BOE March 20, 2025

001Ation God in with agree And justice for all, please Remain standing. Heavenly Father, we invoke that blessing on all in attendance here and on those we serve. Help us bring wisdom and humanity to our deliberations and nice spirit to our work. Please be seated. We'll start off with, uh, George comments. I to congratulate you, Deborah Ruby, special education teacher and Muchmore, who would do with us for 33 years. We'd like to be sure long, healthy, and happy retirement. Congratulations to you and Kathleen Marconi, a sixth grade teacher at Westmore, who's been with us for 26 years. She a long, healthy and happy retirement as well. Is there a reason? They're both from Rushmore, Kathy, I, I beg, I beg them to stay, stay silent on the rest. I'm gonna read a, uh, statement that the

002board put together about coming up to the podium. We, we tried, we tried different methods over the last few minutes of meetings, and I think we've come to a, uh, good conclusion. Uh, at our last public meeting, we received a suggestion about making sure that residents three minute, the residents three minutes of speaking time was not interrupted by responses from the board or the administration. We would like to honor that suggestion by making the following adjustment. Residents will have three minutes of uninterrupted time to speak or ask questions at the end of that time. Wait, the members appear will address the question or comment in an appropriate manner. And if we don't know the answer at that time, we will get back to you. Okay. Is there any questions about that? At that, I will

003move to Trustee Don Monaco for her comments. Good evening, everyone. Um, first I'd like to say, um, thank you for legislature Craig. He had donated 18 athletic signs of our winnings from 2019 to 2024. So we'll see some banners being hung up around our district. I'd also like to congratulate the boys basketball team for, um, all the way up to their accomplishments with the state's competition tomorrow. Good luck. I will say that I attended the Long Island Championship, and the last five minutes was better than the NCAA final four last five minutes. Um, and lastly, I'd like to, um, hope everyone will join the Car Place Educational Foundation fundraiser. It's a Pickle Night, Thursday, March 27th at 7:00 PM in the Boys and Girls Gym. Thank you. Pleasure. Hi everybody, and thank you for coming

004tonight. Um, I just wanna say congratulations to our science research student, Alyssa Jacob Hira, um, Monique and Nicholas CIA on their outstanding accomplishment, Alyssa and Kyra was selected to join 10 other finalists of Stoneybrook University to present the individual video submissions for the International Day of Women and Girls, which celebrates the incredible scientific engineering a achievements Women. Nicholas are an honorable mention for his 2025 South Asian American Women's Alliance Essay Contest. On the topic is artificial intelligence and threat to humans. Job security for students will be recognized in June and more ceremony. Congratulations to all our students. Um, I too want to wish our boys varsity basketball team, um, as they compete in the state finals of, in Benington, go cross. That's all I have to say. Uh, good evening everyone. Uh, I'd like to

005start out by sharing that my son participated in the Science Olympiad. Uh, we had some students go a couple weekends ago to burg. Uh, now, like I'm, I'm sure it's true of many of you. Uh, it often feels like pulling teeth to get a response about what happened in school today, uh, with any of my, my three kids. Uh, but he told me he really enjoyed the experience, uh, more through extent my gratitude to our dedicated teachers and staff, uh, for their efforts in advancing STEM education and the great job they did, uh, which was a packed day. It was an early start. And, uh, you know, we got back, you know, late into the afternoon, uh, and giving our students these kinds of opportunities to engage in Excel. Uh, I also recently had the

006privilege of serving on the CarPlay Scholarship Committee, and I'd say I walked away incredibly inspired. Um, our students are truly remarkable. During our interviews, they shared how much they value the support of faculty here, the passion for theater, arts, athletics, academics, and the friendships they've built. Um, they spoke about going to extra help touring one another and the deep impact their teachers, coaches, and mentors have on 'em. Um, they're champions in soccer, mock trial basketball, of course. Uh, but just as importantly, they are champions of service, junior firefighters, club leaders, uh, and volunteers committed to giving back many express how much they love the ability to explore different interests in core place, uh, learning time, management, school, uh, life balance along the way. One student put it best. You're never alone in car place. Um,

007let's continue to build on this foundation. Ensure that all of our, uh, learners from prepaid to 12 have opportunities to explore, grow, and thrive. Uh, I'd also like to take a moment as, uh, just to echo, uh, sentiment already mentioned to, uh, tonight, to recognize our retirees, Deborah, Ruben, Marconi Sherry, uh, for their dedication, uh, and their impact in so many decades and so many students here for our place. Uh, finally also, I'd like to congratulate our horses city basketball team. Best of luck moving forward and, uh, go St. John's. I was like, what? Um, thank you so much for coming out tonight. I wanted to, um, say that I also was on the scholarship committee and walking away from that experience. At first I was like, oh my God, three days, three long days.

008I have to be here. And, you know, Mr. Um, can agree, but then like, I'm so glad that I did. It was so nice listening to all these students answer these questions. And they, they love the car place. They bleed green. Like we all do that, that come from here and that, I'm sure soon people that migrated here will as well. Um, so it was really a great experience and thank you for allowing me to be there. And if I'm not on the committee next year, I'm gonna tag in you. Oh, yeah. Okay, good. Thanks. Even not in vote. Um, and I also want to wish, um, the basketball team, uh, good luck tomorrow, this weekend. Um, bring that, bring home that w we need it. Uh, haven't had state champs in basketball for a

009long time or even ever. Um, so let's go. Thank you so much for coming My night. Reflux. It's bad. That's why, that's why I apologize. Thank you very much. Welcome everybody. Today happens to be the first day of spring, which is wonderful for a lot of reasons. It also means that we're coming into the home stretch of the year, which is very important for a lot of kids and a lot of reasons. Um, along with all of our best wishes to our varsity basketball players and their coaches and their families, I wanna say that we have the 25th annual Putnam County spelling beat, which is our high school play Friday night and Saturday. It is a really good play. I have seen it before. It's a lot of fun. We put on a play for

010the CarPlay seniors today as well, the senior citizens. That is. It's a really neat event and I'm looking forward to being there. Um, tomorrow night, our AP advanced Placement prep classes are going to be getting underway soon 'cause it's coming into the home stretch. Like we said. Um, notification will go out to the families about that. Be on the lookout. Also for notifications about regents preparation. We have some good enhanced things in store for regents this year. You'll be hearing from the high school administration and due time, that should be an intense and well-focused experience for our kids. Um, I'm looking forward to the pickleball tournament myself. Should be really cool. And spring sports are underway, and that is another sign of the season. I'm looking forward to a lot of hard play and hard

011work out there in the fresh air, which is nice. The gymnasiums are great, but to be out there on the fields is, is I think for me personally, even better. I'm looking forward to that. And, you know, there'll be concerts and all those other things to come. Um, stay tuned. There's a lot of good stuff in store from our students and their teachers. And, um, look forward to tonight's budget presentation. So thank you for the opportunity. Thank you, Dr. Kennedy. With regard to the tonight's agenda, are there any public comments, questions, or concerns about the, the public agenda? Only on the agenda, There being no questions or concerns. I would ask for a motion to public to get this. Uh, I would ask the board to make a motion to approve RESO 4.1 approval of

012the March 6th, 2025 Board of Education business Motion. I'll make a motion. Second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve Fresno five to consent to agenda? I'll make a motion. No, Sir. All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much. I'll move to the presentations. Alright. Thank you all for coming tonight. This is our fourth budget presentation. We have two Allstar trios presenting tonight, although I'm biased. Uh, we have the deputy assistant trio and our principals trio. So tonight we're talking about our special education expenditures, our building level expenditures, our instructional staffing positions. Um, I'm gonna give a little overview passed over to our presenters after Mrs. Frederick Review staffing. I'll come back to recap our budget survey results and review the proposition on the ballot. Tonight we're talking

013about 7.4% of our budget, uh, although it's a small percentage, really get a lot done with these funds. Essentially, it's all of our supplies, materials, and other expenses for all of our instructional programs. I wanted to revisit this slide that we saw on our first budget presentation. Just as a reminder of where we're going as a district. Uh, we wanna provide ongoing opportunities to engage all stakeholders. We wanna nurture the, the roots of academic growth at the elementary level, expand on the traditional educational paradigm through active learning and authentic learning experiences for all students, and maintain a continuous cycle of success by graduating. Students are prepared to make the best decision for their college and career journeys. And even though this record is up the road, uh, these things don't occur in sequential order. And

014many of them, excuse me, can and will go on simultaneously. As we go through the presentation tonight, you'll see these logos on some of the slides to really link back our proposed budget expenditures. This is the breakdown, the proposed expenditures tonight. Uh, and you can see the largest change in terms of dollars is in special education. Uh, and as far as percentage, it is a type raise between the middle school high school and Sherry Lane, slightly higher. Our Rushmore budget is actually decreasing, which is wonderful. And overall, the proposed instructional program budget is increase 5 28 7%, or 240,000 bucks. With that, I'm gonna hand it over to, So the special ed budget as everybody notes, is a K 12 budget for which all about classified students in kindergarten all the way through high school,

015which at this point is age 22. When we look at, at a budget, um, the special ed budget, you can see on the bottom, the special ed budget is a $3 million budget. When we look at an increase of $162,000, it's rather small when you're thinking of a $3 million budget. The budget runs that we have posted up here are only the budget lines. Where there is any kind of change going on within the budget, there is an additional 26 other budget lines that are completely flat. And on the next slide I'll show you, there's a, a link that you could look at the entire budgets. When I tell you, Dr. Omi and Ms. De DeMartino had me sharpen the pencil and use my eraser and burn through my eraser and go back again to

016keep so many budget lines flat. There's no exaggeration there. So it is a fiscal responsible budget at the same time, meeting the needs of our students. And we all know when we're talking about special education, those are mandated, uh, needs that we have that run through the CSC, some of the budget, some of the budget lines that we see are ultimately just a shift of money. So when we look at the first two budget lines, the first budget is going down, the whole budget line was $800 in for supplies. For the middle school, it's going down $800. And then right underneath it is a special education supplies for the high school. It's going up $800. We literally are just collapsing it. Since we are a seven to 12 building, we just put all the money

017into one budget line when we're looking at our supplies, uh, for special education, that's the, the third one down 22 5390, you'll see that there is an increase there. Um, and that the, it is going up by $53,000. I will talk about it in the next slide. In regards to programs that we're adding for our classified students specifically, um, with our students that are in our a DA classes, as well as our life skill program at the secondary building, you'll also see as we're going down the same thing, we collapsed a budget line in regards to special ed textbooks. At the middle school, it went down $500. Special ed textbooks at the high school went up $500. We literally just collapsed one budget line. So it looks like, you know, minus a hundred percent in

018one and then an increase of a hundred percent. And that would be the reason why. As we get into our tuition codes, we look at our OC special ed tuition code. Um, you will see that, that there is an increase there. And that is ultimately for students that require some additional programs. Additional programs, because of their needs are greater than the programs that we have, uh, within the school district itself. We continue to go down. IEP direct is just a program that we use to manage it. That data warehouse that we use just for special education and managing our IE Ps, there's a minimal increase. It's to increase of 3%, right. Underneath that we have the, uh, achieved 3000 program. There's also, and there's an increase there. The reason that there's an increase is we

019are also bringing in, it's called foundations E to Z. And it's for our ENL populations, specifically for our ENL teachers to use, um, to help build those foundation skills for our L population. You'll also notice right underneath that we have the E part. And that was a, a program that was used, um, through iPads, various apps. It was an educational support program. It was great when we first brought it in, which is now quite a number of years, I'm gonna say approximately, you know, eight or nine years ago, we brought that in. Honestly, the, the we evaluated, we, we looked at the usage and we have brought in so many more programs at this point in time and that programs that give us much better data and is much more student specific based on their

020needs. Uh, that this particular program, we decided we were no longer going to use because we were getting better results and more output of work, um, more data from the newer programs that we're using. So we have eliminated that program, uh, which is why you'll see that the minus of a hundred percent of just over $16,000 and you get down to our health services, there is an increase. The increase is about $45,000. The reason for the increase is our district wide initiative that we've had for the best couple of years, leader in me. Uh, we have an increase of $45,000 that we put into that budget line. The reason that that we we're seeing that increase is that in the past, for the past couple years, we've been able to put the leader in me

021through a grant. That grant is no longer available. So we need to shift some of that money into the general budget in order to continue this district wide initiative that we've had for the past couple of years. And then the last one, the BOCES Health and Welfare is just the regular BO Cs 3% increase. As we jump over to the next, the next slide, these are just three of the highlights that I'm gonna touch on. We could really put up, you know, number of pretty adamant that you only wanted us to stick with three at this point because we have many other opportunities that we can talk about all the, you know, wonderful things that we're doing within special ed. I've spoken about this. I I always end up making this one of my votes

022in some way, or I end up working it into my presentation every single year. And that's the first one we were talking about. Specialized construction, which is teaching methods designed to meet students and individual needs. But specifically the continuum of services that we offer here in the school district. I know everybody knows this, but we average a hundred students per grade. We have more programs. We have resource room, we have ICT, we have our traditional self-contained classes. We have our a, BA classes at the elementary level. We have our life skill programs at the middle school high school, and we have multiple of every single one of these programs in every single building, which is pretty phenomenal. We have more programs without Continuum is larger than many of our districts that are triple if not

023quadruple the size of us. That's extremely beneficial. And not every school district has that. That is ultimately from the support of the board, the community. Um, and then of course the implementation of all these programs is the support from our building principals. That's why we're able to have such a, a phenomenal continuum. The benefit of having such a full continuum is that our students, the majority of our students, I should say, are able to stay within our schools because we have such extensive programs here already. Really, it is phenomenal. And I'll move down to the next one with one of the drivers in regards to, um, our curriculum course of that, that we're going up in special ed. We're looking at the Star autism support program. Is this specifically a program? It's a K 12

024program. Obviously it continues to increase in regards to, you know, the, um, the rigor of the academics, but it's specifically for our students at the elementary level that are in our a BA classes. And then as we get into the middle school and high school, it will support our students that are within the life skills program. One of the beauties of it is the program is, obviously, I shouldn't say obviously, but there's definitely a technology component. There's a data component, and that can easily be transferred from one educator to the next. So year after year that data continues to follow 'em, and the next teacher knows exactly where the student left off. The next teacher can also determine if there was any kind of regression, and they can address that as well. Another program that

025we're, um, gonna be adding on is called the Edmark Reading Program. This is a specialized reading program. It is for our students that continue to struggle with reading. It goes, it goes beyond any of the other programs that we have. It is definitely geared more towards our students that have moderate to even more significant disabilities. The second big bullet that, that we put on there is the assistive technology. When we think of assistive technology, think of any device or software or, or equipment to support students with accessing the curriculum, participating in classroom activities and complete assignments or, or a task. So the assistive technology, when we talk about students with disabilities so that they can ultimately participate in all the lessons that their teachers ultimately provide, we talk about our students being in the least

026restrictive environment. This assistive technology, uh, allows 'em to really participate in in their classes. I just put down a couple of things that Ms. Bambino and and her tech department ultimately support us with when we're talking about, uh, text to speech, speech to text, digital organizers, communication devices, adaptive keyboards, gamification, which is ultimately all the different technology that we're bringing in. Uh, we all know that we're all competing at kids are as parents, we're competing as educators. We're competing with, with all the apps that are on the phones, that are on the iPads, that are on the computers. The gamification is ultimately educational games, which ultimately continue to enrich our students. We catch them, we provide instruction while they're having fun at the same time. And then the last bullet that I put on, um,

027last big bullet, I should say, is the Leader in Me, which is our program designed to teach students leadership skills while fostering a positive and empowering school culture. We all know, we've spoken about this before, publicly as well. Publicly, and I know our building principals have spoken about it. This is continues to be, it's a K 12 initiative. It is based on, uh, the seven habits of highly effective people at the elementary level. Um, you know, we have been rocking, like truly rocking with the support of our building principals and our teachers. It's been, uh, some would say a home run. Um, it's really been rolled out very well. Uh, our students, our staff, our building level administrators have completely, um, immersed themselves in it. It is part of their daily language at the secondary

028level. It's a little bit of a different model at the secondary level, at the elementary level. It's really, um, being driven by, by our staff at the secondary level. It's being driven more by our students, our high school students, with Mr being as a new principal and of course his right hand, Ms. Cantor. Um, and then of course, let's not forget Mr. Marada. They have this new dynamic team that's come together. They have really embraced, um, leader in me as we're moving forward. We have, I'm gonna use the word pilot. We have piloted a couple of different ideas over the last couple of years. Some aspects of it have worked better than others. We are rolling out with, with a, a, like a new game plan. Another game plan that our administrators have been involved

029in. Our teachers have been involved in. Of course, a, you know, the consultants from Leader and Me have been involved in, and the most, I don't wanna say the most unique, but one of the unique pieces is truly our middle school and high school students have had a voice in it as well in regards to what that's gonna look like. So at the, at the middle school level, I'm just gonna touch on it real fast. On the middle school level, each month, a different content area is gonna take on Leader and Me. So one month is gonna be math, next month is gonna be English. They're gonna be social studies and so on. During that, that month, within that department, they're gonna do two Leader In Me. Lessons within the class that's working with our

030students are, are a key role in, you know, providing that instruction along with our faculty as well. At the high school level, we are also, um, taking a another approach on how we're gonna do it. We're ultimately, we are developing these, we're leadership teams. Um, they call, we're calling them leader in Me Action teams. We're going, we're focusing on our older students. When I say our older students, our juniors and seniors, they're going be our leaders in leader in me. They're gonna be ultimately helping us identify our, our younger leaders, our leaders that are in the lower grades within the secondary building. They're gonna help us identify. Then they're gonna start working with those students. In regards to how we're going to roll out. Leader in Me here, when you think about it, it makes

031perfect sense because every year we're losing our oldest students. They're ultimately gonna leave as our senior. They're always leaving. We're always gonna have another group that's coming in. So we always have to be fostering. Um, and, and working with, with our younger students. The senior leaders will recruit juniors and under classmates to develop and lead school improvement projects, each supported by faculty members. So our faculty will be actively involved, but a lot of the ideas are really gonna be coming from our students. These projects will align with the leader and the principals making leadership meaningful and actionable. And we can all see not just in the school, who will be able to see within the community as well. Oh yeah, I see it at home. Oh, my son, thank you. He said he's the leader

032of me. He's in charge of him. He's in charge all. So for Terry Lane, uh, what we're looking at, the biggest changes today are with our program supplies and our textbooks. So we have a decrease this year in our textbook code because last year we did a, um, one time purchase. As we made this shift in the science of reading, we did a purchase for, uh, decodable resources, teaching materials for students. So all of our classrooms now have that, and you'll see that now there's an increase in program supplies. That's where we are using to purchase now decodable books for the students to have and for them to have in their book baggies and for them to use for their own independent reading, which we of course know is vital. We can teach a skill,

033but really where you see students take that ownership is when they're practicing it. So that's really our biggest change in our budget funds. Oops, sorry. In terms of noteworthy items, um, the first one does speech word dec quotables because it does provide students with a structured phonics practice. It builds decoding skills, reading confidence and fluency, which are really the keys for academic success. It's rooted in the science of reading. And at Cherry Lane, we've really been ahead of the curve in the science of reading. That's thanks to all the support that the Board of Education and central office has given us these past three years. We actually were trained in the science of reading three years ago, which was a year and a half before Governor Hoko even brought it up. Um, so we really

034have been ahead of the times and we really are just continuing to try and move forward. The other initiative that we have is project based learning, which is something that we took our science and social studies curriculum, and we really focused on turning into opportunities for students to practice the skills that they need to become 21st century century learners. So they're problem solving, they're collaborating, they are solving real world problems, and those are the skills that students really need to be successful for the future. We might not know the careers that are gonna be out there in 5, 10, 15 years, but we do know the skills that students are going to need, and we're starting that foundation as early as kindergarten. So those are really our biggest, um, changes in our budget. So thank

035you and thank you to the board of Ed Central office for supporting that, um, those initiatives. Look at my graphic. Isn't that fantastic? I wish I could take all of the credit, but it is a team effort. Everything that we do, because we are a small district and we work together very closely to make sure that we come up with the most, um, attractive balance budget that we can while still meeting all of our needs. I was fortunate last year that I had a bit of an increase and I was able to get multi-year, um, subscriptions for some textbooks, which of course helped to balance out the expenditure and knowing what Lauren's needs were going to be last year for this year, we kind of did a long range plan to make sure that we

036could balance out. So while she has a little increase in expenditure, I knew this was my year to have a little bit of a decrease in that expenditure. So it wasn't really my idea, but I'm happy to take the Happy Graphic. Um, we do have a lot still go the wrong way. See, I'm the oldest one in the group. I know you next anybody. Um, there's still so much going on. Obviously. I talked a little bit about the strategic, um, savings this year. We did have, and if you notice in the line by line, um, there is a decrease. There's a $3,500 decrease in my budget line. I would love to say that. Wow, I'm so good. I knew have to be fair to Ms. Bambino that that was just really transferred to technology. That's

037the Beast Academy line. So I didn't really save that money. And Beast Academy is something that we piloted for half of the year. It is something that's really challenging our students, um, who are excelling already in mathematics and trying to push them a little bit further. Uh, so it's something we are really excited to do. And now a lot of our work is centered around how can we give them even more opportunities to participate in this. So we are looking at some schedule adjustments for our students. So there's a little bit of summer work ahead for that, but it is something that we were super excited about. It's brought our students to participating in Snap Olympiads, which is also something that they're going to be continuing in middle school, high school. You know, we, one

038of the things that we've been noticing with our students is yes, they can be challenged more, and two, they need more time with the human resources that we have here. And it's that human connection. And while so much of the technology that we have is vitally important, it's really their time with the educators, with the teachers in the room and with each other while learning that they're really going to show the most growth. And from that, when they have these real world experiences and real world conversations, how can we then take that, incorporate that into real content rich writing? And that's something that's come out of our literacy committee. One of our strong focuses next year has to be on writing instruction. Uh, I know we talked at our parent forum about a shift in

039our vocabulary instruction and that that actually is going to lead to another tiny decrease in our budget line because we're going to be cutting out, um, if or proves literacy suggestions and recommendations. It's for a long time we've been using those vocabulary books where you're teaching vocabulary, which is completely outta context. We've tried in the past to get rid of them. And now we've really done a deep dive into looking at 'em. And it's not the type of vocabulary instruction that the students need and that they will grow from the most. So, um, slight decrease in the budget there, but it's also going into some, um, enhanced professional development for our educators and how we can embed that into, into our curriculum development. And, um, we, a bunch of us this year, maybe I think

04012 of us so far have participated in special development on the writing revolution, which is something that we're able to, again, because a fraction of our, uh, teachers have and administrators have participated in this, we can now create a turnkey workshop, but someone much for our teachers, which again is long to say this tremendous amount of money because we're using the human resources that we have. So, go Rushmore, we came down. Yay. Thank you Captain. So it's hard to follow up a negative question, but I'll do the best I can. Um, before I get started, I want to thank the board of bed and the community for having me tonight. I do want to recognize our fired students from the CarPlay Scholarship Committee, trustee, uh, trustee, uh, and Dr. Kenia. Uh, it was almost 10

041hours that we put in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday night, but it was well worth it. And, and I just wanted to recognize that in front of everyone here tonight. Uh, those of you who might not know, although we've mentioned before, but we have the 25th annual Putman County spelling be, and some of you might not know that right before the senior citizen performance this afternoon, we went to see, I was told right before that I'm in the performance and that was very interesting and very nerve wracking. Um, and I know some people in the audience right now have children in the cast and they kind of sandbagging there. It, it was enjoyable. Alright, so looking at, at, uh, the middle school, high school budget, I'm just gonna point out a couple things. I have actually more

042slides than Shirley Lane or Rushmore, but I'm gonna point that one line that you see there. That, uh, 48.61%, uh, increase for the tech equipment. That is for our tech lab room 2 0 3 upstairs. Uh, I can tell you the furniture in that room is well over 20 years old 'cause I've been here that long. And that class is being utilized for AP Computer Science for a couple years now. And we need to upgrade the equipment. We need to upgrade the furniture to accommodate the new computer needs that we need for those stations. So that's what that one line is for. So when we talk about this slide here, I want to thank Mr. P Martinez for highlighting a lot of the lines that we had that went down every line you see there,

043we had a significant decrease. Again, it's a fiscally responsible budget we want to talk about. Same thing with Mr. Ti. Some of those regarding textbooks, uh, for foreign language and English had to do with, you know, multi-year contracts or eTextbooks also, um, some, some other expenses. We able to just kind of tightened the belt a little bit. I do want to draw attention to, even though you don't see it with an arrow or anything, but that, that one line underneath, uh, the two math and science. But that 3900% increase, uh, that is for a district wide initiative. Yes, it's part of the middle school high school budget, but that's a district wide initiative we're working on right now. Actually, a lot of us are sitting in Zoom meetings on proposals through different programs, platforms that

044as a district will evaluating, um, standard base questions and assessments, comprehensive data tracking reports, student data tracking, um, identify growth, but identify the gaps as well. We're looking to integrate state assessments, customizable reports, uh, and questions that the teachers can actually have input and put their own spin on the questions as well. In essence, what are we looking to do here? We're looking to increase the student results scores, uh, on state and local assessments. So now you see for this budget for this, uh, page here, that big increase of that hour is for the 25.33%, uh, $87,000. I do want to point out that that is for one particular, uh, work based learning coordinator, which I'll talk about in the next slide. Uh, but budget to budget, if we didn't have that, the municipal high

045school budget would actually be down $6,400. So I just wanna let you know that, um, that that's the one hit that we have. And I'm gonna talk about that in the next slide. All. So what is a work based coordinator? Some districts will call it the WBLC, work Based Learning Coordinator, the whole point of it, and you some work in schools, probably heard of them before. If somebody from the outside will, we'd be using BO Cs that can connect our seniors to real life experiences. But most importantly, yes, we have all those words up there, but what I wanna express to all of you is this individual will cultivate establish relationships. So when our seniors looking out to get that job, to get that experience, this, this liaison we're gonna have now has the relationships

046established. So let's say somebody wants to go into the nursing field or business or, or pre-law, those are established already, so we don't have to do that work. Why are we doing it? One of the big thing, one of the big benefits I see to the doing this is because a lot of times, including my own children, oh, I want to go into nursing. I want to go into this, I want to go into that. Studies have shown by having the work-based money coordinator, the WBLC, it can actually tell students that, you know what, this is what I think I want to do, but you know what, maybe I don't plan it. So it actually saves that time in some of that expense, going to that school, applying to colleges for that direct admit, going

047to that school for a year or two, paying that tuition, and then realizing, you know what, maybe that's not what I want to do. That's one of the benefits we've seen with WBLC, which is really important. Uh, how we know it's worthwhile investment. I think through the college applications, we want to narrow the focus of the college applications. Don't just apply liberal arts, apply something maybe a little more narrow. That's what we could hope for maybe after that post-graduation. Uh, we do surveys for students and we see if this really paid off or not. The main important thing I want to get across here, this is real world career experiences, and that's what we're gonna do. Pushing Car place into that, into that next level. Career readiness connections to local businesses, like I said. Um,

048but it connects with the guidance department, right? And the career exploration in their interests. What it's about, it's about smooth transition from the high school to either college or the high school to the workforce. Uh, as you can see, Mr. Martino put those little logos in the bottom corners, referring to her slide number four. The bottom left logo directly connects again to learning experiences. And the bottom right hand logo connects directly to our graduating seniors readiness for college readiness for the workforce. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Jen. Good evening. And thank you for giving me this opportunity to share with you some information about our instructional, uh, staffing, um, throughout the district. Um, so first, um, exactly who are the people we're talking about when we talk about instructional staffing? It is all of our

049certificated teaching staff, kindergarten through 12th grade. Um, we have our classroom teachers, full-time classroom teachers. We have our, um, related arts special area teachers that is the phys ed teachers, um, library teachers, um, art and music teachers. We have our academic intervention. These are our remedial reading and remedial math support, um, teachers and our guidance and mental health professionals, and also some of our PPS related services, um, professionals. So what are our goals for instructional staffing in the 25 26, um, budget? Um, as always, our goal is to add instructional value, um, to our programs. Yes. Um, and this year, uh, we do have a recommendation in the form of instructional coaches, um, to add instructional value to our, to our classroom, uh, programs. Uh, we also, um, have recognized the value of small class

050size. And I think that has been something that has been a community sentiment and the board has certainly heard, um, the voices of the community. And, um, we have looked, you know, again, as, uh, Dr. NAR said, taken the pencil out and worked on Thea again and again. And Ms. De Martino has, uh, gone back into the budget and kind of rearranged things and look for savings in different places. Um, and it looks like we will be able to support both smaller class sizes and instructional coaches, uh, within the budget recommendations. So we're, we're very pleased about that. Um, Uh, so, um, again, we'll go building by building, uh, looking at who our, um, looking at the recommended, um, numbers of teachers, um, in each of the buildings. And when we talk about, um, a

051teacher in school talk and we talk in terms of a full-time equivalent. So a teacher who has a full day, um, full-time, full day load of, um, a class or classes, uh, on the secondary level is considered a one full-time equivalent. A teacher who was hired for, um, halftime would be a 0.5, um, full-time equivalent or FTE. That's how we refer to and measure teachers and report on teachers. So you'll see that there are some, uh, decimal points in some of our, um, calculations. That's just an explanation of it's, um, a portion of a person. Someone might be, um, one full-time equivalent, but split between two buildings. So there might be 0.4 and one building and 0.6 in another building. Um, so if you look at the chart on the left, um, that is the,

052um, current and recommended, um, FTE, which is number of teachers, um, which equals in Cherry Lane, the number of class sections for each of the grade levels. So we currently have, um, five sections in each of the grade levels. Next year, our recommendation is five for kindergarten, four for first grade, and then again five for second grade. And, um, you'll see that the current kindergarten has five sections, is being reduced to four. There are only about 75 children in the kindergarten. So they were very, very, very small classes this year, and they will still remain small next year, even though we have only four sections of first grade. Um, as we continue here, we see the, um, some of the support and other, um, classes in Cherry Lane School. And the third, uh, row down

053is the instructional coach. You'll see we have a zero FTE for this year, um, for instructional coach. And then next year the recommendation is that we have a one FTE, um, added to the Cherry Lane Caity. Um, and here again, we have, um, some of the additional, uh, supports that are in Sherry Lane School, um, are, and you'll see that the FTE from for, for this year. And the FTE for next year, um, remains the same. We will move to Rushmore and here we have the, um, recommended classes. And, uh, just again with the class sizes, the, um, the board has our, and our recommendations. Uh, our conversations have been that our, um, recommended class sizes will, um, will be under 23 students. Um, you know, it's not the magic number, but, uh, the recommendation

054at this point going into a budget will be, uh, for 23 children on the kindergarten through sixth grade, and most probably fewer than that in, in the kindergarten. That is always our, our recommendation to keep the kindergarten as small as possible. Um, so here we have, again, we have the, uh, numbers of sections and FTEs for third through sixth grade. Um, that's recommended. And then if you look at the, um, on the right side, the chart on the right, we do have the instructional coach, uh, the second row from the bottom with the additional FTE for next year. Um, okay. And everything else remains the same. And then if we look at the additional, um, staffing in Rushmore, again, everything stays the same. And if you look at third row from the bottom, we have

055our special education staff. We currently have 11, um, special education teachers in Rushmore, and we are recommending that that be increased to 12. So that we have two sections of, um, ICT instructional co-teaching on the fifth grade level. Um, so that is, that is one other addition at Rushmore. Yes. Instructional coaching. What is instructional coaching? What's an instructional coach? Um, a few weeks ago we had a meeting that we called the Knowledge Cafe. And I see some of the people here tonight were there. It was some of our administrators and, um, members of the community who, um, got together to talk about, um, instructional coaching and instructional coaches. And a knowledge cafe is something where you bring information and you get information. So it really is a collaborative learning environment. And I think that we

056came and we brought our, um, our recommendations and our rationale for instructional coaches to the community. And the parents who were there, uh, really brought us their own experiences, their own ideas, their own concerns about instructional coaches. And I, I wanna say that it was truly a collaborative learning experience. I think as administrators, we learned from the community, the community, um, learned, learned from us as well. And I think that kind of describes, um, an instructional coaching relationship. It's a collaborative relationship where you have a master teacher, um, who is highly trained, um, and highly regarded, who is, um, providing sustained and ongoing, uh, professional development to teachers in the building. Um, that will, um, build capacity that will, um, will improve instructional practices and, and student outcomes. Um, I'm not looking at all my

057notes. Um, and then why is it essential? Um, it's essential, uh, to achieving our mission of providing the highest quality education for all of our students. And, uh, really research shows that, um, effective instruction, an effective teacher is, uh, one of the best, um, best indicators of, of good instructional outcomes. So what we're really looking for is a better instructional outcomes. Uh, we're looking for more sophisticated, um, Training and more sophisticated, um, coaching teachers requesting more sophisticated coaching, You know, One slide. Um, so how will we know that, that it's a worthwhile investment? Um, when we see an increase in the number of teacher initiated requests for coaching, as well as an increase in the sophistication of coaching requests, resulting in even greater use of high impact instructional strategies, we expect to see increased student

058engagement and agency less need for intensive interventions and improve student achievement across the board. Tracking, reading and mathematics growth via i-Ready and other, and classroom assessments are two important means of quantitative data analysis. So we are always looking for, um, quantitative, um, results. So we really wanna see improved, uh, performance on assessments, on, uh, local assessments, on state assessments. And we really believe that the, um, addition of instructional coaches will move us closer to that, um, to that goal. Um, on this slide, which will be, uh, the presentation will be on the website and that little blackboard, there's a, a link there, the word here, if you'd like to see the complete, um, presentation that we had at the, um, the knowledge cafe. Okay, now moving to the staffing at the middle school high school.

059Um, here again, all the FTEs are the same, except if you look at the middle column, English language arts, we have, uh, currently 7.6 FTE. In that department, it is being reduced to 6.6, and that is, um, due to, um, a retirement in that department. Um, but o otherwise everything else is, um, remaining constant Determine. Uh, same thing here. We have, um, our, our different, some of our, uh, different departments are, um, support staff and things like that. Again, the FTEs are the same this year and this is a recommendation for next year. And just rounding out the, um, the rest of the staff In. Okay. So just before I start on the budget survey results, thank you to everyone who presented tonight. Um, I feel like we've got a little competition going to see

060who can save the most money next year. So I think that's great. I'll take all, um, alright, so we wanted to make sure we took the time to review the results of our budget survey. I think overall we got some really great feedback. We had 94 responses, which is great. Um, a majority of people who responded do have children in our schools. And it's nice to see that even though we had varying responses, uh, as a community, we actually do have a lot of commonality. So where do our thoughts align? Um, 85% of people who took the survey felt that we could use our budget to better prepare students for life after graduation. And, um, as far as educational priorities that overlap with the district, most people felt, uh, they overlapped in the areas of

061teaching and learning. Um, about 37% in social emotional wellness. Um, 32% for planning for extracurricular activities and just under 14% related to policy and procedure. We also have a lot of alignment on the district being the hub of the community. 70% of people agreed or strongly agreed with that statement. And we had, uh, almost 75% of people say that they believe that there's more to the budget than just the bottom line. This really is so important, and I wanna underscore the significance of, of what this tells us, which is that even though the money's important, uh, most of us feel that it's more than just the dollars and cents. It matters where we're spending those dollars and cents, what we're spending that on. And I think it also speaks to an openness to compromise. So

062I think that people might be willing sometimes to spend a little more to achieve their desired outcomes. So we've established that for most people, uh, it's not just about the bottom line, but then what are our beliefs about the budget? Uh, 17% felt that, uh, we should be using it. It's more important that we increase student achievement, which is, uh, test scores and district ranking. 31% felt that we should improve upon the educational experiences offered to our students. And the majority of the participants felt that ultimately the budget is a balancing act among all the factors that contribute to student success. So what influences student success? Uh, survey participants were asked to rank the following categories from most to least influential on student success. Uh, these are the results. Number one, most influential factor quality

063educators followed by innovative curriculum, extracurricular opportunities, facilities, and the learning environment, CTE and internships and safety and security. Um, we learned something else from this question that I think is equally important, and that is that each of these six categories was ranked as the number one most influential factor by at least six participants. So everything up here is the most important thing to more than one somebody, which points back to that balancing act that we're trying to achieve. So you might find self asking based on what I value, what's in the budget for me. Um, the next couple slides are just some examples. Uh, based on what success factor is the most important to you, what do we have in the budget? So when it comes to quality educators, uh, our commitment to investing in

064quality educators and reflecting in our salary and benefits expenses, which make a majority of our budget, we also actively support staff development. And we're proposing an increase in this investment to help achieve our goals For innovative curriculum. We're going to continue our work with the curriculum consultant and we have increased investment in curriculum writing so that we can develop a more innovative curriculum that falls bonds with the standards and promote student success. When it comes to extracurriculars, the budget includes the continuation of all clubs, performing arts and athletic programs. It provides funding for robotics club, uh, the repair and replacement of athletic equipment and enhancements to sound quality and presentation for our performers, Facilities, And the learning environment is your thing. Uh, in addition to continuing all the team building maintenance procedures, the budget focuses

065on improvement of lighting and air quality, uh, for CT and internships you heard tonight, uh, we included that work based learning coordinator to cultivate those relationships for students and allow 'em to take advantage of those real world experiences. And finally, safety and security. Um, in addition to our annual requirements for health and safety at the budget, t's current level of security coverage and provides support the addition of sub security strobe lighting to ensure the safety of all students and staff in the event of Emergency. So what about the future? Uh, it's hard to have as a districts develop the responsible spending plan that ensures the best opportunity for students' future success. We have to navigate the challenges of the ever increase in costs coupled with uncertainties over state and federal aid, all while continuing to

066move towards our educational vision and remaining cognizant that our taxpayers face their own financial constraints. So when asked whether or not the survey respondents were concerned about their ability to financially sustain tax increases over next three years, almost 60% of people said yes they were. So to that end, just a reminder, we are going, uh, proposing a tax levy under our allowable cap this year. Our allowable cap is 2.39. We are proposing a tax levy increase of 1.99%. Again, the way we were able to do that is by increasing the money we are appropriating from our retirement reserve compared to where we started the budget process on February 6th. So it's still a decrease from last year, but an increase from where we started and we took this difference and gave it back to the

067tax payer. Just a review on ballot, of course it your budget. Um, there's going to be a request to spend about 3.7 million from our capital reserve for, uh, Rushmore Phase eight, which is the auditorium abatement and reconstruction. Uh, phase two of the middle school, high school supplier alarm upgrades, our high school girls gym roof. Uh, we're gonna continue the repointing of the masonry around this building and, uh, some district wide security upgrades. And finally, uh, you'll be asked to elect one to board member Just in case you forgot what all those things look like. These are the things that we're asking, uh, to take off in capital, getting close to the vote. Um, because the budget adoption at our next meeting already, the budget hearing and meet the candidates is April 8th, uh, may,

068sorry. And the budget vote is May 20. As always, if you wanna know more, you can check out our website, can check emails at the email address on the screen. And thank you and I hope to see you at the next meeting. Does anybody, anybody have any questions regarding any of these, uh, presentations? Do you need an Update? Yes, I do. Um, I don't know how you want me to do this. I have a couple of questions. So What we're gonna do is, is you have three minutes to ask or say anything you want. Okay. We won't interrupt you when you run after the three minutes, then we'll reply to Your question. Okay. So it's gonna be hard for you to remember my questions, but that's fine. No, we'll do our best both. Okay. Because

069it kind of goes from different people. So, um, the first question I had was, what does an assessment specialist do and how does it compare to this? Um, oh my god, I wrote that, but I abbreviated the instructional coaches. That's my first question. Um, as many of you might not know or may know, I've always encouraged and tried to push for inclusion in ICT classes in our cherry lane. Um, thankfully years ago we did have it. Uh, I'm disappointed to see that we still do not have it. And you know, I don't, I don't know enough about this instructional coach to say this is a great thing, but when I look at that, knowing the history of this school district, that when they get to third grade, all of a sudden we need ICT. Why

070are we still not allowing 'em to have ICT in second grade? To me, that teacher should be teaching that class not for instructional coach. 'cause clearly we always needed the near, my kid was ended second grade. By third grade they needed two sections. So I don't know why. It just keeps getting sh shuffled underneath and everybody kind of lets it go. They should have ICT in second grade. I'm sure there's a need. Right? Um, somebody I think, um, Eileen, you mentioned something about a master teacher. So these instructional coaches, what makes them a master teacher? Um, I know, uh, Dr. Maldon, you mentioned a leader in me. I, I don't know, I, maybe I missed some meetings. I know it hasn't been implemented in the high school this year at all. I, and I believe

071what you said there was a grant, which is fabulous, but it's unfortunate that we didn't utilize it when we had the grant. 'cause from my knowledge, we haven't been using it in the high school. At least my child doesn't get anything to do with it. Um, so, and I'm happy to hear that it's back, but I don't know if I missed how we're gonna implement it in the high school. I heard the high school, like a math teacher's gonna teach it twice in a month and then in English, I just don't know how you said it was gonna be implemented in the high school. So maybe you answer that. Um, the, uh, the work-based coordinator, that's awesome. I know years ago when I was in high school here, I did look something, I don't know

072if it would call it similar, but I just didn't wanted to know how that's gonna be kind of be incorporated. I know like when I was here, I had a period off at the end of the day so I could do that work study or whatever it was called. Um, so I don't know if that's something that will come out in the future. And also who would be able to participate? Does it have to be a senior or is it maybe somebody not just necessarily seniors? Um, my last one is, and again, I know maybe this will come out, I just get nervous 'cause sometimes it comes out right before it happens is the AP and Regents reviews as far as when it will be offered. So I know that's always a discussion every year,

073so I just didn't know where we're at there. That's my sense. And I said, or do you want me to step? No, we'll, we'll, we'll respond to Your question. Wonderful. Thank you. We will start with, we'll start maybe with the instructional coach and Dr. Ler and I can tag team a little bit on that one as it pertains to, um, IT right? Yeah. A couple of questions about instructional coaching. I would e urge anybody who has any questions to take a look at the slides that we included at the end, because that is the full recap of the knowledge cafe session that we had back in the earlier part of the window. So an instructional coach is a person who is a full fledged teacher who is meant to provide sustained long-term professional development for

074colleagues who want to sharpen their strength, sharpen the saw, so to speak, on a particular aspect of instruction. If there's something I need to zero in on for mathematics or if there's something I need to zero in on for literacy, or if I'm looking at a particular part of how I want to integrate STEM or history into my instruction, instructional coach can build a plan with you and work with you for a sustained amount of time to maximize your ability to really deliver that instruction at a high level for your students to, what's the word I'm looking for? It's like a force multiplier, right? It makes you stronger and sharper at that particular thing that you need to, or want to achieve with your student. And part of the way that you do that is

075that in the coaching cycle, you introduce that topic together, you workshop ideas, you iterate, teach them, and then go back and say, how can we do this even better? And you go through a sustained cycle. A lot of times in this profession, you have a conference that you go to. You have maybe a two hour professional development, and that's the last you hear about something. When you're working with an instructional coach. You get to work with them for a sustained period of time on a zeroed in area of my teaching that I, I want to be better at or that I know my students need more support in. And both of those things, whether you're talking about ICT or instructional coaching, are meant to accelerate student development, accelerate student growth. Um, also you said what

076are, what are some of the criteria or what are some of the things that make a person, a master teacher right? That make someone eligible to be an instructional coach? There are a few different factors. I won't talk about all of them, but some of them are demonstrated high student achievement or growth in the areas of literacy and mathematics that they have, um, a strong professional development portfolio with a strong track record of successfully implementing the things that they have been a part of. So that they say, I go to this, I learn it, I bring back value to my students and the, um, and the school that I have to have at least five years of classroom teaching experience. And I would say that another very important one, not, not the last of 'em,

077but super important one, is that I'm a person who has a high degree of credibility and a high degree of trust with my colleagues in the building because they know this is a person that I can go to who will get the job done for me, who I can talk about my actual real needs with. And who isn't going to either waste my time or use my own vulnerability against me. 'cause sometimes people feel I'm afraid to ask for help 'cause that's gonna make me look weak. Right? That that idea that this is a trusted, highly expert colleague makes instructional coaching successful. I'll throw in one other thing. There are three main thinkers in the instructional coaching world. It's important to peg our program to one of those pieces, either Knight or Aguilar or with

078Sweeney Sweeney, right? We will make sure that our approach is aligned to one of those philosophies so that we know that we are doing this in a very sustained and proven through a sustained and proven method. Like I said, I'd urge anybody to go back and take a look at the slides we had from our, um, knowledge cap. And Dr. Ner, if you wanna talk a little bit about ICT and ICPs potential place in the primary setting. So very similar to conversations that we've had in the past. ICT, any program when we talk about special education is ultimately based on need. And I know that, that we've had, we've had some of those conversations. Many and it, it still comes down to, to based on need. One of the, the, the, there are so many

079wonderful things about the call police school, but one of the wonderful things that we have going for at this point is in Cherry Lane, we have so many programs. We have so many interventions. So when a student enters into Cherry Lane, we're going to ultimately start with our policy, our different interventions that we have within, within Cherry Lane. We're gonna give the student the opportunity to respond. And if they don't respond, then we're going to look at that intervention. We're gonna make some kind of change. 'cause obviously doing more of the same, we're gonna get the same result. So then the team at Cherry Lane is ultimately gonna determine whether they need to increase the frequency that the intervention is being provided. They might change the ratio from a group of, uh, making this up

080a group of six to a group of three. They might increase the frequency instead of, you know, three times in a six day cycle. So four or five times in a six day cycle, limited, they're gonna try all of that. Sometimes we go through different programs as well. We try one intervention. And even though we've adjusted how we're providing it, the students still doesn't respond. We're gonna try a different intervention. This all this takes time. Of course. And you we're maintaining that own, we really reviewing it. And sometimes we go through various interventions and a student doesn't respond to the best that we're looking for them to respond. So then that student may be referred to a special education at some point, even while they're still in Cherry Lane, sometimes they make some some level

081of progress and they don't even get referred to Cherry Lane because they, they are responding. And then sometimes they're fine and we continue to provide building level support and they go to Rushmore. And then other times we end up classifying a student, whether it's in Cherry Lane or it's in Rushmore. It's so hard because every student, it's so individualized for each and every single one of our students really based on how they respond. But everything, every program that we're talking about, ICT resource room self-contained, a BA life skills, we ultimately develop programs. Sometimes we have a program for a couple of years and then we don't have the need to, might disappear and then it might come back. Everything comes down to what the students ultimately require in order to be successful. Right. But we

082are Skipping a step, as we all know, least restrictive for the students. And unfortunately, I, you know, it happened to me and I witnessed it, that we're known because we don't offer it. We are known to not recommend a child for that because you're not gonna open the class. And I, I, I've said this when I sat up there and I have a passion for this, and I'm not even speaking about my child. It is so important that, and all the wonderful things you just said about an instructional teacher, that should be every one of our teachers in this building. And I'm sure we have many of them that are like that. And now we're taking away from other children that then hopefully in third grade, they might not need that inclusion. I just think

083we're looking past something and I don't understand why we should have teachers that are doing everything you said, and it shouldn't, and maybe I misinterpreted the way you just explained it, but you said something that it's like an optional thing. No. So if I think I'm a perfect teacher, then I'm not gonna get that, that instructor's not gonna be involved with me. That's what it sounded like. So that's how it came across. So, so I don't want to, I don't want to plow over too much of the ground that we did when we had our community night open to everybody on that. And I know that people can't always make things right. There are folks who are going to probably really get excited about having an instructional coach and will want that right away and

084might make great infrequent use it and frequent uc. And there are gonna be other people who are reluctant to do it or are nervous about doing it. And our goal is to not force someone to have a coach with them. There may be times when we want to suggest that or try to cultivate that relationship. Ms. Morty, like you wanna maybe say something about That? Yes. And I think a, a good determination too is an instructional coach doesn't relinquish us as the building principals and directors of our responsibility. When we identify a need that a teacher has, that's our responsibility to say, you know, that's when we have the formal meetings, the documentation, the more formal observations, the instructional coaching is when, you know, we have a lot of teachers who are coming to us.

085Um, I have a second grade teacher who wanted to look at Socratic seminars. They've never done it before. They've done some research, they're dabbling in it a little bit, but they really want that support so that they can really dive in. Those are the things that the instructional coaches are going to support our teachers in. I have another teacher in second grade who's just starting book clubs with her class, and she's been doing a lot of research on, um, the effectiveness of book clubs at the early childhood level and how you implement that in classrooms. Those are things that we dive into together. But, you know, as the, the building principal, I can't be in the classroom with them supporting them as they're rolling this out every single day. The instructional coach can be in

086there with them every day so that this rollout of these exciting, more sophisticated teaching strategies can be successful. And that the teachers, you know, the, the mindset behind it is that we're all lifelong learners. And Ed the world around us is changing so rapidly and education tends to be a little behind when as the world's changing, we're always kind of catching up where the notion of these instructional coaches and that encouragement to continue to be a lifelong learner. Now here's a partner. We wanna support you as a district. We value continuing to grow every single day. And this is how we're gonna support you in doing it. That then will have that domino effect. Instead of affecting 20 students in one class, now we can bring that to 15 classes. And then you have that

087longer domino effect. But Clearly if it is, if a teacher or in in a classroom, there's, you're seeing difficulty in math or science or, That would be my responsibility. So this instructor won't even help with that. They might, but I would own that, that I identified a really specific need. The coach might be an additional person who goes and supports them, but I would be the one to really closely monitor if there's a teacher who might be, that I've identified as lacking in an area as the administrator in the building, I own that and I need to monitor that. We never give up, we never give up that responsibility, and we never give up that authority. Right. So that, that is a piece that rests firmly where it should be rested. We're gonna move on

088at this time. You had another question about ap uh, uh, reviews and res reviews. Chrisy, Uh, yes. And there was the work-based learning coordinator. So I'm, I'm gonna let Mr. Forker take the AP and regens piece. I'll speak briefly about work-based learning coordinator because we will definitely share more with the community about that. Like as you said, Ms. Aguilar, when you experience that yourself as a student, there has to be time carved out for students to be able to work with the coordinator and then also go to the internship. Or go to the mentoring experience, right? Because I'm in school for nine periods of day and I'm doing all of my learning. And yes, we will have a carve out for that and a structure and schedule for it. Um, this is a thing that

089successive boards have talked about, that our students need and deserve internship experiences. They need and deserve, um, mentoring programs and like, 'cause they're ready to fly with that. They're ready to do really, really good work. You will have more information for our, you know, high school community about that. And then I'll turn it over to Mr. Re about prep. Yeah. So AP review classes, we, we actually finalize the schedule. And one thing that I changed this year that maybe some wasn't accepted and and loved at first, typically an AP class would get three review classes. And a lot of times in the past there'd be, they was starting at 3:30 PM and the major complaint was a lot of our students can't go because of their other obligations. So what I did this year was

090I said, one class can start before five 30. Other than that, the other two have to start five 30 or later. That schedule's all done. All the teachers have 'em. Some of 'em have shared, some have not because a lot of the AP review classes started in April because our AP exams started on May 5th. Okay. And I'm sure coaches would, would honor that Without a doubt. And, and, and I'll, I'll communicate with Mr. Block and we'll make sure that, that, that we work on that. I'll say that there is one exception, one AP class. There's four students and none of the students have, uh, any after school sports. So all four of those are starting at three 30. I don't want him to speak. So in case maybe that'll, you know, affect someone in

091this room, uh, that's for that. As far as redistribute classes, we just finalized ap. The re the Regents test don't start until June 17th, with the exception of the geometry regions, which is June 11th, where we actually have a list of teachers already. Now we're starting to finalize the times and everything else. I'm gonna try to do the same exact thing as far as having maybe one class start after school, but the other ones have to start later in the day. Again, as you know, as a teacher, that's a challenge because that's kind of time that they're trying to kill. Uh, but we're gonna do our best we can Now, just to follow up on that. 'cause I understand and after school it's very difficult, but I would hope it there'll be Regents Review being

092done in the classroom. 'cause there was a year where there wasn't, so I'm just Yes. Okay. Yes. We actually have our regents, we, we have it called a Regents Rescue team that we're meeting, uh, we have a full committee on that. We're actually gonna be targeting students based on the midterm scores on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, extra help. We're not even waiting for Regents Review. So we have, we have the whole team working on that now. But Regents courses will be reviewed during class as well. Of course, Of course. Yes. Yes. Thank you. I I know what you're talking about that One. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Good evening. Um, my questions are more, uh, curriculum related. Uh, you mentioned several times effective instruction, however, uh, what about the curriculum that the teachers

093are provided to deliver this, um, effective instruction? I went through, um, the appropriated budget that was provided, uh, prior, and lots of money is spent on, uh, i I, I don't know, curriculum consultants. I think we spoke about, uh, that, that, uh, professional that comes into the district provides support conferences and workshops, uh, instructional coach, uh, PD that will be provided. So there's a lot of money going out for curriculum. Um, curriculum writing over $70,000, uh, STEM B, uh, humanities, fine Arts, Chevrolet, project Based Learning Fine Art. Um, I just was, I was looking for the other 31,000. I couldn't find that. The instructional coach, the assessment specialist. Uh, what curriculum are we actually teaching our students in the primary grades? I went through, uh, the website. I was able to find cherry lanes, um,

094K one and two curriculum. I see. Uh, I could not find any reading curriculum. Um, I know Ms. Morty touched on Science of Reading, but that's not a curriculum. That's more of a methodology. Mm-hmm. Um, and you know, I know Ms. TI mentioned the decrease in vocabulary textbooks, which my daughter happens to actually really love. It is moving away from photocopies that my daughter has been using for the last three years. This is math. Mm-hmm. This is so, um, textbooks, I guess we don't need those, but we should increase duplicate photocopy. So my question is, what exactly are the children's learning in the reading area? Math? I know. Is i-Ready where? Um, but where, where's the curriculum? Where, where's the, the materials that the teachers are given for ELM and reading, writing, I know they

095discussed, you know, an upcoming writing initiative, um, uh, phonics, visual phonics going on at Rushmore. So students that are struggling at Cherry Lane may come up to, um, Rushmore still struggling. And in addition to the curriculum guides online, uh, they should be reviewed. Um, I know there is, you know, someone in district office in charge of curriculum, however many of the documents are from 2018, music, math, foreign language, all of 'em, very outdated superintendents two, three years prior to your arrival. So I think my term really is curriculum. What are you allowing these teachers, what are they teaching in lower grades? And you for your time. Thank You Mrs. Ben. So that's a very, very wide ranging question and probably a wider ranging question than we can answer right here tonight. I know that Ms.

096Morty and Ms. Ti and, and Ms. Reds can give you a deeper, you know, more succinct, both deeper and more succinct answer on that. Couple things to know, right? When we do curriculum writing, right? Summer curriculum writing is a normal thing that old school districts do. That is work where teachers are creating units. Could be a unit of study for mathematics or for reading, or for social studies or science. Those are things that get created. We spend money on them and they are expected to be used in the classroom, right? So the principal or the director we supervise that those things are being implemented and they're being implemented effectively, right? Especially if we're spending money, um, you know, our principles or our directors can have a longer conversation with you or Ms. Fredericks about like,

097specifics on reading or writing or mathematics in K through six, right? So we can definitely do that. Um, I would say, I guess last but not least, if we're expending any kind of financial resources to get curricular materials or we are writing curriculum, we supervise to make sure that it gets used. We supervise to make sure that it gets used effectively and we want to see is it having the outcome for students that we need? And if it isn't, how do we change it together? Right? Like, that is a bedrock responsibility for us that we, we take really seriously. And, and I would say that to give your answer really the depth that it deserves, that's a, it's an offline conversation. Um, we Okay. Over here is anybody? Mm-hmm. Right. We're good. Okay. So you

098can set time up on them, Ms. Brener if you want. Okay, thank you. Sure. Hi, I have a quick question. Um, as far as Ms. Short, right? Yes. I'm sorry. Um, you spoke about the Rushmore, the grades. Our current third graders have four teachers in one section. Why are we the only ones not getting another teacher? What happens in August? Hypothetically, if we get two new students, 10, 10 new students, we're gonna be at about 25 people class. So it's concerning. My daughter already has 23 kids and you know, they struggle with a lot of things. So it's kind of like, why are we the only one at four else else is at five? Well, I'm sorry, I don't wanna cut because I know you No, You could. Is that It? Yeah, because I'm just

099looking at it. You're doing the incoming third graders from Charlie Lane are gonna have five. We are only gonna have four teachers. So another teacher for Question, right? Yes. That's it. Thank I just wanna very much, so our commitment was to be at 22 or fewer, right. And there are, there are sections in different grades that have under 20. There are some that are going to go up to 22. Right? Okay. And if we happen to have some sort of gigantic influx, which is not the most likely thing by the way, it could always happen. We'll look at that at the time. Every year when you do a school budget, you have to balance the size of your classes with the cost of the budget. And I'll tell you that this board has been adamant

100is probably too, too light word. I might even say ruthless, but that has like negative, negative connotations to it. Deadly, deadly serious about keeping class sizes as low as possible. And one of the things that we have talked about the need to consider very, very strongly as we go forward is how much cushion is enough cushion? How much can we live with in case you have some sort of large over the counter summertime registration. That is something that the board takes very seriously. No particular grade. We're not looking to shortchange anyone. We're not looking to make life difficult for anyone. We committed to 22 or fewer. And, and that is where we are as we go forward with this. We will look very, very seriously at how we can get even tighter in the future.

101At a certain point, we have to make a decision and we have to move forward with it. And that's where we are right now. Yes. That's my answer. Okay. Well just keep that third grade in mind. We're already at 22, 22, 23 and 22, you know, so we're, we're climbing and you know, you know, they're behind me reading and math and all these things that we discussed. The more kids you put in, the guys in the middle get lost. Mm-hmm. I hear you. So It's, you know, it's important. Thank you. Thank You. Thank you. Any other questions? I'm sorry. Um, I know this, uh, Ms. Christine asked what is an assessment specialist? Can you go a little, what, what is the role of an assessment specialist at Rushmore? And they're only half, they're only appointed

102to that position or half of the time. So are, is it part-time person or is it, are they're doing that half the time and something else happened? This is not a new position. It's something that's been in place ever since I've been at Rushmore. Um, it's someone who is part five. It's data and assessment. So they basically take care of ordering all the state tests, proctoring assignments, doing the state testing, pulling those data reports, um, a lot of administrative stuff in that. Okay. Kind of field. And then there are 0.5 other teaching responsibilities throughout the day. Oh, so this 0.5. Oh, so, but they're a full-time. Yeah. Obviously a full-time employee. It's a full-time employee. Okay. But they're doing something else. Yes. Still at Rushmore. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. There be no other questions.

103I will end the meeting. May I have a motion to close the public meeting? I that motion. Thank you very much.