001Hi, good evening and welcome to the September 2nd, 2025 human resources work session. I'm going to call the meeting to order. I'm not the chair of the committee right now, but I'm the only serving member from from last year's committee, so I'm just going to start it off. Um, we'll just start out by seeing if there's any public comment. And we have public comment. we have Katherine Cinera uh here to to address and I'll turn over to her. >> Good evening. Um Katherine Caraa, president of the Ithaca Teachers Association and I am here tonight to present data trends that the ITA has identified through membertomember exit interviews that we conducted this spring and summer. So, as you know, the collective bargaining agreement between the district and our teachers expired on June 30th, and that our
002teachers have returned to our classrooms with all of the same responsibilities, but with less money in their paychecks. This is due to the fact that the ITA and the ICSD executive team have yet to reach f reach mutual agreement on three key issues. Competitive salaries that recruit and retain our teachers. dignified health care for all teachers and their families regardless of their retirey or marital status and family leave benefits that support working teachers families. Given the conversations that we've had at the negotiating table, the ITA feels that it's absolutely imperative to conduct exit interviews with teachers who leave ICSD so that we can really truly understand the reasons behind our higher than average teacher turnover rate. A rate which holds strong this year at 18%. Higher than the state and national averages. Here is an
003update on two trends we've identified in our exit interviews conducted this spring and summer. Trend number one, our resignations are not due to transients. At our June 12th negotiation session, we heard the ICSD chief investigations officer state that he believes the primary reason for high turnover in the ICSD is the transient nature of Ithaca, implying that high turnover is an inevitable and unsolvable problem here. However, personal data does not support this claim. When charting ITA resignations from all ICSD board reports from August of 2021 to today, only 2% of teacher resignations cited relocation as their cause. Our exit interviews also do not support this claim. In speaking directly with recent resignes, we have learned that 40% of them have secured new positions in neighboring school districts while 30% of them resigned for the purpose of
004retirement. This means that 70% of our former teachers have stayed local but are no longer teaching here. Trend number two, our salaries and benefits are not competitive with neighboring districts. In our exit interviews, every former teacher we spoke to cited a lack of competitive pay as a consideration for leaving ICSD and tied the lack of competitive pay with a feeling of disrespect for their professionalism. Here's what two different resignes encouraged us to share with you. One former member said, quote, "It was impossible to afford to live in the district on ICSD wages. The lower pay was a barrier for ICSD being a place for a long-term career and raising my family. Incidentally, as a v veteran of almost 15 years as a teacher, my starting wage at a new district was almost $20,000 more than
005ICSD was paying after having been here for 9 and a half years. Another said, quote, "My new position is offering 17,000 more in pay. Their family leave is a bit better. They honor up to 60 sick days instead of 30 when I had a child. their contract feels more respectful and fair. Additionally, we spoke with a third-year teacher whose partner was offered a higher starting salary to join the ICSD than they received themselves, leaving this teacher to question whether it was time to resign and reapply, hoping to reclaim their current position at a higher salary. In conclusion, there's more. I sent you the whole statement. But in conclusion, while the collective bargaining agreement must ultimately be negotiated by the executive team and the teachers directly, we know that the board has the ability to influence
006this decision and this process. To that end, we will continue to keep this committee ab breast of the data we glean from conversations with teachers, especially with those who have resigned since they are the best sources of information on why teachers are leaving the Ithaca City School District. Thank you. Thank you, Katherine. Any uh board responses at this time? >> No, just I mean, thank you as always, Katherine. >> Okay. Um Okay. Uh our third agenda item is the approval of the minutes um from the May 6, 2025 work session. Um, the other two committee members last year, Garrick and Jill, are not on the committee this year. So, I'm the only one that could approve it, which is not by any kind of majority, but it's the only thing that could happen. So, I
007approve the minutes. I unilaterally approve the minutes. >> The only time on the board that I will my one my one vote will carry a decision um exclusively. Okay. Now, uh moving on to item number four, uh 4.1. We need to elect a chairperson. Um, I'm going to I'm going to nominate Emily Workman to be the chairperson of the HR committee. Um, >> I'll second. >> Okay. And Emily will second herself. So then I move to So then I move to elect uh Emily Workman for the human resources committee. And all in favor? Okay. Opposed? abstensions obviously. No. Okay. Uh so unanimously, Emily, you have been uh elected as the new chair. So I will now be quiet and you can you can take over the meeting by moving on to I'm I'm prompting you
008here. Agenda item 4.2, staffing updates. >> Thank you. Um as a new chairperson ever, Adam's going to be doing a lot of prompting for me. Um, so I'm assuming that Zach Lind is going to be coming up to share with us some staffing updates. >> That's you got it. Um, hi everyone. I'm Zach Lind. I'm assistant superintendent for human resources and technology and Gladier Velasquez is with us as well. >> Yeah, >> welcome. Um, so we just have a short sort of summer briefing staffing update for you all um to sort of just show folks where we're at. Um and then obviously we can in future committees dive into specific topics. But um is there a clicker or is Oh, cool. Thanks. So uh just to get started uh just to give folks some context
009uh I was looking at the numbers today. We employ approximately,00 full-time and part-time staff members. um um including 500 as of when I pulled it today we had 563 teachers um with the student population of approximately 5,020. All these numbers change daily but that's you know gives you 550 or 60 um and then roughly 5,000 students um and then we also have a sub pool of between um 170 and 200 staff members. So um ultimately our HR is serving 1,300 or so folks um all year. Um so we have approximate studenttoteer ratio of 9 to one roughly. Um also something to know that might be helpful is that we deploy across 12 schools and all of our other supporting facilities, but also we uh deploy staff to almost every like private and charter school um
010through special education services in our region. Um so through special ed and other um sort of mandatory services and if you include transportation services we actually really go all across the region every single day. We have transportation members that go I think up to like down definitely down Ammyra Bingmpington possibly even Syracuse at times. So you know just wanted to give everyone a a picture of the the breadth of what we cover in human resources. Any questions on that? Oh >> no. Um just summer hiring fact sheet. Uh we're starting this school year with 562 teachers. Um 49 new ICSD teachers were hired for this school year. Um so folks that were bringing in and gave offer letters to over the summer. Some folks started like uh probably started in the spring. They'll still go
011to new teacher orientation, but these are brand new hires that the board would have approved over the last several months. Um there's a breakdown um by subject areas, but you can see we skew broadly. You know, we're hiring the most for elementary and special education. That's that. Um and then we had uh five retirees have come back to work with us in different capacities, whether it's teaching maybe a section of something at the high school or even covering a full-time um absence or maternity leave, things like that. Um and then we also have 36 new and returning teachers who are pursuing certification. um thanks to our uh you know we partnered with the ITA and ISA on a a memorandum of agreement regarding um how we bring in uncertified teachers to our organization. We have
01236 folks uh pursuing certification. So, we're it's been a really um and this year we're really pushing hard on that in terms of folks have to be working towards p uh obtaining certification and we um hope you'll see over the board meetings over the next couple of months a lot of folks uh their status changing from being sort of a long-term sub status to a probationary track status. Um, and most of these teachers are either uh um folks that are certified in uh an area differently than where they're teaching, folks with out of state certification, and folks who are um in metriculated into a program where they will gain certification. There's a few other circumstance there, but that's largely what that is. And then, uh just we had a I I thought this was worth
013noting. We had a turnover percentage looking at the end of last like June of last year to now we had a turnover percentage of 8.9%. Um so that's I looked at data today of uh June 2nd and which I figured was sort of a good point and compared it to today. >> So can you clarify that because Katherine just mentioned a turnover ratio. Can you >> I I don't know what what like I'm sure we could reconcile our numbers. What I I was looking at was end of last year to now. So >> end of last school year, not you mean the like this recent June? Yeah, June. >> So this summer's basic turnover rate was what percent. >> Well, 8.9% compared to Oh, sorry. Yeah. 8.9% of the teachers >> turned over. If you
014look at our rosters on our staffing list on June 2nd is the date I used to today. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Is that normal? Is that that's so that's people who like commit when isn't there a date with which you need to like they you ask them to >> um the well we send them reasonable assurance le letters right um but uh you know that being said we had a resignation come through yesterday or so there it's always in flux >> um is that normal >> like compared to previous years I don't mean like >> yeah I would have to come back if that's something the board wants us to investigate, we certainly could um as part of a certain project this year perhaps, but I don't have the numbers on that. >> Okay,
015thanks. Um just other couple items um just in terms of breakdown of bargaining units um managerial confidential we have right now employees um and I think I pulled from separate lists so one list for the ITA has 563 the other one had 562 as I said we're continually hiring people um uh service employees are are the folks like um maintenance workers bus drivers clerical staff 261 of them uh principles or which and directors we 30 um pair of professionals, ESPs, teaching assistants, we have 214 and folks that classified as managerial confidential, we have 16 and then we actually also have our executive committee which we could put on there is fine. Um and then I just just for I I think I presented this last year or so. um this and it didn't really transpose
016great onto this, but this is just a breakdown by certification area of where folks are teaching um for uh teaching staff just so folks see it. You all approve a lot of board reports, but um uh you have the number. We by far far hire the most general education teachers and then it's special ed teachers really you know one then two and then only then do you get back down to um the closest being like 29 English teachers. So uh that's sort of the certification or certification teaching area breakdown for the staff that we have to start the school year. >> Can I have a clarific clarifying question? So because I know a lot of um like special education teachers with the shortage aren't specifically >> uh >> certified, >> right? So is this is
017this placement or certification? >> Yeah, it's it's by placement area. So it's like they're teaching in that capacity. Yeah, that's what this one says. >> Um and then lastly, uh we just have our uh staffing and hiring updates. Uh right now we're still trying you know there's a couple a lot of positions are being filled by either sort of interim folks or um overages depending what area if it's for certain um related service providers or special education teachers. uh some of them are are working through overages but uh just areas where we're still actively recruiting uh technology, chemistry, math, physics, uh library, psychologists, uh ENL, speech, guidance, and special ed. So, you know, in some in some cases we're close to putting people in. In other cases, uh we're just posting these depending on the
018where things are in the cycle. And then on the non-instructional side, we have um folks in uh custodians, custodial workers, uh typists, grounds crew, uh uh building maintenance folks, drivers, um and then administrative assistants and uh system administrator. So those are the areas that we're working on. >> I'm going to ask one more question. um with recent sort of federal changes with uh English new language policies, are we seeing any impact on that on a state level yet? >> In terms of uh for employment or for >> Yeah. Like if those requirements are gone, are we going to see something where like there's a lack of funding or anything? Is that any concern trickling down yet or not on radar? >> I don't do have information. I don't have any information to that. the Yeah,
019I don't think >> good. >> Fingers crossed it's >> I think that Yeah, I'd be speculating. So, just leave it at that. Um, so that's sort of that's that's our overview of where we're at. Um, I'm happy as we go forward uh to work on specific areas for future discussions um and dive into that work as we go forward. >> Great. Thank you. Does anyone have any additional questions? >> But this year, so this year we don't have um any special education openings at this time. >> Um so we have uh it was on the list for secondary. Um so we have some secondary openings, but right now they're being covered through folks who will take on an extra section. So, we don't um I don't think we have Yeah, I don't think we have
020any like there's no one who should be receiving special education services who does not have a of someone uh providing that service in our schools right now >> because that last year and the year before I guess we had I remember talking about a couple times that we had multiple openings in that area and then this year we don't. So, is that >> Yeah. So, so, um, we have at the secondary level, at the elementary level, we're pretty well staffed. We have a couple of folks who will gain certification, um, hopefully in the near future, sometimes um, this school year. And then at the secondary level, we, you know, we filled those throughges. So, there's always there's always like case case movement, juggling, need for more. So, so we'll probably see more. Um, but there's
021at this moment, no. >> Okay. Thanks. Yeah. >> What do I do now? >> Um, we don't really have probably any other action items or specific agenda setting because you'll probably want to work on that between now and next time. So, we could move to number seven, which is to enter into executive session because we're going to talk about some some business there and then >> Great. Would you like to motion? >> Well, I sure I'll move to enter the executive session for the purpose of discussing employment history of particular persons. Second. Uh, so all in favor, >> it's unanimous. >> Okay. So, we're going to move into session. You have to close the meeting. >> So, we're gonna what? >> You have to close the meeting. >> Okay. So, we're gonna close the meeting.
022>> Yeah. We're going to move into executive session and we'll see you guys next month. >> Yeah. Goodbye, everyone. >> That's right.