001Good evening everybody. [clears throat] Welcome to the October 6 meeting. We call the meeting to order. Pledge allegiance of America and to the republic stands nationis andice. [clears throat] You're >> welcome to ask for consent motion. One question 1.03 upon the recommendation of the superintendent to approve the October 6th, 2025 regular board meeting agenda. Any questions on tonight's agenda topics on a number of items. I think we will be adding an executive session. Yes. >> All in favor? Any >> post? I'd like to ask for a consent motion for item 1.04 04 on the recommendation of the superintendent to approve the September 15, 2025 regular board meeting minutes. >> Second. >> Any questions on the the minutes of September 15th? >> All in favor? >> Any oppos? >> Not elementary. We do have middle school
002and high school, but Ally and Jonah both have soccer games tonight, but Ally wrote up a report and Craig's gonna share that on behalf of student reps. >> All right, you want to do it now or >> All right, sounds good. Um, so just want to provide a quick update on what's been happening in the middle of high school. Um, this week and next week will be filled with school spirits as we celebrate homecoming 2025. Uh, students are participating in being spirit days. Uh today being PJ day PJ's uh twin day, jersey day, and blue and white day on Thursday. Um and they'll come together for a pep rally as well on the field of dreams. Uh student council has done a really good job of organizing the week, and we saw strong involvement from
003clubs, athletics, and the arts, including the the pep band. Uh the varsity football team will play Kosio Greenwood on Friday night for the homecoming game. And we're also recognizing our senior athletes in the upcoming weeks. And the homecoming dance will take place on Friday, October 17th. So the homecoming dance is like a week later than homecoming just because of the long weekend. Um they wanted push that out a little bit uh to have more involvement. Um in addition to homecoming events, students recently took a field trip to Alfred State where they to the campus, met with staff, explored different academic programs, and this was a great opportunity for students to start thinking about college and career options. Uh fall sports are continuing to wrap up and more senior nights are scheduled for soccer, volleyball, and
004other teams in the coming weeks. Clubs are actively meeting and preparing for events from drama club getting ready for their performance of newsies to national honor society and yearbook. Overall, there's been a lot of positive things in the middle school high school buildings with students getting involved in a variety of academic and extracurricular activities. That's from Ellie Fowler. >> Thank you. Okay, well done. Thanks. [clears throat] >> All right, takes us right to presentations. We have the music department here. >> Good evening everybody. Thanks for having us. Uh, you know, John Bear uh John works very closely with our department, assistant marching band director and is always on our band trips with us uh and is very helpful. So I asked him if he could be here tonight uh as we go through what's coming
005up. Uh so you know that uh years ago high school band trip was a thing for a long time and uh in 2024 we were able to bring it back and I was really excited because it had been since 2018 uh the last trip 2024 was a huge success for us. Uh the students have a lot of a lot of great experiences. We were at Sunni Fredonia Cleveland with an orchestra. It was it was it was a really great time. It's something that I'm excited to do again. Uh so we're planning for March of 2026 March 27th through the 29th. We're going to head to Baltimore first and then onto the Washington DC area. a lot of activities planned centered around arts and and science and athletics, things like that. Uh but our main focus
006on Saturday is going to be a visit with a group called the Capitol Wind Symphony. These are professional musicians from really all over the country as many of them are in military ensembles, Marine Corps band, Navy band. Uh some of them are members of the Baltimore Symphony. So we have the opportunity to clinic with those folks uh and their director as well, Dr. William Lake, who's uh the director of bands at George Mason University. So, we're very excited about the trip and uh we're here to ask for your blessing. >> All right. >> Any questions? Anybody on the trip? >> It was a huge success last time. Super excited to do it again. >> The highlight for us was uh being able to work with the director of bands at Fredonia. um the alma mo
007of every one of our actually it was really cool highlight was seeing him conduct his own band on stage that he learned and now we get to do the same thing but this time with a with a group of professional uh musicians and we've never had that before. I think the kids are going to look up to these people with great awe and it's going to be really a really great workshop and there's fun built around that as well. It's gonna be a great trip. >> All right, good. Any questions for you? >> Motion. >> Yep. I'd like to ask for a consent motion for 3.02 02 on the recommendation of the superintendent to approve the high school band trip to Baltimore, Maryland, Washington DC from March 27th through March 29th, 2026. >> Second, any
008>> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> What I was going to say there [laughter] [clears throat] this uh the trail. So the team has put together a great presentation um you know at the request of the board to take a a close look at some of our data points and so you know it's something it's a normal practice that we do not just on the quantitative data that we collect through some of the higher states test like regions and 3 through8 testing which we will share those data points but you know obviously the whole comprehensive program creates a lot of data for us to look at beyond just testing data uh beyond just state testing data. So, we want to give kind of a more overview of the performance and and steps toward our target areas
009and really focus on not just what the data points say, but really what we're doing as an administrative team and full staff at GCO to make sure that um you know, we're not just improving our data as a mark, but we're improving our over overall academic program. So, take it away, guys. >> All right. Well, thank you for having us here tonight. Um, a couple things that you're just going to see. We're going to kind of go through the three through eight ELA and math uh scores, also New York State region scores, um, and AP scores. Um, and then also just some things related to social emotional learning and how we're integrating all that, um, into the academics as well. Um, because obviously we're here to support the whole child as well and obviously we
010know for them to be successful academically, they have to be emotionally well and socially well as well. Um really our approach when we're looking at this data um it's not just about the numbers and things like that. Uh we really want to work on uh transparency and purpose. Obviously we're not looking at blame or those kind of things. We're really looking at data um to improve our instruction what we're doing in classroom on a on a daily basis. Um obviously want to celebrate our successes. We have some some really good data, some really good checkpoints that we want to make sure that we're celebrating and sharing that as well. Um and then obviously just making sure that uh we're really connecting everything um overall. So really, you know, as we go through this, we're going
011to show the data. Uh we'll give some data points, things like that. We'll kind of review a few things that we did last year. Um and then we'll also kind of highlight some areas that we're really working on this year to improve those scores and things like that. >> Hello, my first grade friends. You are in a new chapter. of school. >> Reagan, why do you like to come to school? >> Because I like going to steam. >> What do you like to do when you're at steam? >> I like to draw pictures. >> Awesome. I love your creative mind. Phillip, how about you? Why do you like to come to school? >> I like to come to school cuz I like my teachers and they feel they make me feel like I'm at home.
012>> They make you feel like you're at home. That's great. and Angelie >> because I like seeing you and I like to do math. >> I like to see you too and I love that you like math. Well, we're so happy that you come each and every day to school. You guys haven't missed any school yet, have you? >> No. Good job. All right. Go. So, we share that because um our primary goal is to get the kids in the door and wanting to be here um because once they're here and they're in the door, that's where we can capture their attention and be able to um learn and grow beside them. So, just a quick review on some of the data that was already shared. Again, going back to you reach before you teach.
013So success looked like for last year and it'll continue to be a focus for us is focusing on um decreasing our chronic absenteeism rate. Uh so again the dark blue is from 23 24 school year. The light blue is 24 to 25 school year. So you can see how much we decreased that. We can kind of skip through this one pretty quick. And then middle school, high school, uh same thing, continuing to improve there. And again, uh really decreasing our out of school suspensions. Um overall for elementary and for middle school, high school because again, we want the kids here. We want them out and feeling safe and connected within the school setting um so they can really uh tap into the academic side of um the experiences here at Jennio. >> So just a
014quick review our action steps. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but we shared this last year. Uh these were some of our focus points last year for 2425 um at an elementary level, middle school, high school in a district. uh really working on aligning K12 things across the board um and really work on kind of really strengthening some things that we're doing internally uh with our for our students with our staff and things like that. So those are some of our focuses in 2425. Um and now we're going to kind of go through some of the data and then we'll show you some things that we're trying to do this year 2526 uh to strengthen some of those things that uh we didn't quite get through that last year. So
015three through eight testing um we kind of look at that. We look at our Boseies average is kind of where we took a look at that. So our ELA testing kind of see where it falls um within our Boseies. So we're pretty much within the average range of our our Bosei uh component schools. Um and that kind of just shows that from our our state testing last year in ELA. >> So the proficiency is students who um scored a three or a four. And if we look at our map three through eight, kind of same thing. Our our Bosey's averages right there in the middle. Um a few drop off points there in fourth and fifth. But obviously we have some things in place in some areas that we're working on to improve those. Um
016and we'll show you go over those a couple at the end. But again, proficiency rates right there and kind of see where we're at for our state test. And then also again as our fifth grade and eighth grade take the science profit science state test. Uh so you see where our grade five is Bosey's average is about 46. We're about 38. Um and then our eighth grade is uh 56 a little bit above the Bosey's average of 43% there. Our state science test. Uh we share this data too as well. Um this is just a three-year cohort trend. So you can kind of take a look at that just how they they do over three years. Uh 22 23 23 24 and 2425. Um so it's broken up there. And you know you can see
017um there's a little dip here and there but most of them are improving um as they they go on and year after year after year. So, we thought that's important just to see that data with the cohorts because that's really what we should be looking at is each cohort specifically and not just on a yearly basis and comparing last year's sixth grade to this year's seventh grade. So, we just wanted to show that data as well. >> So, this is truly just watching the same cohort from three then four. >> Correct. Yep. So, that same cohort over three years. So cohort one which is the blue line um you know that was grade three and 22 23 and then 23 24 they would have been in fourth grade and >> so that's the ELA trend
018for that and then we also have the math one as well which kind of shows the same thing for the most part uh you know pretty steady and then most of them are improving by the time they get to 24 25. So we just wanted to share that just a quick at the glance for each cohort group so you could kind of see that there >> rather than just the one year specifics. >> Yeah, >> we have a lot of students acting out of the state testing. >> Would you say >> we had a lot in elementary our fifth grade had quite a few things that became almost exciting thing to do. Um, so that's something we talk about as administrative team to really watch for as that cohort goes into sixth grade, but we
019got a pretty large number out that third, fourth, not too much. >> I wish I wish they would tell the parents they have [laughter] the test because once they hear they don't have to take a test, >> well, one of the things we tried last year too is a snack cart like endurance eats, right? And the snacks are for students taking the test. And so we wheeled it in and you know, not that we want to fry with food, but just showing like we understand you're taking on a heavy load this morning, right? Like here's an apple, here's some goldfish because we want to support you in this endeavor. So a lot of kids caught wind of that and were pretty enticed by it. So we'll see little things like that just our mindset around
020the testing. >> And the other thing we have to remember last year we did have it was a a little bit of a challenge um year. We were like one of the first testing groups. Um, so we had some issues with the technology that first day where like kids sat for probably 45 minutes to an hour waiting for the system to come back up because we were told it was going to come back up and not to let them go anywhere. So they sat there for a while in a classroom um waiting and waiting and waiting. You know, some of our grades were able to go on and do it and some of them didn't. They had to come back the next day and take it. And so there was a lot of things too
021that impacted that kid scores as well that we have to remember. It wasn't just sit and take the test and there's a lot of interruptions and changes which is very hard. It would be hard for us to do that and sit there for an hour and then all a sudden have to get back focused and take the test let alone you know eight year olds, nine year olds, 12 year olds, 13 year olds when they're trying to do that. So those are a couple other areas I think that we have to think of a little took place this past year. Anything else on that quick data? So just regions data from 2025. This is this is June regions data. Um so you kind of look there obviously our proficiencies rankings. Um, so you can kind
022of see that there. We have to remember also some of this is also dependent on how many kids are taking the test depending on the subject area um and who's taking the test. Some schools don't offer every single regent exam or have kids taking every single regent exam. So whether it could be classes, some schools might have five kids or 10 kids take it where we might have 30 kids take it. So that's a variation too that you have to take into account when we're looking at that data on there. But that's just our our proficiency across the board um and how we rate there. I think another important positive is to look at our mastery rates compared to our GB Boseis. Um and so if you look at there and our rank is there,
023we're we're pretty high rate which is 85% or higher across the bosses. So, you know, if you look at a couple different areas there, obviously the areas that we can focus on, areas that we can work on improving in. Um, those are some things we're doing, but I think it's important to show that mastery rate as well as the proficiencies. And then I want to share our AP data. If you look at our AP data, obviously that's out of a five. You see what our GCS mean score is, and then you'll see the New York State, and then they also al also the national mean. Uh so when you look at that AP score, we pretty much are above the state means score as well as the national. So I think you know our students
024do pretty well uh those AP tests that they take. I think our teachers do a really good job preparing the students for that. Most of those students are are pretty challenged and some of them are taking three or four AP uh classes and three or four AP exams. So they're really putting the time in working on that and our staff is really devoted. They do some extra time before school starts to prepare our students and then they put a lot of time in throughout the throughout the school year and then also some time preparing. So any questions on any of that data? Obviously we we always will look more we'll drill down a little bit more um at the data and kind of look at you know different things like that. We're really working with
025Peter on kind of looking at the regent exams, looking at questions and areas that we can improve on and things like that as well as we look. But, you know, really the data is the data. Um, and now it's what are we doing to help support and improve? How are we collaborating with our staff to really do that? Staff is putting a lot of time in, a lot of effort in to really making sure that we're doing things right for our students and making sure things are going smooth. So I think Me and Chris are going to talk a little bit about our action steps, our focus and some things that we implemented last year and continue to this year. So for elementary um continuing to enhance typical go blue experiences um bring in a
026um a liaison to help us connect with um a variety of community groups um to better reach um more families who might be hesitant to come in. Um, so we are our focus is really trying to offer more community experiences both on campus but also out in the community at 2526. Um, just that last week we had a fall family night. It was essentially a parent university where the kids came and played and the parents got to go to school and so we had PASA that was there to offer an introduction to um, triple P parenting classes. We had a lot of community organizations. We also had our reading team teaching about being a reader at the math university. We had a zones of regulation group. So um you know although it was a small
027it was a mighty group and the feedback was wonderful um and we look forward to continuing to build upon that. Um we are also uh again fully implementing this year being a reader and being a writer. we got through those pilot years, how it's full on in and really um drilling down to the essentials and working with working on how they really mesh together um and having coaching cohorts throughout the year to support that work. Uh we are piloting I Ready classroom math which I shared at the end of last year but uh that's to help address some of those gaps that we have in our math scores. um it's noticing and recognizing that maybe what we have been teaching is amazing and it challenges the kids but it's not quite yet to what this
028the state is asking for. So we're trying to fill that gap with um having very uh cohesive curricular curricular resource that um has vertical connections as well as horizontal connections across the grade levels. And that connects directly to the work that we've already been doing with our diagnostic screeners with I Ready. Um what is wonderful about the program is it also um there's on Monday there's a check-in right and it will then adjust lessons for each individual child and then there's a check out at the end of the week or end of the fifth uh learning experience and you have data right in the center of your hands and you know exactly what to do with it and truly differentiated instruction for each individual student. And then we have our MF coach. She has been
029working so hard. Christy Heg um can support tier one and tier two behavior. Um again starting up the year in that way but now moving into the academic piece and making sure that we are reaching um not high kids but also the bubble kids um with the kids who are kind of on that just outside of needing academic intervention services. we want to be able to give them like skill in real time to be able to um have additional practice opportunities. So, uh she's been a huge asset to the team and for the middle school high school just in our continuous uh approach and vertically aligning as best we can. We're taking the go blue focus and we've asked each department to kind of realign how they approach their department meetings and their focus for
030the year. So yes, there's business items, there's the the typical stuff that they will need to speak about, discuss, but we've asked each department to brainstorm and come up with a so under our go blue umbrella, under our culture and climate, what can you do as a department? What do you feel passionate about? What's in your control to help support us moving forward with that? So it could be something like the English department serving as the writing revolution leaders. um it could be um math department looking at have some retirements unfortunately coming up and how do we best fill those gaps and fit the needs of our students now with course selections and and where people are placed. So, just really asking everybody to find something that their department is passionate about and that they
031really feel like they can use half of their department meetings to help support. Um, with professional development, we're trying to as much as we can send people out to bring it back and do a lot of in-house PD. We have a lot of brilliant, talented people inhouse and so trying to make the most of what we can teach each other. One would be through Brisk. So we have monthly brisk is um a new tool we have this year to help support a variety of things really catering to um educator AI right and um having an embedded student component of that that's monitored. So not only is it helping our staff to become more comfortable and aware and and play around with what's here for good but it's also adding a component that eventually we can
032help support students understand and access in the appropriate ways too. So um between that PD between continuing the writing revolution our goal is by the end of the year all of our social studies and science teachers will have gone through the training and we will be moving on to the next phase which is really auditing how we're embedding it. And so that's just it's not a re it's not a curriculum it's a resource and it's a way to embed more writing into any content area because more of the assessments are reading and writing intensive. So we need to know that that's not limited to just the ELA classroom. We are stringing along a lot of use of I Ready. So the math curriculum has extensions to 68, but we also have a diagnostic tool for
033the first time in grades 9 through 12. So we've asked all AIS providers in ELA and math to provide that diagnostic benchmark. And so we'll it's our first go from a high school lens of taking that and then using it to personalize instruction in AIS a little bit more or as much as our schedule will allow us for because those cohorts are mixed grade levels but we wanted to make it more meaningful and targeting skill deficits too. So that's a resource that we're using. We've created uh trackers that are have um all teachers have access to. So at the middle school it will have all students with support services whether it's AIS learning center and it will be an informative tool that teachers can go on and update um what work needs to be done
034upcoming assignments so that if I have a student in learning center or I have a student in AIS I know pretty much what they're expected to be doing that entire week and so I can help provide support instead of relying on I'm doing detective work and searching for all these things or I'm just relying on what the student shares. So, it's meant to be a more proactive, real time um account for what we can help support students with. And we'll say along those same lines, we're looking at small ways now that we can have bigger impacts. So, the middle school schedule, we had a third period giant study skills. Um not conducive at all to a study skill that was in the large cafeteria. It was basically if you're not in a chorus or um
035support service, you were kind of in this this area. So, 40 plus students. So, we've looked at schedules, we've reconfigured, we've talked to team leaders, we've um met with different providers that period and we've restructured it. So, now we have smaller study skills. We have students placed in different support services who may not have needed at the beginning, but now we're looking at data and we're thinking this could be a helpful um addition. So, it's actually presenting an opportunity for them to use it for study skills and to to actually have a teacher for 20 students versus um you know in the cafeteria where they're not getting that um small group instruction. And then with our district, so a lot of these are the same that we've carried over. We continue to work and really
036focus on our vertical alignment. We're continuing to audit what local curriculum we have and how we can move forward with um finalizing department work on those pieces. We have in the next slide we'll talk about this too, but as a K12 mental health team, we've really started to look at how we can universally um combine forces, if you will, and meet monthly and stay up to date on different initiatives and just have that communication piece. So again, we're a small district and we're all on the same page and using the same practices and procedures. We're sending a second cohort to the RTI at work conference at the end of October. So we'll have 20 people who have at that point then gone through that training. Um so we'll be able to add to our guiding
037coalition from last March and just a continuation of looking at the many ways in which we can connect with the community. So I think if we go to the next slide, it kind of builds on some of those. But we know if we don't have this right, nothing else we do matters, [snorts] right? So we need to make sure that we get kids here and they feel good about school and they feel connected. Otherwise, we can do all we can and we're not going to make the progress that we want. So some of our go blue highlights as a foundation, we celebrated the month of leadership as our trade of the month for September. We had our first ever Bridgebuilders orientation and we will be having our first quarter check-in. In fact, I heard from
038a student today say that a ninth grade student who had been a part of her cohort, she was a bridge builder, didn't say anything that day. Seems very um reserved, quiet, but has been asking her almost every other day when is the next check-in. So, it's just a reminder that you don't always know on the outside how you're impacting people, but we think that this has been a really positive addition and we look forward to continuing it and improving it. Mentioned the monthly district mental health team meetings, our welcome back. So, our kickoff event that we thought um was a great first event and we look forward to building that up even more next year. The goal again was to initiate that connection from the get-go. Um so, we'll look to continue with that. if
039you speak to this. Uh, Big Blue, Little Blue is getting started this week and I was floored when I walked into the meeting for anyone interested in becoming a new big, not returners. And we have, I think I checked this morning, I have 60 applications of students in grades 9 through 12 who are newly applying to become a big. I then have 30 returning bigs from last year who have reapplied. >> So, I think that's that just speaks tremendously. >> [clears throat] >> Um, and that's such a crucial part of anything else we want to do. >> It has a big impact. I was I was walking an elementary student down student elementary the other morning and I was walking and there was a high school student waiting out there and they connected eyes with
040each other and like, "Oh, you were my big, my love." They ran over, gave each other hugs and everything else. And that's from last May or June. They just saw each other last week. Like, so you see that connection. Um, you don't always see that, but I happen to be walking there at the time that it happened. That's pretty cool. Like you actually when you see that happen, you know that the relationship building and how important it is um for that to happen. So, that was a kind of a great thing to see and things that I do and kind of getting that program off and running and the staff as well. >> And last but not least, >> yeah, with a twist, but the devil, the blue devil mascot has been a long point
041of conversation, but we again just making it more fun, presenting more school spirit. Um, that was the Blue Devils reading students outside in the morning and not many tears. Um, I think it was wellreceived, but it's I think, you know, even some of the middle school students would walk by like, I'm not so sure, but they they would turn around, oh, it's very cool. you know. So, um we're trying to have that mascot show up at different sporting events, different engagements, uh morning greetings. We had the mascot go to the September Go Blue assembly, but it was a who is the Blue Devil. So, Christie had clues as to which teacher was wearing the costume. And talk about crowd control, that place was insane. The [laughter] K5 with this celebrity mascot that walked in, kids
042were like, it was it was loud. It was exciting. Um they loved it. And so again, just building up that positive feeling and connection. And then I'll just speak to Gap with a twist. Um as you all know, GAP um for elementary uh has been a focus on chorus and band and and orchestra. Um which is incredible. Um we have the kids sign up at the in the springtime for all of those opportunities. um it does leave back a a pretty large group of kids who do not participate in fine arts. So we came together um with the fourth and fifth grade teachers, the special area teachers and we said how can we reach all students and I have to say it's it's been awesome. Um we have opened up a variety of clubs that
043that students are are able to take part in. So there's a photography club that's led by Andrea Sagato. So they Mr. Hull was so kind and got them actual real cameras, not just smartphones. Um so they learn how they learn about the history of photography and they actually go out and they um take photos which will then eventually lead into photos that will go into another group that's working in Canva and they're going to be designing newsletters to report the fifth grade. We have um uh an art group with Mr. Wedge, Mr. Rose who are working together. We have um with Miss Garrett. Uh I was just in there this morning. They they are writing a play and it's about misfit toys. And I don't know if you know the sticky hands, right? Sticky hands
044are really the misfit ones that are really dirty and gross. Nobody wants them. And I to I connected immediately with that. Um, but they're writing the play and they're going they're like practicing it and they're going to be sharing and presenting. My goodness, it's incredible. So, uh, again, that is getting the kids in the door. 7:45 they go right to their gap locations. Um, it's Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, um, is when we have gap for all we say. And it used to be guided additional practice because the kids who would were left behind like who didn't take part in the chorus uh band in fine arts they would um they might play chess or they might do some additional guided practice. Um but now we shifted it and it's gather achieve perform. So all students are
045thing so to try and increase the attendance and on time arrival. We were lucky enough to have Duncan Kirkwood come present to three different groups. We had three through five, six through eight, 9 through 12. And he was a speaker at a leadership conference a few years back. And every student that came back thought, "Oh my goodness, we have to get him to speak here." So, he's been on our list for a couple years now. So, we were finally able to get him. and his um message is really about resiliency and really about finding your purpose and passion and taking the initiative to seize opportunities and being a leader and he was able to weave in our go blue traits and it was very inspiring and we had a ton of students um have positive
046uh comments afterward. This comment in the corner is from a parent who posted um about how her son came home inspired. Not that it's necessarily provable. We had a couple students who chose um instead of saying in their current English class senior year, they're like, "You know what? I'm going to give this challenge a try." They said, "I don't know if it's because of the assembly. I'm not saying it is. I'm not saying it's not, but I'm going to give this a try." And so regardless, right? Um just inspiring students to want to do more. Remember that they're capable of that. and 26 testing dates. So, um, no, overall those are really, you know, we wanted to show you the data overall, just kind of where we were. Um, but I really think it's more
047important to really hear about all the other things, all the other supports, all the other interventions, all the things that staff is doing. We're trying to build that relationship with the community um and really work together collaboratively to improve our student achievement data by doing a lot of because I think that's that's the way we're going to do it is getting our students here in school, having them be excited about being in school um and really making sure that we can provide them some sound instruction uh to improve that. So really that's you know part of our highlight of the day is just to dig a little bit deeper work well with your staff questions [clears throat] >> doing a wonderful job. I really appreciate all your efforts. >> Certainly want to thank you for
048the data well present represented and presented but also for the action plan that kind of gives us a sense of what's taking place next. We really appreciate that. Are you properly budgeted for everything? There's a lot up there and it looks like a lot of engagement involvement from a lot of people. Is there anything we can do to help you further in that budgets or otherwise? I know it's kind of mid years here, but hopefully this was all incorporated into the budget we had last time. I think there's uh I mean I think there's two things obviously being right now a um targeted school a school need improvement and things like that that's helped us a little bit with a lot of these obviously getting some funding with that that's allowed us to do a
049lot of the different things we're doing. Um, obviously that's gonna carry on probably hopefully uh over the next couple years that funding source and things like that, but I do think those are conversations that we will have to have and we're going to continue to do some things and move forward. Um, but I do think a lot of things we're doing are internal things um working on some of our systems and our processes um and having them those internal conversations. our staff is is really good. Um, and it's really about getting them on board and involved and working collaboratively with us to really improve those areas and that so I think you know money is always great um and nice to have >> just money I think we're trying to reason do those things and
050I think those are conversations had conversations with Sarah I've had conversations with Alison about things that we can do differently um moving forward to really help our staff students Thank you very much. Well done. >> If I could just add see all the dayto-day operations that go on, try to be out in the building and as visible as I possibly can. I think I've done a pretty good job of that so far. But, you know, even being the superintendent in this district, living it every day, when I see it on the screen like that and what has already taken place in a month, you think this was a presentation given in January over what's happened in the first couple months. So, uh, kudos to the team who's done such a great job across the board,
051uh, getting students acclimated back into the building in the the amount of amazing events and culture builders and just strengthening the overall um, you know, vibe within GCS has been tremendous. Um, feels good to be here to be part of it. So, great job to you guys. Um, one other thing I'll say about data. It was reported recently um, by a regional superintendent after a correspondence with the office of accountability. I couldn't believe I heard this, but through the office of accountability in the New York State Education Department that they've even put out a statement saying that, you know, state test scores are important, but they're not the end all beall. You should really be focusing on your local diagnostics, performance data, common assessments to really be driving the decisions you're making within the district
052to improve your overall academic program. There are snapshots, right? And to the point of what the team was saying on the first day of testing, it was a mess, right? I wasn't here. Um, but from what I heard, it was a mess. and you're asking kids to sit around for 45 minutes to an hour after they think they're getting started. Obviously, that's really impacting and carving out some of their stamina, carving into some of their stamina. And so, you know, you look at these data points and you wonder how much of that is really a valid data point for all those students. So, therefore, you take it, you look at it, you dive into it, and you try to make some adjustments from it. But the most important thing is all of the information we're
053collecting on a daily basis through our local programs and softwares that we're using. So I think it's an important thing to remember. >> Good points. >> Thank you. >> You're next. >> I am. Here I am. Um so a lot of the things I was going to share actually touched upon really well in depth. So I won't go into that but as you know our big blue little blue program is getting off the ground and I wanted to highlight the increase right and I heard the gasps and odds when you heard the number of increase but that's fantastic and that goes to show the momentum that's been created in the past year. Word is spreading what a great program that is and other kids want to be involved in it. Of course, the littles always
054want to be involved in them because they get to look up to the role models, but that says a lot about our students if you think about it in terms of the older students wanting to give back to the younger. So, that I think that's absolutely fantastic. Um Christy touched on the great parent night, parent engagement night. What a fantastic um opportunity for parents to come in and learn more about, you know, parent square and how to create strong readers at home and and strategies for for math engagement and solving problems and um the whole idea around social emotional learning and zones of regulation and and what is emotional intelligence. Um what a fantastic we heard a lot of positive feedback. you know, it was a good start to something that I think is going
055to continue to spread, develop, and grow in the following years, just like many of the new initiatives we're trying. So, um, all departments have been really busy across the district. Um, you know, we've been Sarah and I have been diving into some special ed conversations and, um, we kind of had a little discussion about that at our subcommittee meeting tonight just around the idea of, you know, providing services and meeting all students needs. As you know, special education has quite a range of a profile and needs of the of the students and the needs have significantly increased since the pandemic. And so we're having a lot of regional conversations on how we best meet those individual student needs through the profiles, whether it's teaming up with other school districts around us. Um we're looking at
056Bosey's programs, looking at the challenges and the barriers that we have in front of us. um such as a teacher shortage, right? You know, so there might be ideas for getting programs off the ground, but finding the right fit for some of these special education programs isn't always easy. So, we're looking at those barriers and how we can get around that at the super regional superintendent level as well as the director level um and working really well with with GB Boseies around that. So I look forward to seeing what we can do not just to again look at individual profiles of students but how do we build a comprehensive program that's really focused on continuity through K through 12. So that's that's a major focus for us. This Friday we have superintendent conference day. As
057you know, um our focus is going to be on safety. Again, an overhaul, a review of our safety practices in all of our emergency procedures. We are teaming up with Jennio Police Department um Sergeant Lana and Chief Ocanian will be coming along with Joe Hopper uh to help us run some tabletop exercises which is a really great way to to look at our systems and try to plug some holes. I think we have some great safety procedures here in the district. Uh but we're there's always room for improvement. So teaming up with law enforcement is is a great way to do that. they bring very different lens than what we have as educators. Um we're looking at individual practices that we have in each one of the classrooms all the way from how's your classroom
058set up to you know each teacher has an emergency folder that has certain components in that. So we're doing an audit of that system as well and again just an overall review of our emergency procedures. So that's our superintendent conference day coming up here. Um, as you know, I've heard a lot of great feedback on this, but I know a couple board members even said something. Our presence on social media has grown significantly ever since our social media challenge that we put out. Um, lots of staff members are uh telling our story and taking pictures of what's going on in the school. And so many people don't understand all the wonderful things just like what we just heard right here about all the great programs. And now we need to put that out there because,
059you know, it's important that the community knows what their tax dollars are going toward, what the energy of our teachers and our support staff are um, you know, putting into the overall education of our students. And it's really fantastic. Um, some of our social media numbers, clicks, likes, interactions have increased by over 600%. Since the beginning of the year, so pretty fantastic. We're going to keep doing that. We're getting um a Genio Instagram page launched as well because we know there are different demographics from people who are on Facebook to different generation right that are on Instagram. So we're looking at trying to hit the audience in different ways. Um so that's our social media. And lastly, I would like to uh provide an update to you guys as well as the community on um
060what we have done since the beginning of the school year around our transportation. We heard, you know, the situation at the beginning of the school year on day one where two students were accidentally put on the wrong bus. Um and so from there, we did an immediate look and audit of all of our practices. Okay. And so it's really important that we share out um the areas that we felt we could improve in and the action steps that we put into place. Um so to start out um comprehensive from the drop off to the last kid that's the drop off in the morning to the last kid that's dropped off in the afternoon. Looking at every stage along the way and what we can do to make sure that students are safe. Uh while I
061feel like we did a really great job or have done in the past here at Jennisio a really great job of making sure that all students are safe all along the way. Even when mistakes happen, there are always ways to improve and we have found additional verification steps that um like a second review of transportation assignments that to possibly reduce errors. Um, we're ensuring through different internal procedures that daily attendance is taken and audited on a regular basis on the bus from every single bus driver as the students come on the bus. And we've even looked at some of our buses that show up kind of right at the end of the the time for students to get on the bus. We have, you know, even assisted, some of our staff members here have assisted
062in in helping to take attendance and do headcounts before the bus even arrives for those that have to run to Boseies and back. Um, we've strengthened our dismissal procedures by improving our staff communications between the the dismissal area inhouse within the office. Uh we have done a crossch check of parent pickup a verification of the official parent pickup list before releasing students even increasing within our electronic system inputting student ID numbers and ensuring that every parent guardian or designated person to come pick up is giving the student ID number as a security code as the students are being picked up. And that's that's a great safety check right there. Um, we've also looked into another layer that I think is really going to help us. We've ordered decals for our buses and we know some
063regional schools are doing that are associated with animals. So each bus will have an animal decal and then each student that rides that bus in elementary school will have a clip of that decal on their backpack. So again, even though the bus driver is taking attendance, it's a great visual cue for staff members, teachers, as well as the bus drivers to ensure that that person belongs on that particular bus. Um, and then the last thing we're doing is, uh, we've reached out to Traversa to try to get some information on additional software programs that we could possibly look at purchasing within the district that um, allows for the tracking of students digitally as an attendance taker. Not tracking where they are GPS locationwise, but tracking to make sure they're actually on the bus internally. So,
064um there are a variety of different steps and layers that you could look at. Um they do get quite pricey. Um but we're looking at different uh different uh types of packages and then as soon as we get that information, we'll be setting up a meeting to look at that and see what they could present to us. Um and then of course we'll involve you guys to come along and anyone that wants to see that presentation is welcome to come as well and and help us to make a decision as a district on direction we want to go. Um so I feel like these these changes have really strengthened our accountability and improved our dismissal procedures and you know the additional safeguards uh to en ensure student safety. Um the these safeguards and the additional
065checks have added an important layer. I think you know mistakes inevitably are going to happen more likely at the beginning of the year especially on day one. So, another thing that we're doing is in the summer of next year, we are going to revisit every single one of these steps in August, make sure that we're set and ready to go, and then that day one will be more smooth than it was this past year, uh, this year. Um, you know, and we we're we're in a human business, right? And our procedures are driven by humans. So there is definitely uh a human error component, but I think with everything that we've done in our overview and the changes that we've made have now really put us in a place where we're decreasing the chance of
066that there, right? It's about cross checks and checks and balances. So that's what we've done comprehensively within the district over the last uh few weeks to make sure that all of our students are safe at all times. Any questions for the board? Thank you. >> Thank you and to the team. That was >> Yeah. >> Big part of it. It was uh definitely a good So, >> nobody signed. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Nobody signed in for community. So, we'll go to committees. >> Audit met tonight. >> Yep. So, audit met tonight. Uh we took a preliminary look at the uh reserve plan for six. Um talked about instituting a three to five year plan looking out and uh planning for things. We also talked about process underway about building a database to track possible
067upcoming retirements so we can help budget for that in the future. Uh we briefly talked about the Jesse Valley Bosey's capital improvement project uh that is going to be proposed. Um, we talked about having Kevin McDonald come here to present and suggested that it be a open to the community so that they are aware because all GBO's districts have a financial component to that. So, it's important for our members of our district to be aware. Uh we talked about um what a what a fantastic management of uh our physical processes was last year. Um we'll have more definitive numbers after the official audit uh is gone over with us. U we received the audit draft which has arrived highlighted some areas uh for improvement. Um we're going to be meeting with the auditor in next
068coming months and we'll be going over that over 14 committee and then as uh Mike Crick explained we also talked about special education not only in our district but but GBO's wide and there's talks within the members of the GB Boseis about you know possible ways to go more in-house servicing students needs so that there's less travel service closer to home fully. >> Yeah, [laughter] right up to the great discussion. >> All right. Thank you. >> Have anything on policy? No, we did meet. Uh, our next meeting is going to be October 20th where we will start the war's um book review season. I get anything on GCEF. All right. With that, we go to personnel. >> Under personnel, I'd like to ask for a consent motion for items 8.02 through 8.20. We have a
069lot of personnel items here. Mostly substitutes changes uh coaching. Any questions on any of the personnel items? All in favor? >> I any opposed? >> It's stayain from 8.12. >> Okay. >> All right. Under new business like to ask for a consent motion from 9.02 through 9.06. questions on new business items, service agreements, employment agreements, and so on. All in favor? >> I any under section 10, the business office like to ask for a consent motion for items 10.02 through 10.05. Just from a we go to this I want to thank all those who have contributed. There's a number of of contributions primarily to the volleyball team team and and girls soccer team. Thank you to all those who donated to the for specific costs. Any questions on any of your items? All in favor?
070Any oppos? All right. Just >> if I could just real quick 9.07 was a discussion regarding the districtwide safety plan. >> Um just wanted to report out that >> Yep. the draft is online. Um it needs to be online for 30 days to seek any kind of feedback internally or externally within the community. So it's a just a a compliance thing. Uh but we did a a really deep overhaul look at the plan the best that we could at this time uh with the idea that we're going to continue to look at some improvements as we learn especially coming out of this um safety training that we're doing on Friday. So we're always looking at again our our comprehensive overview of our practices and then what we can do to make our safety plan even
071better. But I just want to let you guys know that it's up there. I don't know if anybody had a chance to look at or if you have any specific questions at this time, but if not going to go out there and then at the November 3rd meeting, is that what it is? Uh we'll do a public vote on approving that for this year. >> Good. Thank you. >> I did. >> I know Kevin has as well. >> All right. Um thank you. >> So, just a few comments as we uh begin to wrap up the meeting here. I want to thank everybody for the data presentation tonight and not just the presentation the the entire amount of work uh the leadership team the GFA elementary middle high school team in general who have really
072what I saw was great progress in many areas [clears throat] and action items to to kind of close the loop where where needed That's that's just tremendous effort on everybody's part. So, thank you. Uh I did have a chance to to join in and watch Duncan Kirkwood for a little bit of his his time. And I would in addition to his presentation which was inspirational, what I really saw and witnessed was the students engaged. He couldn't get enough students. He didn't have enough time to get every student. who wanted to be involved involved. So it was just uh from my perspective I just sat back and watched the students how enthused and excited and engaged they were in his in his presentation. So well done there Mike. Thank you for bringing up the transportation. I
073uh I was going to make a few comments but you covered it. Okay. So there will be a little additional followup with some community members in the very near future and I'll work on that. um capital project. Maybe if we can start incorporating a little bit of discussion on that. Uh I know we're still in review with SED, still waiting for their their approval. U but I know that the team is working on planning and and getting ready for that once it's done. So, uh we can in the future start incorporating some additional conversations a little bit and make sure everybody is aware of what's taking place. >> Yeah. And I think it's important for the community, if you don't mind me interjecting real quick. Um, >> we've been kind of waiting for that, you
074know, on our edge of our seat for that final approval. And then, you know, I've been waiting to do an update to you guys and to the community on where we stand with that, but I've been waiting in limbo. Um, but I do think it's important because I've been thinking about it. Um, even if we're in limbo, I think it's important that we put out that we're still within that phase in case anybody is wondering within the community. We're still within that phase of waiting for final SED approval. You know, in discussions with SEI architects as well as campus construction. Um we are everything looks great, right? Like everything looks like it should we're getting little pieces of feedback. We're making adjustments and sending them back, but we don't anticipate any struggle with that. And
075then we're looking at the next phase, which would be planning the bidding process being ready to roll on January 1. But we'll uh we have an OAC meeting tomorrow and >> good >> we'll continue up with >> and I know you're all planning and because we've had some conversations on this that the logistics of when once the project starts how do we manage the logistics in and around the school district while everybody's coming to school and and some variety of areas that you're looking >> good thank you uh to the board and to general to the uh leadership team and community general that right now we're planning to have a board of education and district retreat on October 21st. That'll be at night be here at this point in time. I did send out to
076the board just a very rough draft. It's got the agenda down there, but there's a few other things. I know Mike is working on some of the the district related information for that session. Uh this will be the first of what will save two maybe three sessions between the fall of 2025 and um spring of 2026. Right now the the agenda the four main topics are goal setting the budget parameters which I expect to probably be talking a lot about in audit as well communication in general internal and external and the process of strategic planning and trying to lay the foundation for that. So those are the four main topics. There will be a variety of subtopics below that that we'll get into in the conversations. Um some of those sub topics might be uh
077steam incorporating and multi-year planning for steam portrait of a graduate multi-year budgeting and asset management as well as potentially getting into some discussions around the GCS branding and where that might go. So that's the kind of [clears throat] agenda at this point. We would also anticipate as part of that to kick it off, have an open discussion for a period of time, and then in about a three-hour session, a portion of that, maybe the the the latter half of that, the breakout sessions and and discussions with various parties. So, with that, uh any feedback any of you have, please pass it along. Those are all the comments I have. Anybody else want to add any No. Okay. With that um the topic of this executive session is >> personnel related. Okay. >> And uh John,
078you're going to join us? >> I am. Okay. So I entertain a motion to enter >> like to ask for consent motion to enter into executive session for personnel matter. >> All in favor? >> I post. So move. Thank you. Thank you everybody for Okay.