001What's up? Call. Couldn't ask for better timing. Call the meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge. And and they're off. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, that was perfect timing. Welcome everyone. Our first item on the agenda is we have a K12 math curriculum presentation. Pascal and Mus move out of the way. Good evening. Uh thank you for giving us the opportunity to present tonight. We're excited to share with you an overview of our K12 math program across Glorville School District. This presentation will highlight the structure and progress progression of our math curriculum, key instructional practices, areas of strength, and opportunities for growth. Our goal is to
002ensure that all students from kindergarten through graduation experience a coherent, rigorous, and supportive math journey preparing them for life. We're going to start with um we're gonna Christina and I are going to toggle back and forth between uh elementary and secondary. And we're going to start with the elementary core program or tier one instruction. It's our ready classroom math that happens 60 minutes each and every day in our elementary classrooms. It emphasizes productive struggle and student engagement through discourse or just discussions. We have aligned our um our pacing across all grade levels. So it is not uncommon to be walking down a third grade hallway and hear the same lesson being taught in each classroom ensuring that we can do common assessments as well. And we have this year focused on fidelity of using our
003core math program ready math and the resources that are associated with it. Um, for all scholars that take math in grades six through algebra 2, um, we are using EMAT solutions or EMATH instruction, which you can see here is standards aligned, which is great because that means we can ensure all of our scholars are exposed to NextGen standards starting in sixth grade right through that algebra 2 curriculum. Um, it's scaffolded, meaning each lesson builds off of one another and the program itself builds um, in a spiraling effect, so there's consistent review of that important material. Um, there's a built-in assessment plan because we are starting to formalize our formative assessment practices with regular data review. It allows us to consistently track student progress from one assessment to the next to ensure that we are preparing
004them for those state assessments, whether it be six through eight assessments or the algebra 1 geometry or algebra 2 regions exam. Um, and then the program itself also does at the end have that built-in assessment practice. So the consistency from sixth grade right through algebra 2 is very important because the program does have the same structure. Um it is very rigorous. I will tell you that it is language heavy. So the work that the elementary campus is doing to support language development is only going to help our math program in grade six through algebra 2. um it's not on here, but those scholars that take an introductory level class or a SUPA course are not using this because there are other programs that are either provided through SUPA, CHS, those kinds of things, or we
005in in-house develop our intro classes to build those um foundation level skills to prepare them for the region space courses. So, we also offer targeted support um in the tier 2 and tier three instruction at the elementary level. That looks like our win period in grades K through two. Win time is 30 minutes each day. There is flexible grouping happening there. So some students or scholars may stay right in their classrooms and work with their home room teachers while others might be in skill specific groups focusing on those specific foundational skills that they may need extra support with. Um we continue to work on data collection processes at the K2 level. Um, so we can monitor, progress, monitor that student growth, and um, we do emphasize that transition from second to third grade, making sure
006that those foundational skills are in place so when they come to Boulevard, they're ready for that next level of instruction. For uh, grades three through five, we really dove in this year with another another diagnostic assessment. So, we uh continue to use our screening assessment in math, but the Cadence math assessment really dials into specific skills that scholars might need support with. So, and those are skills that teachers may not recognize right off the bat. So, if a student has um maybe memorized their subtraction facts, but have a difficulty with subtraction with borrowing, that's going to really show up when they're trying to do long division, for example. So, what we did with the uh what we're doing with the Acadians math assessment is really fine-tuning those specific skills. So, if they need help with
007subtra subtraction with borrowing that they can work on that skill and then there's a skill progression that happens after that. Um our math coach Lacy has worked with um myself and the entire staff of Boulevard to put that in place and really support that when instruction. Um really we want to make sure our foundational skills fact fluency from fifth grade to sixth grade are in place. Also we provide really targeted small groupoup instruction uh for students that are more than one grade level behind. Those uh groups are really five students or less. They are really intensive skill support and really focused on closing that foundational gap. Also during win, it's not noted on here, but we also have our um ongrade level and above grade level groups that are continuing to accelerate. Um at the
008secondary level, we utilize the AIS model to pro to provide tier 2 intervention. At the middle school level, it looks like focused skill development, small group instruction, and ongoing progress monitoring. Um, so those scholars are provided academic intervention during a learning lab. Um, some scholars are in a learning lab while others are getting AIS, math, or ELA at the same time based on test scores. At the high school campus, we have two different approaches that we use. Both of them would qualify for AIS. They're just named differently so that the scholar understands the difference. AIS is utilized for those scholars that already successfully passed that region's course but maybe didn't get through the exam. So, I'm taking AIS algebra if I was able to complete the credit bearing portion, but I have a little bit
009of work to do in regards to skill development to get through the exam. The math lab is for those scholars that are currently in the program and also showing the need for a little bit of support to successfully complete the credit varing portion of the class. Also, I guess I'll point out too, um, it's not necessarily a tier 2 intervention, but at the secondary level, mainly at the high school, we provide students access to the course that is most appropriate to their level. So, all of our regions level classes also have a intro class that a scholar can take if they're just needing more time to develop skills before entering into that region space course, which is considered a tier one instruction, but it it is um at their ability level. So I wanted to
010speak briefly about the assessment system that we have at the elementary level. It is triangulated. So we really focus on these three main assessments. We have the I Ready benchmark that all K5 students that is our math screener. Um the Aadian skill assessment is what I spoke to. So it's really a diagnostic tool so we can really fine-tune that instruction that we do during math win time. That does say grades three through five because that is where it's established right now. Boulevard and most likely it will push down not all the way uh like down to to kindergarten but maybe into second grade where we are looking to dial in some of those skill needs uh at that second grade level. And then of course we still have a ready classroom math assessments that the
011teachers do after units and lessons. We use all of that data to know that's great uh for instructional groupings. That's all. Okay. Um, at the secondary level, a lot of the work that I've been doing this year has been to lay the foundation for consistent assessment practices to be utilized in grades 6 through 12 for the four core. Um, specifically for math, um, because they're all in a structured program, they already have those common assessments. So now it's just pulling apart the data to make sure we're making those informed instructional decisions to utilize our class time to maximize the output or student scores, if you will. Um, a lot of that comes with using our resource with Fidelity, which is going to be a continued focus to allow us to have those formative assessments happening
012at the same time so that we're comparing students to students in that exact moment. Um, and then also continuing to use Jerebec, who is our data coach, to highlight our priority standards so that we're able to make the most informed decisions about what to teach when, and which standards to slow down and take the most time on to ensure that our students are able to show improved test scores. Um, I added to this slide the middle school honors program because it did recently undergo some changes. We added the sixth grade honors class this year. Um, so that is just something we want to make sure we're keeping an eye on that we're making sure that we're aware that it's going to need shifts and changes to make sure that it is structured the best it
013possibly can be. This year, we're looking to test more than just a designated group of students and potentially test the entire fifth grade population to allow all students to show us what they know in that moment so that we can select any student that is wanting to be challenged because I think it's really important to allow them to show us that they'll rise to the occasion versus tell them that they can't. Uh this slide highlights some of the focus areas that the K1 and grades two through five have really dried to dial in with the ready math program. In K1 their focus was really on hands-on learning that was done in a centers based uh format and they really started to build a centers uh resource library for teachers along with Lacy our math coach
014in grades two through five. It's a different way of teaching math uh the ready math program and to really get its full potential we have to um continue to evolve as teachers right so a typical lesson plan format would be I do as the teacher we do and then you practice on your own but if you flip that that's really what ready math is asking us to do it's really um you do you try it on your struggle with that a little bit. Understand where you are in this learning process and the teacher will be there to help and facilitate. That next step is the we do. Then you have productive conversations with your peers. What did you get? How did you try to do it? Oh, we got the same answer, but we did
015it in two different ways. Right? That's where that scholar dialogue comes in. and we really have to foster those discussions with students because that's how this um that's how some of those connections really start to grow and then I as the teacher can come in at the end and actually show you multiple pathways to getting to that solution. So that's the ready that's the pro ready program format. So it takes um it's taken teachers some time to get all those pieces put into place and that's been our focus this year and will continue to be our focus for next year. So something that um we worked at the sixth through 12th grade level is on walkthroughs and making sure that we're focusing on those high quality instructional practices. Um, we identified these as a secondary
016administrative team as to what we will be looking for for the second portion of the school year when we began those walkthroughs just to make sure that we are collecting that consistent data on what is happening within our classroom so that we're able to then leverage that to make those informed decisions around professional development that you'll see here in a minute. And just having that feedback loop with staff to make sure that we're aware of how are we integrating vocabulary because we know that's such a crucial piece and it's something that our staff identifies consistently as an area of struggle. So we need to be purposeful with um implementing it into our into our classrooms as well as the other ones. Um but this was our first set of um walkthrough data points that we
017were collecting on this year to kind of help us move towards a consistent high quality form of instruction. from the professional development and support side of this. Like I said, it takes uh some movement to adjust our teaching to match what's happening with the ready math room or ready math classroom. We did that with um some ready classroom math implementation, professional development right from the ready math folks. And we we combine that with Lacy, our math coach, to structure our math win time so that it's most effective. I did put in here that we we do have some technology tools and we do have some digital tools that support our scholars. Um these are vetted uh and we think that they're strong, but we really wanted to make sure that uh students aren't getting exceptional
018amount of screen time. We have really excellent teachers and support staff and having those folks work directly with our students we feel is a better use of their instructional time. So we do have access to technology and and some digital resources but we really try to prioritize that person to teacher studenttoteer interaction and we continue to work with Lacy our math coach on um building that centers um and some coaching in the class. So obviously I think the presentation highlights the fact that a lot of our resources and professional development have been targeted towards our elementary classrooms up until this point which makes sense right we need to build our foundation and then move it forward into the secondary campuses so that we can send along um prepared learners but I'm excited because I think
019a lot of our focus moving into next year is going to be how do we make that shift and move it into the secondary campuses. We're talking about how do we integrate the coaching model into the secondary campuses because I think we have staff that are open to growth but we have to give them access in order to be able to do that. Um we're looking to work with Samini which I was extremely excited about. I got to participate with um Dr. Oji and Mr. Howerin with Samini to talk about how we can target our professional development offerings to secondary staff to provide them to access access to resources that we have not yet been able to do. um which I think will allow us to really have our goal which is to enhance teacher
020growth and then with that obviously would come scholar outcomes. We have a very hardworking staff at the secondary campus. So we kind of need to respond to that by providing them with the resources that they need to continue to grow to allow the scholars to grow as well. So that's going to be a huge shift is how do we really focus on the instructional practices that are taking place so that we have growth within students in our classrooms. That does it for us. Did you have any questions? Questions? I just want to say great presentation. There's a lot there. Definitely understand there's a lot there, but I'm excited because it's the it's the most coordinated uh cooperative encompassing math uh initiative in the seven years I've been here. Um this is a it's a big
021effort. clear what we're doing. The administrative team works well together, element, elementary and secondary level. Um really excited with this program and and implementation with fidelity along with what we're doing with CKLA and the heavy literacy uh components of this. We're hopeful that we're going to see uh growth and the professional development piece is obviously critical and the buy in from the teaching staff and parents have to send their kids to school. you know, got to have got to have them here because if if you don't see anything, it's that two three days of mis instruction with the amount of of uh emphasis on each and every day and and that 60 minutes of math instruction, especially at the elementary level, the kids can't afford to miss multiple days. So, great job, guys. I'm excited
022to see this work develop. Next item on the agenda is public comment. Do we have anybody here for public comment tonight? I'm just gonna speak loudly. I'm Marie Bagel. I represent the Gloversville Teachers Association. I want to say thank you for all of the love and support, the messages, the treats, the gifts for teacher appreciation week last week. So, thank you. One more back there. Sure. My name is Reyes. Some of you may have heard my dilemma I'm in at the moment. I am looking to walk at graduation as a homeschool student. I've been in this district as a student since preK. I have gone to in-person schooling here since from then until co happened. I then learned I function better in a different form of learning. I fly better there. Being in person was
023holding me back. I am looking to feel included in a space where my peers support me. I have many students that go in person that want me to walk with them. They see me as a member of their student class. I was able to go to homecoming. I was able to go to prom as a student of the school, not as a guest. I was directly sold tickets to go. I'm able to participate in extracurricular activities, but For other reasons, I have been denied the right to walk at graduation. I'm not looking for a Gloversville High School diploma. I'm looking for my diploma of equivalency for earning all of the credits that I have acquired over my high school career. I don't need to be considered a Gloverville High School graduate. I'm looking to just
024feel included with my classmates that I have grown up with. I think you covered. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else for public comment tonight? All right. Move on to the next item, which is board discussion. We have the minutes from the April 8th and the April 30th. It we'll vote on those separately. just due to attendance probably. Um, any questions or comments on either of those minutes? Motion to approve the April 8th meeting minutes. Motion by Ed, second by Keith. All in favor of those. Do we have enough to approve? I need one more person to approve. Okay. Thanks. Got it. All right. And then we have the minutes from the April 30th meeting to approve by Kevin. Seconded by Ed again. All right. All in favor of those. Anyone have anything
025else for board discussion tonight? Just real quick, like I don't know the outcome of the conversation, but kudos to you because that's a pretty hard conversation to have with a bunch of people you don't know. Um, and like just kudos to you. So, I appreciate that conversation. So, that's all. Right. Anyone else? All right. Move along to the next item, which is the superintendent's report. Okay. Good evening, everybody. Uh, happy belated Mother's Day to all the moms out there. Um, before I get into the report, just a few things. One, uh, I want to recognize Kelly Deio. No one but has recognized Kelly for her conferring more than 250 points for ongoing association professional development and or accepting leadership roles. Nice little binder one compliment here. Congratulations. Kelly, I don't have any retirements to point
026out, but I do have a U donation to point out. And the donor is actually here. We have a $1,000 donation from Theresa Bushy to be used in the backpack program. That's a pretty significant personal donation. Uh Teresa, we really appreciate your generosity. [Applause] Uh just I don't have a whole lot to report. Just want to say that the hiring is uh if indicative by this agenda. I think there's six or seven teachers on this agenda alone. So that's what uh Dr. Jesse and I are doing a lot of our building administration and student support uh administrators as well. Um so moving right along and I also appreciate the instructional and support staff that are taking part in those interviews and the first rounds. So, we we're pretty excited. We think we have a lot
027of good candidates that are going to be joining us in the next few months. Most starting in September, a few starting a little sooner, but uh all in all, it's still a challenging hiring environment, but we're happy because we're we're being assertive and and trying to, you know, move the timeline of hiring. Early bird gets a worm is is our is the thought process. So, I don't want to vacillate on these pro on this process. So, to the point where Mrs. Graham has changed today's agenda numerous times. Appreciate the board's flexibility. It is about getting people approved and hopefully they stop searching for other jobs. So that is why uh she sent out numerous iterations of tonight's agenda. Appreciate the flexibility. Um budget just want to thank Kathy again. Uh for anybody watching this meeting
028at home who has not watch the budget presentation tonight, I hope you take the time to do so or read it. The newsletters will be going out in the mail. I want to thank her and Chris Dr. Majeski for their leadership in creating that document. As I said in the to the reporter from Leader Herald, it is a no frills budget. There are no new instructional positions in this budget. Um it's it's about being competitive. It's about ensuring safety uh and and running the basic functions of a school district in 2025. Uh these propositions that are on here, I also want the taxpayers to pay attention to those. Uh well there's four uh in addition to our budget. You have the library budget which is separate. We uh agreed to try to help them out
029by putting them on our uh budget uh annual budget. So hopefully that works out well for them. It is a separate piece. But the other three, the transportation uh purchases, the student desks and and musical instruments and the uh computer monitors and and charging stations, upgrades to the infrastructure. Again, those are all uh funded by uh reserves that are not impacted by the tax base. I think that's really critical and those are critical pieces of the puzzle. There's no uh frills in any of that. It's transporting kids safely. It's ensuring that the uh the personal identifying information of our kids and our staff members are protected. It's medical information. That's personal social security numbers, birthdays, and we all know in the environment we live in with you have rogue nation states using AI to try
030to attack public entities and put your information on a dark web and and try to uh get ransom out of you to get your personal information back. Uh so in investing in that is intelligent. Investing in desks makes sense. We have desks in high school that were here when I was a student 30 some odd years ago. And I I was in a high school classroom the other day visiting with a teacher and was feeling backs on chairs and removing multiple desks out of his classroom because I said these aren't safe. The backs of them are split. Uh you don't want kids sitting down and scraping their backs on them. And uh I'm looking at the chairs and thinking I sat in these chairs 30 something years ago. So I think this is all common
031sense stuff that we're asking from the taxpayers and I hope they uh appreciate that. And certainly as Kathy said in her presentation, we're willing to answer any questions folks have about this budget. Um, we're within the tax cap. The board's been uh very careful, I think, over the years and and responsible in funding these reserves, keeping a healthy fund balance to offset uh when the governor removes 700,000 or the legislature removed 700,000 from the governor's proposal and we're still fiscally in a good position. Uh it's a testament to Kathy and the board of education over the years and to have these reserves ready to replace furniture, replace buses, and keep our IT infrastructure healthy. That's that's a uh that's a credit to this organization. So, thank you for your leadership and Kathy, thank you for
032your leadership in presenting this budget. Um Educational Foundation, just want to give a shout out. Chris is heading up a committee uh and and Sharon as well. uh part of the educational foundation to get our hall of fame off the ground. We know that we had one once upon a time um through the district controller's office said district can't fund those types of things. So this is something that the Glovers Educational Foundation is is picking up and running with and we look forward to possibly an inaugural event in the fall of fall sometime early winter possibly. Great. So I like Sharon had a great idea about uh identifying lovers of graduates who have excelled in various fields you know with some of it is is I think industry other is philanthropy uh sports business music
033the arts the arts y so we're pretty excited I think it'll be great certainly put out a lot of uh quality people over the decades that this district has existed and I think it's great that we're going to take take steps to recognize and celebrate Let's not forget education. What's that? A lot of great graduates from education. That's true. That's true. A lot of superintendent of GL. Yeah. See Tom Tajjo, Richard Birdie, Dave Blanchard, myself, uh um South Glenn Falls, Christine, Christine. Yeah. So that's just in section two right now alone. I know there's people outside of New York State who are also in this administration. That's just superintendent, not to mention teachers and and building level administration. Um, people might be wondering, uh, they probably heard that Cody Headedwell is going to be our
034new high school principal, but it's not on tonight's agenda. Cody's a tenure administrator in the district and it's a transfer. So, this is why there's no appointment for Cody on this agenda. And he asked, should I come tonight? I said, not necessary. He's got two little ones he's home with. Um, Cody has like received tenure in recent years. And, uh, excuse me, recent like last board meeting. Um, I did have a conversation with high school staff and told them why the process was pretty short and there was not a lot of inclusivity in that process because we didn't really have a process. We had three applicants, interviewed one that we thought was viable um, and went with what we thought was the best decision to move forward. Obviously, his position, current position is posted. Hopefully
035we get a bit larger candidate pool and there will be an inclusive process if we have uh decisions to make and and want to hear back from uh staff of what they think of these candidates. So when possible we are putting committees together when it's not really feasible. I'm not just going to put it together waste people's time if the process is is already a done deal. So any questions on that? I know some people are like why how can you do it this way this time? But normally you you would have a committee together It's really about the we have local districts have gone out uh currently fond is on their third attempt to fill a middle school principal position. I think North's got openings administratively. Broaden Perth has got openings administratively. Not enough
036people are going as administration and we can say the same about teaching as well. Where we used to get multiple multiple multiple applicants for these positions, we're getting a handful, sometimes none. That's why the state keeps on extending the retiree uh waiver for how much money they can make. And they've extended two more years in this latest budget. And we are dependent upon retirees as we speak. We encourage the state to look at this because it is a real problem in our profession. I don't know how long retirees are going to continue to want to work regardless how much money you throw at them. And I've had those conversations with retirees. We're like, I'm done. I don't care how much you offer me. Retired for a reason. So, it's it's a it's a quiet crisis.
037I've talked to our assemblyman, Mr. Smallen, on it. He is well aware and is uh certainly was supportive about the extension of that uh retiree waiver because they were talking about removing it. that would have been catastrophic frankly across the state. And my last piece is uh board of education participation on Thursday morning. I know Sharon signed up. Is anybody else able to attend the Bill Daget's presentation? Okay, me and you and Chris, you're going. We have an administrative contingent going. Some of our administrative team is going. So, it should be pretty good. Bill Dagget's obviously internationally renowned uh expert in our field who's always uh on the cutting edge of the relevance of what we're trying to impart and inspire our children to be able to do. No question for me that uh concludes
038my report and I do not have any need for an executive session unless the board wishes to. Yeah, exact. This is short. Okay, that completes my report. Okay, thank you. Um student board member and the alternate both unavailable tonight. So, we can skip that item. Move right into recommended um action. We have items 7.01 through 17.10. Any questions? Anybody need anything pulled? Motion to approve those by Kelly. Second by Mike. All in favor? All right. Personnel. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Motion to go into executive session to discuss a personnel item. Motion for executive by he, seconded by Kelly. All in favor on that. And there will be no action taken afterwards. Thank you everyone.