001Okay. >> Good evening. It is Thursday, October 9th. May I have a motion to return um to public session? Motion by Bill, second by John. All those in favor? 70. Thank you. Uh, if we could please all stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> 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. >> Thank you. Hudson, you're up. Did you you have a report for us this evening? >> I do. Yes. >> Great. Um, good evening to all the board members, district officials, and community members present today or listening on Zoom. Uh, I want to start off the report by reflecting uh on this past month. So, starting off with spirit week and
002homecoming at the high school. Uh, this year's spirit week was split across two weeks. The entire school really stepped it up this year. Uh, as always, the seniors and juniors went all out, but the most impressive group this year was the freshman. In their first few weeks of high school, they truly brought it all, and they came in with all their spirit. Uh, JJHS lead hosted club on Friday, September 26th to kick off the homecoming weekend. All clubs had a table set up in the gym, and each grade had the opportunity to come down and to explore the club options. Uh there was even a pickle ball game running in the middle of the gym. Uh the event is really awesome because it's entirely studentr run and many clubs had over 100 students sign up
003uh throughout the day. Uh and later that day the pep rally took place at the high school uh and that celebrated all the varsity teams and it featured performances from student le groups. The week culminated in a homecoming football game which as always was a massive success. There was a large there was the largest turnout from students in recent years. The float parade was fantastic and while we still don't know who won the parade, it's a close one with the freshman and the juniors. Uh the seniors, they had a little senioritis this year. Um but nonetheless, it was a great time for everyone. Last week, John J hosted Dan Slepian and Eric Glisten. Dan Sleptian is a dine news reporter and he wrote the singing files which is a book that every high schooler read.
004Uh his book it highlights wrongfully convicted individuals such as Eric listen to raise awareness for them and for the gaps in our justice system today. Juniors and seniors got to sit in the auditorium to watch while the freshman and sophomores were on a Zoom webinar. And it was truly amazing to listen to both Sleptian and Glisten tell their stories uh after uh the school read and wrote about the book. Uh and Glisten's um positivity throughout the whole thing was highlighted. Uh moving on to this week, John J. High School opened up the B-wing to students yesterday, October 8th. When students walked in, we were honestly shocked. Um the B-wing, it looked truly futuristic, and students really couldn't have been more pleased with the final result. Uh during the lunch block, almost every single seat was
005taken throughout the first two days. And one aspect that students didn't know about was the four private rooms. Uh students can go in there to study or hang out with their friends. And when you're in the rooms, the outside noise is blocked out. And this is an excellent space for students to utilize to study or to hang out. And all four rooms were taken throughout the entire day. Uh in different news, Dr. Blanch opened up applications for the superintendent stu student advisory team. This is an opportunity for high school students to contribute mean meaningfully to shaping and enhancing learning uh experiences across KSD. Applications close on October 15th and the first meeting is scheduled for October 24th. In my future board reports, uh I will include a section on what's discussed at these advisory team
006meetings. At the middle school, they hosted the pep rally which included the recognition of student athletes. The pep rally had a mummification challenge of teachers which from the videos looked pretty awesome. Uh the middle school pep rally uh it has expanded every year uh and now it's an amazing event that students look forward to every year. The sixth graders had the opportunity to attend PNW Bosey's challenge course. They worked on completing obstacles and learning to collaborate in a group setting. Uh it's a special day that sixth graders get to have every year. Uh looking forward to high school events. Uh, the high school will be hosting the PSAT on October 15th and the ACT on October 18th. October 17th will be the JJHS blood drive and school picture day will be on the 20th and
007the 21st with retakes on November 7th. The JJMS PTO will be hosting sixth grade conversations tomorrow, October 10th. And October 24 21st, there will be a principal coffee at the middle school. Meadow Pond Elementary. It hosted its harvest day today, October 9th. And they have their soup day tomorrow, October 10th, and the PTO will be hosting the Fright Fest on the 30th. Increase Miller will host their garden fest on October 14th, followed by the soup day on the 15th. The IME pasta night, which is a student favorite, will be on October 17th, and the 25th will be for the Halloween fair at Miller. Uh October 25th will be the Katona Elementary Halloween fair which is one of the best events offered at KES. Um looking forward to future board meetings. I plan to meet with
008student leaders at the middle school and each of the elementary schools. Uh this will allow me to provide more insightful reports on the other schools and these meetings will start after the schools have their student elections. Um overall this past month is marked uh with a period a period of spirit uh togetherness for our district. It was highlighted by spirit week, homecoming club chella and now the opening of the B-wing. We have an excellent year ahead of us given the spirit we've shown in just the first first month of school. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Lots always lots going on around this district. Thank you. And I'm excited that you're going to be meeting with um the leaders from the other schools so they can actually hear what you're doing and you can talk
009with them and be a mentor towards them. So, thank you for doing that. Um committee reports, uh audit committee. >> Yeah, the audit committee met on September 29th and had a preview to the uh this year's audit. And I'm not going to steal any more of Caroline's thunder as we're getting presented later. So I'm going to leave it at that. >> Great. Thank you. Finance committee. >> We had no meeting. >> Okay. >> 22nd. Facilities committee. >> And do you want to do all of yours at one time? >> Sure. I'm happy to do that. Sure. So with regard to facilities, I would say it's a facilities update in four parts. And Hudson already shared with us the joy around the opening of the B-wing, which is probably the highlight of tonight's report. Work has
010also begun on the seawing in the high school and after the fall productions we're going to resume work in the auditorium. So that's kind of what's going on at the high school. Um work at Increased Miller Meadow Pond and John J. Middle School is substantially complete which is very exciting. The vestibules are now operational at those schools. Final work is completed. We're working through punch list items and then also just the technology classrooms at the middle school. Um, and we're on target to close out a final cost report by December 31st, which is very important because we have to send that up to the state so that our building aid can begin to flow in a timely manner. Um, and then at KES, the vestibule is taking a little bit longer. It's more complex. You
011might remember some of the designs and beautiful drawings that we've seen. And so that is envisioned to be completed over the December break. We've got that full twoe break. >> Um, so that's what's happening with the bond. Very, very exciting. Um, there also bids out for diesel tank replacement here at the high school and for water project at Meadow Pond, which we've been watching for quite some time. So, thank you for getting those bids out. And, um, you might recall hearing that we're embarking on a building conditions survey. This is, you know, the five-year annual BCS, which will then inform our five year fiveyear capital plan. And most of the fieldwork has been completed, which is very exciting. and stay tuned for an update in the new year in January. And then finally, we also
012have a really exciting consent agenda item tonight where we're going to have the opportunity to vote on the most recent activity related to the energy performance contract. This is item 15.06, but I think I'm going to suggest that why don't we do that during the consent agenda. We'll kind of, you know, maybe just pull it out for discussion. Is that okay? Um, so that's everything happening with facilities with Westp. Um, we had our board meeting on September 29th and it was coupled with a retreat, an annual retreat that we did in person and I'm so delighted to be able to say that all 16 board members were there. We had 100% participation in person and this was the first time we did something like this in a really long time. So, it was wonderful. Um,
013and then looking ahead to next week, it's the beginning of the annual business meeting for NISBA. So, you know, the NISPA convention is in New York City like subsequent to October 16th, but they've pulled out the business meeting and that's when, thank you board for authorizing me to vote on our district's behalf on all of those NISBA advocacy resolutions. So, up on the Westp website and thank you to Kim, she also made available, there's like a chart where Westp provides its feedback on every NISBA resolution. And my plan, just so everybody is aware, is that I'm basically going to vote the Westput perspective, which you can see on this chart. And I invite you to review the chart. And if you have any questions at all about any of the resolutions or in your opinion,
014we should be voting differently. I would just request please let Lorraine know and she and Barbara and Ray can talk about it at a planning meeting or I can stop by the planning meeting and we'll figure it out. But in the past, our board's tradition has just been to authorize me to vote on the board's behalf. And generally speaking, I vote the Westput party line on the resolutions. Just letting everybody know that that's upcoming. And then finally, the policy committee met on 20 September 26th. We do not have anything on our consent agenda tonight, but just so you're aware, we talked about an exhibit pursuant to the parents bill of rights and data privacy. Some small edits are underway for that exhibit. Exhibits don't come before the board for approval. Um, but you know, the
015administration will just kind of let us know when that's finalized. And then we looked at the technology responsible use policy which maybe is going to be updated just ever so slightly to be in dialogue with our new policy regarding cell phone use in the district. And the policy meeting is next scheduled to occur on Halloween. I'm happy to tell everybody >> we will not. >> So we will be students. >> Thank you Marjorie. >> Thank you. Uh next is alas. So we have not met as a full committee yet. We got a sneak preview for our meeting on the 14th. So we'll be meeting um lots of exciting things to be coming. Just uh we did meet with the architects and the architects will be presenting the plan to the committee on uh the four
01614th. So more to come on that. Uh sustainability. >> Sure. sustainability met for the first time on Friday the 3. Um, and just a brief moment. It was my first meeting chairing and we are just so fortunate to have so many members of the community who have deep technical expertise on issues like energy and there's some really meaty issues that the committee contributes to. So for this first meeting, we talked about well we started with Melissa Brady providing an update from the sustainability in our schools committee. So, we have our board sustainability committee and then there's the district committee that works on sustainability issues and as you may recall last year Dr. Drake presented our three-year sustainability plan. This is the second year of that. Since then, um you know, we've completed the KSD 2030
017vision that has the pillar 4 on sustainability and global citizenship. So the committee is working right now on taking metrics from a you know a a program of the green schools alliance where where we look and see how far we're making progress on different things and trying to really prioritize the metrics that are remaining to really align with pillar 4 and have that the aspirations of pillar four so that we're really um focusing on the KSD 2030. Um we also talked about our greenhouse gas emissions inventory. So this is something you know many years ago I think around 2008 was when the board first created um a goal and our goal right now is to have emissions reduction of 85% by 2040 and um every few years and Lisa correct me if I have anything
018wrong here because you're you're you're the uh the expert on all things related to the uh to the reports. Every few years the district commissions a report to see how far are we coming along and how well are we doing. And uh last year we received a report from a firm that we we contract called the AKRF. And um we've been working with them over the course of the past year just to make sure that we really have a deep as a committee and as an administration have a deep understanding of the methodology. Um because this is work that continues to get built on every time we have a new report. And um we're planning to to wrap that up and to be able to report back into the community in terms of how far
019we've come and where we are on that path to 85% reduction by 2040. Um we also talked about the electrification of the bus fleet. So again I think the district recently received a report from INF associates where um the committee is going to be you know looking at that and working with the district to to have a roadmap for the electrification of of the buses. Um, and you know, thanks to Lisa for putting in deposits on five micro buses before September 30th to be able to benefit from um the the tax credits before those expired. And so that was um great. And then last but not least, the committee was briefed on the energy performance contract that was presented to us at the last board meeting and that we'll be voting on today. >> Great.
020Thank you. and Arwin, I'm sorry I skipped right over parent council. Have did you have you met? >> Yes. Okay. >> So, um we had our second meeting last Friday, which was October 3rd. Um we got an update from Dr. Drake on the literacy presentation that we had. We updated parent council on that. Um Rey updated them uh well actually we at least also updated them on the capital projects. Um and uh we spoke about a few of the things that happened in our board of ed meetings. They had a lively discussion actually about engaging the lower schools in some of the festivities that happened around homecoming. So, it was uh great to hear Hudson's kind of overview on what happened there because it mirrored a lot of what my daughter's sentiments were and they
021were really talking about how do we get the elementary schools involved in some of that and who could foster that. Um there was again more communic there was more conversation around communication and it's just one of those things that as I don't want to say as a district we have a problem. I think that sometimes when there's a mass organization in general getting information disseminated it is always sometimes an issue. So they talked a little bit more about how the PTO's themselves could coordinate um and get the information out of Ray to then put out to the uh community itself. Um and then um then I also had to leave 30 minutes early so I had missed the end of the meeting. No, we are all volunteers and life happens. So, but thank you. Um,
022now we have the district committees. Has the district safety committee met? Is that Marjorie? I think is that you? >> No meeting yet. >> Not yet. >> Um, ERJC >> this coming Thursday, a week from tonight. >> Beautiful. Food services, not yet. >> Not yet. and special education empowerment council. I think for later this month, right, is our first meeting. The 20 20th maybe. >> Okay, perfect. Um, okay. Next up, 8.01. Any board announcements? I just want to second Hudson's sentiments about what a great homecoming weekend it was. is always just so enriching to see all of the students and families around campus and enjoying um our beautiful facilities. Those guys work so hard. So, it was actually very nice to have um I don't if anybody saw the post, it was custo custodian appreciation
023week. >> Um and let me tell you, those guys as well as the facilities guys really, you know, go above and beyond and really make our facilities a really special place. So, um, and that was, you know, homecoming weekend was also begun with our Hall of Fame, um, induction, which was in year two. And, um, I love watching the faces of the the adults that have gone before our student athletes walking into our new facility. Um, that's the J Center. And it's just a real testament to what the district has done to really bring us first class. facilities. So, um just a really a great time around this campus and now the fall air is arrived. Um so, it's uh we're looking forward to the upcoming fall season, which is uh winter season, which is
024going to be starting before we know it, unbelievably. So, but hopefully we'll have hear more to come on, um from the athletic department on where we are in playoff standings. So, more to come on that. Anyway, anyone else? I I will say that in the meeting, as always, I encouraged um them to have people come to our meetings to hear more about what's going on in person and so that way we can always get parent feedback. Um because again back to keep mentioning Hudson here in his great presentation, you know, one of the things that they talked about about including the younger grades in some of those festivities, it really goes it helps make the high school experience so much better when you are engaged in those things. So I would love to have parents
025come and kind of hear these ideas so that way they could put it together because it does have to be a parentled thing. >> Yeah, it's always fun. Some of the sports teams always have the younger kids come out. They do it for senior night. They do it for >> for homecoming. And um those kids just really the younger students really enjoy coming and >> looking up to the the varsity players and and saying one day that's going to be me. >> From a personal level, my daughter I have a very big age gap and my daughter came to the varsity football game. She watched her brothers play for four years and so now she's very engaged in student activities even though she plays a sport that nobody comes to. Um she's she's just very
026engaged and I think that it does help when they see it at a young age. >> And you could go to swim meets to >> and there were there were a million elementary kids at the football game. I mean it was it was crazy. I've never seen a crowd like that before. And I waited about a half an hour in the concession line with my little grandkids and there was all these other little kids waiting for, you know, with the candy and the chips and the whole thing. So, it was it was it was a great event. And and again, the custodian staff, I mean, they were they were amazing. They had the trucks out front. They were taking all the homecoming stuff and right out and they they did a great job. Really really
027special. Okay, moving on to 9.01, we have our district's external audit report. Carolyn, thank you for joining us again. We always appreciate you coming and joining us. >> Thank you for having me. Um, so I'm Carolyn Cough. We're I see a couple familiar faces from the audit committee. Um, so tonight we'll be going over a highle overview of the 2025 financial results. We went into great detail during the audit committee, so this will be brief, I promise. So to start, I wanted to draw attention to the first page after the table of contents. This is called the independent auditor's report. This is where we put our opinion for the year. The district did receive an unmodified opinion. It's also known as a clean opinion and it is the best opinion that the district can receive.
028Towards the back of the book, you'll see the report on internal control over financial reporting as required by government auditing standards. In this report, we state no material weaknesses were found and no significant deficiencies were noted. Separate from this booklet, there's also the extra classroom report. Even though we won't be going over it tonight, it is there. It does state all of the activity that happened in the extra classroom funds during the year. As auditors, our responsibility is to express and form an opinion on the financial statements, but they do belong to the district and it is management's responsibility to fairly state the financial statements. And it is also management's responsibility to fairly state the fairly establish and maintain the internal controls over financial reporting. I also want to note that we didn't have any
029difficulties with management or have any disagreements. So, thank you Lisa and her team as well for another great audit and you were able to give us everything that we needed to perform the audit. Now, I'd like to draw attention to some financial highlights. On page 23, this is the statement of revenues and expenditures and changes in fund balance with a budget to actual comparison. The first column shows the original budget. Towards the bottom of the page, you'll see that originally the district had anticipated using fund balance of 4.25 million. This is made up of three parts. 2.45 45 million of unrestricted money, 750,000 from reserves, and then 1.22 million of prior year incumbrances. During the year, there were $330,000 of adjustments increases, which brought the anticipated use of fund balance to 4.75 million. The third
030column shows what actually happened during the year. And the district had a $1.79 million surplus and a $6.54 million budgetary surplus. That is made up of two parts. The first being uh in the revenues, you had a $3 million surplus which was generated by an increase in interest. It had a surplus of $2 million. 1.5 of that was the interest earned on the reserves. So those go back into the fund balance reserves. And then a $3.49 million savings in various expenditure categories. The actual surplus of 1.79 is what gets added to the fund balance. So prior year fund balance was 25.52 million and so at the end of the year it became 27.31. If you turn to page 50, we'll go through the components of that 27.31 fund balance. This schedule shows all the funds,
031but we'll focus on the general fund. There are four components of the fund balance. Non-spendable, restricted, assigned, and unassigned. The largest being the restricted category. This also has subcategories for different types of restrictions. So tax certiaris, unemployment, retirement systems, debt service, just to name a few. So that came to 18.89 million. Of that 1.1 million is designated for subsequent year expenditures, which gets added to the assigned for subsequent years expenditures towards the bottom of the chart, which is 2.45 million for a total of 3.55 million. That will be used to balance the 2026 budget. And if you look towards the middle of the page, the assigned for purchases on order, that's your current year incumbrances of $735,000. So that'll also get added in as anticipated use of fund balance. At the bottom, the $5 million,
0325.1 million. So that's your unassigned and that's your available for use at your discretion. And that is limited by New York State to be 4% of the subsequent year's budget. and you're at 4%. And lastly, just some new items that happen in debt on page 38. During the year, the district uh redeemed the ban of 25 million and issued a new ban of 35 million and then issued a new bond of 12.3 million and those will be used for voter approved capital projects that are upcoming. Those are all my prepared remarks. Does anybody have any questions? >> I've got a question for you. >> Yeah. >> If um if the unassigned were to become higher than 4%, where would that money go to come back down to 4%. >> Um so if it went to
033above the 4% >> looked like it was going to get above that. >> You could add it to the different reserves. So each of the reserves has a different restriction. So the taxi can't exceed what you expect to pay. TRS has to be 2% of the current year salaries and things like that. So you could always add it there or into the future capital projects, but that has to be voted on when it's ready to be used. >> Got it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Good news. >> It's great news. And thanks Lisa. I did my third year. Well, this was my first year not sitting on an audit, but every the my three years on the board, I never hear anything from our auditors that um is anything short of complimentary of you and
034your team with how you provide information in a quick fashion and um you know with a cheerful manner. So, thank you. >> Yes. No, I I actually wanted to take a moment though to recognize if that's okay everyone on the team because the audit process is extremely detailed and it it does um it's time consuming and the team like responds like very professionally and their accuracy, their responsiveness. I mean Caroline can tell you like you know it's it really it makes a huge difference and and they are they're they're like really the tops and they yes they are. So, I just want to um like acknowledge um Agata Zoomski, our district treasurer, Gail Weiss, our bookkeeper, Melissa Joyce, school business administrator, Ronda Msina, our senior payroll clerk, Karen Carroll, our purchasing agent, Andy Wallik, our
035one of our account clerks, um Sean McFaden, account clerk for accounts payable, as well as Kim Monzen because she also a lot of folks probably don't realize like she does help us out and she's one of the secondary approvers on wires and everything like that. So, it's a it's really we really appreciate her and we want to just acknowledge her. But, you know, it's it is the diligence not only during the audit, but it's throughout the entire year. And that's why I do want to acknowledge because each of what the work that they do in the business office allows for us to have that clean audit. So, I appreciate them and their efforts throughout the entire year. And thank you, Caroline, too. We always, you know, appreciate working with you. It was very easy. So,
036thank you. >> All right. >> Thank you, everyone. >> Thank you very much. We are going to turn to 9.02 and hear about pillar number six, our collaborative educators. For those who are watching and may not know, these pillars are part of the KSD 2030 plan that um really is the work product of our community and all of the input that was given over the last year. So, thank you to the community for making this possible. So you'll see board uh in front of you, Julia has a copy there of the full 2030 plan. It should be open to pillar six already. So um when we go through this evening, Julia will walk us through the initial pages. We'll go ahead and and uh describe a little bit of the background so we can go
037ahead to the next page on the PowerPoint if that's all right. Thanks, Julia. So see these are the elements that will be coming forth again tonight. We are on that uh this pillar six uh as we look at the idea of collaborative educators and so you know next part and then here is the mission and vision as you had spoken before >> community uh came through this last year multiple conversations again we're looking to ensure that all students learn an inclusive safe equitable environment promotes engaging learning critical thinking and responsible citizenship so as we see this going through tonight. We'll see that cutting across the way there. So, and then these are two critical elements we want to keep driving our attention back to now and throughout the year. Left are those pillars and particular
038on that pillar six about collaborative educators. On the right is the profile of a learner. So those elements that are identified as that profile of a learner. So if you look at as the left those are the structures and that's almost like the input of the organization and on the right is the output that we're looking for students to be able to uh leave our school district with as we move forward. So here's just a highle look at just some of the demographics in our school district as we look at you know our five schools and just short of 2800 students and our teachers and staff and our administrative team. as we've spoken before at the table here about the significant amount of years of experience that our faculty has. Um, and then the uh
03998% or so of our teachers that have their masters and then thinking about 90 of our teachers have 25 or more years of experience in the schools. And so uh as we know and we've talked in the past before um we've had uh just a little bit over 20 new faculty members this year from last year. So we anticipate in the next coming years we're going to have a little bit more retirement as well. So this piece here that Julia is going to walk us through is particularly important and when we think about bringing on new members of the family and we have new employees, they may be new to education andor they may just be new to the district. So the idea about really thinking about our our uh faculty as learners, this piece
040is critical because when you have new members on board on the team, there's so much added value they can bring to the organization as well as how can we quickly bring them up to speed so that we can get them to be able to be fully involved in our classrooms and things. So go ahead and turn that over to Julia now as we look at the fuller look at the collaborative educators. Thanks Julia. >> Thank you. Um, so as Ray described, this this uh packet is going to grow as we go through each pillar throughout the course of the school year. And the way that each report will be structured is in line exactly with how the 2030 plan is lined up. So what you see on this first left page is collaborative educators. The
041definition and description are pulled right from our 2030 plan. We want to keep drawing people back to that. And I think it's uh worth reading out loud just to help center our conversation tonight, which is that KLSD will advance professional learning by empowering educators to collaborate, enhance instructional effectiveness, and improve student learning. Um, and the way that we're going to do that, the description is that we recognize that educators at the are at the heart of student success. And by fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous professional development, we empower educators to refine their practice, share expertise, and implement effective instructional strategies that enhance student learning. And that's what it's really all about. And that is at the very core of what we begin to talk about on the right hand side, which is professional
042learning communities. Um, and now each title on the subsequent pages takes us through the aspirations of our 2030 plan. So, while this is a 2030 plan, uh we've been working since last year um and beyond in some cases at making these uh reality. So, I'll just give you an update on where we are with this goal um as of right now. So, this report is going to include some information from things from last year, anything up until this point. So, both some old and some new. Um, and we're going to start uh first with the four crit critical questions that drive PLC work. That's what do we want students to know and be able to do? How will we know if they've learned it? How will we respond if they haven't learned it? And how
043will we extend learning for those who who know it already? Um, so we're moving from a model where uh we taught it to have they learned it. Um, and you may recall from our previous conversations that or the brown bag lunch where we showed you a few columns of all the different guiding coalition groups that we have from the district to the to the building level to the grade and department level. Each of that each of those are cyclical. So we report to and from one another, right? So that we begin to get feedback from the field, make some changes and roll it back out and see how that's going. So, uh, we have a very robust district guiding coalition that met all through last year and continues to meet now to be really well
044trained in what professional learning communities are and how to use our collaborative time to really work in service of student learning. Um, and now this year we've launched those building guiding coalitions and subsequent grade level and department um, uh, teams, PLC teams, and it's been very exciting. Um today in fact I met with full day with the instructional coaches and some professionals regarding PLC work which we're going to talk about in just a moment on making this a reality. Some of the other items listed on the right hand side on the bottom are structural investments we've made in systems and softwares and and and other programs to facilitate our PLC work. So like a data warehousing system that's going to facilitate our examination of student data to see if we have evidence of learning is
045one example. Another one is our curriculum mapping software. So while it's not all in it's not in every teacher's hand yet, a great deal of behind-the-scenes work, just building a structure that can that can work um intelligently and efficiently and is in line with all of our objectives that we've set has taken some time. And and I'm I'm delighted to have Dr. Conrad and Dr. Kinsbury on board to help make those even more um proficient. So on the next page um we begin to talk about the other aspirations. So beginning with continuous professional development. Um here as I said today we met with Diane Cunningham the coaches and uh one of the assistant principles and our director of learning and I we were discussing question two uh how we would how will we know if
046students have learned it? So, we're designing learning targets, success criteria, and common formative assessments. It's very layered. It sounds easy, but if you're doing it well, um it takes some time and some thought. And we're trying to create learning experiences that we um are that are common with our team so that when we turn key that to other teacher teams throughout the the district, we know that there are some assured experiences everybody is having and thus the students will have is our hope. Um, other continuous professional learning that's described on this page includes a focus on vocabulary and grammar conventions in the elementary schools, which was a huge driver last year of our work there. Um, also the English department and I went on a a a tour of some other school districts to explore
047uh AP seminar, considering if we want to bring that here, IB coursework in other districts as well, and just led to some great professional conversations. and we've done um uh tri-state visits as well. So, not only did some of us um go on tri-state visits as um uh uh collegial partners for our neighboring districts, but this uh summer and fall, we've trained other remaining administrators um sent them to triates for training so that they can pursue um visits that are in line with their content area. For example, Dr. Conrad's going on an MTSS one um in the very near future. So that's been really helpful to us as a opportunity for continuous professional learning. And then some of our high schools uh teachers took advantage of project lead the way training and AP uh training
048over the summer and are either piloting or implementing some of that learning this year as we as we uh proceed. So that's some really exciting stuff. I'm not going to go through every bullet for you. I'll do some highlights although I'm prepared to answer any questions you may have about any of them. Um so we'll we'll move on to in instructional innovation and and while we're that you know the high school is working uh very diligently on project based learning and things of that sort. Um we've we've talked a little bit and how about cognitively guided instruction. I want to give um my one of my instructional coaches Amy Signori a shout out there. She's touched nearly every single grade level across the all three elementary schools in helping them really work on this uh
049aspect of instructional practice where when as far as mathematics is concerned, it's this way to really build students number sense. Um and this was in line this and accounting jar routine is something that she identified to fill a void um that we that they identified as a a group in line with priority standards about giving students multiple ways to um solve problems and not just and to do so with a variety of problem types. And so they noticed that we were being a little bit singular in our approach up until then. And so this was a solution they came up with that we've been systemically uh sharing throughout the district. So that's one example of innovation. Another is some of the some of the things that the teachers are pursuing themselves. So there's a high
050school uh chemistry and bio teacher Nicole Mushio. She got a STEM and Regeneron fellowship for herself which is really exciting. And she is it's a Adam State University, NASA and Endeavor. and she's taking courses um about STEM and will be by this coming up summer spending two weeks with >> every generic leadership. So that's an exciting example of innovation >> as well as another high school teacher, Gendra Paula, who is one of only 80 in the country piloting an AP business with personal finance course which we all know is incredibly important. I got to see some of the cookie project. Um the other day they had um a gallery walk including two private business owners um who are experts in baked goods um come and listen to the students proposals um for creating their own
051business um in line with the elements of PBL and this AP uh uh course that she is now piloting and reporting back to College Board. uh next year is when we plan to launch that for um 10th, 11th and 12th graders. So that is just some of examples of an instructional innovation. And then uh uh on the left and going into the right are examples of interdisciplinary collaboration across all of the grades or most of the grades but uh one that I want to focus on is sixth grade and I could tell you a little bit I'll read you a little bit about their project. It's the you may we may have referenced this uh last April, but it's the backyard habitat project that they worked on and this was just an integration of ELA
052science and math. They researched biodiversity, apply geometry skills and designed a sustainable backyard habitat or multiple habitats that connected their classroom learning to real life environmental situations which is in line with some of our sustainability goals as well which is really nice. um moving to leadership opportunities for educators. Um these examples that we list here were budgetary decisions that we made um in budget development last year in order to support this effort. And so we're realizing it now this year. Um all these different leadership positions are stipended positions that we reallocated or increased in order to provide more consistency. For example, now every elementary school has an ELA and math curriculum leader where in the past that was shared. Um, now we have a special education curriculum leader. Um, we have a a teacher leader
053who's um acting as our in a leadership role for ENL support, English as a new language support. So, these we're trying to uh really strategically leverage the expertise that we have. We have such great educators in the district and this allows them to really help us make informed decisions. So, excited about that. We've heard a lot about our reflective practice with the literacy audit, the PCG audit. All of these things are now um coming into real action time. For example, on Tuesday morning, I'm kicking off the curriculum adoption committee work with the teachers and instructional coaches um and team for the elementary school curriculum, but we're for ELA, but we're including K to 12 representation because one of our objectives is to try to find something that can scale more largely. So as we determine
054what our our priorities are and what our values are um we want every voice uh to be heard in that spectrum and um we also we've talked about priority standards and mapping and then the last section focusing on equity and inclusion it's an opportunity for Dr. Perte and I to uh collaborate um and uh Neil as well with AIDS and TA's training in August on verbal deescalation. We've talked about relationship with Boseies and Couture Proctor for equities our equity work uh GNR with co-eing both at the elementary school and opportunities to to expand that beyond elementary um and leveraging expertise like our incredible behavior specialist um to just work with teachers and support them in order to really enhance our inclusive practices. We we know we want success for all students and that's one of
055the ways that we're realizing that since the creation of the 2030 plan. Did you have any if anybody has anything to add feel free? >> Okay. Thank you. >> Do you have any questions? >> I I have a couple of things um that I'd love to hear just a little bit more on. >> Sure. Um, can you remind us and I know that this is something that we've learned about before. Please remind me how Project Lead the Way is going to come to life for us. That's one. And then the other one that I'm interested in learning a little bit more about that's under innovation is the curriculum experience for a civic seal of readiness. That sounds really exciting. So, I'd love to just get a little bit more be able to picture a little
056bit more. >> Sure. Yes. No, I'm I'm glad you asked. So, we have a a variety of teachers exploring Project Lead the Way. Um, and I'm I'm looking at Dr. Blanch because we've had these conversations together. Um, we also uh so some of it has taken shape this year and some of it will be growing in the future. What's particularly exciting is um the pathways that we are building with with the intentionality of piloting certain computer science programs or or uh like uh other I'm getting ahead of myself but we have we have quite a nice vision for how that's coming along but teachers like Jonathan Peter in the high school attended a training considered the objectives in project lead the way considered the objectives in his existing course tried to find some alignment there.
057Um, also Ted K with computer science and then our team at the middle school um is in the exploration phase as well. So if if we're able to proceed as we would like the middle school will really develop its program grow as a feeder to the high school and we'll be able to pursue some interesting pathways. >> Yeah. So as Julie was speaking there uh if the as the board knows the state is shifting uh away from a regentonly kind of a pathway. So as we're looking at identifying creating pathways, Julia and the team have been leading us in one we believe will be like in a project lead the way pathway. So as Julia mentioned before this year we've started on that engineering kind of a pathway that's there. So we have one of
058our courses as uh it that's kind of our robotics course shifting over a little bit of principles of engineering using robotics to do that work but the team went to go get training on that this summer. So that would be an identified experience there. And then following up that is introduction to engineering is kind of another step to that. And then um looking at what could be other spaces. Julia also mentioned about the computer sciences area. So there could be pathway in computer sciences leading to courses as we might be uh considering like cyber security and things like that. So now these pathways will be able to go ahead and create that will be able to be identified as a diploma. So the state right now is looking at what will be the overarching assessments
059that might need to be taken from the state level. What I'm used to u uh like where I was before in Colorado, the state exam was the ACT. Every junior in the entire state took the ACT and then the the local determined what your courses were. They determined if you passed or not. You had the amount of credits you had to get. But that was basically the one piece the state said. and anticipate that in the next 12 to 24 months the state's going to come out and said, "Okay, here's your couple of options. You can always do the regents course pathway if you want or here's some of these overarching screen uh uh assessments you may take and then we'd be able to create pathways within our own uh methodologies." So, we're starting to
060work with our director of counseling and the high school of creating pathways. And so if you're interested in perhaps social sciences and things, you here's a score sequence you would take and here's a law class you want to take and maybe a bio class. And so that would create this pathway. So we're going to look at creating full opportunity for our children to create those pathways. And a key part of this is to be invested in the project based learning part of that. >> And so as we think about how students can get real life, real world experiences while they're with us. So when they're ready to make that collegiate decision, they have at least a reasonable exposure to maybe a field that they're looking at. So that's one of those pathways. Um, as you
061know, the middle school, as Julie also mentioned too, the middle school is looking at what would be the precursor to some of the Project Lead the Way elements inside of there. So it it really is uh, as the board knows, we've got uh, three new classrooms are coming online there to support this type of work. So that's going to be very timely and things. They recently went and visited they recently visited another school district and observed their project lead the way program >> and I remember you had shared with me that with the middle school team once that got going at the middle school the high school kind of had to adjust some of their expectations because the middle school kiddos are really learning some pretty amazing uh work at the at the that level.
062So yeah. >> so does that help a little bit with how that might come? >> Definitely. And then you have a second question. >> The second one was just to get a little bit more um on Exactly. Well, I wanted to make sure I got some some notes up for you to to report back. So, um this has been something we've discussed with the social studies teachers and um the middle school was the first group to to to bite at trying to create something that could should we decide we were able to pursue the seal of civic readiness um to have a a qualifying project so to speak. So, um it can count towards the high school seal uh at the middle even though it's at the middle school level. So right towards the end
063of last year which qualifies us now in this report as well the se the seventh grade team it was Claire Kelsey will and David under the direction also of Marsha Daily Savo the CL for social studies at the middle school um they did a wonderful job creating like a unit on a on helping students understand how to be involved in the political process and like and how to how to participate in a movement, right? And so they did things like create common materials and assessments, which is something that we talk about in our PLC work um as well. And they they they um created common text that the kids will use and a workspace and uh common rubrics as well as uh preassessments, homework, exit tickets, and then figured um the most engaging ways to
064help students participate in activities. Identify and describe roles of the individual and opportunity for a social studies um movement or participation in society as a civic participant. understand persuasion, debate, negotiating, compromising. And we had to do it in both a way that would stimulate middle school interest and also remain within the lines of appropriate uh discourse. And then identify situations in which social actions um could make a difference. So their own sphere of influence um and and the different uh tools at their disposal should they have a cause that they were really passionate about. So it was interesting. I got to meet with this group. This is the same group or many of the same players who I updated you on in the howl who met recently with Greg Frederick's. He's a consultant that's uh
065Boseis who's really been critical in both this and also their the standard awareness and um it's been it's been really nice to see them take such initiative in this regard. So I'm excited to see what uh comes with this project this year. Thank you. Yep. Anyone else? >> Great. >> Thank you. >> It's a lot of work going on and you know it's >> it's really been fun seeing all this come to to life. So, thank you. >> Okay. Moving on public forum. There is no one here this evening for public forum. So I'm going to close public forum and uh going to move on to the consent agenda. Do I have some a motion to move the consent agenda? >> I'll move it. >> Moved by Marjorie, a second by Barbara. And then I
066think we're going to have some discussion. >> Yes. If I could just please invite Lisa to share the exciting update regarding 15.06 6, which is our opportunity to vote on a resolution regarding the energy performance contract. And so much work has been going on behind the scenes. Um, that'll just become self-evident when you hear Lisa speak. So, in advance, thank you. And we're very excited to hear about this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Marjorie. Yes. So, so we have been um working with our council and they've been working with Honeywell's council to come to a place where the district is comfortable um that if this if everything does not move forward that we are not going to incur costs and as specifically engineering design pre-esign like for us it would be like a pre-bond
067work type of work but for those but for this project the way that we that's why we did energy performance contract because we didn't want to incur those upfront costs. So, we were able to secure a contract that eliminates that as long as a district is doing our due diligence. Um, specifically in order for this, as Terry had mentioned, for this project to be a feasible um energy performance contract in which it is essentially paying for itself over time, um we are relying on the ITC, the in um the investment tax credits um under the inflation reduction act. And that's direct pay for um not forprofits, school districts um since we don't file like taxes. So we we will file taxes and everything. So there's a lot of different timing and um there are changes
068that are occurring January 1. So we need to actually have approval from SED as well as close financing by December 22nd. So, it's going to be a great deal of rush rush rush, but ultimately um over the course of the project, it will save the district um anywhere from, you know, it could save us any upwards of $600,000 over the course of the project, you know, and depending on where we close, there may be a few years where we will have some lease payments. The first year, um we will not incur lease payments. Uh much of this is proprietary information is confidential information what was negotiated. So, I can't go into too many specifics, but um there will be some um lease payments, but over again over the length of the project, it will be
069um a great deal of not only money saved, but that's a you know, conservative um increases in electrical costs. And honestly, there are far more aggressive, higher, greater um increases in electricity and such and energy costs projected for the future that we use because we try to always be conservative on both sides. Like for example, what we um what we plan to or what we put in the numbers for the interest rate for borrowing is half a percentage or 50 basis points higher than what's currently closing. And on the other end, we are conservative about the savings because we just want to make sure again that we are um that you know we're doing best by the district. And so yes, we're very excited about it. It will be solar on um all five buildings
070including uh ground mounted in an area over at ALES that is unused area of ALES. So um and um yeah, so it's very very exciting and it will produce as Terry mentioned last week um roughly 50% of the energy for the district. So >> amazing. >> Thanks, Lisa. >> I just want to They're not here tonight, but thank you to Honeywell and Eneria like this project was dead and they persisted and thank you to Lisa for persisting with them, but they came back to the table and and are being true partners. So for not and this is our second goound with them. So um it was really good for them to come back. >> Absolutely. Yes. They've um I I have to say the entire team again just acknowledging and Honeywell and their attorneys Kerian
071Tando from Ingererman Smith, Michael Lavoy as well as Justin Benwis from Energia. It's been like literally I I was on the we were all on email at like 9:00 last night because of the tax credits closing. It's something that needed to and that's why it needed to come to the board today and like I said we are we'll be submitting paperwork starting tomorrow to SED. That's how timesensitive it is. So, um I I apologize. I really wanted this to I don't like to bring things to the last minute, but um it is time sensitive and is exciting and it's a lot of time has put in been put into it. So, >> well, thank you for allowing us to walk it on tonight. Thank you. Thank you. >> Honestly, thank you for since the last
072meeting to now having to go through all of that. You've done an amazing job yourself. So, >> thank you. >> And don't forget all that bond work it >> and the audits. >> Yeah. Well, I stepped through the awning committee and I was like, "Oh my goodness, >> you're a busy lady." >> She juggles in her spare time, too. >> Um, did anybody have anything else they wanted to discuss on the consent agenda? Okay, so I guess we're okay to take a vote on that. All those in favor? 70. Um, now possibly my favorite thing of the meetings is recognition of donations and gifts and a thank you to our everinccreasing generous community around us. We have um a gift from Tom Lo Log Loia and I apologize if I saying that incorrectly for a
073kick wheel manual powered potter's wheel which I've always wanted to try but that's for the uh fine arts department in the high school. Thank you very much. and an anonymous monetary donation of $5,000 to our robotics club who has for the last two years placed extremely well um in the country. Um so thank you for those two donations. I can have a motion to accept the donations. Motion by Barbara, second by Arwin. All those in favor 70. Um now we come to 17.01 board dialogue and discussion. Anybody has any additional topics to raise? Yeah, I think that's it. Anything from you, Hudson? >> Good. >> I have a question for you. How's the cell phone going? >> Uh, >> now we're month >> Yeah. Uh, I think it's going really well. Um, you kind of
074just like adapt to what what what you're given. Um, I mean it wasn't really an option like it's not but it it really has like like people like you adapt to the situation around you and I do think that everyone has adapt to the situation. It's what we have. Uh, and it it really is making a difference in the school lunches. Um, everyone's talking now. I I really think it was a great thing for the district. >> That's great. Do you find yourself on the phone glass outside of the school now too? Is it bleeding over? cuz I I noticed that at the Hall of Fame like there were some kids on the phone but not everybody on the phone the entire time sitting there. It >> it kind of does spill over. I mean
075if you're so if you're just not on it during the day, you don't really have that desire as much um after school and it's like a subconscious thing but you don't really think about it when you're not on it all day in school. So I I I do think it is spilling over like through people's day. Um, I'll ask you about the block scheduling. So, now again, now we're a month into that and that's new for you. So, my daughter came in, that's all she knew. But for you, this is a transition midway through your high school career. Do you find that it's allowing more for that project- based learning? Do you find that it's limiting homework? How are you feeling about that? >> Uh, I also like the block scheduling. Uh, I definitely project
076based learning. I could see it in classes. Um, one of the classes I wasn't sure how it's going to work in was math and we're doing like projects in math which I think is pretty awesome and it it keeps you more engaged with it. Uh, the 80 minutes it's a long time but so it did take some adjustment at first to be able to focus for 80 minutes but once like a month in now it's kind of just like what you're used to. Um, I can't really imagine going back to nine periods a day. Uh and then uh on the point of homework, it's it's much less uh each night um just in the fact that you just have four classes and it's easier to accomplish that cuz you're not jumping from thing to thing
077to thing. Um and you're not losing track of what you have to um do. So I think it it's working great at the high school. >> That's fantastic. That's a huge thank you to uh Dr. Biswas and Dr. Siciliano for taking that leap of faith and for the administration support of that. and it's preparing our kids for college. >> Absolutely. I was a big proponent when I heard it. I, you know, I know that people had some questions. Again, I wanted to hear his perspective because he went through two years of it one way and now he's in it another way. So, I uh I've been advocating it to friends of mine outside of the district. >> That's great. I have one small thank you to the parents who are doing the gardening and soup
078day at the my kids are a big fan and Chris Miller kids of the garden and soup day and there are specific parents that have been really running that for quite a long time. So just a quiet thank you to them. Um it's a really I don't know fun and meaningful. So, I'm sorry. It's been a long time and I forget. In the spring, they do a salad. Yes. >> Day and then in the fall they do soup. >> So, that's Yeah. >> Taylor Swift [Laughter] >> with their Doofilia. Um, okay. So, next is nothing else from anyone. Uh, our future meetings, we will be here Wednesday, October 22nd. Oh, I'm sorry, we won't be here. The finance committee will be in the district office Wednesday, October 22nd, 6:00 p.m. October 23rd, we will be
079here 7 p.m. in the um John J. High School Library for the Board of Education meeting. And followed the following week, the policy committee will be meeting October 20 October 31st in the district office to be determined on the costumes. Um, with that being said, I turn uh Dr. Blanch 19.0. >> In the spirit of thanking people, we forgot to thank um Dr. Biswas for obtaining the project lead the way grant to make some of all of that learning that I referenced happen and I know Mr. Pompa is doing the same with project lead the way. >> I'll just spill onto that and I think just in my closing comments just um tonight with the kind of our educators focus there is a genuine thirst for uh learning uh certainly with our students and also
080with our adults and so with that the reality is is there's really nothing that can kind of get in our way. I would say that with the miniear program kind of being looked at a little bit here at the middle school level. So again the administration is working there through they've got about a dozen teachers that are starting to look at that. Um our our teacher who's looking at the business and the finance class that's like ready to go one of 80 one of 80 in the entire country to be able to do that. The passion is there. I bumped into her the other day and I was just like it was it was amazing. And so if if that contagious piece continues in our classrooms, then we're going to be all the better. So
081again, just from the educator focus tonight, um myself and Jeff got to walk his campus the other day and class to class to class, just as Hudson was describing, there was more project based. There was more student voice in there. I'm an elementary educator and so I was always used to a very uh loud controlled environment and I liked it that way but it was kid voice and I walked into these spaces like there's a lot of student voice in these spaces. So uh and the teachers were was floating around in each one of these spaces supporting the children. So um very very very very good learning environ we've got going. So I'm sorry >> middle years is IB. >> Yes. My apologies. the international backor program. It's looking at the middle years program 6th
082through 8th grade. There will be have a report later in May >> when the team a couple probably a couple teachers and some of the administrators come forth to see where they've kind of landed. So it's really an internal look right now and if it's like okay we're going to go forward it's called a feasibility study that we would go through with IB in that regard and stuff. We have some parents involved at that point and those kind of things >> with the project based learning at the high school too. Is there any thought about the high school moving IB2? >> So I I think it'd be a SP where we're looking at the AP right now has really started shifting to project based learning and so like that's the new course we're bringing on
083board. We're possibly looking at another course. We actually had our AP statistics last summer also get trained in in the project based learning inside of there. So it can be an and and so where we thought we'd start at the middle school first and then there are other other components of a IV you could uh it's called the minos program but it does go from grades 6 through 10 >> and so what most folks think about is that what's called the diploma program which is just 11 to 12th >> which you don't have to do that you can do 6 through 8th they also have what's called the career program which is very very uh involved in far as project based learning and alignment so lots of options and we'll kind of see where the
084middle school starts with us as >> they start next week actually as well. The the middle years the middle school curriculum leaders Mrs. Brady and uh principles are going to start that committee work next week too. >> Exciting. >> Thanks everybody. >> Thank you that may I have a motion to adjurnn. Motion by Carolyn. Second by John. All those in favor? 70. Thank you everyone. Have a good evening. >> Thank you.