001followed by a moment of silence for Don malmoth Mr Mama worked in the school district for a long period of time and our facility operations area and he was a long time partner to a Mrs geese Geist so if you could keep the malma and Geist families and your thoughts and prayers that would be much appreciated thank you can have so much approved by Miss farmer second by Mr morning editions deletions or corrections to the agenda seeing that I was in favor that passes eight to zero moving on to Staffing can I Sony moving Staffing to the table please move by vice president malware seconded by Dr treywick any comments questions concerns on Staffing sing not always in favor that passes eight to zero assistant superintendent Larson welcome this evening and you're new at all
002thank you so much thank you everybody um so I'm excited to welcome a number of new administrators tonight uh we will start with Catherine Coffey [Applause] um Katie Coffey completed her educational leadership program through the University of Rochester while teaching here in Greece she has been working at Odyssey Academy as a special education 12-1-1 teacher for the 7th and 8th grade for the past five years prior to this she worked as a special education teacher in a variety of settings at Sodus Junior Senior High School she served as a seventh grade department chair esy teacher and as a teacher for the 21st century after school program Katie made a career shift to begin working in education as an aide in a 613 classroom at The Kessler Center a residential school in the Rochester area during
003that time she was completing her teaching certification in special education in social studies at Suny Brockport prior to this time she worked in a variety of roles for agencies such as Easter Seals Heritage and Lifetime Assistance Katie's favorite part of working in education is the ability it provides to develop opportunities and relationships that support students she loves to help them bring their ideas and goals to life as an active participant in our District's equity and SEL work Katie is most excited for the increased opportunities to reach students and families in her new role excuse me sorry are you students and families in our new roles assistant principal at Odyssey she's looking forward to continuing building on the relationships and skills she has developed in her time with this community outside of work Katie loves to
004spend time with her husband and two children the family enjoys exploring the world trying new restaurants and traveling together you can often find her going for walks or bike rides with her family as a way to relax Katie keeps busy as the president of her Board of Education watching her son play soccer and taking her daughter to aerial arts congratulations Katie [Applause] next up congratulations to Brandon Jones [Applause] Brandon Jones has been a member of the Greece Central School District since July of 2017 when he joined as an assistant principal at Odyssey Academy in 2021 Brandon was promoted to principal at Craig Hill Elementary School before working in Greece Brandon worked in the Rochester City School District as a special education administrator in a special education teacher Brandon realizes that this is his experiences in
005these different roles have taught him invaluable lessons that he carries with him and allows allows to guide him Brandon is thrilled to join the Olympia Community as principal he is excited by the opportunity to work with the Olympia staff to ensure that the students of Olympia receive a quality education that is built on a foundation of equity of equity Brandon understands that thriving for Equitable outcomes for students will require a commitment to building relationships with not just staff but also students and their families and he is ready to do just that Brandon would like to give a special thanks to the Craig Hill Community it was Craig Hill where Brandon found his voice as a leader and where he made strong connections with students and staff that changed him for good for the better Brandon
006says thank you to Craig Hill for providing Grace and trusting him to lead he is proud of what they accomplished together and looks forward to watching their continued success from a distance in addition Brandon wants to give a shout out to Dr Valerie Payne Dr Payne saw leadership potential in Brandon and helped nourish that potential with encouragement constructive feedback and care Brandon says that his success at Craig Hill would not have been possible without Dr Payne's support Brandon would be remiss if he did not acknowledge the sacrifice struggle struggle love and kindness that his grandmother Patricia Shields and mother Tracy Jeffries provided over the years Brandon commits to bringing his best self to work every day in order to to do right by his grandmother and mother's memory lastly Brandon would like to thank the
007Board of Education superintendent groutman in her cabinet for trusting and believing in him to lead Olympia into its next chapter congratulations Brandon please welcome Anna Madrid Mrs Madrid received a BS in political science and a master's in education from St John Fisher College the state of New York awarded her the P20 Grant to complete an accelerated master's degree in educational leadership through Bank Street College of Education she has served in various Rochester City School District roles for the past 14 years most recently she has been an administrator and previously she was a bilingual classroom teacher moreover she has written curricula and provided professional development for the Rochester City School District in the areas of but not limited to restorative practices English language Learners data cycle protocols and culturally culturally relevant and Equitable instruction before her
008career in education she worked in the non-profit sector to empower Youth and families in crisis by Bridging the Gap between education and home discourse in Rochester for over 12 years serving as both director of programs and executive director for Urban Youth Development agency Mrs Madrid continues to volunteer her time and expertise in the non-profit sector Madrid is elated to start her journey with the Greece Central School District she is a passionate advocate for students and is committed to propelling the vision and mission of the district forward she and her family have been proud residents of Greece for the past 20 years and she is eager to serve her community actively Mrs Madrid is a mother of three who can be found in her spare time on a baseball field cheering cheering for her son and
009watching her daughter rehearse and perform she is very family oriented loves to travel and pride Prides herself on being a lifelong learner welcome to Greece Anna next congratulations to Abigail Tarana Abigail Tarana is a graduate of Allegheny College Canisius College and is a recent graduate of the University of Rochester's educational leadership program Abby started her career in education in 2006 as a school counselor at Sumter High School in Sumter South Carolina she returned to Western New York in in 2012 where she worked as a middle school counselor and started with Greece in 2014. since starting in Greece Abby has been a high school counselor at Odyssey Academy in Athena High School most recently she has been serving as our district school counselor and Trauma illness and grief coordinator Abby is passionate about working to support
010the Greece mental health staff with role delineation and consultation educating adults on youth mental health and supporting schools and students through her work with Tig Abby has been instrumental in supporting staff with Maya learning data management systems such as Panorama and swiss and RTI systems and processes as the assistant director of student services Abby is looking forward to continuing to support these initiatives to better serve the students and families of Greece Abby lives at home with her husband and her two children Addison and Carter and her dog Ginger Addison is a freshman in high school and Carter is a sixth grader this year she is celebrating her 10th year as a girl scout leader Abby is also an Avid Reader camper Sabers and Bills fan congratulations on your new role [Applause] and last but not
011least please welcome Jamie whitovich Jamie's education began at Fredonia State University where she graduated with a bachelor's in adolescent education with a focus on English language arts she went she went on to teach for two years just outside of Charlotte North Carolina before returning to Upstate New York where she taught English language arts for five years while coaching cross-country and serving as a class advisor Jamie received a masters of education from the University of University at Buffalo and a masters of literacy from Suny Brockport she's worked as an instructional specialist at Monroe to Orleans BOCES for the last 10 years serving in various capacities from coordinating professional development for the teacher immersion fellows program to providing coaching and professional development around next Generation Ela standards high quality instruction practices and literacy graduated from Suny Brockport
012with her administrative certificate Jamie is looking forward to applying her diversity equity and inclusion work in extensive experience in curriculum and instruction to her role as the Director of humanities for Greece Jamie's husband Jim and daughter Savannah all love being outdoors hiking walking or playing Savannah is five and beginning kindergarten in the fall in Webster they have a cat named Papa and a dog named Maisie who keep them entertained family and friends are very important to her family and are who they are with most weekends congratulations and welcome to Greece Jamie now it's picture time so if all you guys could come up for pictures with the superintendent and assistant superintendents zephits and Payne thank you this is [Applause] it over here thank you foreign all right ready thank you all right moving on I'm
0132.02 Kids Care individual agreements can I Sony move that to the table please second by Mr Moore any comments questions concerns on that thing that I was in favor that passes eight to zero moving on to 2.03 disc jockey individual agreement can I Sony move that to the table please move by Miss farmer a second by Mr SwiftKey any comments questions concerns on that sing not all is in favor that passes eight to zero moving on to 2.04 GTA MOA additional ft you can actually move that to the table please do by Mrs farmer second by Mr Brian gorio any comments questions concerns on that sing that all's in favor that passes eight to zero moving on a 4.01 curriculum Review Committee update superintendo and I'd like to invite Suzanne pettifer to come on up
014Suzanne has done an incredible job leading our district curriculum Council and we're at a time of year where she is ready to give us some updates around the work that's been done and where we are going from here so I'll turn it right over to her thank you so just a reminder I like to start off Always by just reminding people what our district curriculum council is so I'm just going to read to you a little bit from our guidance documents that the DCC looks for opportunities to integrate curriculum and ensures that the district has a long-range plan for curriculum review the DCC also monitors the development and implementation of p12 subject area standards across grades and subjects it's a representative body with specific responsibility to recommend review and guide decisions about curriculum instruction and
015assessment development within the guidelines of Board of Education policies so some of the things that we do are we monitor the program review cycle calendar so we make adjustments as needed based on updates from the state we try to clearly communicate what is going on in each of our content areas and we examine curriculum and data plans provided by our vertical team to ensure that we're meeting the standards and annually we develop professional development initiatives and really help to roll those out across buildings that include newer instructional models and any newer assessments we also manage and review protocols and processes we've created some District forums we've updated some things along the way and periodically we review the program review cycle documents using the strengths challenges implication guides so um that sounds like a lot but
016it really is a lot we have a lot of work that we do and we don't do it in isolation so our committee members include board members and Terry has served in the past on our committee and currently we have Tracy and Mark serving on our committee so it's great to have our board members we also have several parents that are on our committee that work with us and those have changed over time we've actually grown we've had an increase of interest and so we have tried to welcome as many folks as we can we also have a diverse group of teachers that sit on this kind of committee that is on top of all of the different teachers that work vertically and horizontally for each of the content areas so we come as directors
017and leaders in the district to present our information and what we've been doing in our content areas um based on all of the work that's being done by the teachers and leaders in the district so it's really an exciting committee to be on we have members on there and as members are on there they're constantly like listening to these presentations encouraging us to think about what things we might do differently making sure we're including the latest research and the things that we're doing so they are constantly participating in reviewing and helping us plan pushing our thinking sometimes in new ways sometimes we have the participants also experience lessons so that they can just get a feel for what's going on in the classrooms and then we also have kind of like this other section where
018guiding documents and forms and things like that we try to make sure that every everyone's anchored into on the committee as well so right up there are the three meetings that we have per year we have some of the things that our members are responsible for up there and it's been really exciting to watch this process grow when I initially came to district office we didn't really have a council we didn't really have a way to cyclically review and to ensure that everyone was having an opportunity to review their curriculum and dcia worked very hard to look nationally actually to see what best practices were and then this is the document that we've kind of come up with to guide all of our decisions so Kathy really pushed us to like really think hard about
019like what our best practices what should we be doing and then we were able to like put together some great thinking and we feel like we have a really good process in place we would love it if the state would slow down the change of standards that they seem to be doing quite frequently and covet has also impacted kind of like where we are in the cycle as well so um the second semester we presented earlier this year Todd and I presented earlier about the work that we're doing but the second semester for our DCC meetings was focused on Science World languages and again other updates throughout on English language arts is um that has just been a big huge body of work that's been going on as well so I'm going to start with
020discussing English language arts they are in the research and recommendation year and um previously this group was referred to as languages other than English to be more inclusive and better aligned with the charge of the department the name was updated by the state and Shauna Suite leads this department she came to our DCC meeting she reviewed the updated plan by New York state to roll out the new standards for World languages implementation of the revised learning standards for World languages is a gradual process that begins in the fall of 2023 with the first course in preparing students for checkpoint a and then it will continue to add one academic course each year so that the changes grow over time and the state has really tried to do this across various content areas they're very intentional
021with World languages right now this has matched perfectly with the research recommendation phage that the department was already in and we were able to start to do some professional learning and have the teachers attend some conferences and things to get right on board with best practices next year in grade seven we're ready for the phasing in of the new standards right on time the key shifts reflect a focus on more authentic communication and resources as well as students demonstrating Proficiency in languages that include interpretive communication interpersonal communication presentation communication as well as relating cultural practices and products to perspectives and cultural comparisons these shifts have a focus on both the input and output of communication I don't know if you took a language in high school but when I took my French class in high
022school which I'm terrible at by the way um the focus was much more on grammar sentence diagramming learning how to do more written communication as opposed to like oral communication and really some fluency with practice so the emphasis now from the state is much more commutative not only on the output from students but also on the input and this is a big shift for us in our instruction so Shawna led her team through the process of identifying goals for the department and establishing a purpose for the work the self-assessment defined what we have current in place that could stay and remain aligned with the work that's being expected now and then we also identified some areas where shifts need to occur the professional learning included the New York State conferences and New York State webinars
023there is modified jigsaw activities with various professional articles that were put out by the state as well and then there are also some Shadow Days planned with other districts just to ensure that we're kind of in line with like best practices and what's going on a textbook survey has also gone out to staff and new materials are being previewed from companies that include Carnegie Vista and McGraw-Hill these resources include a mix of digital and print-based collections which is what we're seeing more and more from companies now quite often in the past prior to us even having the cycle it was a textbook right it was like whose turn is it to buy textbooks this year and we would put a lot of money into these textbooks that we'd be signing in and out to kids
024and companies now are up with the times and things are much more online it's easier for them to update give us the latest versions it's easier for us to navigate kids don't tend to lose what's online which is makes it really nice makes it for quick inventory at the end of the year right there's all these things that are interactive online too as opposed to having just a textbook right so these online resources are typically in tandem with some sort of printed resource from companies the only caveat about that then is that we have different charges now so instead of saying like at Social Studies turn okay we're all going to get new textbook for this department annually now we're paying something right so it's also a shift in how we Source our teachers and
025how we pay for resources which actually provides us with better opportunities to make adjustments if that's needed okay so that is World languages you can also see here that as part of the cycle we determined that we were a bit out of alignment with some of our hours of instruction at grade seven and so what we're doing is we're going to be piloting at Odyssey next year on a four out of five day class period for the students right now we kind of have like two to three days and just to get that more frequency of practice and that's really how immersion and language we're going to be upping that so we're more in line and we're going to continue to schedule the 8th grade World language classes four out of five days also and
026then we expect to see better results on our checkpoint a exams because of this so we're looking to Pilot it at Odyssey work out any kinks next year and the year after it will be rolling that out to all of our buildings the other thing Shawna updated the committee around was our Scythe program and seif is stands for students with interrupted formal education and some of our students who are entering our district now have been identified by other districts as safe students or students who had this interrupted education and when they come into our district either from another country or another district and we have these assessments that we provide if we find out in their home language that they're behind by more than a couple years we need to provide a different sort of
027service and some of our students who are coming to us either have been interrupted because of wars or just some countries don't have the same sort of educational system we do some of our girls that come to us maybe haven't had an opportunity to even have education right and these students are allowed to attend high school a little bit longer and we have a curriculum that we're using from the state which has been very successful we've seen an increase in attendance with this program because the students are receiving some direct instruction in a more self-contained way um so that they're not feeling as embarrassed like I'm in a classroom I've got 25 kids I don't understand the language that's moving so quickly we've been able to surround our students with better supports go at a
028pace that makes sense for them as well as teach them the literacy skills and academic language they need to be successful and move forward and we're seeing that kids are really moving forward with that which is really really exciting for us um so Shawna took us through an activity where we used some of these cards to like learn about students that have been named students from other districts and what we were able to do is kind of look at those cards and think about what were the things that the students had going for them and how could we capitalize on that and the thing that we noticed kind of a thread throughout the cards was that students were really struggling with writing so typically our writing system might be a little bit different right than
029another country and so that writing is always seems to be something that lag a bit okay we also had Sean Esposito come and talk to us about science and what we're finding in our core content areas is that we have them in different places so K5 those elementary teachers right who have to be in charge of everything content-wise we try not to like bury them totally with being in the same spot at the same time so that they're not receiving you know six new curriculums to try to implement that one at once so they are in the uh third year of implementing some science kits that we get from BOCES we have our six eight students who are interacting with Discovery Education right now some new resources for them and then 9 through 12 is
030going through their evaluation year and this is in alignment again with what the state has expected the standards have been updated for science as well and you can see on this slide how the standards have been updated as well as the assessments and what the expectations for that will be okay and again they're phasing things right so our science this year our students at fourth grade will not be taking the Science assessment as they have in the past um next year's fifth graders they will take their assessment so the state is just kind of Shifting how we provide these assessments okay we are also in science adding a third unit for each of the grade levels next year that was optional this year so if teachers felt like they were up for trying something new
031we gave them the option to do that we've provided some professional development actually on the afternoon of the scoring day for our three five teachers and they will be able to implement some things that the state is recommending that all students experience for experiments um in preparation for that fifth grade test that will be coming up for them we're also looking to develop some cross-curricular things with science so that we know at the elementary level in particular time is always of the essence and we're looking to make those connections and so there might be some realigning that goes on once the ELA curriculum is determined as well um very exciting this year we have had some field trips and video conferences and right here you can see some of our students at the Challenger Learning
032Center that is new this year for our fifth graders and it was very successful kids were enthusiastic and really cannot wait to um you know have our fourth graders experience it again um next year so that'll be something we continue to do we also had the virtual field trip for our fourth graders there were Hands-On kits in the classroom and they were engaging online with the Hands-On kits with someone live online so it was a new way of us kind of having kids do an experiment to really get some feedback with this energy transfer conference that the kids were able to attend right here you can see our secondary updates Discovery education is working like I said at six through eight we're looking at that as part of their new curricula it's a web-based platform
033it has workbooks that are available but again if you go back to what I said earlier some of our stuff is becoming more and more digital um the summer teachers at the middle school will are going to come together to make some adjustments to make sure that what the kids are experiencing um from this National curriculum is more tied to our local experiences and phenomenon so we're really excited about that and as you can see grades 9 through 12 has a bit of a lag based on the phases established by the state again so we will be surveying our high school teachers and digging in to data at the next meeting to update lab guidance and ensure that we're prepared for the updated assessments from the state the first year districts have a choice on
034administering the updated assessments or continuing with the current assessment and what was great about Sean's presentation at the DCC and some of you may have experienced it um were that it was a phenomena based lesson so we were given something we had to play with it we got to look at it we got to make some predictions and then he just kind of took us through a series of questions to help us kind of discover more about the item that we were given so we recorded observations we listed questions we shared ideas with group members it was very interactive and there was a lot of energy in the room and you can totally see how this could apply to our students and just really get them talking and thinking and learning through Discovery so it
035was really exciting for us to experience in part two of the lesson groups created models to explain the phenomenon that they had observed and the models were drawn and labeled followed by discussions about potential relationships between the components that were observed in the models groups presented to each other for further refining of thinking which is exactly what we want the kids to do in the classroom they kind of come up with some theories they interact with each other they refine their thinking and then they continue to move forward so it was great to have the group members get a clear understanding of what phenomenon-based lessons could look like in classrooms across the district a lot of energy in the room like I said it's really exciting the pilots we're going to be piloting a couple
036things over the next couple years at the high school level and we're excited to get those Pilots started as we continue the work there so English language arts I've just kind of been updating a lot along the way because we have been really trying to make sure we're in line with Next Generation standards and ready for the new state assessments this was the first year that Ela administered the Next Generation standard assessment and this it was different it really was different it third grade there was not an extended response and the day one also instead of it just being multiple choice for children there was multiple choice as well as short response so there was writing both days which was different um but what I shared at the DCC was an update on our parent
037website we gave any of the members a chance to like dig into our parent website um if you go on to our District web page and you go to subject areas and click on English language arts you can explore that website for parents we have information up there around science of reading and how that's playing into the current resources that we use as well as information about resources that we're piloting we also shared or I shared with everyone the rubric that we created by based off of State expectations and received feedback and we took that feedback back to the committee of about 30 teachers we went through the feedback that we received from the committee we updated our rubric or made sure that some of the things that were questionable were kind of called out
038a little bit more and then we've used that rubric as we have and I'll say the word dated that's what we've called it we've kind of been dating some companies right so come on in and give us your presentation okay no thank you or we've said oh you seem pretty good in alignment with what we really we want we'd like to Pilot and we've really let the teachers determine what they're comfortable piloting and when and so we have had teachers joining on to different Pilots once they've seen some things in action they're like oh that looks good I kind of want to try that now is it too late we've let them join in the pilot so it's been really exciting to see the different things um so the pilots that we're doing I what
039I will say about science and reading and it's an I know it's like this big Hot Topic even politically or are just out there you see it on the news you hear people talking about science at reading we've really dug into some resources one of them being Shifting the balance and they're coming out with a 3-5 version of that but really the idea of Shifting the balance is really just making sure that we're teaching a balance of phonics and phonemic awareness right we have our language development teachers helping us with that right now but we're also looking at our new curriculum to help us make sure we're in that zone of what students really need at those beginning levels as kids get older right and it kind of shifts a little little bit but we
040have to maintain a balance right so science of reading there's a lot of misconception out there and this is what we talk about at our committee work that it's just now we've got to teach phonics all day or we just have to teach phonemic awareness and make sure it's all nailed down for like really tight right um so yes we need those things but we also have discovered based on our data that our students also need more opportunities for writing and so how do we look at the writing Within These programs as well see how authentic it is how engaging it is for our students and then really think about that one of the texts we've anchored into is this writing Revolution Natalie Wexler is um a proponent of Science of reading and so we've
041really dug into her work to see like how can that really support us and because of our ARP money I was able to buy that book writing Revolution for all of our Middle School and High School Ela support folks so that they have an opportunity to consider how that might be used at those upper levels when kids are struggling so we'll be doing a couple different book studies with everyone anyone in the district who wants to join it and we're really excited about that and our team a lot of our team has also read that book in preparation for picking a curriculum that is in line with all of this thinking and I think the hardest part for our crew has been that every company you talk to now that's the first thing they tell
042you we're science of reading and you're like okay what does that look like right and you're kind of trying to dig in and make sure it's truly science of reading and just just not a new sticker right it's exactly like when Common Core came out people slapped new stickers on Old materials and they were just like here it is this is our brand new Common Core material and you're like oh gosh it looks just like your old material right so we're really trying to be critical on consumers and really dig in have teachers experience the resources that were going to be picking so that materials review includes and so these are the companies that we've kind of been anchored into and that we have Pilots going on currently in our district anywhere from kindergarten up
043through eighth grade because that's this that's the group that we've been working with this year um so the companies include uh hope Mifflin um we reviewed McGraw-Hill resources but decided the team decided they just weren't interested in piling it um so we didn't American reading company iready has some magnetic reading that we've been I'm digging into and we also have an amplify pilot going on at the middle school now amplify is the company that also created our ckla resources that we currently use at our K2 level so no one at the elementary felt the need to Pilot it's something we already have it's something that already has science of reading built into it and we've talked about um okay so we have it but we're not seeing quite that lift right and so then that
044goes back to like us helping teachers anchor into science of reading and really understanding when they make adjustments what they're adjusting and why they may or may not make a decision to adjust certain resources so I'm sure they're tired of hearing me say that um I don't care what resource I get you I could get you a crummy resource and you could make it work if you're grounded in the research and you know what you're supposed to be doing I could buy you the best resource and you could hack away at it and it could become a terrible resource for your students if you're not grounded into the research and know why you're doing what you're doing so we have really talked a lot about what a rollout plan might look like in ela it's
045daunting to think about I'm really excited to have our director of humanities join us and to have Julie work with alongside me as well um just as we start to roll out this curriculum and think about really anchoring folks into the latest research and conversations that are going on in literacy so we had these resources available for our DCC we had them I had them all spread out across the room everyone could take a glance at them or take them you know and look at them if they wanted to more I also had them laid out at the spring family Festival we have had these flyers as you see about parents to receive feedback from them I've interviewed various parent coordinators I have interviewed parents at various events we also had them out at the
046project-based learning event that we held in January so we've really tried hard and I don't ever remember this happening before that we have had resources laid out time and time again for people to really hold look at think about talk to me about and I know we've never really had a parent survey around Ela to find out what parents really want the cool thing about this is we also have student student surveys that we've created so any of the students that are involved in any of our Pilots are also getting an opportunity to share what they think about the resources that we're using and they are so honest it's hysterical you know some of them really like things and some of them really don't like things and they're really happy to tell us exactly how
047they feel about the resources that they're engaging with we've had several students talk about reading time being their favorite we've had several students beg for writing that to stop and as we go in to the pilot classrooms and we watch the instruction it's great to hear that Collective like oh do we have to stop do we can't we you know Skip math today or something and I'm like no we have to stop right because we have to we have to make sure we're balancing out like our instruction but it's really exciting to have the kids not want to stop doing those literacy activities so we're excited about our next steps so our next steps which will be our meeting on May 30th we are going to come to a decision for our K-5 folks we
048need to get that curriculum rolling and we know that and so we will be picking um what our curriculum will be and then we'll be presenting it to you hopefully in June so that you can see what we've decided um we are updating the rubrics so you know we listen to these presentations that are a couple hours long from folks and as we listen to the presentations we're taking notes and we're guessing kind of like what it sounds like the resource will be like well now we've had folks interacting with the resource so we want to say like you were really excited about this do you still feel excited or has this like crushed your soul a little bit doing this with kids we want to make sure that it's still exciting and engaging for
049kids right so we're going to go back through and take a look at our initial rubrics and update them and just make sure we've got all the information in there so that we're making an informed decision and um and then again like I said we'll be picking our program for sure for K5 6 8 found another program that they wanted to hear about so we're allowing that to happen on the 30th and we may have another pilot starting so six eight might be a little bit of a lag but we're really excited about the work that we've been doing any questions um you mentioned and I don't know if I'm saying this right Scythe students yes how many do we have in the district um right now because Shawna and I just actually were in
050a meeting with Gina yesterday we have about 12 for next year um we received a handful at the beginning of this year and they all ended up at Athena which was great because it kind of gave us a Cadre to start our program with yep um also I say this every time you present I am so excited there's a pre a process and that we have best practices to share as a former teacher and not only this school district I can't tell you the number of times someone just came and said this is the book you'll be using next year and you are on your own so I really appreciate that you let teachers have input great Mr bonagorio seen how much different options that have been reviewed there's a lot there um how will
051the pilot programs actually work will there be an opportunity for teachers to say no this isn't in where we go if that happens yep sure so what we're planning on doing on the 30th is we are going to go Company by company where our Pilots are we are going to have panel discussions so we've sent out to the teachers who are piloting here's the initial rubric that we created as a group what do you agree with still or what would you change now so some things what we're noticing some teachers that have returned to us have been like this is actually stronger than we initially thought um and then some teachers have said like this actually is missing a whole bunch of stuff that it didn't seem like it was missing in the presentation right
052which is why the pilots are so important um so we have four programs and what we'll do is we'll haul out the rubrics we'll review what the panel has kind of said we plan on having a panel of each for each of the pilots to let teachers ask questions of the panel and then kind of just have teachers kind of in their own mind make a determination we have a Google form that is anonymous so we'll have teachers go in and kind of Select like yes this would be a a good curriculum for us which they could pick several right and then we could have more conversation about what we going back to our priorities so one of the other things we're going to do at that meeting is revisit our priorities so like writing
053writing was something from the start that we've all talked about that we really want to see um more intentionally taught especially at our K5 level so if the program doesn't appear to be as strong in that area then we would say like well it doesn't really match our major priority it might still be a good program all of the programs that we're piloting got green from ad reports which is like this outside overseeing body that kind of like goes through and has their own rubrics and things and reviews things for us so they got all green anything we're reviewing or we're piloting we made sure already under that lens was a good to go resource so it really just depends on our students and stuff so we'll we'll go through that process we'll some of
054the teachers have shared with me their data so they're looking at I had a two teachers this week send me their iready data just to say like I cannot believe the growth my kids made this year the only thing I did different was use this program or the only thing I did these last few months was use this program and I'm shocked at how my kids have like progressed um we haven't looked at all of it but I just had a couple outliers that made sure they reached out to me so that'll be another part of the conversation too okay Dr Haywood I actually have three questions so you let me know how to ask them uh the first is uh first of all thank you so much this is really refreshing to know that
055we're bringing great resources to the table and you're getting input from so many different stakeholders my first question is regarding iready because that's been a long I've been around for a very long time so for the classes that are piloting I ready is it a new version that's kind of steeped in the science of reading yes so they've worked with Dr Anita Archer who is one of the science of reading Guru people and they have developed something called magnetic reading which is totally it's not computer-based the kids are in books and they're reading readers and they're learning phonics and they're doing um you know active participation as they learn those things so yes at the K5 we have two second grade teachers piloting it and we have a fourth grade teacher that works with an
056enl teacher in her classroom during the ELA block and they are piloting as well and we also have a pilot at the middle school to sixth grade so we have some of those Pilots going on with the different resources I would say the sixth grade one is the one that didn't have as much that was different but there are some things that are different about the pilot for sure anybody else have a question nope we'll just rotate back and forth Mr bonagario okay thank you remember to turn it down this time um the uh you've talked about the importance of teachers teaching it teaching the strategies Faithfully I understand that's that was part of the budget that we just approved as a district as as a community so that will in fact be part of
057the whole process but we be training our own teachers to be the trainers yeah that's such a great question so um one of the things that we've gotten feedback on that's been very successful as a rollout has been the way that we've used that independent leveled reading assessment or the erla so you've heard me talk a lot about that we did that over multiple years we had reading Specialists pushing into classrooms being highly supportive so that teachers could really learn how to be reading instructors right at the elementary level we know how important that is um so I think all of that really has been a part of the conversation I've been asked a couple times you know can we can we do that can we just roll out like one year at a time
058and grow it up and it's not like the other standard areas um we have a deadline we have to get the standards um instructed in a certain way and this is our year to do that so um we plan to next year if no matter what we pick have the people who've been seeped in the research and on the committee lead Pilots either with their teams or individually depending on the situation in a building but including them in our like first iteration of it right and it's during our develop year so when you go back to that Circle you would look at the next year as develop so as teachers are teaching it who've been seeped in it they'll become kind of like these Lighthouse classrooms for teachers to visit and say okay I get
059a feel for that I can understand where this is going or how this is going to look and because we have k eight on our committee we'll have a very large group of classrooms for people to be able to go into um in you know different grade levels possibly at different buildings so once that as we're working through that first year with the people who have been seeped in we'll be developing the curriculum so that when we go that that first full year of full implementation with everyone that will be the year that our I have built hopefully capacity with all of our teachers who've done it for a year and they'll be able to be on site go to folks to answer questions we also know that no curriculum is perfect we have totally
060figured that out with all of this dating that we've done um but what we do know is that along the way you know I might work out some bumps and say like oh this would be a great way to roll this out with kids and I make a note of it and so when we go to roll it out large scale we would say hey here's what we've learned you know this group of teachers really thinks it might be best not to do this at this point but instead over here but really anchored into the research right so we're not going to be making adjustments that don't foundationally land in their research thank you yeah so along those lines if the curriculum is doesn't roll out well right and so you you talked about the
061curriculum being in some cases K through five and then you'll have a six through eight so if the K through five curriculum we say um it's not working so good how does that affect the child go transitioning into that next section excuse me six through eight because they're going to experience something different um so that's one part and I guess the so when you're coming up with this plan do you try to align the K5 and the six through eight in the beginning so that it's a natural progression and if so what happens if the first part doesn't work do you tweak the second part yeah so when you look at the cycle each part of the year is that we haven't really discussed because this year we haven't had folks come in and really
062talk about implementation but Todd would be a great example of how math is in the middle of their implementation every year when we have when he's been in it not only does the company now do more updates right we find that companies are doing more updates more frequently based on feedback from the consumer based on feedback from us so they update but we also go through with our kids and say like oh we need to put in more Hands-On experiences for our kids or we need to have this work a different way each year of implementation also includes some summer curriculum work to make those adjustments and to put out updated guidance for our students so that we're ensuring that it goes well for them and you can see we Implement for about three years
063and then we pause and take an evaluation do we need new curriculum have the standards changed do we hate this and we need to like call it or is this like did we just finally get over the hump in year three and now we're like nope we've got this and we're going to go through and just continue to make those adjustments along the way and um I should also say one of our priorities was at an Ela in particular or something having something cohesive K-8 if possible so that has been a priority of the committee but as we've looked at resources companies still are in this k568 mindset they have things for all K-8 but the resources sometimes look very different so we've kind of while we want that to be a priority we also
064don't want to put resources in front of kids that aren't going to benefit them yeah we didn't rehearse the questions but I think the falling in line pretty well so we have K-8 do we have plans to provide supports for those who didn't get the full breadth of lots of reading strategies including those who are now already in the later grades and sure you know sure so what we've worked really hard to do is ground our reading Specialists who end up supporting students who aren't making it in tier one instruction right they're either pushing into the classroom during that block of independent reading time to provide additional support and guidance for students or they're pulling them out sometimes to do something more direct like an Orton Gillingham approach right we have Sunday in one of
065our schools we have Orton Gillingham we have a lot of different things that make sense for students that we're using in conjunction with the resources some of the resources that we're piloting like hmh the um that program in particular has intervention resources attached to it we already use read 180 and systems 44 at the middle school level so if we were to go with Houghton Mifflin at the middle school level we would be able to easily get kids into intervention because it's just part of their flow of how their program works so um yes we're being very conscientious about that and I would say our reading Specialists across the district now by the end of this year we will have everyone Orton Gillingham trained which is a really big deal okay any other questions Dr
066hillock my last question you said many of the pilots encourage offer great opportunities for writing and I just wondered if any of that writing included cursive writing Ah that's such a great question that you know what is so funny these parent surveys when we say what do you wish was in your child's curriculum many parents like dip right back to something you know as simple as cursive writing so yes and we still are purchasing um just you know while we're kind of seeing how it folds into the program we still have always purchased the Handwriting Without tiers workbooks at the end of second grade we purchased them so that the kids can like kind of clean up their Printing and start to transition and then at third grade we purchase them as well for the
067cursive practice so yes we'll continue that if it's not embedded enough you know based on what we think our students need um we'll we'll just continue to use that as a supplement moving on to the stimulus spending update superintendent growman yep I'm going to invite Janine Cushman and Romeo to come on up and give us an update we have as all of you know receive stimulus funding and what Romeo and Janine are going to do is give us an update in terms of how that breaks down in terms of ARP and Carissa funding so I'll turn it right over to you thank you good evening everyone uh so a superintendent had mentioned where we'll give you an update tonight of where we are with their Federal stimulus dollars the last time we got in front
068of the board for an update was about October of 2022. um the federal funds are that we have remaining are starting to wind down this year will be the winding down of our CSS crrsa funds next year will be the winding down of ARP funds but we wanted to provide an update of where we are and what we're planning to where we're planning to go with that since October and I did want to reassure everybody and make sure that the board is aware we will fully utilize every dollar that is in those federal grants for us one way or another so so just a kind of a quick reminder of what we have out there we've got our crrsa funds it was authorized back in December of 2020 it was the three-year Grant period ending
069this school year and we must have all funds obligated by September of 23 and then liquidated by October so I was saying crrsa funds will come in our winding down uh this school year and that allocation was for about 10.4 million dollars broken down as you see here I'll portions of the Grant have been approved by SCD um so we're good in terms of the grantor and SED where applicable in the priorities that we identified um way back in the beginning was expansion of counseling other mental health supports providing targeted academic intervention supports for learning loss gaps those were all identified the kind of two summary statements for all the services that were identified in the grant itself and the third one was investments in equipment and capital items that was added later on in
070the process for which we're now starting to take a little bit of advantage of so you'll see some of that this evening as well our second group of funds is ARP American Rescue plan funds authorized in March of 21 another three-year Grant period it actually ends in the 23-24 school year so we've got about a Year's worth of timing on that all funds must be obligated by September of 24 liquidated by September I'm sorry October of 24 and then we report into the state for how we've used those funds that allocation to us as a reminder was about 24 almost 25 million dollars broken down the way you see here the 22.183 million dollar base Grant that's actually broken down into 17 million uh it's almost 17.8 million dollars kind of unrestricted but has to
071meet the guidelines of ARP and about 4.4 million dollars that has to be used for learning loss it's the 20 learning loss requirement of the base Grant in addition to that 4.4 million that's embedded in the base Grant there's another 2.6 million dollars that you see here between learning loss Reserve summer program reserve and after school Reserve those thresholds also have to be met and we are on target to meet those thresholds as we're going through again 24.8 million dollars all portions have been approved by the Grant and SCD is needed the priorities are pretty identical to what we had in crrsa the first two are the same the third item again develop after school and summer learning programs in all our buildings which is what we're doing and again in Capital Improvements and Equipment
072items were added a little bit later in the process for ARP as well at this point I'm going to have Janine uh review the rest of the slides and give us an update at as to where we are now in terms of expenditures and then what our planned expenditures are going to be for the next 12 to 15 months but I would preface it that this is very fluid um as as supply chain items come up other issues come up we are constantly taking a three four times a year look at these funds and try and properly manage expenditures where they need to go so the plan we have today maybe look a little bit different in three months from now but this is where we think we're going to go going forward we'll update
073the board as we go thank you so as Romeo indicated we had a grant submitted for our original ARP and Carissa proposals that were largely driven by cabinet and building leadership identification of needs coming out of covid in most cases it was Staffing um and it was related to academic recovery as well as social emotional learning primarily since last October though we've also looked at the fact that much of that Staffing was not able to be fulfilled so in the in the sense of not leaving those dollars on the table we looked at Alternatives and went forward with the use of those funds to support the physical plant and uh again within the confines of meeting the mandatory learning loss as well as meeting the excuse me the requirements of the state Reserves again our
074original Grant and all of the subsequent Amendments have been approved So speaking to the dollars these are the expended and committed dollars as of April of this year the base Grant the 22 million we've spent 9 million on salaries seven million 9 million salaries seven thousand on equipment nine hundred thousand almost a million dollars on contracted services some travel in support of professional development some supplies and then a balance on benefits for a total of 12 million million that's been expended leaving us about 10 million dollars unexpended for the next year the learning the Lost instructional time the million eight we spent a million one of that million two of that on salaries to date the learning loss the summer enrichment we spent 63 on salaries supporting last year's summer programs and other contracted services
075and benefits for eighty three thousand dollars um the comprehensive after school that was one of the ones that was most challenging for us because it was very specific as to how it could be used so to date we've only spent about four four thousand dollars of that and then the Esser uh Esser on Corona crrsa is the 10 million we spent 3 million on that salaries equipment four and a half million on contracted Services which I'll speak to in a second um a hundred thousand on supplies benefits of five hundred thousand related to those salaries TRS FICA Etc and then of the year the 79 000 we spent about 60. uh on salaries 10 on benefits in those different categories we've spent a great deal on professional development as Suzanne had referred to we did
076a lot with respect to employment and recruitment we have curricular materials we have a number of summer programs in the uh comprehensive summer program that the 63 000 and we're going to continue that for next year in the crrsa the 4.5 million is weight room equipment playgrounds day automation for controllers playgrounds I said and cleaning equipment so that's the biggest piece in the crrsis today but so again looking forward to what we're going to be doing with the balance of those funds we have 10 million dollars of ARP money to spend in the base Grant we're looking at a million five in salaries and benefits uh 750 000 has been allocated to School departments another 288 of miscellaneous expenditures the capital projects those improvements to physical plant and looking at carpet replacement getting rid of
077carpet putting in VCT we're going to replace Lakeshore windows for a million three we're going to excuse me fund the Patty Hill gymnasium project out of the base Grant and then we're looking at replacing water fountains throughout the buildings for enough to round out that 10 million dollars the base Grant the salaries and benefits there are still about 65 maybe maybe a little bit more about 65 positions still sitting in ARP for the upcoming school year and that's where that's what's generating the salary costs and we will plan for what will transpire with those positions over the next budget over the summer and through the fall and try to come up with a plan on how many of those or can we keep them all or how do we prioritize what we want to keep
078in mind so we've got those positions of Grant through 23 24 but they will be out of their Grant when it ends in September of 24. and to that point those salaries are part of that mandated learning loss requirement that four million dollars of that 22 that we have to dedicate to learning loss on the Lost instructional time we have 675 000 yet to spend um let me skip ahead to the summer learning enrichment for this year our summer programs will total about 286 thousand dollars so we're going to fund those in full from the summer learning and enrichment anticipating that we would want to continue those should they be successful which they're looking like they will be we would have the opportunity to fund the summer learning programs for next year out of the
079Lost instructional time Grant it fits within the parameters the comprehensive after school we're looking at funding Regents review for this year to probably about fifty thousand dollars should that be successful we would look to do it again next year and then we're going to look to do some high impact tutoring we may be Consulting using outside Consultants to do that but those are some of the restrictions that we need to comply with in order to meet those uh the requirements of the grant under the coronavirus the crrsa we're going to charge out some health out of that we're going to do a carpet replacement project and you can see it's in two places it's not two million dollars worth of carpet replacement it's a million dollars worth of carpet replacement and buildings that we're trying
080to make sure that we can get into the crrsa grant if for timing purposes we can't we will shift those dollars back to ARP do some back filling so that we fully utilize those resources and then finally we have the balance of the ten thousand nine thousand dollars on the year two they're um fee under capital projects again that was an item that wasn't originally allowable but when they came out with the guidance for arp capital projects that um prevent deal with or add classroom space are allowable on the federal funding sources so things like carpet to VCT fully fundable through the grants because it's it's a an enhancement to the environment for kids boilers Chillers um anything window replacements anything air quality air quality and anything related to those fully aidable reimbursable I should
081say uh through the grants so with a lot of our hiccups in the first year with the federal monies because we couldn't hire and it's still actually a problem of hiring positions we'd love to add a whole bunch of positions but you can't filter so to best utilize the funds we're enhancing some of the capital projects and making sure that some of the carpets are out the windows are replaced chillers are replaced either through these funds or the reimage increase project so at least at the end of the day we've made the most efficient use of those funds whether it be staff Staffing physical plant or equipment which is another category that is so we replaced a lot of our equipment in the buildings with better state-of-the-art equipment that should enhance the environment questions questions
082Mr Maloney so in other words you were able to spend the whole 24.8 million and then something [Laughter] okay anything else thank you both moving on it 5.01 change orders can I certainly move those to the table please move by Dr Trio second by Mr swick any comments questions concerns on those do I come out make those change dollars change orders amount to 56 837 roughly with that all those in favor that passes eight to zero Canada 2324 School Bus Bond resolution approval to the table moved by vice president malar second mind Mr Maloney any comments questions concerns on that seeing that all's in favor that passes eight to zero you have anticipated bids before you that's written information only does anybody have any questions and the budget status and revenue report does anybody have
083any questions on that that's written information as well all right moving on to the consent agenda can I just want to move the consent agenda to the table please moved by Mr swikey second by Mrs farmer any comments questions or concerns on this consent agenda the only comment I would look to make is I'd like to thank the uh Olympia extra classroom fund for Their donation to The DJ for the eighth grade dance with that all those in favor that passes eight to zero item 10.01 certified budget vote results from May 16 2023 can I have Sony move that to the table please move by Mr Maloney second by Mr monogorio any comments questions concerns on that sing the nose in favor that passes eight to zero and now I need a motion to or
084I'm going to make the motion that we go into exec session to discuss the employment history of a particular person can I get a second Mr sawicki all those in favor that passes eight to zero the board is an exact session thank you