ACSD Board of Education Meeting 4/8/25

001Pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Could I please get a motion? We're going to um appoint Linda Gaines as our clerk, district clerk prom tonight. So moved. Thank you. Um, any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I opposed, abstensions. Motion passes. Um, Mrs. Gains, will you or Dr. Gaines, will you please call the role? Jennifer Boyd here. I'm here. Jeff Hay here. Sophia Bonet Hollis here. Welcome back. Donna Logan here. Maryannne Ma here. Eileen Snook here. Marian Quinn here. Mark Tornator here. 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.

002Can I please get a motion for the approval of the agenda? So moved. Second. Thank you. Um any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I opposed extensions. Motion passes. Um correspondence. I don't I don't really have any correspondence to share. Um anyone have any correspondence they want to share tonight? Okay. Um board president's remarks. I just wanted to say it's a delight to be here at Overlook and um and it's thank you for the the treats that you put out for us or the PTA. We really appreciate that. And uh and as an aside, I'm really looking forward to your event tomorrow night and coming to that as well. So excited for that to be back here at the school. Um and that's really it for my remarks for tonight. Pass it to you,

003Phil. Mrs. Leer, I'd also like to thank you for introducing me and us to my new best friend, Charlie. I really enjoyed meeting. He is great. And Jess, I know it's going to be a little bit till we get to your presentation because we have a few this evening, but you'll give us a little overview on on Charlie uh besides what's just written on the card here. Great. Cool. Thank you, Jess, for for hosting. And uh I just want, as I mentioned, we have a few agenda items this evening and a few guests that are here this evening. Um I did want to just acknowledge uh the efforts that went into um facilitating uh the district's arts fair. If you had the chance to stop by Lrange Middle School this past weekend, uh there were

004hundreds of uh pieces of student work that were on display. Uh many of our educators, our arts educators throughout the district come together to uh reflect back to the community, not only um our value for the arts, uh but uh our kids uh engagement with the arts uh program in Arlington. And it was great to see uh that work reflected all the way from our our kindergarten students all the way on up through our high school students. And the evolution of that I think was really um reflected in the displays that were included in this year's presentation. Um or this year's fair, I should say. Um second, I I hope you had the chance to attend Legally Blonde. The Admiral's players put on a great production. Um, I attended Friday night's show which seemed to

005go off uh without a hitch. Although I'm sure there were things that were adjusted along the way through the weekend, but uh so many students that were involved in the production, not only those on stage, but part of set design, uh lighting and all of the behind the stage operations. I lost count, you know, after the first group came came out as part of their uh as part of their applause at the end, but it looked to be dozens of kids who were involved in the program and a very full uh house on Friday evening. And again, uh congrats to all who were a part of the production. Um it was great, a great time. Um with that, I'll conclude my remarks for now. Thank you. Okay, moving on. Um I'm just going to give

006people another opportunity. Is there anyone that would like to speak for Seeing none. Okay, moving on to reports and discussions. So, we'll start and uh welcome Mr. Mezer from uh Duchess County Boseies who's going to provide an overview on the Boseies budget. Well, good evening, Superintendent Pathi, members of Octton Board of Education. You're good. Might want to move that microphone up a little bit there, man. Yes. Uh just so the mic is positioned. I think you can just tell. Gotcha. Well, then an honor for me be here tonight. Um I came a little bit early and with Kevin Sheldon permission, I got to walk the school. Uh I attended this school uh from 1975 to 1981. I'm a proud Arlington graduate. It's um it's just really great to be back. What I'd like to do

007tonight is really just walk you through the administrative budget. Uh that's important for the component districts because they they vote on it. um and including the capital and rental. Um and also going to speak to you a little bit about um you know the Bose and some of the exciting things that are happening over there. Move it out of So this is our current board of trustees. There's currently six. There'll be three spots up for election this year. There's two incumbents that are running and there's an a vacant spot that needs to be filled. The highest two vote getters will uh receive a three-year term and the third highest vote getter will actually complete uh the vacant term and then serve for one additional year. You're going to be voting on that on uh April

00822nd as well. This is just a little uh timeline of our kind of our budget at Boseies. So, in January, we send out to the districts our service requests. And this really includes all of the services that we provide. Tonight, I'm specifically probably going to talk about the administrative budget, but like I said, this service request is for everything that uh the school is going to participate in. We ask that that come back um in a by April 4th so that we can kind of balance our budget, see what the participation is going to be for next year. Uh April 22nd, you're going to vote uh not only on the administrative budget, but also on those uh board members that are running. And then June 11th is really we go to our board meeting and

009that's really our starting point for the budget. The services are going to vary through the year and they're going to change um as participation either increases or decreases, but we have to start somewhere and that's really what we do on June 11th. Tomorrow night actually, I'll be also speaking to our Boseies trustees uh kind of presenting this uh budget in a little bit more detail as well. We make some assumptions every year when we're developing our our you know our budget and what we have right now is uh at Boseies we have a really an increase in enrollment numbers that I haven't seen probably in my tenure there uh career and technical program special ed is uh enrollment's very high I think the children are you know kind of struggling a little bit coming out

010of the pandemic and certainly al alternative educate well is really taking off making the assumption on a 7% % increase in health insurance next year. Health insurance is a really big part of this administrative budget. When a teacher works at FOSIES during their time there that they're working the program that they're in, whether that be special ed perhaps or career technical covers the cost of that insurance, but by law when they retire, that health insurance cost moves into this administrative budget. That's because programs can come and go and some won't be around and they have to make sure that they cover the cost. But you'll see in a bit this is quite a bit of a burden for this. Um non-component districts participate in in our BOSE. We have schools from Olster County and Orange

011County. But when we talk about the administrative budget tonight, that's really on the backs of the 13 component districts of which Arlington is one in Duchess County. So like we try to do is with some of our coasters that we provide to other services we provide to other districts, we charge an administrative fee on top of it. So, it's a higher rate than we charge our component districts and we try and bring that into the administrative budget to really help kind of control those costs. It only seems fair that they should have to participate administrative budget as well. We're going to continue to increase uh our focus on facilities. We'll talk about some spacing, you know, issues that we have actually already. We're running out of room and we really want to make uh safety

012and security a priority at Duchess policies. We we're putting in more cameras, doing more security. We're trying to find that balance between, you know, a welcoming environment but also being safe for our children as well. So, when we look at the um the budget for um 2526, uh what we have on the top is really the appropriation side of it. It's an increase of 4.5%. The non-retiree part of this is actually down under 2%. that those expenses cover the superintendent, the the board clerk, u the board of trustees, uh part of the business office, and then what we see is a 7% increase for the retirey health insurance. We have about 325 retirees that we need to cover. And when we blend those two um the two together, like I said, we get an increase

013of 4.5%. with people in the administrative budget where we can we try and move their their salaries out and put them in programs but you know for the most part it's we need to we need to you know keep things like superintendent Ford Kirk in that budget as well. And then when we look at the revenue side of this um you know this really falls on the 13 component district. So what you see here is a you know a balanced budget of 4.5% but we're going to need to increase the component charge by 7.9% almost 8%. Because our other revenue next year we're going to budget a little bit less. We don't really see that the interest earnings are going to continue and that's primarily what the other revenue uh is made up of. This

014is basically the charges that go to the 13 component districts for the for the administrative budget. Um you can see that Arlington is up just uh about 7% or an additional $88,000. Um your Arwada has actually gone down from last year. Our latter for this conversation tonight is a state term called resident weighted average daily attendance. And it's something that's inputed by the school district every year when they put in their state aid claims. And for tonight's purposes, it's how we divide the cost of this administrative budget up among the 13 districts. And it doesn't quite tie into enrollment because they wake the um the 7 through 12 grades at 1.25%. But we can see that the county as a whole has actually gone up and Arlington's actually decreased a little bit from the previous

015year. So that's actually good news for you because it's a little bit, you know, when when you look at the pizza pie and your share of of covering it, it's a little bit less that you have to cover next year. I also at this time every year like to talk about the capital and rental. Although this piece isn't isn't isn't voted on by the districts, I think it's important that you're aware of it. We're going to stay consistent with collecting a million dollars for the capital to do improvements on campus, things like roofs and things like that. And our rental for local district classrooms actually went down $5,000 to $60,000 this year. So, we need to raise a million60. And you can see that uh year-to-year for this Arlington is down $3,000 from last year.

016We still have agreements with two districts in the county that we have both these programs that are actually run uh at the district and that would be spack and kill that and that's really what the cost of that rent covers kind of like to highlight uh Arlington's book of business with us. Um so we can see for the 2324 school year really the book of business with Boseies was just under $20 million 19.8 8 that's also going to include maybe some contracts that you have with other Boseies like partner Northern Westchester or Olster Boseies it returned a surplus of $2.4 $4 million. We do not as a Boseies. We're an extension of the school districts. We don't hold a fund balance. So when we close our books every year, we're going to take the revenues,

017subtract the expenditures, and then that that return goes back to the districts. And then it uh it generated about $6.1 million in Bosey's aid. So sometimes there's an incentive to do business with Boseies because it does return state aid for for a total return of about 8.5 million or 43%. And this does not include high cost aid. uh which would be um you know for Arlington which might be with the uh special ed students and things like that. That's another source. Um student counts with with Boseies really uh there's 69 special and alternative ed uh students. Uh 22 at our Salt Point Center. Uh there's 43 at our alternative high school and there's four located in district. And participation in our career and technical institute is 112. Um you can see some of the uh

018larger classes there. Uh nursing assistant, cosmetology, electric trades, and welding. As I mentioned before, CTI now enrollment approaching probably 700. Alternative high school went from about 75 maybe right after the pandemic. We're up to about 145 there. And our Salt Point Center uh numbers approaching 150 as well. So I think people are seeing Boseies as a you know as certainly another alternative and and a and a place for people to get some um you know special care that they need. These really kind of match our uh future goals and focus areas but we we want to continue to be innovative um create growth and partnerships. As I mentioned we want to have a self and welcoming uh campus. We spent a lot of money in the last few years putting in cameras and and security

019features that we can and we're going to try and continue that. We'd like to, you know, put some alerts up when things unfortunately like lockdowns and lockouts happen that everybody's aware of. We've really run out of space very quickly. Probably spoke to you maybe five years ago about the capital project that we did and we moved out of the alternative high school and on Route 44. Uh but we've really maxed out a lot of our classrooms at at this point. So, we're going to be looking at other alternatives for that. Maybe, you know, possibly putting up trailers, things like that. Uh, certainly want to keep our communication open with our stakeholders. Um, you know, we'd like to really have state-of-the-art facilities for our career technical institutes. Some of the, you know, you can imagine some

020of the technology has improved over the years. Uh, there's 3D printers. Um, you know, some of the welding equipment, auto. So, we look to, uh, look to kind of keep that going. And we want to have a we're trying to continue our community partnerships, you know, whether that's, you know, work-based learning, uh, getting the getting the students out and finding work in the in the area and things like that. So, uh, that's my presentation. Thank you for your time. Happy to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you very much. Does anyone have any questions? I have one. That last thing you said about the trailers, we were putting trailers up. Is that something you need to go out to the the county and have a district wide countywide vote? Again, it's a great

021question. We need to do a county vote when there's new building. Renovation does not require it and I do not believe trailers do as well. Um, but if there's going to be new construction and, you know, new foundation, new walls, that's that's really what triggers a vote and that's why we had to have one for the, you know, for the 36 $6.8 million project that we just completed because it was a new addition involved there. And so, how would the cost of the trailers or the expansions come through to the component district? We would um probably work it into our rates that we charge. So if the um as an example, if the trailers were for a special ed program, then we have we set rates for those special ed services that we provide. So

022we'd have to recover it through those. So we probably see an increase in those in those service fees as well. Thank you. You're welcome. Does anybody else have a question? Mark? Yeah. Um, I'm wondering if you know uh can tell me if there's any difference in the cost for students in the alternative high school versus those in the CTI program. Yeah, that's the the alternative high school has there's um out of the program side of the house, but I think there's certain students that are classified and they have needs and they may be in a a 181 and 1121 setting. So they're going to be a little bit high just an alternative high school student that I think is considered regular ed. Um and then that's a that altered high school is also a full

023day program where the CTI is really you know half day. The juniors are there in the afternoon. I think the seniors in the morning so it's going to be a different price. Yeah. Anybody else? Okay. I don't think we have any more questions. Thank you very much. Thanks again, Matt. Uh, with that, we'll welcome back Miss Wheeler to the podium. Thank you, Miss Wheeler, for hosting us. It's great to see so many of your staff here with you this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, everybody, for coming. Um, I'll tell you a little bit about Charlie before I dive into the presentation. So, it was actually a retired teaching assistant who approached me and she said, "I have this friend who has a therapy dog who recently has graduated from their program and really wants

024to kind of start working in finding out where their niche is." And I said, "All right, well, let me meet them." So, they came in, met with me, interviewed Charlie, and you've all met Charlie, so pretty convincing. Then he needed the job. um he's met with um three kindergarten classes so far and he'll work his way through the other four um and then we have some students who have also gone and read to Charlie and so we're starting to expand what he's used to when he comes here. So um you know he brings a lot of joy to us and um and Mrs. Gray comes to work every day but especially does not miss Thursdays because Charlie has residents in her library. So, if you're ever here 2:30 to 3 on a Thursday, by all

025means, come and see Charlie at work. He's pretty spectacular. Thank you, Miss Will. And Charlie's a snood. He's a schnoodle. Schneoodle. Do you want me to try to say schnowzer and poodle before I do this? I don't know if I've met a snood before. It's my first time. He's pretty spectacular. So, um, welcome to Overlook, everyone. Um, I want to thank our PTA again for the refreshments. Um, all the staff that's here or watching from home. Some said they were going to be watching. Um, board of education. Yeah, thanks. Hello. Board of Education, Dr. Penante and cabinet members who joined us. Um, tonight I'm going to share with you a little bit about our PLC story um, and how it's really helping us to fulfill our district and building mission. As a primary school in

026particular, we feel it's important to set an attitudinal foundation that learning is fun and is a lifelong pursuit. Um, and our staff certainly models that for our students. So, this ties into our district mission and core values. And tonight, I'll tell the story of our PLC um journey again. And I'm going to be focusing on two of our district core values in particular. that lifelong learning is essential for growth and change is essential for progress. So PLC's are not new in Arlington. When I came here eight, nine years ago that were already happening. Um and as you've heard from my colleagues during their presentations, we're all very deeply committed to the work. Um however, over the past few years at Overlook, we've kind of felt like we needed a reboot. Um, so last school year

027the leadership team began discussing how we could kind of get everything back on track. We discussed at our leadership meetings and then with support from central office, we were able to join a three-year national cohort to expand our understanding of PLC's and more importantly how to use the structure to move students ahead academically. Um, a team consisting of myself and one teacher from every grade level, including special education, spent three days in Albany this past summer, really just kind of retooling ourselves about the PLC process. They became known as our overlook guiding coalition, and they're going to lead this work back here in the building. So, while we were in Albany, we had really frank conversations with each other about the challenges that we might face when we came back um and how we planned

028on learning and getting this learning to the rest of the staff. So, one aspects of PLC that became very clear to us was that we needed to know ourselves um as well before we knew our teammates. And then as a staff, we participated and I think you've seen this from some of my colleagues, an opening day activity that identified what our individual traits were and how those traits relied on each other for groups to be fully functioning. So, for example, I usually identify as north. Um, somebody who plunges right into a task, right? I'm okay with figuring it out as we go along and figuring out the details along the way. And because my team knows that, they know that if you're a West, you might frustrate me. You want to know every little detail

029and exactly how we're going to get there before we even start the journey. Um, sometimes they need to tell me to be a little less north and they're okay with telling me that um, in order so that they understand and we can go together. Teams that know each other's personality traits are more apt to capitalize on those traits and use what what works for each other. Um, and as you can see for the posters that's there that are there, they were honest and in the end we all recognized that each other's strength would help us in the end. The goal was to continue to use these and value all perspectives throughout the school year um because that would positively impact our student and learning about one another was one way that we show our students

030that were lifelong learners. The quote at the top if you have time at some links right to the activity from our opening day slides if anyone's interested. So from there after we learned about ourselves it was time to set goals for our students. And one of those goals was to increase comprehension overall, but in particular for non-fiction or informational text. The slide you're looking at compares last year's school year last school year's second graders to this school year's second graders just in the area of comprehension. As you can see, this year's second graders are significantly higher um in comprehension at the middle point of the year. And when looking at them as first graders, they're definitely trending much higher than they were as first graders also midpoint in the year. So this doesn't happen by

031accident. Um in particular, the second grade team of seven classroom teachers have been target have been having targeted discussions around instructional practices including interactive readalouds, which I know you're going to hear a little bit about later. um cross-curricular writing during their science 21 lessons and different intervention strategies to help um support comprehension in particular. The team approach is leading to more shared responsibility for all of the students across the grade level. Um they're using their individual strengths again to positively impact student learning. And for example, the photos in the slide depict comprehension strategies um utilizing text connected for different content areas. students were learning the strategies that can be used in any novel text, informational text, and those strategies were discussed at PLC's. Um, and then individual teachers could then pick the strategies that best

032met their students in front of them. So, each cycle when second grade teachers get together and they meet, they engage in the four PLC questions. I believe you've seen this slide before. Um they may be identifying the essential standard and learning targets for students, deciding what the common formative assessment will be that they'll use to measure progress. Um or creating intervention and enrichment opportunities for students. In the past, staying focused on the four questions could be challenging. Um there's a feeling that there needed to be a structure that would help from right from the planning phase through intervention and enrichment. And this is where a core value of change being essential for growth comes in. Um al although we currently use like a lot of buildings the plan do study act um structure at each

033PLC meeting teams felt that we could have been tighter on that structure. So the guiding coalition that I mentioned earlier um which had now grown to six teachers had been attending workshops throughout the the school year as part of that national um PLC cohort. They learned about both the technical and the cultural aspects and necessities for um keeping our PLC sustainable. And as a group we felt that we had made really significant cultural changes. We had been spending a lot of time as a building um talking about the culture about why we needed to do the work and they understood that teachers understood that collaboration was really key um to what would help benefit our students. Um now we really needed to set and work on our skill set to expand the how of making

034PLC's successful. Thankfully the 15-day challenge workshop with Maria Nielsen came along. Um, we met with Maria Nielsen virtually and she provided a structure that it seemed that we were really looking for and everyone was very energetic and determined um to come back to the building and start to put that to work. So on the slide are some um 15-day challenge in progress. The last one is actually linked to a digital um with their energy and determination driving us. The guiding coalition helped to launch a 15-day challenge in every grade level. We right from the beginning acknowledged this might be messy um and asked that everybody trust the process and they did. And the first day when we met in the library after school for our PLC, it was in fact messy. Um each group was

035given this large piece of chart paper, some markers and sticky notes. um they'd been asked as asked as a grade level prior to the meeting to come with a unit that they would do towards the end of the school year. Um and then together the grade levels worked to prioritize the standards, the learning targets. Um really talk about what the priority standards were. Um and then now we call them boulders, rocks, and butterflies. Um the boulders are those standards that are absolutely have to. The rocks hold up the boulders and the butterflies, well, they're nice. um if we can we do them. Um and it was led to a really rich and deep discussion amongst grade levels about what those priorities really were. Um it was not completed the work on this unit during that

036very first meeting by any stretch of the imagination. they can grade levels continue to work using Maria Nielsson's book as a resource and as they worked through the process the feedback back has been very positive and you can see the impact in their um unit planning as it's very visible for teachers um and teachers are feeling very empowered to make those decisions for their students. um they agree on instructional outcomes, what their common formative assessments are going to be, the day they're going to give the assessment, and then they when they're going to look at the results of those assessments. Um and all teachers know they have a team behind them. They're working all together in order to meet the needs of all the students. Um it has definitely led to much more targeted discussions

037about instructional practices and has in is looking to increase student achievement and any any unit that they create using this structure. Um it's also flexible and really responsive to the students and the practitioners based on their strengths like we talked about earlier. Um and the teams have not yet executed. This is an end of the um end of the year unit up here on the board. um but they're using parts of the process even now and test driving them. So they may have given u a CFA a common formative assessment they're meeting back in their PLC and doing um the data crunching on that and identifying students who need enrichment and intervention. Um and like I said the last chart shows the goal to be a digital in the end so that we can share

038it and save them to revamp year after year. So, in closing, I just want to thank um the Overlook Guiding Coalition um Julie Fagan, Ali Melius, Crystal Sanchez, Shannon Solano, Eric Tarcia, and Nancy Thomas. All grade level special ed all um represented them. They along with all of our other leaders in the building have modeled the Arlington core values of lifelong learning and ch and they have embraced change in a way that is inspiring. Um I'm very grateful they're all all they've done and they are so committed to making this work. Um that like I said it's definitely inspiring questions. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Does anybody have any questions right now? Want to start? Yeah. Yeah. Jess early on I was just going to congratulate you on being super duper lucky, but here

039you go. always. There's always one. It's me. I would have been disappointed. I actually have three. So, no achievement. You mentioned attitudinal foundation early on in your presentation. Can you talk a little more about that? Sure. Yeah. Um, we we kind of go by the we grow joyful learners for their future and ours. And that is if you ask like what's our goal here? We want them to leave primary school loving everything about learning. So we think that if you have an attitude that you can persevere and that it it's fun, right, to learn how to read, to do all of these things, when you walk in, you can't, but when you leave here, you should and you can. Um that that's going to carry them through. Um, and I I think it's as important

040as all of those skills that we, you know, that are academic skills, but to have that inside of them is a make or break. And I'll forego my third question, but the second one I'm if I can. Oh, sure. Go ahead. You you said something I' I've heard you'll get the ball rolling. Your colleagues say a couple of times regarding the learning community process that we're deeply committed to this work. Why? uh and you have you know broad experience in schools at least two different districts or two districts I would say what within the learning community process resonates with you as a school leader whereas other improvement efforts don't because you're familiar with other models obviously yeah I don't think there's ever any one educator who can meet the needs of every single student in

041front of them and over and over I think we've tried to we've tried to be a silo in our classroom room and meet everything. When you come together and you share ideas and best practices, it's truly magical. You can see that you learn from your colleagues, your push to do more, to continue to look for other avenues to reach kids. Um, and you know, I've seen it doesn't matter what the initiative is, whether it's a new reading curriculum or if it's a new math curriculum. This having this structure where you know you have a team behind you can really just propel you through some challenging times and ultimately it just it meets all children. Thanks Jess. Sure. I don't want to ask anything. Last chance. Last chance. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. And

042thank you to all the all the staff that's here to support you and to support the kids all the time. It's great to see everybody here and thank you very much very much. Uh just one more presentation overview. Thanks again Mrs. Wheeler and thanks to your staff as well who's here with you this evening. I'll welcome Mr. Orchid to the podium. And uh Mr. Orchid wrote to you before or at least we forwarded an email to the board that uh Mr. Orchid drafted today regarding the state assessments. So, I asked John if he could just speak to uh the state assessments which began today uh since we're all here um and just give us a lay of the land of what happened today and kind of how we're proceeding and then we'll transition into the

043equity report. John, if you don't mind. Sure. Not at all. Today was the day. Um it's probably really good that we're not that we're at a primary school where they didn't have to take statement. Um the So, we were making progress. Our middle schools were well into the state assessments. They had good participation rates. Uh our elementary schools were just starting to engage in the assessments. And then um there were massive connectivity issues across the state. The state is saying they estimate 10% of the districts in the state had similar issues that we did. Um it didn't seem to be a district-wide issue. For example, Noxon was able to get their testing in um but we weren't willing to take the chance across the district. So, we did put a pause on um most of

044the other schools. There were uh several different messages coming from all different angles in the state, the office of state assessment, the regional information centers which um process and house all the data and assessments. um and we weren't really getting clear guidelines. So, we just put a hard pause on moving forward. And um really tremendous effort on the part of our teachers who had their principles walking in or making announcements saying, "Look, we're we can't in good conscience like continue to subject kids to this. So, we just have to like teach today." And so these were people who were prepared for instruction but had planned for a chunk of their day to be monopolized by these state assessments and were like, "All right, here we go. Uh, grab a book. Let's get on the rug."

045And uh, and it really, you know, I think everybody, well, I was certainly um teetering on on questioning my life choices. I think the I think the I think the educators who were really in the trenches on it just maintained this really calm flexible you know things happen and just a let's consider this one practice and we'll get to it tomorrow. So um really appreciate uh publicly to all of our educators at home who were um really in the trenches on this one today and to the kids who are watching. I know uh you know today was a a things happen. Um but the flexibility and the responsiveness of our educators really shown um principles took the lead and and um really appreciate everybody's effort and time on that one. We're going to resume testing

046tomorrow. Our middle school should finish on um as scheduled and the majority of our elementary schools will finish on Thursday which just bumps it one day for the ELA. So it was a learning experience. Important backdrop. This was our first year fully computerized. Correct. With testing. First year fully computerized um computer-based testing. And you know a a couple people were like yes this hasn't happened since 2018. I was like okay. But it happened like here we are like great. How do we work through it? you know um but things like this happen and it's it is um the more we migrate to a digital world I think you know the opportunity exists for these types of hiccups and now we at least hopefully have a contingency plan that we can apply if we find ourselves

047in this position again. So yeah, and I noted that the um the memo related to 10% of districts being affected, but just seems like a small number, but keep in mind not every district is the same in terms of size. So Arlington being impacted is is not your average uh district where the size of like five districts. Sure. So um it's tough to put an actual number on how many schools were impacted across the state. It's a very different number uh when you look at that as compared to a percentage. Right. And that was one of the challenges we faced too was the and there were again there was conflicting guidance coming at us and one of the messages said we had to quarantine the Chromebooks that were that were like they were contagious and

048we you know I was having COVID flashbacks. Um and we have no infrastructure to do that. We can't keep there were three and a half thousand kids taking assessments today. you don't have that many chargers like on standby. Um so we we were able to work through that and really get some clarity around what they were looking for and which devices they felt like couldn't leave uh the building. Um and you know we we'll we should be fine. Should be fine. Should be uh all right. So we're ready. Great. Here we go. We are ready. Thank you for that. Here we go. You're welcome. So, uh, I I feel like I would be remiss starting an a presentation that's updating our board and our community on our district's equity work if I didn't point to

049our mission and our core values really setting the foundation and the cornerstone for our district's equity work. Um, a as I've as Dr. Bonante and I have gotten to work more closely and he has shared the de his process that he participated in in the development of these values some you know I think it was 10 years ago at this point um each word was chosen very intentionally. So when when we talk about all people having inherent value that was an intentional statement in the district. Um, when when we talk about a community thrives when all members embrace their interdependence with compassion and empathy, that's an intentional statement. Um, and and these have to be in the room with us when we're talking about equity and we're working with kids and and our our teachers

050are thinking about the curriculum that they're deploying, the resources that we we deploy as a district. Um, so th again I I just really feel like this has to be not only at the beginning of my presentation, but it's it's in the room whenever we're doing our equity work that this is an opportunity to remind people why we are doing this, what it what it stands for, and who we stand for as a district. Um, I I do want to share with the district that in the five years I've been here, this is the first year where we have not had an outside consultant attached to this work. And I actually think that streak goes even further back to before I started here. Um, and as I've transitioned into this role, um, I very early

051on emphasize the importance and actually Miss Wheeler just used the word silo and I think it's a really good, um, visual and anecdote for my observation of some of the work that we've done in the district specific to equity. Um I think equity has lived in a silo in not necessarily a negative way but it isn't uh it isn't as I said in the room whenever we're looking at our curriculum or has not been. And so an emphasis this year has really been around trying to break down the silos um not just in in equity but in our curriculum work and look for opportunities to bridge those conversations whenever they exist. And and I will actually um I'm going to be joined at some point uh in my presentation by Sarah Armstrong and Dr. Karen

052Mayor um both who are Overlook primary school teachers and they're going to share with you some work that they've done which is a really good example um not just of the equity work that Overlook has has engaged in but a district that we've engaged in that um bridges the equity work and the curriculum work. So acknowledging that we didn't have a consultant attached to the work this year, um these were the three things that I as I kind of integrated myself into the committee and started to take a little bit of a um an assessment of where we are and what we've been working on and and what felt like realistic goals for the year. These were the three priorities that I established um around this work. So, continuing to expand the curriculum resources that

053reflect student interest and backgrounds while being culturally responsive and inclusive, supporting and expanding the alignment of curriculum and instruction work with the district equity work. That's the silo piece I was just talking about. Um, and supporting our schools in creating and maintaining school climate and culture um without having a consultant attached to the work. That felt like the direction that was appropriate to take. really our buildings are people spending all their time with the kids, our principles, our teachers. Um, and I see my role in supporting this work as as helping them um accumulate the resource and establish the protocols that they believe will support their kids. I will share with you. I had finished my presentation, was having a conversation with um Jennifer Hammond King and looked at the bookshelf outside of her office

054and picked up the Clifford book um which at this scale you can't see it. Actually, it's it's in Spanish. Um and I said, "What what's this?" and she said, "Oh, we're doing these backpacks for new kindergarten registrants and we're looking at their uh what they're putting on registration as their home language and we're putting books in the take-home bags in the home language." I said, "That's awesome. When did we start doing that?" And she was like, "Oh, we just were having a conversation and realized that this might be something that would be valuable for the community and we thought it would be good." And so I unsubmitted my presentation and I took it put this slide in um because I think it's a really good example of of a of really healthy district equity work.

055No one told them to do this. We didn't need a committee to sit around and say let's you know this should this these were people who care about kids that are doing good work. um and recognize that if we're only sending home books that are in English, we are at the door sending a message to our families who are registering for the first time and their first interaction with our district. Um and we can do better. Uh so I really appreciated that thinking and I think it and I wanted to put it at the front because I'm not going to be able to highlight everything that's happening in the district tonight. You're not going to see a slide from every single building. I didn't it would have just we I'm already going too long. We

056would have been up here even longer. Um but I think that this is a really good example of there are things happening at at really just genuinely goodnatured levels that make difference for kids. Um and we don't always need a committee to direct that work. So I felt like that was really important to put at the beginning. Uh I'm going to give you some examples that are happening at the building level. Um these are all familiar to you. This these were included in my presentation earlier this winter about um the courses and the texts that the high school is bringing in for next year. Um it's an example of continuing to expand our cultural um offerings and our our uh diverse texts and and experiences for students. Um, so I'm just bringing them into this

057presentation to to show that alignment. And this is work that has been happening at the high school for quite some time. Um, this was an interesting I I reached out to the high school and said, "Can you talk to me a little bit about what your student equity team has been doing? I thought that they were going to talk to me about their no place for hate designation work that they do." Um I was I thought I was going to hear about MBK and pockets which are both healthy and thriving or now it's my sister's keeper that are healthy and thriving organizations at the high school. Um and instead they chose to talk to me about this participatory budgeting project which Dr. Salamini in conversation with the student equity committee agreed to give them $1,500,

058but they had to student decide, student decision project oriented um panel around what do you as students feel like you need to incorporate into the building. Um and they listed the five finalist projects. They're all right there on the bottom. uh and the students will ultimately vote and then that money will go towards funding those projects. So interested to see how it comes comes about and um just neat example of kids being engaged within their school community uh and having a say in kind of the direction that the culture and the climate are going. uh when I started in 2020 the the first year on the left that was the I didn't let me back up a little bit in 2020 2021 I was the high school principal um when I started work that we

059were working on that's redundant was increasing the enrollment of diverse minority students economically disadvantaged students in our honors AP and dual enrollment courses Um, there are, as you know, there are hundreds of courses at the high school. I couldn't represent them all on one slide, so I just picked a couple chunks of our AP courses. So, on the left are the enrollment numbers of the total enrollment for those courses broken down by black, Hispanic, multi-racial, economically disadvantaged. Um, and then on the right are our current enrollments in the same courses plus APsych. I added that one in there just because I did all the social studies classes and it didn't exist in 2020. Um, and as you can see, the the numbers in those courses, the enrollment numbers in those courses in the demographic areas

060that we were targeting, uh, has increased significantly. Um, we went from 43 to 83 black students in um, between 2020 and 2021 to 2024 and five, we've increased from 128 to 186 and they all just continue to grow. When I gave the presentation um about this work four years ago, I was challenged and someone expressed concern that well, if we're doing this, we're just lowering the bar and the rigor is the rigor of the course is there were, you know, and those are inappropriate, but not often. I I did the exact same work in White Plains and we heard the exact same thing. Um, I'm happy to report that the I I have it jotted down here. I didn't include it on the slide, but in 2020 and 2021, granted it was the COVID year,

061but the total number of students in these courses represented here who scored a three, there were 120. In 2425 who scored a three on the AP exam, there were 263. In 2020, the number of students who got a four was 86. In 25, sorry, 2024, so these are last year AP exams, but the numbers are similar. We went from 86 to 149. The number of students who got a five went from 51 to 87. The total number of those added up is 257 versus 499. So, not only did we increase the enrollment, but we're increasing our performance on these exams as well. So, I never questioned that that work was going to happen. But it's it combats the narrative that when you do this work, you have to lower the bar, which is not based

062in anything other than bias um and you know, a whole bunch of other negative emotions. Sorry, I'm battling allergies, so I'm trying not to sneeze into the microphone. Um, just some sampling of the other equity work that's happening across the district. Uh, Union Veil is engaged in their No Place for Hate. If you have not seen the new mural that they've painted in their building, uh, it greets you as soon as you walk through the front door. Um, it is a recognition of their core values. They they've done a lot of work around orienting around the ray of light which is an opportunity to uplift um not just students but also staff for for positive interactions within the community. And in 8th grade uh the the ELA teachers have started using their talk or the

063talk rather um to support conversations around racism identity and self-esteem. This is a compilation of short stories. Uh I I had the opportunity to spend some time with a number of you at the West Road and Traver Cultural Celebration. Um that's where all of these pictures on this slide come came from. They were there were so many great ones to choose from, but these were a couple of my favorites. Uh that that event was a phenomenal representation of the Pleasant Valley community and the diversity within our district. And seeing everybody come together and have that opportunity to um share in those experiences was really phenomenal. their equity, their student equity club, uh did research on prominent African-Americans, uh and then did in-class presentations to some of the other groups, which is a great opportunity. Um

064and then another area that West Road and Traver um support is the community in terms of their outreach and uh that clothing drive that they did in the winter is a great example of that. LMS um hosted a phenomenal equity panel at the high school. They have done a lot of work with their staff around the the DASA refreshers uh and the the um bias incident reporting handbook that the district equity committee accomplished last year. Uh and they are a pillar school in terms of the no place for hate designation. Uh they continue to be a gold school. They're an ambassador school. So really proud of that work and they've done great job there. Veil Farm has a has a they did a I asked them for this information. They've done a great job of

065working with their student wellness council and also creating opportunities for their staff to dig into this work. Um and I it's a good example of you can approach this in really systematic ways to to to grow your students and your staff. Titusville. Uh, one of the things I appreciated about how they laid their slide out here in our equity committee work, what we've talked a lot about is how do how does the work that we do within the schools align with the different heritages heritage and celebration months. Um, and and they just happen to to frame their slide in that way. So you can see how uh the building is engaging um really at each different level along the way at the different months. And I think it's it's a good participation whole school events.

066Um they've done a really nice job with all that. Knox, um they've got a mural in the works that they're really excited about. unique experiences are what bring us together. Uh it's a wild robot theme which is really popular. They've done some really interesting work lately around um abilities and and destigmatizing that which I think is important to highlight in in the equity work as well. Um, and I think it's time to be joined by my friends Sarah Armstrong, who is on our district equity panel, and Dr. Karen Mayor. Uh, they're going to talk a little bit about the next two slides. I figured I don't need to talk for them about their equity work in the building. Come on up. Uh, and then they're going to both talk about some of the work that

067they did for me. I'm using index cards for the first time. They're kind of out of order. Give me a sec. Uh so welcome to overlook. Um as Miss Beer said, we do grow joyful learners and we also celebrate the ABCs of equity. So ABC for achievement. We believe that all students are up to the task and can grow. Belonging and we affirm every child, family and community and um commitment because we are all committed to the task. Uh this year overlook we have a lot to celebrate. Uh, our duet newsletter, which is developed around history, and heritage months, feature regular columns by our staff, community members, PTA, a guest column by a high school senior, and a playlist curated by our music teacher, Mrs. Mim has published its 22nd, soon to be 23rd issue.

068Very exciting. Um, we have our intersectional ABC gallery of Innovators, if you get a chance to walk through the hallway. Um, so it spotlights black history, women's history, neurodeiversity, and we add a new layer every month instead of taking it down because you can be more than one thing at one time. Um, we also show how students we are layered and not just one thing, which is really great. Um, we've also begun the process of piloting audio name badges um for our staff and students to ensure proper name uh pronunciation. We have families a part of this, staff members and Arlington High School student volunteers. So, we help record student names and then embed them into class lists. So, all students names and identities are heard and valued. Um, we are also trying to do

069this at our incoming kindergarten registration. So, our incoming KS will going to record their names. So, the first time we they're greeted by our staff here, we're saying their name properly. Um, we've also welcomed scholars from MBK and MSK into our classrooms for readalouds and to show what it's like to really be an admiral. Um, we also continue to be able to support our families through our giving programs like the Nest, uh, which is our community closet full of health and hygiene items that our families are able to shop once a month or whenever they need just to get everything that they need to feel um, to feel. Um, our equity work isn't just the things that we do. It's woven into who we are as educators. Um, our classrooms are reflective of our community

070and allow us to create mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors into the world through our daily practice of interactive readalouds, which Dr. Mayor will now speak to. So before I get started, um Sarah's uh reflection on um windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors is hugely important, especially at the primary level. Um Rudine Sims Bishop um kind of put that out into the world in the 1990s. And that means that when we're teaching our children, we should be giving them books that show themselves. When they look out out the window in the world, they can see the people around them. um the mirrors they can see themselves reflected in the books that they read or are being read to and um the sliding glass doors which I think sometimes as educators we forget to do but

071Arlington is really good at supporting this is that that sliding glass door means we um encourage our kids to open the door step out and make an active change in the world. So um that was just something that sat with me for a second. So before I get into our proposed readaloud guidance checklist, I would like to take a few minutes of your time to speak to not only the importance of readalouds um including diverse texts in Arlington district, but also the expectation that we do so. The New York State Education Department is highly invested in supporting teachers and learners. They acknowledge diversity across our large state and their work continues to honor and value the people of New York. In fact, the department has preserved this philosophy by authentically folding in culturally responsive sustaining

072education and social emotional learning alongside the big six in their literacy briefs. As you are aware, this series of seven documents explicates the ways in which New York State educators utilize research pulled from the science of reading. Culturally responsive sustaining framework and social emotional learning are expected to be intentionally incorporated in an all teachers teach so that students can learn. As a follow-up to the literacy briefs, NISED wrote the prek through third grade instructional best practices guide. This recently released document provides guidance to New York State prek through third grade educators on the literacy instructional best practices regarding those six six pillars. And this guide was shared with Arlington teachers at our March 7th superintendent's conference day. In this document, culturally responsive sustaining framework and social emotional learning are also expected to be authentically incorporated

073and all teachers teach so students can learn. According to the NICED website, the culturally responsive, sustaining framework creates student centered learning environments that affirm racial, linguistic, and cultural identities, prepare students for rigor and independent learning, develop students abilities to connect across lines of difference, elevate historically marginalized voices, and empires in and empower students as agents of positive social social change. So with these tenants in mind, I now turn to the work currently being done by the district interactive readaloud subcommittee, which is a smaller group within the Arlington district ELA content team. Um, and we're working in concert um with the district equity committee. So the interactive readaloud subcommittee commiss consists of classroom teachers and instructional coach and librarians. Our subcommittee task grew from a resounding request from Arlington teachers, a desire for support on how

074to choose readaloud text, especially when involving diversity. At this point, our committee has begun to work on two projects, each supporting this request. In Arlington, we do have curricula that follows the next generation ELA standards. Likewise, we have classroom and school libraries from which to choose books. One element of the interactive readaloud subcommittee work is having the subcommittee librarians on the team create search tabs for teachers to easily locate books across a wide variety of genres, themes, and topics. This will help teachers locate specific titles within and across schools. Secondly, a document entitled readaloud guidance checklist has been drafted. Currently, Overlook teachers are doing a deep dive on interactive readalouds and interest to test drive the checklist has been expressed at our school level. As an example of this checklist, and it's on the slide

075right now, um, and it's in draft form, but as an example, um, as educators, we're often out and about. We're at Barnes & Noble, we're at conferences, and we'll pick up books that seem interesting to us or that have been recommended to us. So, here's just a real life example of um I was recently attending a reading conference where this soontobe released book entitled Home written by an author I've previously used in my classroom was shared. So, knowing the joy and the deep reading that occurred with my kindergarteners in his previous book called Love, I immediately knew that I wanted to share this book with my students. So, I ordered it and I waited for it to come. Once it came, I took the draft form of the checklist and I matched some of the

076things. Um, I wanted to see if this book would would fly, if I could use this checklist, and if I could use it in my classroom. So, on the on the checklist, it's things like culturally responsiveness. Does the book have characters and storylines that represent diverse cultures and perspectives? Check. I can check that up because this book is filled with illustrations of people of all walks of life, abilities, disabilities, gender, culture, race. So, it's a great example of that. Is it age appropriate? Yes, it is. It's written at a primary, elementary school level. And by the way, interactive readalouds can be done in middle school, and high school. Picture books are great for multiple of reasons. Um, does it connect to the next generation learning standards? I could look in this book and I can

077tell you yes. In fact, I can tell you what it does. Um, it met the kindergarten reading standard KR1, develop and answer questions about a text. KR4, identify specific words that express feeling. or I could even have chosen KR9, make connections between self and text in the world. Right? So, it's checking off those standards. It's, um, definitely tied to my district curriculum. So, um, right now my units of study, we're talking about character analysis, comparing changes across time, problem and solution, main events, higher level questioning, and critical thinking. So, I could use this checklist to go through and see, is this going to work for my kids? It's it makes for a more purposeful, meaningful, interactive readaloud. and it's attached to New York State standards. It's attached attached to our district curriculum. Um, and it's

078also culturally responsive and aligned with the New York um state elementary years literacy brief number five where um New York State is asking us for test based discussions and engagement with a variety of highinterest diverse and complex texts. So um we feel that this is something that has promise. So, as a district committee, we are hopeful the draft of the readalide guidance checklist will fit the need of providing more teacher guidance as to what we can be what we can use off the fly, right? We have our district stuff that's been issued, but when we go someplace and we see something that's really interesting, is this going to work for us in Arlington district? So, we look forward to the feedback provided by the executive board on this document as we begin to fine-tune its

079use. And in closing, um I would invite you to listen in. So the these are real life examples of um social justice um interactive readalouds, diversity readalouds in my kindergarten classroom. Um many times we hear that kindergarters aren't capable of this kind of discussion and um walk into my classroom anytime and and you'll hear kindergarteners know what the world is about, right? So I invite you to um check out what they've done. They're actually stepping into the shoes of their characters. So they feel the empathy, they feel the understanding why they made the decisions and then they talk text based text based discussions. They talk about why this is important to them, how they would have done something differently, how they would support some of the need. So um so interactive readalouds have a a

080very definite purpose in Arlington and um definitely with diverse texts. So thank you for this opportunity to share the work of the interactive readaloud subcommittee. Thank you both very much. That was that was terrific. Um, thank you both. I really appreciate you sharing all that. And and and again, this was um we were hearing both committees, the curriculum committee and the equity committee expressing a need for this exact type of document. And so we just put the two we put members of both committees together and they self-directed uh established this and we're really looking forward to it. Greatly appreciate both of you sharing that with us. We're almost done I promise. Um the work I I just want to go through some some of you have seen this work before the this is the results

081of our panorama survey um which measure our students uh the topics are across. So this graph is representing a number of students who reported treating. Oh Liam, bummer. Um, all right. Let's see if I can do this quickly. Uh, so this graph is representing the number of students across the district. 4,223 students who responded. The survey results are from December um responded treating fairly. But the these plots are across the number of years that we've been administering um the survey. So you can see that the work that our district is engaging in around making sure that our students um feel like our schools are here for them, that they're treated fairly within our schools, um that they feel validated within our schools. All of these graphs accepted have a very similar trend line across them.

082Um and and that is the work that this is directly attributed to the work that our educators are doing to support our students. Um of course we would always want to see these numbers even higher but I think you can you see the pattern within the trend line. Um and the one other positive that Panorama does is they normally so you can see these are our three through five respondents. We are in the 80th to 99th percentile nationally in three of the categories and 60 to 70th percentile in in the fourth in self-efficacy. And for our 6 through 12 um you know not quite as good but also not necessarily alarming. And the other thing I would point to is that each of these markers was increasing this year over the last. So, it's positive

083trend um across the board and I would and look Liam, it still worked. Um and so now I will hope that I get the just treatment. But really, no chance. Is it your birthday? Yeah, it it was I had a birthday recently. Well, thank thank you very much for your participation in this in this and thank you John. Sure. Um, does anybody have any questions for John? Donna. Oh, there I saw first hand. First hand I saw what? Okay, I leave. We're so democratic. Not a question, just a comment. Um, the checklist that Dr. Meer um presented was exactly what I was hoping we would get to. The situation that she described where you're a teacher, you see a book that you know your kids know that author, you know that you want to bring

084it into your classroom, but you need some way to know whether it's appropriate or not. Um is exactly what what I was looking for when we first started talking about it. So, um I'm really glad to see the work. Yeah, great job. Thank you. And thank you, Donna. Yeah. Um I I guess I'm not sure how to say this. Um because I I really like what you've shown. I I just love the the district's attention to equity and um I guess what I want to say is when I look at our like I was looking at like our district report card 20 like the LA most recent one 2023 2024 and I see that um like 44% of our third graders are proficient at reading and or was a 44% I think that was the

085average but our economically disadvantaged students are 22% % students with disabilities, you know, English language learners lower. I feel like that's not equitable. Like these kids all need to be we need to have much higher percentages by third grade so that we can have more students in these AP classes. If they're not if you're not loving to read and feeling comfortable in your in third grade, you know, you're not just going to keep growing. Um, so I just feel like, you know, I just that's a real concern of mine as far as that equity part of just students being prepared to do higher level things when they get older. I don't know. Just it just was a a concern, you know, a thought. We talked about this before, but Sure. I guess I I just

086Yeah, I it's it certainly is a warranted concern and and I think we all see see that and and um that data is concerning across the board. We and when Jennifer and I presented back in October, um agree we we need those scores to continue. I feel like we need to, you know, I'm not I'm not an expert by any means, but I feel like we there are other examples out there in the world. I've been, you know, learning a little bit more about that. Examples of of, you know, what what can be done for students who do not have maybe the preparation coming into school that others do. Yeah. um you know like looking at the nuts and bolts of of that kind of thing. So just these students acquire these basic skills that

087are going to you know lead them uh to to future growth. So yeah it's it's a that those are definitely um valid points and concerns and it's orienting the work around that is something that I think we should look at moving forward too. I think when you look at some of the work that's done in through the title grants, that's what it's aimed at trying to accomplish. When you look at the title one funding through the AIS programs and the uh extended day and the summer programs, but um that certainly doesn't capture all kids and and I think, you know, as we head into the rest of the spring here, we will start thinking about how we want to orient this work um moving forward. And certainly student achievement should be very high on that

088list if not the only thing on the list. Um so I appreciate the com. My question is for Sarah. [Laughter] So you are so inspiring. Just let me just say that like this is kind of like the spirit of what is being shown here that we live in a in a state that is fear in defending everybody's rights and in this era in this moment your voice counts for everything sir. So thank you. Thank you for being the champion and thank you for being the example in a country that falls in some instances too fast. So thank you for what you do. Now my question so so in in the inspiring you know number of things that you shared I was envisioning like it cannot be all perfect. So, what are the roadblocks that you

089that you see in your daily work and how can we help? Well, that's not an easy question. Um, I am incredibly grateful to have landed where I landed here in an amazing, supportive building and district. I I cannot be more expansive in my appreciation for that. Um, everything that we do here is always like, and I mean, Jess is absolutely incredible. Um, hey, do you want to try this? and she thought, "Yeah, let's do that." Um, and it's always it's always from [Laughter] That's good. I mean, there's always considerations to to think about when we try and do things. For example, with the audio name badges, um, I've learned a lot through this process of doing it. We do hope to expand it to other buildings. Um, starting with K2, I thought like, let's do

090the most challenging ones right away. So for for 312, it would be more like embedding it into the students email signatures like we do with our staff. For K2, I've noticed here um while it's really nice to have the students record their own name, sometimes their articulation of their own name is a little difficult and though adorable and should be played at high school graduation isn't really going to help the staff say their name correctly. So something like that would be just time, right? How can we better support our our families in this process of making sure that the students names are heard correctly? Which is why we came up with one of the solutions was let's start with kindergarten screening and when we do our um our state data, we're going to have our

091families have a QR code and we're going to help support them there where they can record their incoming kindergarters name. Um I think it's always just everybody's time, right? We'd always love to grow our membership of our building equity team, but everybody's so committed to so many other things that we are very small, but we are mighty in the things that we do. Uh we have staff and community members and even community members who are their students no longer go here. They're like, "No, no, we have to be a part of this conversation still." Um and the Girl Scouts are really helpful. They they actually just donated a bunch of Girl Scout cookies to go with our backpack program kids, which is really nice. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Um, our community is so supportive of

092the things we do at the board, the district, everything that we're always like trying to do, but like, yeah, let's make this work. So, I mean, there's always going to be things that try to stand in the way, but I wear boots and just get unb. Thank you so much. Thank you. Um, does anybody else have any questions looking around? Jen, I know you didn't look into it, but because it wasn't the goal at the time when you showed the slide for students with disab uh with um economically disadvantaged, black, um Hispanic, and multicultural. Is there did you look at students with disabilities um having access to those courses as well and what the numbers are? I know they're out there. Yeah, it um I could easily pull that. That wasn't the focus of the

093work when we started it. Um it is included on the same uh spreadsheets that I ended up pulling these from or students with IEPs that are participating in the in the AP honors and dual enrollment courses. Um I'm sure I could pull that for you. And I only mentioned that because I do feel sometimes that students with disabilities are seem left out of equity work. Sure. And I know there everyday life it's just it's there. Yeah. But sometimes I feel as though they may be missed. No, it's fair. Yeah. I appreciate you reflecting that back. You have another question. Sure. on the survey you showed the the things that improved. Were there anything that were declining that are of concern? So there okay. So when we what we do do with this information um there

094are we can really drill pretty deep down to individual student responses depending on um the level. So like Dr. Bonante and I and and um a couple other people at central office can get all the way down to the student responses. Um I think principles can too. So what were able to look at is not only individual student responses but you get you can get a similar breakdown by demographic and subgroup. Um and there were there were not necessarily declines within those groups but there were there were disproportionate numbers. Um and and they don't necessarily just follow your assumptions. There were or anyone's assumptions. There were some schools where um Caucasian boys were reporting lower levels than their female counterparts. And um certainly there were some schools where we the other thing it does is

095if the a school like Beakman which is one of our less diverse schools um because there aren't enough students who meet the demographics within those things they pull them all together when they report out. So you end up having to to really look at a little closer. But what we did as a as a district was once we got this data uh we disagregated it within those those subgroups and it was shared out to the buildings. Um and then the buildings worked within their building level leadership teams or their building equity teams um and many of them conducted listening sessions. So they they basically went and found the students within the groups and engaged in conversations with them around you know how we didn't give them the specific names of the kids but um the

096opportunity there is for the school to hear from the students and figure out and that is a little bit what led to the high school's um work that they did around the the budgeting the inter the bud interactive budgeting things students reporting out well I feel um like there's this in our school and that would make me feel more connected and more respected. So, so the work is then shared in the buildings and I don't know if you want to talk about what you did. Did you do Oh, right. Different at the primary grade. Sorry. Thank you. Um, that's right. Because the interaction with the survey, it's all computer- based. Sure, Jeff. In years past, I remember one of these categories, I believe, is the student felt that they had a connection with someone in

097the school. Um, I find that to be really important that kids are going to school and they feel a connection. I don't is that validated? Uh, I don't remember exactly which one it's in, but there are those types of questions throughout. So, it's like a subcategory. Yeah. Okay. And it it appears in different elements. Um yeah and you and in that data you do you can see which students reported lower levels of feeling connected and feeling accepted. Great question. Do you want I was just going to add that what John's there's a specific question um related to that. Uh but these what John's reporting on are the subcategories. So there's like four to six questions behind uh each one of these areas and that would be one of the questions you may have got report

098that had more of the individual question which if you want we can provide a supplemental information to the board if you want to see that. Yeah. Anybody else? I was actually wondering um I I you know I don't know if it's appropriate. I would love to be um for the board to receive the duet newsletter. That would be something. Careful what you ask for. Is that say careful what you ask for? Okay. No, I would I you know, I just think that there's I I would love that from all like the the key things that you share with your families would be great if they were shared with us. It's tough to be inundated by 11 schools, but that just seems like something that really reflects what you're trying to do. I would totally love

099to receive that and I'm sure my colleagues would as well. So, um that would be great. Thank you. I don't think Phil would mind. Would you? There you go. Um, thanks Sean. I thought it was a great job. We've had we've had a variety of different approaches to these equity presentations over the years. Um, I I really I I really appreciated um your discussion at the beginning about your approach to the work this year. I think that that's something that everybody needs to hear because it it it it is hard, you know, everybody is, like you say, very busy and very, you know, in their own space, but even people who don't have time to be on the equity committee would really like the committee, I think, to succeed. So they're looking to hear how

100that work is being organized and and it is a crucial year with the change without without a consultant and and maybe we find that that's better, right? You know, maybe there was a little too much Yeah. a little too much of a of a sort of a heavy hand in there or not really like we like we like to say, Phil, that Arlington feeling like we're really trying to bring that and that's something I definitely felt here tonight. So, which also just leads to the part where maybe what you are liking about the ability to check text that you find maybe that happened. The turnaround on that seems very quick compared to having outside people driving the bus. Maybe this homegrown approach is what we really needed, you know. So, thank you for No, thank

101you. You're right. Everybody, right, that's happening. Yeah. And there were two examples of that. There was the example about the kindergarten the the multilingual materials for the kindergarten people which is like okay you see a need you just do something with it right and then and then there's this and I thought that that um I thought that that that readaloud document um was just excellent like an excellent pro like an excellent project like just a great project because you know what because it's not only that you know there's always this talk about you know people worrying about censorship and stuff but but the other end ofensor ensorship is selfcensorship when you're not sure you're going to be protected or backed up. So, I think that the more we can do to make it clear that

102this is okay and that we want this kind of materials in our schools, I think that that's just empowering, right? And that's really what people I think hopefully what's what our staff wants. We want to all feel empowered and and kind of, you know, held close in our decisions, right? So, I think that's great work. You know, I did have one question about that when you said it's a draft. Is it are you going to like seek feedback? Like how is it? Yeah, they're going to practice with it. Oh, that's great. That's terrific. No, that's not my way. I'll keep my hands out of that. So, but thank you very much. Oh, Donna. Yeah. Yeah. Along those same lines, I went to the uh the student equity panel at the high school. We went to

103that a few few weeks ago and I was so struck by the students and just their just their just very interest and devotion and you know dedication to this and I loved hearing their voices. So I was really it was great to see that you know put some dollars behind that. Let's let's see what they really want to do with that. So I I I really encourage this as well. I think it's terrific. I'm really proud of what I what I hear. Thank you. Any other thoughts as we close out? Chen, I just thought it was really nice that you were using the resources that you have within your school to drive that work. Thank you. We have so many great teachers here that it's great to see them being used, right? Thank you. Thanks

104everybody. All right. Thank you. I think I fixed it. All right. All right. Moving on. So, thank you all. Thank you all for coming tonight. Um, our new business section of the agenda lists several items for individual resolution approval. Documentation concerning these items has been provided to our board members in advance to assure an extensive and thorough review. Um, uh, item B, trip approval. Can I get a motion, please? So move. Thank you. Make a second. Thank you. Um, any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Opposed? Abstensions. Motion passes. Item C, extension of probationary period. Can I get a motion, please? So moved. Thank you. Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I opposed. Abstensions. Motion passes. Business consent agenda. Our consent section of the agenda was several items for approval

105by a single motion. Documentation concerning these items has 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? So moved. Thank you. Second. Thank you, Marius. I was waiting. We're trying to help Linda out here. Step down. Any discussion? Sorry. Any discussion on the consent agenda? I just wanted to note that it includes the school calendar for the 2526 school year uh with a rationale there. So, with your approval, we'll distribute the school calendar to families uh in the coming probably after spring break. Perfect. Okay. Um that's perfect. Um that's it. So, all those in favor? I opposed. Abstensions. Motion passes. Okay. Flipping ahead quite a few pages to um future discussion items. Does anybody have a future discussion item

106they like to bring up at this time? Seeing none, we'll move on. Public comment. Anybody out there? Have my clipboard still empty? Anybody any public comment? We're good. Okay. um committee reports. Let's see. Our first one is A for advocacy. A for right there at the bottom. I finally learned where I belong in this. That's right. Top of the heap, Marphabet. I got it now. Yeah. 12 years later. Okay. So, advocacy. Imagine that we still have no state budget. We're on our third extender which takes us through tomorrow. They up there in Albany are on the same calendar we are. They go on break next week. So, everyone needs to light a candle that something happens this week before vacation because it would help our school districts, including the Arlington School District, if they knew

107what the final numbers were. Even though Kevin, you've done a magnificent job of getting us to where we are and where we need to be, it would be good to know that those numbers are real and that we know what's going on. Um, so just that NISSBA and the educational conference are lobbying for them to get themselves pulled together by the end of the week. So let's hope it all comes through. Um, and the other thing from advocacy would just be that the survey for the resolutions that we could have or possibly did all join in doing a couple of weeks ago um will be released tomorrow in the resolution kit. So, you'll all get a NISBA um email tomorrow that will now tell you what the results of the survey were, what they're thinking

108of for the fall at the business meeting. um in terms of things things that were strongly [Music] um came up with high numbers for being supported or not supported will drive the resolutions that that will come up at the annual meeting in the fall. So we you'll all see that in your email tomorrow. You don't have to favorite day of the year. is my favorite day of the year. And this year in 2025, it is October 16th, the annual business meeting. Um, we have until July 18th to ponder that and we'll pull our advocacy people together. Um, just to see if there's anything pressing that we as Arlington would like to promote moving forward. Um, so we have some time, but the initial information will arrive in your email tomorrow. And I think that's it.

109Thank you very much. See, thank you. Um, audit finance, maybe put that candle under some of those legislators but uh I have nothing to report on audit and finance. Uh, Kathy, I have uh few things to report. Uh we met last Thursday 10 o'clock and uh we looked at the status of some previous uh capital projects. The roofs at Vale and UVMS uh one is completed, one's fairly soon. Uh there's an issue still uh pending on UVMS uh about damage to a floor a flood a floor rather by a contractor. So that's being resolved. Skylight's got to be replaced. Some minor things before we get to the final cost uh submitted to the state. Uh phase three of the high school, we've got some savings on the roofs. So, we're going to be uh doing

110some 55,000 square ft of roofing at the high school with some of the savings that uh have been realized from the the project at the high school. Um the uh cost savings also may reduce costs from projected work from the 1797 capital project of 2024 by $7.5 million. in that we've got roofs that uh were also in that project that will not need to be done because we made some had some savings and had the roofs done. uh Arlington and Arthur Sme. That's what it is. Phase two and three. And uh they're going to be doing facade work and repointing a brick uh which is essentially grout between the bricks that are being done as well as moving the tennis courts, a new loop for student drop off pickup, uh which should be for 2026.

111All to reduce congestion and improve the safety. some future capital projects that we talked about a new transportation building perhaps at some point at Arthur May once the loop for the drop off is is done to keep traffic restricted from the transportation area. So got it all nice and neat together uh for the drop off uh versus the transportation people and buses etc. Um major facility improvements currently in progress. Overlook completion of the geothermal uh LSM LMS water connection uh being worked on. The LMS parking lot uh has Duchess County now as the lead agency as well as federal EPA in regards to Sprout Creek and the Turtles. Okay. And Traver water is on hold of course. high school baseball field. We got no bids. We're going to use a co-op includes drainage work as

112well as defenses. We hope to see bids uh by the 8th, which should be today. I don't know if we got any. Do we get any uh for an extension? So, but we should be hopefully having a recommendation maybe as early as the next meeting, but if not, the first meeting. Okay. Thank you. Uh we also have some UN events that are uh being worked on this summer. We've got a hundred of them that uh no parts are not available for the controls. Union Veil track um it's going to be discussed at this meeting. They'll track. Um they are also um trying to get considered. um vertically. We cannot hear you. The UVMS track also did not receive any bids and they are seeking a a uh a private source contract to see if they

113can get that because we're late in the season. It's difficult to whether or not they've already got all of their business lined up for the summer. So, uh, we're we're still trying to work with, uh, the vendors that can provide that work to see if they can get it done for us this summer or not. Okay. And let's see, uh, at, uh, Union Veil, the US, the fire alarm system is going to be completely replaced. Again, a situation where they don't have no parts. So, that's on the list. Titusville getting hot water heater that maybe get done during spring break or during the summer. Have we heard on that? Um SNO is beginning work uh on that as we speak. We I think we ordered them at the last uh board meeting and uh they'll

114they'll begin uh the design and and uh it'll be done either over this summer or it'll be done over this summer basically. Okay. And at uh let's see, high school chiller air conditioning unit uh at the high school is going to be stalled in 2026. Uh Lraange Elementary uh will need a roofing job sometime future in the future. Um so that's something to think about and we adjourned at 11:13. That's my report. Thank you. policy. Uh, we're meeting tomorrow, 3 PM in the boardroom at CAO. Thank you. Um, moving on to organization reports, the Arlington Education Foundation. Um, we met April 2nd. The focus was the 5K, which you all know is April 26th. You can sign up online or you can just show up that day and sign up that day. Register. We missed

115this the the t-shirt deadline, didn't I? You did miss the t-shirt deadline. Bummed about that. That's what I get for procrastinating. Yes. Um and also they are collecting applications for scholarships and I believe the scholarship breakfast is June 7th. Um so that will happen. That's it. Thank you. Um Duchess County School Boards Association. Um met last Thursday evening Zoom. [Music] Um, we were discussing the uh student representation on the board of ed. That is an upcoming thing that will happen for the fall at all districts. Although there are um districts in the county that have had a student representative on their board for a period of time. So they some are more familiar with that process already. Um, one of the things that did come up in the discussion of that was that there are

116different ways for the student to be chosen. Um, of which Arlington is about to embark on that process. Um, as Dr. manante has shared um some of the districts have more than one representative um specifically because it's time consuming and it's an evening thing and it may be a lot to ask of one student twice a month to be able to be freed up. So um that's a something that I I'm sure that will be discussed when Arlington takes its turn here to do this. Um and we did talk a little bit about the fact that there does need to be a policy written um by Arlington to provide that student and um that the policy has to include recommendations for training and orientation of that student which I know there are guidelines floating around

117out there for what has to happen in the policy when it gets to our policy committee. Um the rest of the evening was um a presentation by Maria Dewald who is the arts and ed coordinator for Boseies that um she oversees the coaster that allows our districts to receive Bosey's aid on a large number of events and residencies. Um the next Duchess County School Board meeting is May 1st with the topic to be determined. That is a um Zoom typical Zoom meeting. the annual meeting which you all got forwarded from Margie today um Kelly Lapen's minutes from last week's meeting but also what she's earnestly seeking from all of us in the districts is the annual meeting will be Thursday June 5th at Milhouse from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. That does include dinner. It's an

118in-person meeting. Um there will be the topic for that evening is the seal of civic readiness. Um they will have student presentations there. Um so if you are thinking and we're all invited to that that's open to all district um boards of ed administrators. Um so just if you're thinking you would like to do that. Um Margie I think even gave us a calendar invite for it. So if you reply to that then she'll forward all that information to Kelly. She's looking for a headcount so that she knows how big a space at Milhouse she needs for the that evening. Um Duchess County School Boards and embedded in that is the Boseies update uh which Jod also gave us. Um they did receive the bridge to future award at Boseis from Duchess Community College. Um

119and Jody would they were besides being pleased with it, she stressed that you know the importance of that kind of thing is the partnership between our students and secondary um education through the community college. Um, the other thing that I thought was cool, they Boseies is now hooked up with Habitat for Humanity. Um, and they will build a pad now and students next year will actually build a home through Habitat through for humanity. Um, so that seems like a cool thing. Um, key dates, tomorrow's the Bosey's annual meeting on the 9th, the 22nd. We just heard from Mr. uh messer is their budget vote and the election board members and then on April 30th they have a skilled trades fair happening there. That's it. Thank you very much. Do you know if if Kelly because

120I think when she did the seal of silver a couple of years ago, she only had like three kids. I think she is she going to pick districts to represent? How's she going to do that? She has not shared the process yet. No. Okay. Curious. Um, so we may be because there's a limit to how many of those presentations they can really have, you know, right? They did a nice job. They were Exactly. But we haven't heard that yet from her. Um, PTA, PTSA. Um, the next meeting is uh 528 I believe. Um, it was a relatively shorter meeting. There was um not every school was in attendance because of some conflicts, but um they talked about all the fundraisers that they were doing, all the events that they were um hosting for the students

121um and then um their efforts for staff appreciation as well. Great. Thank you. District health and safety. Uh the next meeting I believe is April 24th. 24th. Okay. And then we can move to district equity. Uh, the next meeting is Thursday. Thursday. That's great. And I just want to add that, we'll probably add, so Mark and I attended the What is the name of that meeting? What's the fancy name for that construction meeting? The administrative Yes. Yep. It's called the Yes. Yes. So Mark and I attended the Yes Committee where we said yes a lot. So owner, architect, construction manager, OACM. OACM. Yes. a heads up when you're going to throw some trivia at 9850. That's payback for rustling for your cough drop in the middle of your presentation. That's what was going on here.

122I apologize for that. He's like rooting around for that cough job. So anyway, um uh like he had a bag of chips or something. Same allergies that John has and just trying to keep it together for another next meeting. Close. We're very close. Um so anyway, that was the first one that we went to and it it's you know not a board meeting. It's much like the district health and safety committee. So we were just sort of like flies on the wall there sort of um hearing how the progress on the big construction projects going. You know because we have a schedule for the board to be um updated in full on a quarterly basis at some of our cow meetings and that has been ongoing. But there was some thought that maybe it would

123be good if we were listening for things that we might want to have interim updates on. And um and so that's that's what we started. So and that hasn't really been completely ironed out about who's going to attend and all that, but that was the best way to sort of just step right in. When when is the next meeting? I don't know. Well, okay. Um I really no idea. Is it? Yeah, I think we're starting to get that time of year where everything is overlapping on each other. What? So, it is May 7th. Uh, it overlaps with the policy policy. It doubled up with the policy. That's right. 8 p.m. Mark. Yeah. So many things are piling up. Okay. Um, we'll have to we'll have to draw straws or rock paper scissors something on that

124one. Um, okay. Hey, superintendent's closing remarks. Nothing to record. Okay, excellent. Board reflections. Okay. Um, I attended the arts fair on Saturday. Uh, I was impressed by all the beautiful artwork uh using various mediums. Um, I got there at 11:45 a.m. There was not a place to park. We were parking on the grass. There was so many people. It was so busy. And I have to thank the coordinators of this program. I love it. every year. They need like a bigger venue. It's like it's so wonderful what these students do and I was just really impressed. Anybody else have a reflection for today? Mark. Yeah. I I wanted to uh talk about a former uh person, friend, teacher that uh passed away recently, Brian Restanzo and worked at the high school for 33 years. Uh

125he was in the business department. Uh he was using computers before anybody thought about what a computer was. Uh this is a man who'd give you the shirt off his back, do anything for anybody, just a great guy. Uh passed away recently, 76 years old in Florida with a family at his side. Uh really a good man. Thank you, Mark. Thank you for sharing that. Uh Marian. Um so several of us did the Traver West cultural celebration that John mentioned um in slide actually. Was it great? Was what a great fun lovely evening and you'll have a your own affair tomorrow here. I I know. Um I' I've been to the overlook one. This was my first time out in the Pleasant Valley. Um, it's just great to see the families and what they put

126into those evenings, you know, to to support their kids and to support their cultures and, you know, it's a a lot of fun. Um, and then there was Legally Blonde. What a what a great job, man. I just I guess I I didn't know how it was going to come as a musical, you know, having seen Reese Witherspoon or whatever her name was in the movie. It was they knocked it out of the park. And then I was saying to one of our audience participants tonight, but I say that every time I go to something in this district, whether it's, you know, a play, whether it's a musical, something, the kids, they take things to a level that their age defies. It's You could have been off Broadway down in New York City and seen

127that and not have seen it any better. It was just great. And I know a bunch of us were there, but I loved it. I thought it was great. But it it is great. And I'll just add on to that and to Phil's point, you know, they come out at the end and they line end to end with the kids two, three times with all the kids. And they're not even all the kids. They don't even all go up. You know, all the kids that are on costume and lighting and sound and crew design and all that kind of stuff. And when you think about because what we're looking for is to offer lots of kids opportunities. So when they do the work of doing a musical, it's a lot of work. It's it's an

128awful lot of work with the choreography and and the band and then all the kids in the pit, you know, the kids that play that how professional that music was. And I know they have some support, but there's a lot of kids in that pit. Yeah. And um just what we're looking for is to give kids opportunities, right? And so many kids got to and I have two of my three kids went through Arlington High School as members of the Emerald Players. And it is a great way to go through high school and they went through in different capacities. But I I have one brief story. I went over to the table with all the t-shirts for Ammeral Players and they had a shirt for The Music Man, which was my kid's first musical when

129he was in high school. And the guy goes to me, I go, "That was a kid's first musical." I said, "He went on as an understudy. It was like a freakout thing and um and he goes in 2014. I'm like yeah it was a long time ago. So I ended up buying the t-shirt and it's actually where he met his girlfriend and their names are next to each other on the shirt on the back. Isn't that cute? And they're still together. Whatever. They haven't been dating that long but they're still together. So anyway, I digress. Does anybody else have any like Thankfully my family does not listen to board. I would be in deep trouble. No fair giving them the heads up if you know them. No fair giving them the heads up. Okay. Um,

130anybody else? All right, then. Where's my gamble? Can I get a motion to adjurnn, please? Some moved. Thank you. Second. Excellent. Any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor