movement that we have to make. Um it is uh you know always a little bit tricky when it comes to um our seniority, our legal requirements and making those adjustments um hopefully as most as best as we can through attrition. Um, we also look at things like voluntary transfers. Um, trying to be really clear with the process and any movements that are going to occur. Um, so those are, you know, some things that we're always keeping in mind as we're looking at the adjustments. And so, uh, last year you saw something similar. Um, this year we're we're looking to make approximately 16 to 20 reductions in FTE. um that would be across all levels and that is teaching and some support staff. Um with this um we
163are um probably going to make most of these through attrition. However, we do anticipate there could be layoffs this year. Um so that's not uh it's a it's a really uncomfortable place to be in. Um we have had several years as I showed you earlier of maintaining consistent or increased staffing. Um but our number decline has brought us to this point where um we believe we can still have a very um strong educational program as John just talked about um and manage um these adjustments. Um we're hopeful that any layoffs will be minimized and we will certainly work to um with those individuals if that does happen. Um but that is a possibility for this year. Um it is possible that we may need up to two um support service providers. Um we're we're still
164working on the programs for our special education programs. I know Dr. ation spoke about those I think just last week. Um so those are still in um a development stage and so um it's a possibility that we might need to add um a couple of positions to support our our new programs. And then those internal staff offsets, that's really a result of moving student needs. Um, so that's really one building might be losing a section, another building has a section that they need and it it might result in staff moving as a result of that. Um, this is typical movement. It does happen every year. Our staff is used to that. Um, but uh, it it does cause a little bit of unrest and um, anytime teachers are moved around it's it's challenging. It's challenging
165for our principles. Um, we do have a great staff. People, um, sometimes they think, "I could never work at another building." And then they go to that new building and they say, "I love this building. I I can't believe that I, you know, love that building and now I love this building." So, as the pieces fall into place, um, we really hope that um, we can get things settled and people will um, feel comfortable if they are moved. Um, but it does take some time for those things to be worked out. Um, we are going to continue working with our building principles, um, with our coordinators on how to meet the needs, how to meet our budgetary needs, how to meet our student needs, and ensure that our students still have a really excellent experience.
166Are there any questions at this time? Sophia, >> can you just go back? >> Yeah. >> That those 10, the internal offsets, those are reductions, too. >> No, those aren't reductions. Those are really >> moves. >> Yeah, those are movements. So the only reductions are the ones reductions. >> Yeah, the 16 to 20. So there I mean that does show there are a lot of moving pieces this year. Um where typically I would say we would have under probably under 15, you know, people in different types of moves. Um this year it's definitely more movement than we would typically see. And when you're talking about layoffs, it does involve um some different uh requirements that you have to follow um to make sure that we're meeting our legal obligations there. Um if we're just moving
167staff, we're really looking at our contractual obligations, but when we're talking about layoffs, um it kind of gets into another another realm and involves um a different type of movement. So on the reductions, the layoffs, what is the criteria to do a layoff? What is the criteria that you look at to find the candidates for layoffs? >> Least senior. So our our last people who were hired or our first people who are laid off in that tenure area. So we might have somebody who is, you know, a PE teacher who's our most recent hireer, but if we're not having reductions in PE, then we're not going to look at that that tenure area. So, it's within the tenure area and the least senior are the ones who we have to look at. >> I'll make
168a comment on this because I my kids graduated district. Um, not here, but we were living in Arizona. that happened and the best teacher that they had ever was the one who was in that 10 year range and he was let go ahead of somebody who was absolutely pathetic as a teacher >> and they were just on the other >> on the other bracket. So it is very demoralizing for kids as well. >> It is. So the good thing we are a big district and we have lots of movement that I don't even know about right now. So, I mentioned to a principal the other day and she said, "I think I I think I might have a teacher who mentioned to me, um, you don't know she's expecting yet, but she's expecting and she
169might be out long term." So, that would be an opportunity where somebody who might be laid off, we could put into that position if a teacher is going to be out for a year. So, we're really hopeful that we can minimize it and not lose those great teachers who we've hired and invested time in. Um but we do you know it the the law is pretty clear on how we have to >> guess the law. I think it's a contract. I think it's legally there is no age tenure mandate in the US to lay off somebody. >> I'm sorry. Say that one more time. >> Legally in the US there is no law that mandates that your criteria has to be based on tenure. The labor law in the US doesn't have that. Um, >>
170it's probably something very specific to the industry. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yes, it is specific to the industry and New York State has outlined um regulations. >> But clear that people don't understand. >> Yeah. So, >> and we actually don't want people to get pregnant to avoid. So, >> um, no, we >> there are specific regulations we have to follow. >> Okay. >> Specific to education in New York State. >> I I just want to clarify. I don't think she's saying that someone will not get laid off because they got pregnant. I think what she's saying is that if someone get laid off, they're offered a long-term sub position. >> Correct. And then I'm sorry. >> And then the other thing I just want to clarify, I think maybe you could clarify instead of me.
171We're not talking about 15 or 16 to 20 layoffs. >> No, we are not. Layoff will be I'm hopeful very few. >> Um most of those are through attrition. um >> natural pay >> natural attrition from either retirements or positions that were not filled there's um the layoff should be minimal >> but there's a possibility >> for Dr. Venante. So that number 16 to 20, how much is that in millions? >> Uh so we uh put this at approx and I will show you this in my my presentation on the 10th. Uh but just to give you a value right now and there's some work that's still going on behind the scenes. Uh it's $1.6 million I think is how we've scheduled that uh in the budget. Uh but again it's important for us to
172go through uh salary by salary, person by person uh in that to come up with the final figure which we expect to do by the 10th. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions on this area? Jen. >> Yes. >> Jen Hunt, I don't think your microphone's on. Thank you. >> You showed us the staffing ratios for K through five. Are there's >> I I showed you um the ranges >> the ranges. >> Um I didn't show you ratios if that's something >> I meant ranges. >> Okay. >> Um but are there similar ranges in the middle school and high school? Like >> so I would say um we for when we're looking at Let me just get to that. Oh, I missed it. Um there it is. Um when we're looking at ranges, um I
173would say actually yes, they are similar. Um we are um you know 31 is the max um for most of our classes. Um but I would say most of our classes um you know range from depending on the class from 22 to probably 28. Um I could get you if you want those numbers specifically. I I didn't provide that tonight. Um but we do I could look at the the high school ranges. Um but 31 is the max and most of our classes are um majority are under that >> and I would say that's an area I appreciate the question uh because it becomes a point of scrutiny if not by the board by our staff uh and it's a reasonable one. We we scrutinize it as well and we offer such an extensive program
174in Arlington that there's always going to be discrepancies because there's certain classes that you can't have for safety reasons as an example any more than a certain number of uh kids uh in a particular course or the course is just designed to be available to uh a certain number of students. So, the best I think I've been able to do in the past with boards and trying to show it is to pick our our general education program. So, right now, Hillary's showing this K5 um and these are general education classes, K5 ranges across our school. And then to instead of showing you every class at the high school, because that would be hundreds of classes, to show you the ranges for our core classes, global one, global 2, US history, um, English 9, uh, English
17510, etc. Uh, a couple of algebra and or geometry classes for math. Uh, just to give you a sense of what that looks like across our program. Um, but there's always going to be, um, you know, outliers to that. um across the program, but it's we can pull that information short of just giving you every section in the middle school and the high school. You'll you'll be able to pull some things out. Uh but I think looking at just the the classes that all of our kids are taking and what the ranges are in those sections are probably the the best we can do to just keep you give you a pretty good snapshot without inundating you with all of the information. Um I had a question. Uh I don't know. So looking at if
176you go back to the second slide, the enrollment and staffing slide that shows the change from 2012 to 2013 to this year. Um, you know, as our community looks at this and then as we will be speaking in the coming weeks about things like levies and budget shortfalls and all that kind of thing, do we have any more analysis? When we say teachers, it really is a broader as you noted, you know, and maybe it, you know, we should illustrate that that it includes um, you know, a lot of other categories of workers. And I guess we know we've added social workers. I think the board was very conscientious a few years ago, very, very proactive in adding some social workers. We know that students are having mental health struggles and we're looking to make
177sure that we can support them through that. I think PPS has had specific requirements as we've brought back classes from Boseze to add staff. I I wonder if there's an analysis of how much this was uh how much this this shift is um uh agreement at some point that we would ease class sizes. How much was that? How you know has there been an analysis of the why of of this versus because as just two four numbers on a page it's it's hard to digest. >> Sure. So, uh, I I don't think we've done a deep analysis of why, but we do know that we've added social workers, we've added ENL support, um, we have added a full day library, we have added um additional um, school psychologist, we have added additional speech therapist or
178speech and language pathologist. Um, so we have definitely and those are included in these numbers. those, you know, it's that when I say teachers, it's essentially our what falls under our ATA contract minus our OT's and PTs. >> And I would just add that I I think as we look back and analyzing, well, what what caused that that shift in staffing while our student population was decreasing, we feel good about some of those shifts, you know, as maybe two people who who've come into it more so after uh those shifts were made uh than than during. I think we we we see the value in in some of that uh or all of it. Um I do think though it illustrates why we can make an adjustment in overall staffing uh given what our current
179student uh numbers are. And that doesn't mean we're making a shift in any of the areas that like Hillary just outlined. Correct. >> Uh where some of those where we just know kind of top of mind well we added a handful of social workers at this point and uh you know Hillary went down the list. uh we may not be making uh many adjustments to that. It's just generally feeling we could offer the same scope of program to our students while making a reduction of 16 to 20 positions depending on where we we fall out. >> So I wasn't on the board but somewhere around was it 2011 when did we we had a fairly significant layoff? It was after it was like a few years after the 2008 crisis. Yeah. you know, and uh
180>> that created a fair amount of repercussions. Is this after that or >> this is after that? >> It's after >> and it was 2010 to 2011. Yeah. >> When we did uh we and we did we had layoffs that year. >> Um that those were more extensive than what we think we're going to lay on this year. I'm just going top of mind because I was here >> uh and recall those conversations. Those stick with you. >> Um for sure. Uh but as Hillary noted as a large school district because uh we we do encounter and I can't if I tried to recall from then I' I'd probably be misremembering but we are we do stand in a pretty good position to Hillary didn't get into it but those teachers become have preferred eligibility
181for any employment opportunity that then comes after that. So if it's a leave or if it's a retirement that comes, we have to offer the job to them first and we're often able to do so as a large district in short time. Yes. >> Uh so um you know we're not talking about 16 to 20 layoffs. I think in that you know our rough estimate because I don't mind sharing it publicly right now is at five um where it may not line up with uh uh with what with attrition uh with who we have leaving. Um and I I feel a level of confidence. I can't guarantee it. No one can. But that if it's five individuals, we would be able to in short time have another opportunity for them. Uh uh hopefully prior to
182the start of the next school year, obviously they can choose to go on to do what uh whatever, you know, if they want to access something uh because we have some great employees. Uh if they want to access something in a different district, uh we'd hate to see them go, but we would support them in that. But I'm pretty confident we'd be able to offer them something in Arlington in short time. Now, that discussion along with the displacement discussion is really where we prioritize because we care about our people as much as it's a difficult conversation right now over the next few weeks uh between Hillary and Erica and our building principles. Uh you know, supporting that dialogue at a building level concurrently, which is tough news while we're trying to still because Kevin's going
183to come up soon work on the budget. uh and and there's some assumptions we're making as you'll see in that budget. So, it's the next month or so. It's important that we're handling it um with with great care. >> Can I get a motion, please, to extend the meeting to 10:00? I need a second. Second. Thank you. All those in favor? I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. Thank you. Sorry. >> Thank you, Mia. And thank we, you know, and I really No, don't feel that way at all. I really appreciate your contributions >> and you have school tomorrow. >> I'm glad. I'm glad. >> Say you for that one. Throw your softball. >> Good evening. >> Um, sorry we had to do that little piece of business to extend the meeting. I don't want to truncate
184anybody having any questions. Is there anything anybody else wants to ask of Hillary at this point? Or, you know, this is a continuing saga. We'll be hearing more in our coming meetings. Okay. Thank you, Hillilary. Appreciate it. >> Thanks, Hillary. >> All right, that brings us up to Kevin and the magic blue sheet that we've all come to know and love, >> right? So, I think we have a print out of this at each of your seats, but we'll also pull it up on the projector here or Prometheium board. They're not projectors anymore. And I've asked Kevin just to provide an overview. You're used to this format of our working budget deficit. And Kevin, if you could also just explain the adjustments you've made since our last meeting and what's what's influencing I I should
185say any shifts in in numbers that we have here. >> Yeah. So, so this is another meeting in our development process as we work as we work and try and get the funnel down to uh where both revenues and expenditures match. Um there's been significant movement. Um when Dr. Dr. Benante presented last time we were at roughly $9 million of separation. I dropped off the 12 million column because that was a a guest that started in January and I just don't really have the room on this slide. So, uh, but we keep the base year of the budget at 2526. That's the one that we're comparing off of and so that's that's where you're going to see the comparisons. So, what's really changed from his presentation basically last week, right? So, um, since that time,
186I've had some meetings with, uh, two of our organizations. One is the, uh, workers comp consortium where we get our rates for the following year, and that consortium is doing very well, and they are going to give us a rebate or a, uh, refund of prior year's expenses. So, there's a $270,000 number that I'm now reflecting on the revenue side. So, so we will bring that in. Um, as one of the techniques to try to uh close this gap, I'm going to recommend that we use one of our reserves. So, we have a large increase in the ERS reserve. Uh, and that's about 1.2 million I'd like to use out of that. Uh the thought will be that whatever monies hopefully we'll have left over at the end of this year 2526 I would then
187make a recommendation that we replace it because we want to be very careful that we don't show the bankers that we're um eating our fund balance to to substantiate our regular programming needs because pretty soon we're going to be asking for uh monies for our bond project. So, we want to show a strong financial process, but I think in order to make this gap where it needs to be, it's time to use some of our some of our reserves that we've been using and setting aside to prepare for this type of moment. So, that >> where is that? Is that the where where are you throwing that here? The other revenue. >> So, if you go to the other revenue, which is the third line down, you'll see that that increase now is a,470. >>
188Yeah. where it was $257 before. So if you added 1 million2 and 270, you'd get the 1,470 for the math people. >> Okay. >> And the other reductions are occurring on the expenditure side. So I've also had meetings with DHICK, which is one of the largest drivers of the of the differential between where we started and where we are today. and um they are going to make uh some changes inside DHICK and that's going to drop the percentage to probably just below 10. This reflects a 10. So we're coming down from 16.4 down to 10 and maybe slightly less than 10. So right now DXR health insurance. >> So So that took out millions. >> So that's in your expenditure plan at the bottom. >> Yep. It Yep. It was uh a reduction of maybe
189almost $3 million from where we I had originally thought that we would be with Dhick. >> Yeah. >> So So that's a significant move. >> Um as uh Dr. Bonate uh referred to there is a placeholder in here for the work that's being done on the FTEES. I'm carrying 1,650. We'd said 1 million6, but it's 1,650, which is an actual number. Um, so we're carrying that. I've taken out what we we had started a project where we were going to provide a little over $500,000 in um uh furniture. We took out half of it last year. I'm taking out the other half this year because I I'm trying to maintain programs. Um, and some other minor equipment that was asked for and I'm going to figure out a different way to to uh make that
190happen. Uh, and I took out breakage which is about 345,000. Uh, so so breakage just isn't a large number for us. >> Evan took out breakage. It's like a milestone. >> Yeah. So, so breakage is basically if we have a senior uh faculty member leave and then we replace them with a a newer faculty member, the difference in their salary is called breakage. Um but because of all of the things that are involved in uh our collective bargaining agreements and what we have to do in continued expenses, uh the the value of that is not a tremendous amount to us. Well, but I have included that where I normally don't. Um, >> how much was the breakage? >> 345,000. Um, that's where we're at at the moment. There are other things that we are working
191on. Um, but uh we will unfold them as we continue to go through the process. I our intentions are to give you a balanced budget on March 10th. We are still currently holding the tax levy at the at the cap uh limit. Um but we will obviously have that discussion as we continue to develop uh through the budgeting process. But uh our objective is to try to come through the door on the 10th with a balanced budget and what that might include and might not include. But there's a lot of work to be done between now and then. >> Yeah. So if I could just speak to that for the board because that's a a placeholder in a discussion that we had last week. Um, so here's how I would like to uh proceed with
192obviously uh Kevin and our team is that we develop a recommended budget uh to present to you on the 10th uh and will reflect uh all of the the program components that have been spoken to over the last couple of weeks. uh the staff uh adjustments that Hillary introduced today. We'll probably go into a a further level of detail so you can get a sense of where uh where those adjustments are by way of elementary, secondary um and also anything else that's included in that. Um John mentioned like the adjustment on summer school uh that we're planning to make. So, we'll outline other adjustments of that nature uh that we're still currently working on and we'll reflect a budget uh that is up to the levy limit at 3.5. I think that then positions us
193uh to to share with you well at different levels from there if we want to further reduce the levy um what um how much or at what cost of further reductions that would require. If you, for example, just as an example, you said, "Well, what would this look like at at 2.9 or 2.74, which is where we landed last year, or two and so on, uh we can scale that based off an amount. Um, we have a committee of the whole meeting uh the week after." So, we're going to meet quite a bit here. Um uh if needed I could further illustrate in the committee the whole process uh the specific uh costs of other reductions uh that we would entertain. Um uh really at that point, you know, we're in the mode where the
194administrative administration's recommended budgets been presented to you. We have a month, I guess that's what I'll get at before you adopt a budget to present to the community. So that'll allow us about a month's time to go back and forth if you want to see what programs uh or other components of the budget could be reduced to further bring the levy down. Uh one last note, we're still indicating a state aid that's based on the governor's proposal here. Uh we have not obviously seen any any movement through the legislature that will come to light at some point uh in the process, but again those timelines don't always match up on the timeline we're on. So uh but we'll present a budget on the 10th at 3.5. We have the committee of the whole uh thereafter
195to at least begin a discussion if we want to talk about what the impact would be if we're going to go below 3.5. >> I would add that about $3 million a little about 3.11 it's slightly over 1% left that we have to close the gap. So, it sounds like a it's a big number and it's certainly difficult for us to navigate, but it's about 1% of your overall budget. Uh, when you're at 3,119,000, our budget's 268 million. So, every 1% is about 2.7 million or 2.68 million. So, this is slightly over 1% that we have to close the gap just to give it a percentage because you look at $3 million, it's a lot of money. It is a lot of money and it will be difficult for us to do but it's 1%
196not 10%. >> Okay. >> No, this is much more difficult. You're you're cutting you're you're we're having to cut things that we haven't cut in the past. >> Yeah. like we were at I think we were down to 1.5 or two at the end there. We got some additional aid. Uh that that helped. So, um no, I mean, if we look at it from where we started, we were we've made $9 million in adjustments. Again, some of it was starting at 12, whereas we usually start at seven. >> Yeah. But one major difference is you're still at a at a at a you know it's it's much better than it started, but you're still at a health insurance that's at 10 and we were at six last year. So I mean that 4% is $2
197million. >> Yeah. >> Give or take. >> So I Yeah, this this is this is by far a much more difficult budget than than last year. Um, plus he, you know, that if Kevin took breakage, he's going after. Um, uh, so I know he said couldn't put another column, but I'm going to ask you for another column. Okay. >> I think it's really I think it's really important that from your rollover, I don't know if we need to go all the way back to the $12 million, >> but I think that So, I think >> that's the only column that's missing, >> right? But if you you know what I feel like the column is missing is between the the 210 and the 224 that really there should be a column of what we gave
198it almost like footnoted. You've done this for us before because really so you've gotten some stuff from DHICK but we've also we have a million six in in people. We have program changes and we have some things going the other way. And I think as we go into discussions about levies, you you have to see what you've already given up to get to where you are at the 3 million one. And none of that is delineated. You just like flew by. And like you're It was the ERS reserve or the TRS reserve? >> ERS. >> Is that the newer one? Which is the newer one? >> TRS is the newer one. Yeah. But actually our TRS rates going down and it's saving us almost a million dollars. So that's helpful. >> Okay. But uh ERS
199continues to to escalate and uh the increase budget to budget's about a million two. So I figured we could take that from the reserve and then we'll pay it back at the end of the year if we if we can. I'd like to pay that back as much. >> All right. So instead of funding that like we typically would from our typical operations, we're we're basically doing the rainy day thing >> a little bit of that. Yeah. >> Yep. Okay. Um, I think that having that in a column that says we've moved to that and we've done those things will kind of inform as we go forward when we look at additional things because we we actually already have done a lot of like difficult things. >> Yeah, I'm recalling the chart. I think we
200do it could be ahead of or behind that last year. So, we have that we can do that and include it in the recommended budget. >> Yeah, I'd love to see and it's okay with me if it doesn't all tie out. if there's like a plug that says and we found other stuff like that's fine with me you know um just that what are the components of these changes and what are the you know where are they coming from okay >> um if that would you know that would be really helpful to me and it would also help me think as I go forward yes Sophia >> to fully agree with what you are proposing because then it will make it easier for the next conversation so thank you for bringing that up I have
201a question so what are the factors that are driving this I guess shortfall that we have and we continue to have that are internal to us. Not inflation, not the state budget, not the tier one, whatever like from a financial perspective what is driving what are the top two things that are driving this? >> Most of them are external factors. Um, so the big big things is if you're if we're going to maintain the number of of staff, then you have then you have salary increases. So that's a if you want to call that I'm not sure if that's internal or external, but that that's a factor of the collective bargaining agreement. So all staff is moving. So staffing is is an issue. Benefits uh so between staffing and benefits, it's about 78% of the
202entire budget. So, uh, when when our budget for, uh, health insurance, which is a $45 million number in our budget, moves 16%. That's, uh,67 million or $8 million. So, so when when you add all of those things, so that that was 8 million of your of your $12 million increase. Then we have um the increase from ERS. So, that's an external factor that we just have to fold in. Um, >> so thank you for that because that's what I was trying to get to like is it something that we are not doing or are doing, but it doesn't seem like it's that it's really the external factor. >> No, you've been very conservative and very uh dedicated to the programming that you've provided to the students in Arlington and you've been unwavering in that in
203my tenure here. So, um, what we're trying to do is is to maintain those programs and not diminish them. So you see the presentation for the staffing. So the staffing is really a a reality forced by by having to conserve on the budget but also take into account all of the things that are happening programming and to maintain those so >> and the lower enrollment. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean you you we are we are trying to provide the same level of services and I think we will be providing the same level of services. We're just gonna do it with fewer people >> with more taxes. >> Um, Linda, >> well, that that is that is part of it. I mean, yeah, >> I didn't hear what I didn't hear last Oh, taxes. >> Um,
204I'm sorry. I was in the restroom, but for Hillary, does or for anybody for Phil, is this the first time the staff or and the and the teachers are hearing this or or was there >> No. uh the principles we're told. >> No, we've walked them uh through uh in a couple of updates to uh anticipate that they're uh the budget reductions that are are necessary or the areas that we're going to have to reduce. Uh we met with so I just want to clarify that we've met with our teacher leadership to begin to prepare for them that we're going to have to show reductions. Uh and then we're having this presentation tonight. Uh after each board presentation, I provide a summary to the staff of what was discussed and you'll see that tomorrow uh
205after we have a we have a meeting with all the principles uh in the morning and then the staff will get an update from me afterwards. So there's a level I just want to be specific because I I don't I think it's really important this time of year that I'm uh specific in my comments. the staff I has an awareness of the fiscal outlook and and where we are. I don't know if the staff would have seen that 16 to 20 number yet. um we've raised their awareness that reductions are likely necessary, but tomorrow will be the first time they'll see the the 16 to 20 figure and then we'll be meeting and we'll say in my message to them uh anybody who's uh directly impacted will uh be meeting with them over the course
206of the next I think two weeks Hillary or week and a half because it's going to take some time. We want to make sure we're managing those conversations. Donna, >> so you said you met with Dhick. Um Kevin, so even at 10% a year, I mean, you know, where does this go from here? I mean, do you can just see this steamrolling and be, you know, if it's um >> it is definitely >> now this year, what about next year? I mean, this can can just continue to be a a a real problem for school districts. And uh did did was there any discussion about you know the future? >> There is a there is a subcommittee of the members of the board on DHICK that are studying the actual plan uh offerings. So or
207other options that may be available. The thing that came through is we changed uh networks and the entire board for DHICK which is comprised of both administrative individuals and labor individuals uh voted unanimously to make that change and that change is what drove us to the under 10% or slightly under 10%. So um there is a recognition on the members of or or the uh governing board which is comprised of both administration and labor that you know can't run unchecked forever. Uh I will say that the um medical industry has gone over some pretty dramatic changes in the last 5 to 10 years. And um you know drugs are a major driving factor of what those cost increases are. >> Um I I don't know what to say. I mean I mean costs are are
208you know people are people are using them. They're very expensive and um it's not a unique problem to dehick. It's not a unique problem to Arlington. It's a it's a I would say a national issue. So, um someone far smarter than me is going to have to figure how to control all those costs. But yeah, >> but you're on the committee. >> I am on the No, actually I I didn't make a committee, >> but I am on the board. >> So, DHICK accessed it reserves to get us down to there. No, >> no, they changed the they changed one of the networks and then then the network >> Okay. only knocked out um one or two providers, but it c it lowered their costs tremendously uh without really diminishing the services to a a
209huge portion of the population. So, so >> you said that, but I don't think I've I understood what you meant. Okay. >> Yeah. So, so that allowed the the the number to come down significantly. >> Oh, that's that's better. I that's better than them. It's a controlling it's a it's a matter that will help them control costs. Yeah. And will help us as we move forward because they'll be paying less for services uh reimbursements to doctors. It won't harm it won't harm any of the users and it won't harm any of us districts that are that are paying the bill. So, it's a win-winwin uh at this point, but it's a oneshot thing like it's a one change, but every year thereafter, we're making lower payments and so that will be beneficial to all of
210us as we move forward, but it doesn't, you know, I mean, you know, if we're still go increasing at 10%, that's a very large number on a very large number. So, um, yeah, they have to, you know, they're they're going to have to study it and what other thing what other levers that can be pulled or whatever changes can be negotiated. Well, time will tell. And just to underscore that, it's at this rate, the current rate that's reflected now, that's a $50 million cost, I think I heard you say. So, a 10% increase next year, right? That becomes a a $55 million. That's a big That's a big number. Um so and right now without any changes and I >> 3% on our levy. >> Yeah. The health care alone. Um so uh it underscores
211why on our internal costs we need to be fair uh to our employees. Uh but at the same time we need to realize and make sure we're running an efficient system. Uh which you have done a great job in the past of of setting us up for Kevin. Uh but also it underscores if something needs to fundamentally change with the health care plan. Uh or else we're just going to keep that's all the conversation's going to be about in subsequent years. >> Yeah, it it definitely is being driven lately by the the the drug costs. It's wildly expensive and exploding in use. >> Do you think is it is the number set now or did I sort of hear maybe my ears are just hopefully grasping for words. But did you say it might even
212change a little bit still? >> Uh I'm I'm carrying 10 in the numbers that I that I um presented >> 10, but it might we don't know the exact we're talking uh a half a percent at most. Uh so I mean yeah could be could be some slightly we may put that in the March 10th uh the final adjustment but uh we're trying to figure out how to close this gap and prepare a 310 presentation and there's a lot of variables still on the table. Remember this is a funnel and we're probably here not here. So we're still we're still working things out. We're still debating. We're still seeing what what you know what has the least amount of impact, what has the or the greatest impact to to to our issue. So >> debate
213is a far more gracious word than argue. That's Kevin's a good partner. >> Well, I think that's it then. Thank you and thank you to everyone who worked on the Budget presentations tonight and other days. It's just um we know it's an awful lot of work that comes into what this is. I really need to do it again. Can I please get a motion to extend the meeting? Can I I'll say I'll say I'll say 10:30, but we won't need it. I swear. So, um thank you. Thank you. All those in favor? I opposed. Absention. Motion passes. Okay, here we go. Policy first reading with revisions. First reading. I don't need a motion. Thank you all very much. Um, policy B, first reading without revisions. Thank you very much to the policy committee. We don't
214need a vote there. Um, C, uh, acknowledgement on approval of deleted policies. May I please get a motion? Thank you. Thank you. Any discussion? >> Seeing none, all those in favor? I >> opposed abstensions. Motion passes. And that's it for policy. Okay. New business. Our new business section of the agenda lists several items for individual resolution approval. Documentation concerning these items have been provided to our board members in advance to assure an extensive and thorough review. B. Approval of international field trips. May I please get a motion? Thank Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. Approval of overnight field trip. Can I please get a motion? Thank you. Thank you. Um, any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. Really cool that
215this kid is going to the Manolympiad or whatever. So, wishing him great luck. Okay. Can't have a little little comment there. Approval of sustainability s um substantially equivalent schools. My bad. Uh, can I get a motion, please? Thank you. Thank you. Any discussion? just would add that you approved uh you had a similar resolution in a previous meeting. I provided some background on why we do this. So this is a continuation of that for the other schools within our uh attendance zone uh which does include the parochials which is an adjustment uh based on last time. I thought the parochials went through an alternative certification process. They do uh but you still have to approve their substantial equivalency designation. >> Okay. And here we go. All those in favor? I oppose. Abstension. Motion passes. Classified
216administrative lead. May I please get a motion. Thank you. Um any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. Moving on to the business consent agenda. Our consent section of the agenda lists several items for approval by a single motion. Documentation concerning these items have been provided to our board members in advance to assure an extensive and thorough review. May I please get a motion on the consent agenda. Thank you. Thank you. Um any discussion or comment? >> I just wanted to draw the board's attention to um one of the retirees, anticipated retirees is Mr. Dan McNamera. Uh Dan is our director of transportation and has been so for the last 12 school years. Uh so I know that you'll join me in congratulating Dan. He's done a great job uh
217overseeing our department. It's an incredible responsibility and I would say if there's one area the superintendent gets the most emails about when something doesn't go well, it's transportation. So uh but that's been minimal uh thanks to Dan and his team and their efforts. So we thank him for his service. >> Thank you. Um any other discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. That moves us all the way back to future discussion items. Would anyone like to add anything to this meeting? Anyone at all? Okay, moving on. Uh, public comment for non-aggenda items. Do we have anyone? Nope. Okay, great. Thank you. Um, committee reports, advocacy. Um, Marian's not here tonight and I think she gave a report last week, so I think we're pretty good there. audit. >> Excellent. I
218mean, thank you. >> Oops. Um Kathy. Okay. Thank Thank you. Policy. What did you want to say? >> I just was mentioning that Jeff, we need to set a date. >> Oh, okay. Yeah. Um policy. >> Uh we're meeting March 11th. >> Excellent. Thank you. Um organization reports. First off, Arlington Education Foundation. Okay, thank you. scholarship. >> Oh um sorry. And then um uh Duchess County Boseies. I believe that Marian gave an update on the most recent one. Um and the next one is uh next week and the topic is going to be committees. um where we're all going to report on the delightful committees that we have. Um PTA, PTSA council, I don't get their where their notices. Are they tomorrow? >> They are. >> Okay. So, um >> I'll share mine. >> Okay.
219For I I used to and maybe I I don't think I got it. I'm not Oh, you know, they just sent it out for the year. Is that what they did? >> I don't know. I got it this week. Did you? I'll share it with you. >> Okay. Thank you very much. Um district health and safety. Okay. Um, equity team. Oh, your microphone's not on. Well, the little red light's not on. Oh, so your little ring is not on. Can we That's fine. As long as we can hear her. I don't mean to You could just talk loud. >> Here, talk to There we go. >> Oh, thank you. >> Okay. >> Um Okay. So, um there was a lot of talk about the student equity, the student secondary student panel, um and talking about
220the mental health pieces that the students brought up. Um and then the second piece of the meeting was looking further into the wellness and belonging survey. Each of the equity leaders is going back to their own building, working with their building principle and looking at their own data and figuring out their next steps. >> Okay, look forward to hearing more about that. Um that brings us to superintendent's closing remarks. not going to do this justice because of the time and I'm tired and I know you are all as well. But I want to share a piece of good news uh that I forgot to share with my team this morning and at some point we'll broadcast this. You never know, you know, when the phone rings from a strange area code like should I answer
221that or not? And Friday I got a call from a strange area code. But I was so happy I I picked up my cell phone. um a former teacher named Yan Vari uh who was a health teacher at Arlington High School uh many years ago. I remember Mr. Vari used to work football games with Mr. Vari when I was uh just starting teaching here. Uh he was calling to share a story with me about a former student of his who he kind of took under his wing you know uh uh back in the 80s uh who had reached out to him to share that um he he appreciated his relationship that he formed with uh Mr. Vari and his wife over the years because they kept in touch after he graduated. Uh and while you
222know his path was a little bit you know uh nonlinear we'll say uh he had become a writer in Hollywood and he works on scripts and he has a uh movie out now uh that is on Paramount Plus uh and I'm going to forget the name of the movie but I will share it with you and the uh teacher figure in the movie he named after Mr. Var and his wife and the the guy is uh he's a very famous actor. I again going to forget the name but you'll recognize him as soon as I uh as soon as you see it. So I'll share it with you. And it was his way of honoring the impact that Mr. Bari had on him as a student. And uh I looked the guy up whose name
223I know his first name is John Arlington grad who we're gonna you know try to get to know a little bit better. uh but um he's worked on some just fantastic films uh that you would all you've probably seen and would recognize. So we look forward to sharing that story more broadly when we get the details right um you know with the community with the board and with uh with Arlington. So just wanted to share that. >> Thank you so much for sharing that. I appreciate you even at the end of the evening because you know that's what it's all about like in the end. You know that's a particularly poignant story but you know that's what it's about and that's why we are agonizing over these tough decisions because we want to do right
224for kids. So thank you for ending on that. That's wonderful. Can I please get a motion to Oh reflections? Does anyone have Linda? Sorry I almost cut you off. >> I attended the um trades fair a couple weeks ago. It was very well done. Um lots of people there. I was able to see the uh the car. >> Saw the car. Yeah. >> And um the the instructor was so good and he you know he told my my husband's into cars. He loves cars. Fixes cars and stuff in his retirement and um he took his time with my husband and me and like he was really good. He's very he's a great instructor. I could see like he's very enthusiastic. So um had a great time. >> Great. That's wonderful. I think Yeah. Yeah. >>
225We hit on it last week. So, >> Yeah, we talked about it. Yeah, >> we talked about it. >> Yeah. Sophia, >> past our bedtime, but I just want to share that this night has been very educational to me. So, this is my second year in the board. And I think if I were to summarize what we reviewed today is that the district is dealing with enrollment down, external factors are out of our control on the budget. We have restrictions on how to manage, you know, our our staff. There's no involuntary separations based on performance. And yet, what I heard was that we have a plan to conserve the class size, improve the quality of instruction. We're making improvements to the curriculum to get to that 80% and even the tech department found savings without
226affecting the support of users. I think it's it's hard times ahead, but I think the work that has been done by the team and everybody is just amazing. >> Thank you for that. Loving ending on a positive note. Does anybody have else they want to add? Then I'll call for a motion to adjurnn. Can I please get a motion to adjurnn? Thank