June 12, 2025 KLSD Board of Education Meeting

001Good evening everyone. Tonight is Thursday, June 12th and we are excited to see uh presentations this evening from some consultants who have been looking at some different aspects of the district in special education and security. And right now out in the hall, we have our Increased Miller fourth and fifth grade chorus with their teacher, Mr. Vasquez. And we're going to go out there and see a performance. And then we'll be back in [Music] love. All right, friends. Show time. I need the best lag in your spots. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Hello everybody. Welcome. Thank you so much for having us this afternoon. My name is Louis Vasquez. I'm one of the teachers, general music teachers here in the district. I work at Chris Miller and also at Katona Elementary School. Um I started working with this

002amazing children um in the chorus late February I would say and they have been phenomenal. They have been amazing. It has been a really really fun journey. challenging at the beginning because we're learning um different songs singing in different languages but they are enjoying it so much as so am I and thank you so much for this opportunity um the first piece that we're going to perform for you all is pure imagination it's a classic that is featured in the movie Willie Wa and the sh factor the performance [Applause] [Music] Come with me and you'll see. In a world of your imagination. [Music] will begin with the spin traveling in the word of my creation. What you see will defy explanation. If you want to view parise, simply look around and do it. Anything you

003want to do it, want to change the world, there's nothing to it. There is no life I know to compare with your imagination living there. You'll be free if you truly wish to be. If you want to view parise, simply look around and view it. Anything you want to do. Want to change the world? There's nothing to it. There is no life I know to compare with your imagination. There you'll be free if you truly wish to be [Music] Thank you. Thank you so much. Beautiful job. Uh our second piece is a song from Zambia country in southern Africa and it's called. It is a song that celebrates community and celebrates joy, unity, and the power of music. Thank you so much to the board for having us. Thank you so much to our superintendent,

004Dr. Blanch, Julia. Thank you so much for this amazing opportunity and to all of you for your support. Thank you. [Music] [Applause] Don't [Music] say it. Heat. Heat. Yeah. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Wow. [Music] Yeah. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you so much. Heat. Heat. [Applause] [Music] Please. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Congratulations. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Applause] [Music] Heat. [Applause] We must [Applause] [Music] Please [Music] dream. [Music] That was a outstanding performance. Such a fun way to start our evening. Thank you so much to all of the families who took the time to bring their children here so that we had the opportunity to hear them perform. And again to Mr. Vasquez who is an enthusiastic conductor of the chorus and we really love seeing his class or his um his chorus

005group. So um this brings us to item 6.01 which is the pledge of allegiance. If we could all rise to join in the pledge. 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. I don't know if we have any um board announcements before we get started this evening. I have just one. I wanted to say thank you to Mrs. Von Steinberg and Mrs. Hersshfeld and to congratulate all of the humanities research students on their beautiful poster presentations in the cafeteria and their presentations in the classrooms to the upper class students who presented. Um, a lot of instructional support from our faculty and it was really a beautiful culminating celebration of humanities research at John

006J High School. And also thank you to Julia and the professional development team because I know that a lot went into developing the action project aspect of this program last summer. And during our evening's set of presentations, we heard a good bit from students who were really successful with their action projects. So kudos to you and thank you for implementing that dimension of the program. Thank you. Thank you. I second that. It was really Yeah, it was amazing. It was a good evening. just so many different and interesting um pursuits that the students had and the things they studied and were researching. It was really interesting and articulate students. Yes, very much so. Their presentation skills were amazing. So, tonight um we're going to hear both from um Alteras and also from public consulting groups.

007So, our first presentation is from Altera Safety and Security. Thank you, Julius. So we'll go ahead and have our uh Jason and Brian will join us here and I'll just go ahead and take a seat and Zo is there uh dropping in and settling in. So as we may recall that uh earlier in the year we asked um our team to go ahead and come back and be a part of our district and I think it was uh a number of years ago when the terrace was here before to give us a look of how the district was in that uh perspective of uh providing our schools and to be a uh place of safety across the board from more places than I actually realized always that you know we want to be focusing and

008so tonight they'll walk us through they have kind of seven key areas there we look at from that lens of keeping our schools and our schools as a secure place, a safe place, a coordinated place, um a where a place where we can go ahead and ensure that our educational experiences go on for with our kids. So tonight, I'll go ahead and start and hand it off to Brian and then we'll walk through. So thank you Brian for being here tonight and thank you and then Jason too. Thank you very much Dr. Blanch. Thank you to the district administration, our board uh for having us here this evening. Um my name is Brian Shanahan. the senior vice president from Alteras. With me tonight is Jason Swart, one of our lead consultants that has done some

009of the assessment work in the district. Um, tonight just walking you through a little bit of the overview of what the process looks like when we talk about safety and security and these type of assessments um and next steps and some of the work that potentially is completed. Um when we look at how we uh are as a district and how we always would look to improve upon uh some items that we already have in place and things that we're already doing, um we always want to make sure there's that consistency level and working together collaboratively with the district, not coming in and saying, "Well, this is the Alteras way. We're only going to do it this way." We want always want to look at best practices nationwide. And that's really what we're going to

010look uh be a a part of when we talk about safety and security as a whole. Um, and the other piece is making sure we're in compliance with New York State Department of Education. Our background, we've been doing this about 17 years, and we strictly work with K12 schools throughout New York State. We work with about 90 plus school districts on their own just in New York State, as well as work in uh several other states in the area. So the process that we typically work through with schools as we come in and have done work and in 2013ish I was a part of the assessment process then and to see some of the progress and wonderful things that the district has put together and done both infrastructurally and policy procedure- wise. Um looking into

011this new event with our assessment process. This is more of an assessment to be clear to the public. It's not an audit. We don't work for the state. This is and there's no pass fail. we look at the wonderful things that are being done and also look at the opportunity to embrace um any improvement opportunities that may exist with your district. So the process itself with this slide just as a brief overview is we start with that assessment process identifying any improvement opportunities um and then collaborate with the district to look at here's here's what came out of the assessment itself and here potentially are some um as decision makers what the buyin and where we are as far as prioritizing some of the things that are identified through the assessment. From that we work

012on what we call project management. We work to with the district to make sure if there's there are the things that we're going to implement based on the assessment, how that's going to be conducted and timelines so we know we're not just dropping an assessment. It is here's the timeline, here's the project management working together with the district, but also being able to track the pro, not only the progress, but cost analysis based on other school districts themselves um in the area, state bids, things along those lines. We are vendor agnostic. We don't sell anything. We strictly want to work together with the district to make sure we're getting the the the the best um information, the best uh infrastructure that is presented and is out there from our state and then ultimately working in

013towards that project emergency planning stage of things where we really always want to continue on an annual basis. Those of you who are familiar or not familiar on an annual basis, New York State is constantly making some changes and modifications when we talk about policies, procedures, and even emergency plans. both our district plan and and uh building level plans. So, we always want to make sure that compliance piece is in place uh along with training uh consistent training and up-to-date uh training and resources that would potentially be necessary for any school to be doing better and never turning buildings into prison-like atmospheres. We want to be open and welcoming but also safe and also making sure that we do trauma-informed and age appropriate training. when we talk about not just for the schools themselves who

014we're an educate we're educators but to look at that emergency management kind of process um as we as we move forward so some of the planning steps when we look and Dr. excuse me Dr. Lanchi talked about this a little bit is when we look at best practices nationwide, we kind of put these into this this this kind of a model. This is almost like putting things as into buckets, if you will, separating them into how we look from prevention to district-wide planning from a higher level standard. Where are some things we're looking at right into some building level planning, especially when I mentioned earlier about building level emergency plans, building emergency plans don't exist for the sake of just having the plan. They exist to make sure they work and work appropriately so we

015can refer to them and follow the annexes and procedures that are laid out in those plans, but also make sure all of the buildings are consistent when we talk about how anything that may be applied um to any of those pieces that are listed here on the chart. Uh infrastructure- wise, even looking at um as we get into equipment, identify pieces of equipment that we may have, the things that you may have in place, and things that we always want to look at on an annual basis. It's nice when a school district can say, "Hey, we have we have go kits and we have emergency kits and things along those lines, but let's review that on an annual basis." Which you're doing not all these things I'm identifying is not it doesn't mean that you're

016we're not doing it here. It means how can we coordinate and work with you to help coordinate that on an annual basis and if anything changes or any recommendations that may come up. Uh going through this as well is technology. We work very closely with a lot of technology. Um, again, not that we sell anything, but working together to what works best when we talk about cameras, camera placement, um, things along those lines. Those are most certainly things that we consult and work with school districts um, to get the the the max, uh, ability to utilize any technology that we may have to its biggest extent. Even some of the changes and I I kind of pointed that this out and community members I'm sure are very very well aware. um from the last assessment

017about 2013 when we look at some of the changes that have taken place where we've seen visitor management process you know and that you're in the process of secure vestibules which is a fantastic piece and utilizing those appropriately um we look at any type of zone mapping and and and um lockdown panic systems and things along those lines that apply even to what something they call Alyssa's law with New York State you're you're ahead of the curve when it comes to a lot of these items infrastructurally but now making sure they're utilizing appropriately. And a lot of what we talk about too comes down to empowerment. That's where that training aspect comes in. We talk about empowering everyone, not just administrators at the building levels, but empowering everyone to um be a part of safety

018and security, making sure doors are secured and locked. Um when we look at threat assessment, you know, we we see so many horrible things happen on the 24-hour news cycle throughout the uh throughout our country. A lot of these things could be prevented simply by engaging in outreach programs, making pe making community members, students and families feel confident to speak up if they had seen see something whether it's digital online or they hear something in person and to be address to address the threat assessment aspect. You know, my background, I was a school resource officer myself. I'm retired from law enforcement as is about our 40 plus employees are all retired law enforcement. Um, and have a different lens when we look at things. not to again looking at things from a criminal or scary

019aspect, but working collaboratively with schools in a school environment. How do we make things just a little bit safer? Um, and how do we make some of those recommendations to make sure everybody feels confident uh on a day-to-day basis, hours, during school hours or after school hours. Um, and as we break all of these things down, it's not just one approach, it's that layered approach. That's kind of what we see here as we look at the uh the slide that you see up up top here. Um, again, these are all K12 best practices nationwide. Um, any one of these things, and we actually are in the process to report to you as a board, we're in the process of making sure the um public facing document of the district-wide safety plan, which everyone can take

020a look at, is up to date and current. And there's be some meetings, there's meetings today and meetings coming up. And all of the building level plans are all complete now. So those will be up to work with the district and each of the administrators to review for their accuracy, but have a good understanding of what is in those plans and making sure that they are accurate and your district appropriate and building appropriate with all the information that may be in them. As far as the assessment process, just to walk uh everyone through that a little bit, is the process when we do an assessment, like I said, assessment, not audit, is to take a good look at the emergency plans that the district has in place, the physical facilities, which Jason walked through every

021single one of the buildings, met with all of the administrators, looked at transportation, looked at arrival dismissal process, and made recommendations states to take take a look at the community because I know we're kind of spread out depending on where one campus is versus where the other campuses are. um looking at those improvement opportunities and putting that actually into a report and an executive summary which at some you know at some point we're going to take some further time as a board and as district administration to review the things that are in and prioritize the things that are part of that assessment process and then look at long long-term and short-term plans. A lot of times when we look at assessments with schools and we look at possibilities of recommendations, there are some things that

022don't cost anything. It's a matter of some training, conversations and practices and that consistency level from building and building and campus to campus to make sure everyone is engaged and empowered when we talk about any items that are identified there. And then ultimately, I mentioned it a little bit earlier is that implementation of project management to make sure anything that we find and we have that buy in and we we solidify our priorities um as far as that they're coming out from the assessment that we put that into a project management. And then as you can see on the bottom, I mentioned this as well, is for us to help as ne, you know, as requested by the districts with some vendor oversight. We never want to put anything in a school district, in a

023school building that doesn't talk to each other, for lack of a better term. We want to make sure our money is spent appropriately um and effectively. And it's longterm and any step-by-step planning guidance. And this gets into that with that project management where there may be items such as numbering doors, for example. that would be something that we would give some recommendations and help to make sure we're doing it with the process uh that the process of how that takes place and what needs to take place. Uh you know unfortunately doing this for 17 years with our company we if you name it we probably have dealt with it to that end we have created forms templates and practices that can assist districts you know and best practice but also assist districts even for New

024York state uh compliance. So everything we we I keep saying that word but it's so important these days to make sure we are in compliance all the way around when we talk about the state education department. This next slide briefly just talks about the emergency management process. So once the assessment being one piece is as identifying part of the process when we we talk about the beginning stages next stages gets into the actual emergency management program which is really our work in the district post assessment which Jason here um as well as other team members who are readily available to assist as necessary will be a part of plan development I had mentioned that we're at that time of year where we have to have that district plan done so we're right there as well

025as our building plans and ultimately staff development training this is something as we look at things coming up. One of the big things with New York State that's going to be required starting next school year is something called ICS training. So, incident command system training, so that everybody at each school building is very confident in the event of an emergency, small or large, you know, the majority of time we're dealing with those. You know, I don't mean to be too funny, but staff may burn popcorn in a microwave and set off the fire alarm or somebody may be injured in an ambulance has to come to the building. Those are unfortunately day-to-day events that we deal with, but who's dealing with and are we empowered that we have the right people responding in the event

026of even the minor emergencies? And that's part of that ICS process that's now required. So, that's something that most certainly we can work with the district and each of the building level teams um next school year to make build their confidence, but also make sure that we're uh responding appropriately as necessary with any type of that emergency emergency and staff development training. um general staff, district staff, all of these items. We want to make sure everyone's hearing the same message. Again, I've said the word before, consistency. Want to make sure everybody's hearing the same message so that we're all following through, especially when we we're doing our required drills. And we do drills because we're required to by the state, but we just don't want to check a box. We want to make sure they're

027age appropriate. We're building muscle memory. muscle memory and empowerment so people feel confident because locked doors and security along those lines make a big difference when we look at any of these tragedies that have happened. Um and just the day-to-day we just want to make sure we're a welcoming environment. We're in we're we're an educational facility, but how do we do that appropriately, but also involving any type of best practices, touching braces, you see in this slide here, going through all of those items and then ultimately updating um prevention aspects, threat assessment, uh outreach programs, speaking to parent parent groups, um working continuing to make sure the comfort level comfortability level when we talk about parent reunification if we have to deal with something post incident. One of the big things is making sure we

028get back to normal. How do we have that continuity that happens after an event potentially takes place, small or large, and how do we work together with the district and the community to be able to do that? And we also pride ourselves that we're readily available 24/7. Um, and we've had, unfortunately, as we've all seen probably on the news, something happens after hours. Um, we always want to work and our phones are always on should we have to start to address something a night before something occurs so that we're well prepared, um, as a district of how we would engage and be able to reopen the next day. Um that's an overview of the basic work that we do and the process that we're in and have begun and been working through with the district.

029Um any questions from the board? Thank you very much for describing the process and for um your efforts to help us create the safest environment both for our staff and our students. And um I don't know whether uh you have a sense of sort of what the ongoing like the the completion of this is really some ongoing meetings and developments across the buildings. Um like what the timeline on something like that is that just ongoing over the next six months or There's a lot of ongoing work even through next school year. So most schools that we work with and we work with about 90% of the school districts right here in Westchester County. Um, and most of that work goes on for years because there's no quick solve for anything. There are some things that

030we want to start with, but as we know, sometimes we have rollover of staff, we have rollover as administrators over the years. So, it's a constant conversation. We talk about training and that training process, policies, procedures, and just day-to-day good practices. Um, so as far as the assessment timeline, we're probably looking over the next, you know, through the summer and over the over the next few months to kind of get some priority pieces. I know that at some point we will we will rem meet with the board and the district administrators to see where we are and some of the steps forward. Unfortunately, in events like this, I'm sure community members are very curious about certain items. But as I hope everyone would respect, there are items that we may point out in the assessment

031that should not be open for public display um because that potentially could make buildings, you know, a little bit more susceptible for somebody who wants to do harm. But I will tell you you everybody administration from the district level right down to the buildings has been were very engaged with all the conversations that happened during Jason's walkthrough. I did some of the walkthrough of the buildings and campuses with Jason. Um and really good conversations, really good things that we pointed out and highlighted some wonderful things that the district already has in place. Great. Thank you. Really appreciate that you're here. Thank you. and that you were able to observe how engaged our staff is and observe some of the wonderful practices that are in place. In recent months, we have heard from a few community

032members who have felt some concern around access to the buildings at um certain um events or times of day. And I noticed on your pie chart that you have visitor management connected to technology. And I wondered if you could say a little bit more about maybe practices you're seeing or that you might envision could be an opportunity for Katona Lewisboro if we wanted to take our visitor management system and do even more. I'm I'm curious about the technology. Of course. So a lot of schools that utilize technology when it comes to visitor management. The first part is really making sure that we have single point of entry into our buildings. No one that does not work here should have access to the buildings during the school hours. Typically we even recommend with we prefer to

033have an appointment. And so we know who would be coming to the building. The big benefit that you're going to have and from what I understand, I don't want to overstep, is that even your vestibules at the buildings will all be complete for September start, which is nice because it's like going to a doctor's office. You come in and you come in, you present yourself, we we can run the ID and have that visitor pass being uh uh placed on someone and we'll bring it to whoever you're here to see. So we have that. It's welcoming, it's engaging, but it's also safe for that aspect during school hours. big piece is making sure exterior doors are closed. Um we've seen that so many times in school tragedies, but that's again a conversation and training with

034faculty and staff and you know whether you know no matter what title they hold to make sure everybody in every building's hearing the same message. Um and then after hours to have further conversations with our folks that are directors of um drama clubs, clubs after hours, athletics. That continued approach kind of talks to your timeline too of some of the things that we want to make sure we're engaging in is to how do we try our best to limit building access. Um we never want to turn buildings, as I said earlier, into some type of prison-like atmosphere, but we want to make sure how do we do this right and do it appropriately, but that is going to require those folks who may be overseeing some of these programs. how we have those conversations about

035limiting building access. try our best to have the accountability and we know we have large events in a lot of schools indoor and outdoor whether they be a performing art and after school event just like we saw here with this wonderful event that happened earlier or even a sporting event to make sure that we have that plan and that's part of New York State too that that's something that we'll work with the buildings to make sure we engage in something called an afterchool's annex that everybody understands what the appropriate response would be for anything that happens after school and try our best to limit the building access. Thank you. And if you don't mind, just as a followup, in thinking about some comments that have been shared with us from community members and in thinking

036about your flowchart for emergency management, I don't see an SRO called out as its own u moment in the flowchart and we're very fortunate in our school district to have a fantastic partnership with one SRO and as you know we have five school buildings and I wondered if you could share your perspective around um you know sort of the the model that we have and other models that perhaps you're seeing and sort of where that piece fits in as compared to or in concert with you some of the other important work that you're outlining here. Of course. So, as you as I mentioned, I I myself was a school resource officer on a campus where I covered four build two buildings, but in the district I work with, I actually covered four buildings similar a

037little similar to what you have here to have that availability of of a uh officer whose response, you know, who's a part of the process. The SRO piece also has to be understood that it's not just having an armed presence in a building. It really comes down to also that mentoring kind of aspect. Um, driving around your community, and I don't live that far away. One piece that does come into a conversation many times is we we need to be able to know that we're going to have an immediate response. Um, unfortunately, when we look statistically, and I'm never going to say, you know, not to do something, but statistically, there was an SRO president in Parkland. There was an SR present in Coline. There was an SRO present in a lot of other districts

038and a lot of other major events unfortunately that have happened. One of the key pieces that I bring up a lot when we talk about threat assessment is things don't happen bad things don't happen where somebody wants to do harm to a school because they wake up one day and want to do that. That's why we're you where we we we were engaged in threat assessment and we'll continue to engage in threat assessment is how do we identify those kind of situations and most of the time it's 6 to 18 months in advance that there are signs presumptive indicators and signals that are out there that someone is engaging in some way shape or form in conversation that they want to do harm. So part of the process is is understanding our lockdown systems our

039our engagement when we talk about being able to practice lockdowns and our and how we respond appropriately. But I will say knowing the area, knowing agencies that are around between Bedford, State Police, Westchester County Police, all sorts of agencies that I constantly constantly see on these roads. That's an immediate response. Um we do have further conversations with some schools who their first police officer is 45 minutes to an hour out. That's a much different conversation with some schools that I work with upstate versus being able to have that and I don't want to say the word luxury, but it is to a certain extent have the engagement of the same SRO that you have and we've met him and had conversations with him is fantastic role model and conver and and has great rapport with

040a lot of our our administrators, students and staff. So, thank you. You're welcome. And so Brian with that I think in board part of the work here is that we'd like to go ahead and continue the partnership that we've started here with the alterous group to take these next steps is the roadmap we've identified. What would that look like for the next you know 6 12 18 24 months. So we'd like to go ahead and start that work and that would mean a continued partnership here but a little bit to the next kind of commitment level. we would have somebody from that team to start basically being a member of the the KSD family and then starting from this particular lens looking at this work and again as Brian said we want to make sure

041that you know those elements that we can certainly improve upon we'll have but again for obviously you know safety reasons we want to make sure that stays you know kind of intact within the board and then stepping out and going through for for steps moving forward communications training planning making sure that things that we have in as well are continually maintained and then what's the next right answer. So our desire is to go ahead and continue this next partnership will out here and then so the things that were identified strengths they can maintain strengths and then those other areas of opportunity can be the first ones and then we'll prioritize those and I think I heard you say Brian before some of those are directly right away. It's not necessarily a fiscal impact. It's just

042how can we do this directly and making sure we'll have dozens of new employees next year in organizations. So we want to make sure that they are brought up to speed on what the expectations are within our schools across our schools and in our classrooms. So that piece is a very very important part to us all and we want to make sure that is not dropped and kind somehow gets through the cracks. So that is a partnership that I know that you bring to uh many many districts around us and stuff. So that's a piece we want to leverage for our schools and things. So so that wasn't in our initial budgeting for the school year. Right. So as we approach the hope is is that when we get to that November we start nice

043and early for 26 27. So right now we would ask to continue that part. Obviously we have some um some um opportunities with inside the budget we plan for contingency funds. So we would ask to access some of those contingency dollars now and then bring that proper uh as we would anticipate. Again it's not the short piece. It's a constant part into the 26 27 school budget, but accessing some of those contingency dollars that we have available for us and things. So, great. Um, a couple of things with the team here. I just wanted to say that I I understand the depth and level of of commitment you've created to the district and the the the understanding you've quickly come upon our schools is greatly appreciated. And I know both Jason and Brian, you're here.

044And I also know that you have many many many members of your team behind you which is very evident and whenever something comes up are wondering it's you're turning to your left and tun to your right for a colleague. So we know that as we start this partnership the two of you here tonight with us and yet we know we have many other partners behind us on training and things like that that you spoke about coming before. So we know now we have access to a really wealth of of opportunities for our schools. So thank you. Wait, can I just ask a quick question on that point? I I was just thinking as you were speaking about the the breadth of your exposure across New York State. Is there any mechanism in place nationally where

045you can sort of draw best practices? Like how do we know that what we're doing in New York State is necessarily like the best thing that we could possibly be doing? Like how do we learn what the true best practices nationwide are? Are you guys engaged with other organizations like yourselves nationwide? Yes, we're engaged with a number of different organizations and I will even tell you just New York State just to give you a little quick example. Um I work with six three different charter schools with three schools a piece. So like nine schools in New Orleans themselves. Um and New York State is far exceeding when we talk about best practices just nationwide how we handle things. Um, one of the biggest things is I should be able to go to increase Miller and

046then go to the middle school and have the same process. I walk in, I get checked, I go through through some type of security and as I walk through a building, doors are closed, doors are readily lockable, doors are practiced being um staff feels confident and practice as their drills. It's not just checking a box. It's I don't feel overwhelmed or full of anxiety but I'm following those pro that process of what's required not just from the state but for that that to be there that that comfort comfortability level most schools are going the exactly the route that you're going nationwide having those secure vestibules having the monitoring staff that that security that monitor whatever the title is at this point whoever's at those front desks is monitoring who's coming into the building who then

047will have a great baseline who belongs and doesn't belong and it's really a lot is it is community engagement So beyond the infrastructure is that community engagement and looking at threat assessment and outreach, making sure we all of our folks, community, students, staff feel confident to report should they feel um something is of concern so that we can address it. And we're never about even though everybody, you know, and Dr. Blanch appreci appreciate you saying it. Our team is readily available to respond when necessary. So if we were consulting and you had an issue, we would probably have three four people here immediately. There's no there's no bill running. There's not a bill that we're going to give the district. That's part of any contract that we have. So any ongoing work that we have,

048we always want to be supportive in that in that way. But we also just in our own area, um we have actually full and part-time folks from our company that work in school districts right here in Westchester County and throughout the state. That's a that's a kind of a communication process that we have as well. So, if there's an a close buy or area school district in West Sisters that's dealing with something or is engaged in something, that information we actually will make readily available as best we can without breaking confidentiality to your district to say this is what's going on locally. We just want to prepare you. So, if we have to deal with the next step of something, we're going to help you go through that. But nationwide best practices is really what

049you're going through. Lock doors, your cameras that you have, vestibules, and then the practice of drills are really the big things that our uh schools are engaged in. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you, board nation. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you, Ray, for for bringing Alarus on board. Certainly, I I feel pretty confident knowing the level of expertise that these guys have and the fact that they work with so many of our districts around us that that we have a good road map ahead and Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks a lot. So just as uh this team leaves, we're going to go ahead and have a couple um of our colleagues coming from PCG 4th and um in this kind of conversation, we we

050spoke earlier in the year. So tonight we're going to go ahead and review um the report coming back from the comprehensive kind of review of our special education area and our special services area. So Matt's with us here tonight and Jennifer's here as well. And so just as we start and they get their devices all set up, I'll go ahead and just wanted to say a couple of things. Uh one, uh the team with Jennifer and Matt and the team that they also have a good amount of people that are in their corporation as well. And so when we first engaged, um um I I I like brisk briskness and things like that. So I want to say thank you very much for meeting and uh our timeline. I know that was an accelerated timeline

051that we had put in place. Um, but all along the way, both of you and your team were all on top of everything. Our internal team, I felt underneath, you know, with Alex and the team, everybody was able to provide that information, get after it directly. So, thank you very much because this is so critical for us now as we think about working through summertime is, you know, you know, good portion of our team is here in the summer as you know. So that's work time for us to get well prepared for the fall of how do we continue the great things that we're doing and making some of that continued work in progress and things. So I just wanted to say in public thank you very much to your team. Um the other part

052I think you'll hear again tonight is you're going to see um many many strong things that we have going in our schools just like the security auto is identifying there that good things and there's always the next answer for us to go. So, uh, things like you'll see that the last draw from our students as far as their graduation rates. We had 100% of our students with disabilities get a graduation rate. That's the top in this the entire state of New York. Um, there's some other ones that 100% you're looking at those kind of numbers. The strength in the areas such as, you know, our professional learning experiences for our team and things like that. the opportunities that our children may able to be availed of in our community. Just a flatout commitment from our

053community proper of the budgets that we continue to be able to find success in that allows us to afford some of these opportunities. And so we'll be spending some time on that and then we'll look at some of the opportunities and we'd say here's this next piece. And the reality is is that when we'll sit down again, we'll say great, you got those taken care of and then what's the next opportunity? And so uh we'll spend some time tonight and then basically working through this team has six components I believe in their visual set. So we'll go ahead and look at their visual piece and stuff but I'll go ahead and have Jennifer and Matt introduce themselves. So thank you. Thank you Dr. Blanch. Thank you members of the board. Thank you members of the

054administration. We're very pleased to be here tonight to present on this comprehensive special education program review we conducted. My name is Matthew Kuravkin. I'm here with my colleague Dr. Jennifer Barabau and we're from Public Consulting Group. I'd like to do f first is run through the brief agenda that we prepared tonight. We're going to go through the project overview, some findings, some recommendations, action plan development, and questions and answers. So, now on to the project overview. What I'd like to do is orient you with regards to how we think about best practice as it relates to special education. We think about it through these effectiveness domains. Uh these domains in inform our research, inform our work and are really the north star as it relates to all matters related to this program review. They include

055leadership, human capital, learning environment and specialized services, high expectations, family and community engagement, and systems and structures. I'd like to do now is go through the data collection in terms of how we went about this review process. We conducted a number of different uh opportunities in terms of gathering data through a mixed methods research design. We conducted a document review where we looked at policies and procedures, student achievement metrics, staffing and resource allocation. We did stakeholder input. We conducted focus groups and interviews over 25 parent survey. We had 139 responses which we were pleased by. and a staff survey. 167 responses. Also, we're very pleased by that return. Observations. We visited five schools, 26 classrooms total. We looked at the classroom environment. We looked at service delivery. And we looked at the least uh least

056restrictive environment continuum and quantitative data analysis. We looked at state performance metrics, demographic trend analysis, and resource utilization patterns and staffing. And all the while, as I said, a mixed methods research design guiding this work. Now on to findings. Sure. So before I dive into the findings, I just wanted to echo and and say thank you again, Dr. Blanch. Um, we do these reviews nationally and I will say that we did have an accelerated timeline, but the team here had data that was so clean, um, so organized, so easy for us to analyze that I want to just give a thank you to the team for the organization of this, for their feedback, even for their willingness to just engage in this process because it's not easy. Um, when you have somebody looking at all

057of this data and you're hearing about kind of where your strengths are, but also having to reflect on your opportunities, it's never an easy process for anybody. And so I just want to highlight that we say thank you to the team. Um we really do appreciate the effort that they put into this, the collaboration that they put into this, and just the honest feedback that came throughout this entire process. Um with that, before I dive into our actual findings, I like to always kind of start with just explaining that this report in our mind is never a onetime evaluation. So for us, we see this as the start of a continuous improvement process for the district and this report just being the place where you want to start thinking about that. And so when we

058develop this report, we always start with some key findings in the beginning. Um so before I dive into actual chapters that you'll see here, I want to just pause and talk about those four key findings that were in the beginning of the report. Um those four key findings in our mind are really those high priority levers that we think the district should focus on more immediately than maybe some of the other recommendations we'll get to later in the report. And so when I say that, um, I also want to highlight that when we think about these four key areas, this is not just the office of student support services that should be supporting this. It should really be a district-wide initiative. And so you'll see as I talk through some of these that it will

059really take a concerted effort from everyone to really bring these four areas to where they need to be. And so the first one that we have is redesigning the office of student support services leadership structure. And so this came up quite a bit within um our data collection. Just thinking about who is supporting which departments within the district. Um the first one being response to intervention or MTSS. So that's your that's your model that really should live within general education. It's meant to be an intervention model that serves general education students. And so in our minds that really is a department that should not live any longer underneath the office of student support services but really under curriculum and instruction because that's where your highquality core curriculum lives and really your interventions should support that.

060Often times what you'll see is when you have RTI live under special education it becomes an avenue to special education as an intervention process. And so that's why we think about that very critically when we look at where does RTI live within the district. the other two departments that we highlighted here and there's pros and cons to both. It's not an area that we felt as strongly about, but consideration for the district was around section 504 and ENL services. And so within those departments, there could be um a better suitability for them to live underneath curriculum and instruction or another area within the district. Um again, special education takes a lot of of time and effort and energy. And you want to make sure that when you're looking at what that office is overseeing that

061it really is clear who is overseeing what and that you have the right players in place to oversee each of those areas. So that was a big area that we highlighted in the beginning of our report. The next key finding that we had was around assessing staffing using a balanced approach. And I won't steal Matt's thunder because he'll talk about this a little later. Um, but when we say a balanced approach, we've done a lot of research nationally on not looking at just numbers, not looking at just case load numbers, but really understanding what is the workload of staff. And so what we heard often, and Matt will talk about this later, that the case load numbers here are extremely low, but staff still feel burnt out, which leads us to say then there's a

062workload challenge here that we need to consider. And so when you look at this, it's looking at weighing both. what are our case load numbers, but what's the story about the workload of staff and what are they doing on a day-to-day? What are their meeting schedules look like? What supports are they providing? Um who are they servicing and for how long? And so really just being mindful of how staff are being utilized. It's never intended to be to hire more staff. It's to be more strategic in how you allocate your staff. The third one that we highlighted was around integrated um co-eing models and the consultant teacher direct model. And so when we talk about that in the beginning of the report, um it's meant to really highlight the fact that we heard a lot

063from staff about a lack of time to collaborate and a lack of collaborative structures overall for co-eing. And so when we looked at that, it was mainly at the secondary level. When we came and visited programs, we saw at the elementary level, there was station teaching, there was parallel teaching, uh there was a lot of different models being leveraged, which you would want to see in a co-eing model. At the secondary level, it is not uncommon to really have challenges in that implementation because you have special education teachers supporting so many different blocks, but it did come up as a key finding for us and that it's something that needs to be looked at very closely so that your middle and high school staff have an opportunity to really collaborate and develop effective co-eing structures.

064And then the last key finding that we had was around creating collaborative partnerships between district leadership, staff, and families. And so you'll see within the report that there were some instances where our survey data came back fairly low um with only 34% of parents that responded to the survey indicating satisfaction with their child's special education services and 22% of staff respondents agreeing that there is effective and consistent communication between their building and district leadership. And so we highlight these not as a way to point out weaknesses, but to just highlight the fact that there needs to be some better communication and collaborative structures put in place. Um, that's a long-term initiative, and we'll talk about that when we get to recommendations. It's a culture shift. It's not something that tomorrow everyone's going to feel like

065everyone's collaborating well and things are going well. It's really going to take a concentrated effort to understand how do we allow everyone to have a voice at the table. that includes parents, that includes staff, and that includes also the work of district leadership and having to make some of those decisions. So, now I will dive into the meat of the report, which you'll see here. Um, and this is really divided up into those bucketed areas that Matt talked about. So, when you think about our effectiveness domains, you'll see that we've divided the report into key bucketed areas and we highlighted strengths and opportunities for improvement within each of those buckets. This first one is not within our traditional buckets, but it is where we did our quantitative analysis. And so this is really looking at

066the state performance plan and the district's results um around accountability. And so what you'll see here is the data that we used is largely publicly available, but it's also data that was provided by the district through their snapshot data over the course of the year. And so we highlighted here, and this doesn't happen often. So Dr. Blanch, as you talked about celebrations, this is one. There were a lot more strengths than there were areas of opportunities in the data that we looked at. And so you'll see that first bullet point there highlights that an inclusive education environment is very apparent within the district. And that 73% of students with IEPs spend 80% or more of their day in general education. Research has shown time and time again that students with disabilities who spend more time

067in the general education setting have higher outcomes academically and socially and emotionally. So this is a big commendation for the district to say you're doing the work of empowering all and making sure that students are really spending time with their general education peers. The next area here is around strong academic outcomes for students with disabilities. And so when we looked at the statewide assessments, we noticed that students with disabilities in the district outperform students with disabilities across the state. So again, another celebration for the district and really getting those achievement scores above where the state level is. What I will highlight here though because I think it's important when you look at the area of opportunity is that in grade 8 the math performance in this last year has dipped a little by 2.8 percentage

068points. Just something to be aware of when you have such small class sizes. So I think it was 36 students when we looked in grade 8. Even one student can kind of skew those numbers. I want to highlight that. But it is something to be mindful of. The other area that I wanted to highlight about this is it's not only looking at comparisons at the state level for students with disabilities, but looking internally. And so what you'll see in the report is that there were some instances, particularly in grade four ELA, grade four math, and grade 8 math where there were pretty significant achievement gaps between students with disabilities and students without disabilities in the district. And so that's something to just be mindful of when you're looking at your data overall is really not

069only how are we performing against the state but in the district how are we performing when we look at that achievement gap that we're trying to close. As Dr. Blanch already mentioned um a huge celebration is 100% graduation rate for students with disabilities in 2023 and a 0% dropout rate which just tells us that the district is very focused on making sure that all students are graduating college and career ready. And then lastly was a declining classification rate. Again, some look at this and may say, "What does that mean?" But when we looked after CO 19, many districts numbers are going up. And so part of that leads to concerns for us in the special education world around is it really disability or is it lack of instruction? And so the fact that the district

070has been very mindful of watching that classification rate leads us to make the assumption that there's very thorough assessments being done, evaluations are comprehensive, and decisions are being made to really determine if a child has a disability or not. For learning environment and specialized services, this was another uh major area that we looked at and probably one of the longest sections within the report. There were several strengths that we noted and there were several areas of opportunity as well. um the first being skilled and dedicated staff. And so we just wanted to highlight that across schools, we noticed that educators were highly skilled, they worked hard, and they showed genuine care for the students that they were working with. The RTI plan for 2425, uh we want to highlight that this was a very comprehensive

071framework that the district had developed from both an academic and a social emotional lens. And so there's a very clear framework in place at the district level that was developed by a team and a variety of stakeholders to really bring that framework together. Special education evaluations. We looked at 25 IEP records. Um and that we noted that most IEP files had evaluations that were comprehensive and that included a variety of assessments, developmental histories, and social histories, which was another commendation for the district. based on our on-site observations and some other data that we collected, um the rise of special class instruction we thought was top-notch. Um and so that's your class with students that have more significant disabilities. And so really seeing the instruction that was going on in there, students were learning, students were

072practicing literacy skills and they were communicating in a variety of ways that that really benefited them in accessing the curriculum. And with that, we also noted the use of assisted technology and AAC. And so again, we when we went to classrooms, we noted that students needed supports around AT and AAC. They were given them and they were using them to access the curriculum, which was another uh big strength of the district. Where we noted some opportunities for improvement was around RTI implementation fidelity. And so we say this that while there's an excellent manual in place, some staff did not always apply that manual or that framework or do it with fidelity. And so we often see this where yes there's a great process in place but now how do we move building level leaders and

073staff to really implement the framework that we have IEP development um there was an inconsistent use we saw in IEPs of data to develop present level statements. So what we often noted was that it was based on evaluation scores as opposed to really providing information about how is a student performing to grade level standards and what a district-wide benchmarks look like for students which then impacted how goals were developed. So, we couldn't always see a clear golden thread for how a student was performing in the general education classroom or performing towards grade level standards and how that impacted their goals or the development of their IEP goals. Data driven decision making at cse meetings came up for us quite a bit from parents and staff. Um, emphasizing the importance of really looking closely at student

074data to make decisions as opposed to trying to fit students into programs. Um, this was a perception from staff and families and just really wanting to feel like when we bring data to meetings, we want to make sure we're individualizing the services that we provide as opposed to trying to maybe put a student in a program that may not be the appropriate fit. The other area of opportunity wanted to highlight was limitations to specialized reading instruction. Um, particularly looking at reading as a related service. And so that starts in grade two here in the district, which left some gaps for those earlier students in K1 who may have reading challenges or disabilities in reading that would really need highly specialized instruction to close that gap sooner. Um, we highlight that because we know by grade

075three, if that gap has not been closed, it's much harder for students to catch up and requires much more intensive service delivery. So to get ahead of it early on is something that we feel is as a area the district should really focus on. We talked about a little bit in the beginning the collaborative teaching structures for ICT and CTD at the secondary level. So I think we've covered that pretty well. Um just understanding that that really needs to be looked at what models are being provided there um for co-eing at the secondary level specifically. And then lastly looking at support for programming at the elementary level special classes. Um we know that the district has moved to kind of cluster some of those special classes within one building. Um, while we don't see that

076as a negative, we do feel that it really needs to be critically looked at for leadership oversight there, making sure a leader is helping and supporting the principal and assistant principal there, watching those programs closely, and also looking at staffing to make sure that it's staffed appropriately. Um, particularly as you think about tuitioning in maybe some students from other districts, you want to make sure that that those programs there are solid and that there's the appropriate level of staffing both both from a leadership oversight and from actual staffing supporting the programs. Thank you, Jennifer. So, next we'll talk about case load and class size ratio. So, as Jen mentioned before, um this district has very low case loads. Uh special education case loads average seven at the elementary school, nine at the middle school, and

07711 at the high school per teacher. When looking at class ratios, the number of students per class, the special classto student ratios are well below state mandates for New York State. Also, for related service case loads, your provider case loads are well below state and national averages. With regards to professional development, the district offers job embedded professional development for ICT teachers and expanded special ed PD for all staff. Um, we took note of that at the elementary school in particular. Uh, great work happening there. Opportunities for improvement and Jen mentioned this earlier, but only 30% of staff feel that there are enough personnel to implement IEPs effectively. And 25% say that related service, I'm sorry, 25% say related services meet student needs, which which is really a perception versus reality and and we would want

078to explore that further. Um, next, ICT ratios. six middle and high school uh ICT classes exceed the state ratio limits. We assessed that when we did our analysis uh PD topics uh there is definitely a hunger for more professional development. Uh folks brought up in the survey uh staff brought up autism, dyslexia, executive functioning, special education law, and co-eing practices all as PD they'd be interested in taking. PD for general education teachers. This was another area that came up. Um, more training is needed to help general education teachers support inclusion and really understanding what inclusion is and how it affects them as teachers and leadership collaboration. Uh, as Jen noted before, staff and families report a need for stronger, more empathetic collaboration from special education leadership. Next slide. Strengths. uh special education budget, budget management,

079special education spending has increased only slightly over the past three years. We took note of that in looking at your budget. The district vision, the superintendent promotes empowering all reinforcing equity and inclusion throughout the district. Some opportunities for improvement. Vision alignment. The office of student support services lacks a clearly defined and shared vision aligned with the district's goals. And given that the district has the empowering all vision, this is a perfect place to start as a launching point. Policies and procedures. There's no centralized manual that exists for special education procedures. Uh it exists, but it's uh procedures exist, but they're in various documents uh and various uh locations. Leadership roles, there's overlapping responsibilities in special education, especially at the elementary school level, and RTI ownership, which Jen mentioned before. uh with regards to oversight. So

080I won't explain that further. And then the last bucket that we had within the report was around family and community engagement. And so this what you're seeing here for strengths and opportunities were largely from parent perspective for this chapter. Um but what we noted here was that there was a perception of staff commitment from parents that across focus groups and survey responses, many families described staff as dedicated, hardworking, and genuinely caring about students with disabilities. Um, many parents highlighted that they appreciated the partnership with Septto and other school-based partnerships. And so, Septo has really been seen by them as a valuable resource, um, offering regular events or collaboration with district leadership and support for navigating the special education process. And so, parents really felt that that was a way that they had a voice in

081special education or a way to learn more about the special education process. Teacher responsiveness. This was a big commendation. And around 78% of parents that responded to the survey agreed that their child's teachers respond to their concerns in a reasonable time frame. So that leads us to believe that teachers and parents really do have strong relationships when it comes to parents having needs and concerns and feeling teachers are very responsive to them. And then document access improvements. Um and so the district has expanded access to a spe to special education documents through a parent portal. So that allows parents to access IEPs or 504 plans or progress reports much easier than waiting for a paperbased copy to be sent home. The areas of improvement that came up for us or opportunity um were around trust

082in leadership. And so across multiple um data sources, parents shared concerns about the visibility of leadership and the responsiveness of leadership um that kind of had led to some moments of distrust for parents or just feeling like they they don't always have a voice when they feel like they want to be heard. clarity of leadership roles came up and so families noted that there was some confusion at times for them over who's responsible for special education services or decision-making um with some reporting there was inconsistent communication depending on on who they were working with. Um this largely came up for families with at cse meetings where they felt at times that um decisions were made by by leadership in the room where they they didn't quite know their child or they were confused as to

083why decisions were being made or how they were made. Um, and so again, it's just something to really help families understand kind of the process, what decision-m looks like so that they feel that they are they're heard in those cse meetings. Parent awareness of training opportunities came up and so survey results um revealed that parents feedback indicate that they were not always aware of training opportunities um and which just suggests a need for maybe some more clearer communication when there are training opportunities available because the district has certainly offered training opportunities for families. uh progress reporting clarity came up as well and so we noted this when we did a review of of the files. Um oftentimes it would just be a rating. So you would see that your child was progressing satisfactorily but parents

084were saying we don't know how. So where's the data that says you know how is my child meeting that goal or or give me some objective information so I know how the teacher came to that rating and saying that they're making progress or not. Um two bullet points here that I'll highlight that um did not make it to the slide deck but they are in the report. um were meeting documentation accuracy. And so at times parents told us that they felt that prior written notices in particular didn't accurately reflect their input um or that they were sometimes incomplete. And so parents felt like there were certain things discussed at meetings that didn't make it into documentation. And so just wanting to be very clear that everything discussed at the meeting they want to make sure

085is documented clearly. And then transition planning came up. And so when we looked at survey results and this includes open-ended responses, um we probably didn't say that in the beginning, but it wasn't just liyker scale. parents had opportunities to really write as long of a narrative as they wanted. And so we had a lot of parents that went and filled out the open-ended portions and gave us just more insight into why they gave some ratings. And transition planning came up as one of those. And so what it highlighted for parents is they didn't always understand how their child's transition plan at the high school level or when they turned 14 was really helping them prepare them for high school um for life after high school. And so what parents were saying is I don't really

086see that connection all the time and so I'm trying to understand what the transition plan means and then how that impacts where my child goes or the services and supports they will have once they leave high school. So those are the areas of opportunity that came up for us with families. Um and I'll now move into the recommendations of the report. And so again, I just want to highlight um that when we we make these recommendations, we always again emphasize that special education is only as good as the general education foundation on which it's built. And so when you hear some of these recommendations, you will see that they they belong in all buckets of the district. Um but when we set these recommendations up, you'll see here that we we set them up with

087a roadmap in mind. And so addressing areas of improvement, um really hoping that they lead to future growth. And so when we write these recommendations, they come with very clear action steps that we feel the district can take to meet the recommendations. Um they're interrelated and so you'll see that when you when you read them or if you have read them already. um they require a significant investment on the part of the district. They set the foundation for all of their action steps from the report and I think this is probably one of the the last two are probably the biggest two that I like to highlight. This report is never intended to be done next year and so many people read this and go, "Oh my gosh, we now have 19 recommendations that we

088have to implement next year. How are we going to do this?" Never the intent. The intent is to really prioritize where you want to focus and make this a plan for 3 to 5 years to really see full implementation. Um, we also always note that flexibility needs to be provided. What happens this year versus what happens three years out could look very different. Um, we know that we want districts to have the flexibility to look at their culture, look at their context, look at what's changing, look at their data and may make flexibility or have some flexibility in how they implement these recommendations. So, we just want to highlight that before we go into them. And I will address them at a very high level. You'll see in the report. I won't go over the

089action steps for all of them, but they do align with those um areas of opportunity that we already addressed throughout the the earlier parts of the presentation. So, the first is really looking at enhancing RTI or MTSS as we call it, implementation and ownership. So, just making sure that it's implemented with fidelity across the district, improving quality and consistency of IEP development. We talked about that earlier around progress reports and really looking at how present levels are drafted in order to really make sure that goals are aligned with how a student's performing um to grade level standards. Advancing inclusive instruction through UDL and co-eing. This lands really in both the general education bucket and the special education bucket. So universal design is meant to be part of highquality core instruction. Um and co-eing is just

090kind of complementing that. So, how do we look at those two frameworks and really bring them together for high quality core instruction? Strengthening early literacy interventions and reading services. This goes right back to what I said earlier around that grade 2 start of reading as a related service and what is being provided to students in K1 prior to that to really help them, I would say, crack the code or start understanding literacy better so that they're able to be prepared by grade three. Clarifying and standardizing 504 plan process. This will lead into another recommendation I'll talk about shortly, but really just having some clear standards in place for both 504 and special education. Um, we heard a lot from folks that they they didn't always know or got different answers. And so if there is

091some way to standardize that, it'll give all staff members just kind of a place to access information that's clear, concise, and they won't have to worry about getting conflicting information. Um, the next one is around refining oversight and equity of of special class programs at the elementary level. And so again, this is what we highlighted earlier about really looking at how much leadership time is spent within that within the special classes at Meto Pond. Um and also really thinking about how are we looking at staffing there and making sure that our programs align across the district. The next is around a special assessing special education um staff through a workload analysis. And so we have here in the report that includes teachers, teachers aids, teaching assistants, and related service provider workloads. That would include your

092psychologists as well. So, anybody that falls within the special education domain, a workload analysis should include all of them. Monitoring and maintaining the ICT class ratios at or below statemandated limits. Matt talked about this earlier, just making sure you're not exceeding what the state requires and really monitoring that well. Um, in many cases, and you'll see this in the report, the leadership team was not always aware. And so again, we would just highlight that the leadership team does need to be aware when those when that's exceeded so that they can then do what they need to do on their end for to apply for variance or really look closely at at what's happening within those classes. Enhancing professional development offerings in special ed. Matt also talked about this. Um there's just some key areas that

093staff would love to learn more about and be better trained in. Um and so really just making a PD plan focused on what staff are saying they need and then building a leadership culture focused on customer service. um in the office of special education. And so again, when we think about this, we're looking at really just thinking how are we supporting staff, how are we supporting families um and how are we doing that from a customer service lens. The next one we had was around aligning special education with the district's vision of empowering all. And so as Matt said, it's not meant to be that uh special education has a different vision, but just a very clear one because staff often noted, you know, we don't know what the vision is for our department or

094if we have one. Um and so just making sure it aligns with that empowering all so everybody's speaking the same language in the district and knows where they're headed. Um developing a cohesive standard operating procedure guide for special education that aligns with the clarifying the procedures um for special education as well. And then reducing the overlap and external confusion around special education leadership roles. Just really evaluating what are the roles and responsibilities within the office of student support services and making sure there's not a lot of overlap between the different roles. We also have assessing the current placement and oversight of RTI, ENL and 504 plans in the office of student support services. That was one of the key findings that was highlighted earlier in the presentation. And then last, when we look at family

095and community, um just really strengthening family trust and special education. And so really spending some time listening to families, hearing kind of what they would like to see for communication and collaboration, I think would go a long way. Um and really starting to bridge that with families. improving cse meeting practices and documentation. So again, I I talked about just a few moments ago, making sure that documentation really encompasses everything that parents feel is discussed at a meeting. Increasing IEP uh transparency of progress monitoring, again, just parents really being able to understand how their child is making progress toward their IEP goals. Strengthening transition planning for secondary students. Again, really just making sure that parents can see that through line of a transition plan, why it's being developed, and how it's helping my child when they

096leave high school. And then expanding and diversifying parent training and information. So, just making sure that parents u maybe there's an annual calendar that goes out for parents so they know we have trainings throughout the year. They're going to be virtual in some cases, in person in some cases. Just really thinking about accessibility for families to be able to attend some of those trainings. And so to wrap everything up the last part here, um we always get asked what do we do with this report? Now that's always the next question. Um and so for us and and Dr. Blanch, we'll continue to work with him and the leadership team around um what we was our action planning phase we call it. Um but we highlighted it here around just thinking about strategy to execution. And

097so we'll spend some time really thinking about how do we structure some milestones around these recommendations. um we help districts really think about KPIs. Some are already very well verssed in KPIs and others are like we don't really know what KPIs are. So we help really take the recommendations and develop them into key performance indicators that can be um shared with stakeholders throughout so that board members, community members can really see the progress towards recommendations in a very measurable way. And then we just think about how do we adjust as needed. So, how do we create a very flexible plan that allows us to continually monitor how we're making progress towards the recommendations and then continue to make shifts as we need to? So, we have not um we have not gone into any of

098that yet, but as Dr. Blanch knows and and I I won't take any of your final messaging away, um that is the next focus and the next phase of the work that we do with the district. We'll pause there for any questions. Thank you, John. Thanks, Matt. was so comprehensive but I personally don't have any questions because it was very helpful just a very thorough process and so thank you thank you for the great presentation as well thank you I've got a question um over what period of time and when did you put together your findings yeah so we started in January this whole process um I can't remember we were on site was it March March we were on site and so after March we we still had as I said you all did

099an amazing job of getting data to us. So, we had everything ready to go. So, we spent about 2 months, I would say, Matt, really analyzing and then starting to write and develop the report, but um we did come back and have conversations with district leadership throughout. We needed more data. They readily supplied it. Um we came, it always happens where we're writing reports and and we'll say, "Wait a minute, we think we're missing a piece of data." And so, everyone was super responsive and really getting that to us. So, about two months of analysis it took, but we started in January. All right. Great. Thank you. Great. Just want to say thank you so much for the um specificity of your recommendations and um the specificity of both the the highlights and the opportunities.

100So I think sometimes um when the spec when the recommendations are very broad, it's hard to sort of imagine like what would be the next thing that we would do. And I think the style of how you've reported this to us makes very clear specific opportunities for us to make, you know, relatively um quick changes um that address some of the opportunities within your report. So we really appreciate that. I also just want to recognize SEPTO leadership. I know Lee Woods has met regularly with Dr. Blanch and has helped us to really coordinate Septto's engagement in this process and it sounds like they were really involved with you and you know that's the most important part of this is that we are hearing from our community about our families and their students experiences and so

101um thank you for giving them a voice in this process and for helping us to um understand you know where where we are and I also want to just recognize our teachers who have been recognized throughout this document for really the caring that they provide our students and this is an opportunity for us to support them in doing the best work they possibly can. So, thank you. You're welcome. Yeah. I I wondered if we could just go back to the four key findings at the beginning of the presentation and ask you to provide any context that you can around the gap between the perception of our resources and your analysis of our case loads being well below state averages and regional averages. Is this a finding that you see from time to time? Did this

102surprise you? it, you know, and and is is this workload analysis something that you help us with? Is that something in your quiver that you will lead us through? There was some recommendation or reference tonight and in the report about, you know, we should do this workload analysis. So, I I don't know how that happens and whether that's something I'll kind of jump on that first and I'll kick it over back to you, Jennifer. So that is actually something we've talked about already that it's going to be one of the first next steps to us to engage with is obviously looking at our milestones. This will be one of our early milestones is to go ahead and get that workload analysis completed. Honestly, without that it's hard to make movement off of that. So the

103team has that they're ready to to kind of start engaging with us that. So that is one of our next milestones. So again appreciate your team seeing that and already being prepped and ready to think yes that's going to be one of our next steps. So, thank you, Jen. Yeah. And I think um and Matt, you can chime in if you have any other thoughts, but I in my mind, is it common? Yes. Do I feel we're hearing from and we do this work often with districts, I think one of the biggest things we hear from staff over the last several years since the CO 19 pandemic is, I am burnt out. And I feel like my my case load is too high. Um and when we want to when we look at the case

104load numbers, it more often than not comes out that they're lower than folks think. Um, but what we end up hearing and what we see is it's again not always about that number, right? It's about if I have eight students on my case load and somebody else has 20, but my eight students tend to have behavioral needs or they tend to be students that have more intensive service delivery um or I have more regular cse meetings around their IEP. The workload becomes very different than somebody who may just be consulting, let's say, and has 20 students on a case load and just checking in with a teacher to say it, you know, is the student doing okay? Great. here's some accommodations I would provide. Um, and so I think that's where we're starting to really

105peel back and and we sat back as as an organization and said, "Well, wait a minute. We're hearing this so much." That's why we um started really looking at like what does it mean to really approach this from a balanced lens like the numbers are low, but the perception is I don't have enough time in my day to collaborate. I don't have enough time in my day to co-plan. I would love to, but I really don't have the space or time in my schedule. So, it's kind of a a I would say multiple things around what does scheduling look like? Um what are the responsibilities of staff? How many meetings are they chairing? How many IEPs are they writing? Um how many times are they being called maybe to support a student that needs it?

106Um so those are the types of things we look at in a workload analysis that um we absolutely do support in doing some of that work and diving a little deeper. That's really helpful. I'm happy to know that that's something you can help us with. And I do appreciate the context because so much of what you're sharing with us tonight obviously is you these are your findings for Kona Lewisboro but I I do have some wonderings around you know the extent to which some of these findings are not unique to Katona Lewisboro and the staffing analysis just did strike me as you know something where I would want to know more about um what's happening and how our staff is doing. So thank you for helping us look into that. I have a finish. I

107have a question about the KPI. So, I'm I'm Thank you for all the work you've done on this. Um, again, thank you to our staff and our families for being so candid and and forthcoming in responses. Um, I'm really excited to see that we're looking at data and hard facts. Um, is this something that you will come back and uh put together a presentation on the data or is this something you're going to be working with our staff and training them on how to pull the data and make that available? um you how will that work with pulling out the data? I'll jump on that one again. Back to Jen. So, so with that piece, we've really spoken about as much as being thinking partners through this work. And so, we would certainly anticipate again

108those updates to the board and to the community as we look at what are our best identify targets for 2526. And we'll start there. And that's where I think the providing the thinking partnership there. And so if that opportunity presents itself, team can come back here or we can share out those findings together. So just knowing that they'll be along the journey with us, that's that's the piece that we're uh putting in place right now for ourselves. So yeah, and we we've worked with several districts around this area and again nationally and and we always recommend that that action plan is something that's public facing. Um and so it should be something shared with the community. Um, we try to make it a nice document at the end, right, that really is is branded to

109the district. Um, but also allows folks to kind of see progression over time. Um, and so we we try to set up that document um, customized to the district. Not everyone likes the same type of format, but really having something that shows, you know, this is the work that we're doing so that it's public facing um, is what we always recommend when we do this part of the work. Thank you. Um, I was quite surprised to see so many recommendations. Like I'm used to looking at audits and there's a recommendation and I appreciate maybe it wasn't quite an audit, but 19 recommendations seems like a lot. And as I read through them, they're fairly meaningful recommendations. There's no sort of really like ah well that's not a big deal. They're all fairly big deals. How

110do you feel like overall KLSD is doing as we compared to other peers districts either around New York State or nationwide? I mean, are we performing well overall or should I be really worried that we have so many recommendations? No. Um, and sometimes we say, my goodness, maybe we should scale back our recommendations. Um, but it's in my mind, no. I think I always go to what what what does the data say? And so when we look at chapter 1, the quantitative analysis and student performance, um that always tells me that there's really good work going on here because if you're seeing students that are outperforming at the state level on statewide assessments, if you're seeing a lower classification rate of students with disabilities, um in my mind, there's a strong foundation there of the

111work going on. Um, when I go into special classes and I see strong instruction, that is usually one of probably, I'd say, the weaker points of many districts that we visit, just given the fact that it's it's your low incidence population. So, it's your students that are the most intensive. Um, and to see that here already your staff already know we have a set curriculum. We are teaching students literacy. Um, that tells me a lot about just what is going on in special education. So in my mind, no, I I saw excellent things when I came on site. Um I'm sure Matt would agree with that. So when I look at in comparison, I think there's such a uniqueness to every district in the work, right? Um but I would say overall from my lens,

112um everyone here is doing an excellent job. Um and everyone has things to work on. Special education is this constantly evolving and moving, I think, pendulum that we are all trying to always stay on top of. and and you you'll see it you see it with the reading wars going on now it's now shifting what we thought we should teach we shouldn't teach um and so again I just I I commend the district for just staying on top of that staff are already asking the right questions staff are already I think um wellversed in what best practice is when we spoke to them so I think that that lays a strong foundation for any of the work that needs to happen thank you that's really good clarity I really appreciate the thoroughess and I I

113appreciate that we have 19 recommendations but you're putting that in context of the overall goodness that's here. I I think obviously keep tonight. And then I think the other piece I wanted to hit is that one of the first recommendations is that realignment of roles and responsibilities that uh you know Jennifer spoke about. Um we are already in the in the in the process of working those components through. So we anticipate we would start the school year with our RTI or MTSS moved out into more of a general education space along with a 504 and the ENL. So the special education office will be the special education office there intact. Obviously the process of partnership across those is critical that will continue to exist and yet the idea about presenting those out to our community

114and to our families we will have that in the fall. So that'll be like one of those initial things we'll share back in the fall. Here's that updated structure based upon our feedback here as well. And and interestingly enough, we're just starting to get some initial feedback from our literacy audit that we'll be looking in September. Same similar suggestion, same findings like the district needs to move those those experiences out and put those into the general education part. So both of those things are resonating there. So that is a spot we'll be starting on over the summertime. We'll get that completed and then a fall we'll be able to kind of share that back out of where those that office looks like again underneath with Julia's team and then the special education piece will be

115there intact in in itself and then we'll start hopefully as soon as we can on that workload analysis as we start looking at those next steps and so those are some of the pieces we're talking about other part also with professional development I think you spoke about that a few times we do have some very very strong partnerships in the organization groups like uh G&R are very very supportive of uh think the district brought that in a number of years ago and that has taken us from a place um I don't know exactly where from weren't here and so from a place there but my understanding is is very clearly and evident has been a powerful experience for us and we want to continue that moving forward and now it's like where do we adjust

116along the way to go with that one so that professional development is inside of there as well and then the collaborative partnership we spoke about a little tonight continuing our partnership with Septto so as we pull together we'll be, you know, strengthening and working with our SEPTO leadership team and Septto organization fully saying here's our desires for 25 26 and that'll be kind of that working relationship along the way. So um so we're um already a foot on those four things and so going again. So and Matt, I really appreciate you coming here tonight and thank you for getting to know our district and we're looking forward to working you in the coming uh months and coming years. I hope so. It's been a pleasure. I will say that. Thank you very much. Thank you.

117So, we're going to turn to item 9.01, which is the opportunity for public forum. And if you have not um spoken at Public Forum in the past, this isn't our opportunity for us to listen and to hear your feedback and comments on whatever it is that you'd like to share with us. We do ask that you keep your comments to 3 minutes. Kim in the front does have a timer and it has both uh visual and auditory um alarm. So the timer will turn yellow when you have 30 seconds left and beep and then it will beep continuously um when you get to 3 minutes and the light will turn red. So when it does beep and turn yellow, you don't have to rush. You still have 30 seconds. Um and I believe uh Lorine

118is going to read the names because I can't get them on my laptop right now. So thank you. Melissa Delmani. Thank you. Thank you. Uh oh, we're out of battery. Okay, perfect. Well, maybe I'll just start by saying good evening and uh thank you so much to the board and to Dr. Blanch and everyone here tonight and um I know that they left, but thank you to the PCG crew for the study uh for the report. I don't know if I should wait. Okay. Okay. Um, so yeah, sorry I'm a little bit worked up. Um, that presentation was beautiful, but it also didn't fully cover what the full comprehensive report did. So, I do really really urge all of you um to find it in your hearts and your time and your schedule to really

119review the full report. Um, I'm sorry. Um, okay. So basically, I just want to preface by saying what I share tonight is my opinion. It's based on public information, data extraction, and more. I just want to mention I have printouts for anybody who'd like additional information about what I say. What I took away from the formal reports was that laws have been violated. I didn't get that from the presentation just now, but they have. They've been violated, and I can tell you how and why, and I have them all in the printouts. So basically, how did these things constitute as breaking the law? Well, they weren't just opportunities for improvement as we were told. They actually violate IDEA, which is a law for people with disabilities. There was failure to provide FAPE, a free appropriate

120public education. Least restrictive environment compliance concerns were brought up several several times. IEP progress reports lacked measurable data. program availability was driven by placements instead of actual student data in what was presented. Countless feedback noted leadership dysfunction, distrust, and lack of responsiveness, which is not an isolated thing and is way more important than a 3 to 5year plan. That's extremely important and has to be resolved immediately. Um, this one was shocking that they had no procedure manual, uh, which is a requirement by law, just various different documents floating around. What I didn't hear in the presentation but is in the reports is overcapacity ICT classes six of them which is it's the law it's breaking the law. Um there's many more. So basically it's clear that specific changes need to be made swiftly in my

121opinion rather than viewed as a year-long implementations and there must be accountability for what the data reveals. One very small initial request I have is for the formation of a C CPAC. It's known as a special education parent advisory committee. I'm so sorry. It's there's emotions underneath it, so it's hard for me to speak. Um, I'm sorry. Basically, this will actually become New York State Law and it is seen as I'm so sorry. I have the literature, so I'm happy to give it. I'm hoping that the board will put it on the next agenda and we'll consider approving it. Essentially, I feel that we have proof. We have proof of what so many families have been saying for the past few years. We have proof that the department is out of compliance. And that is

122not a joke. You are out of compliance. And that's not okay. And I'm going to keep saying it as long as I possibly can because it's just not okay. There are services that are mandated under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and it needs to be made up to the families who have suffered for the past few years. This isn't something that goes for years long. Empowering all. Let's start actually doing that. Thank you, Craig. Carol. Good evening. I was told without explanation that the district previously partnered with Alteras for safety and security services. Why did this partnership end? While values like kindness, inclusion, and acceptance are emphasized, which are are certainly important, they sometimes could come at the cost of basic safety and common sense. Allow me to share a few serious concerns. First,

123bus safety. Earlier this year, my son was bullied on a school bus. Instead of addressing the behavior of the bullies, the district's solution was to remove my son from his routine and place him on a minivan. We declined that. Meanwhile, disruptive students are placed at the front of the buses near younger children. often without a monitor present present. Bus drivers are left to supervise over 50 students while operating the vehicle. It's not safe. Second, visitor screening. At the kindergarten kindness concert, nearly 100 guests were allowed into the building during school hours. None of them were screened or identified. I reported this incident immediately. Nothing was done. Third, a student pickup security lapse. On April 24th, I picked up my son, 5 years old. I picked him up early one day. I was let into the

124building without being asked why I was there. The staff member or security or greeter that you like to call them. The staff member at the door did not ask for ID or verify my identity before releasing my son to me. I addressed this with the principal and the assistant superintendent. I was told that my experiences my experience would be shared with staff. With all due respect, this wasn't a Yelp review. It was a security breach involving a child. At a minimum, I expected a clear acknowledgement that this wouldn't happen again. Fourth, after hours security events are held with no security presence and doors are left unlocked. Here tonight, the front door is propped wide open. This is a serious risk. I also find it troubling that parents were notified about a bat inside our school

125recently. Yet, no communication was sent when a man brought a knife into the building last December. I only learned about that incident through another parent. That inconsistency in communication raises red flags. Lastly, when I suggested armed security as a as a cost-effective alternative to SRO's, I was told there's no funding, but we've seen money reallocated for other priorities. Safety clearly isn't one. I'm not here to criticize for the sake of it. I'm here to advocate for the protection of our children and staff. Now that the district has completed a safety assessment, I ask all of you what real tangible changes are going to be made. And let me remind you, the age of reason in New York State is 7 years old under incompus. You you have both a legal and moral obligation to protect

126our children, not just in classrooms, but on school buses and throughout school property. That responsibility cannot be taken lightly. One of you asked before about enhancing the security screening coming into the schools. Great question that you asked. Alteras, I think we need to accomplish security 101 first before we talk about enhancing anything, stopping and identifying guests before they come into a secure facility. I left without with my 5-year-old without showing my ID. They didn't even I didn't even say I was his father. I walked right out the door with him. Scary stuff, people. scary. [Music] Thank you, Meredith Black. Hi. Um, I think most of you know me. Uh, Meredith Black, 49 Rayburn Road, Katona. I have three children in the district, an eighth grader, a fifth grader, and a third grader. I want to

127start by just thanking you for taking the time to actually delve into the question of special ed. If you've heard me speak before, I've been here numerous times over the last six years actually to talk about special ed and reading in particular, what you've heard from parents at numerous meetings over those last six years have said there's been concerns about sped. There's concerns about autism. There's concerns about reading. There's concerns about classroom management around those. There's a concern about uh development programs for teachers around those matters. I'm glad the district is actually taking that seriously and not um not looking at it as parents just being a nuisance. I can speak as another one parent, another parent. We were both gaslighted at a meeting a year ago telling us at someone's retirement before this board

128that we had been out of line for raising the concerns that we had about our our children. And the reason I I really want to highlight that is one of the recommendations here really talks about collaboration and transparency and constructive forums for discussion. Our parents are experts on our children as much of our children, our teachers are and they bring a lot to the table and those voices are largely left to the side because we're told it's your child, it's your IEP, you are alone with these questions, you are alone with the recommendations or things you are seeking. That is not a truth that we should live with when we know so many of our children share the same type of challenges and disabilities and there is science and research and technology out there to

129address them. I want to applaud Julia Drake as being a member of our community because since she has joined this district, I have seen meaningful changes in the approaches to literacy in approach to collaboration and discussion with parents taking it seriously and not dismissing it because it's different than maybe what that education that they had was or meant, but they went and did she's done the research to say is what this parent presenting earnest and truthful and meaningful? Should I look into it further? That means a lot to parents when they have a struggling child, when their child is scared of going to school or crying about getting on a school bus or isn't comfortable with their peers because they don't know how to relate to them. You're hearing from the the committee here, the

130board that you have now, the report about an opportunity to open doors to have these discussions. I really encourage you to take it. I encourage you to look at what our teachers are doing and ask, are they actually following the programs we're asking them to with fidelity? Do they know what they mean? Do they know what they're being asked to do? Do they have the appropriate training? Have they had an opportunity to ask the questions they need to without fear of um of ramifications of penalty of any other issue coming forward because they brought a hard case forward. We do have students that have many challenges, but we also have parents that have a lot of knowledge on how to go about them. I'll tell you, I am I work with IBM. They have a

131neurodeiverse committee there that purposely looks and works with the employer to figure out what tools do our employees need to work better in the environment. What are their needs? What are their concerns? That committee, I can tell you, would likely open the door for a partnership with a school district to say on the secondary level, what do our students need to go into the work environment? What are their needs? What can we put out there for technology to to transform those experiences? But without engaging with parents that have those connections, that know tools are available, you're isolating yourselves as a district and cutting off meaningful progress that could be made for our district. There's a lot that these parents have as far as knowledge and background and skill that have been put to the side

132because we're only categorized as a parent and our knowledge and background are dismissed as being lesser than the teachers and this board which I don't think any of you mean to do. But when you dismiss what we say as being irrelevant because we don't have the same certificate in education that you do, you dismiss the lifelong experience that we've taken away from our children and our own experiences. Thank you. Thank you, Seth Squadron. Hi there. Uh, many of you know me. My name is Seth Squadron. I have two children, one with an IEP. Um, and I've worked with a lot of other parents. um done surveys of other parents uh of other children who have special needs. I want to say I appreciate the report from PCG was done um and that I can say

133that it seems to really be trying to be factual, but factual is not the same as accurate. And the report is a sanitization of the reality that many families experience of how the district handles children with special needs. You could read the report and think that the district is doing a pretty good job in some areas and that issues are generally marginal. This is not true. Nowhere in the report is the words hostile or adversarial. Although I know these were words that repeatedly came up in focus groups. Nowhere in the report does it describe the trauma many children with special needs have experienced because of the refusal of the district on the district's part to meet their needs when it wasn't cheap or easy for the district to do so. Saying parents saying teachers are

134responsive as a bright spot does not speak to the persistent issues with leadership in special education and beyond. Saying that we in a fluent district with a lot of parent support have had academic success does not take into account the trauma that is being inflicted on many children with special needs by failing to evaluate place and support students properly. The presentation of this report indicated that it took 20 that it looked at 25 IEPs which is a fairly small sample size. But beyond that, I would ask questions. Which IEPs were reviewed? Did the district choose those IEPs? I've seen IEPs. I've talked to advocates and lawyers who've seen district IEPs from this district, and they're terrible, and they're not, as was described in this report. It also complements SEPTO, which I actually agree with. SPTO,

135though, is not a school program. It's a parent support group. To somehow give this school credit for the hard work parents and Septto do is disingenuous at best and ignorant at worst. The report did highlight how the district persistently fit students into programs that were available rather than the programs that are appropriate to the student. And I highlight that both staff and parents agree on this. The report seems to indicate that the failure of the special education in this district is a perception problem. That somehow the district has all these bright spots, but they are just misunderstood. This is not true. This district has persistently and consistently failed to meet the needs of children with special needs. Period. The district leadership, including and starting with this board of education, has shown a consistent disregard for

136supporting children with special needs. The special education department has been hostile to meeting the individualized needs of students and has been consistently adversarial when parents have advocated for their children. From things like delaying delivery of IEP reports to inaccurate note-taking and cse meetings to using the district attorneys to crush parents who are trying to find a way to get their kids the help they need and costing the district abnormally large amounts of money in the meantime. I would urge this board to dig deeper into the report. Ask PCG detailed and for detailed and reflected reflective not sanitized descriptions of the focus groups and survey results from parents. Same for the staff surveys. I sat through a focus group and I know many others who were in other focus groups and the stories that emerged are

137heartbreaking and enraging, not to mention often illegal. We've also done parent surveys. I've done parent surveys with a group of parents prior to the PCG report which I'm happy to share with the board if it would be helpful. Also dig into the lack of trust the report calls out. This is not a perception problem. This is based on real underlying issues with the day-to-day treatment of children with special needs. Understand that this is not a case of the district having some edge issues with special education. This is a district that is traumatizing students with a persistent and consistent disregard for the needs of their students. This is happening now. It's been happening for the last three years. And the risk to the district is real. The entire approach to special education needs to change and

138it needs to change now. Thank you. Thank you, Cat Shrier. Hello. Hi friends. Hi. Thank you so much for everything and for the report. Um I am Cat Shrier. I have three kids in the district. I have one in middle school. Uh one in uh elementary school and one about to be in elementary school next year. Um two of them have IEPs uh for next year. And uh I just wanted to really emphasize that point about the culture and how important it is to have a a compassionate, caring, inclusive culture because that is going to inform everything going forward. Um that shouldn't happen in 3 years. It needs to happen immediately. And I think that I really want to emphasize this. I think it needs to come externally because I think there needs to be

139a complete overhaul of the culture that's there right now. Uh and uh there should not just be talk about inclusion because I hear a lot of talk. I hear that word a lot inclusion. But it actually needs to feel like that. And right now it feels like exclusion. It feels like toxicity. It feels like being marginalized. And even myself, I don't feel included when I go into the school. So, how could my kids feel included? One small step would be for the board to approve the formation of CPAC, also known as a special education parent advisory committee. Already, we've received many, many signatures on a petition in support of forming this. It might even be a requirement by New York State law um in the future. But it also most importantly would signal a meaningful

140commitment to the future of transparency and collaboration among the parents and families. Uh it will show that you really care and that you want to create that compassionate culture that we all keep talking about, but we we want to live it. We really want to live it. Um additionally, as we've seen, there's a lack of compliance and some systemic issues that have been happening. Um, maybe I should call my cousin who's in Congress about some of these issues going on with the lack of compliance and the IDEA act. I don't want to do that. I want us to be in compliance. So, corrective actions should happen immediately, not in 3 years, but now. Okay. So, thank you so much. Thank you. We don't see anyone else on the public comment signup. Was anyone else waiting

141to speak? No. Okay. Okay. I wasn't I wasn't planning to speak tonight. My name is Erica Glick. Many of you know me. I have been at many meetings over the past six to seven years. Um because I have been a I've been in retirement the last year or so because I was exhausted from coming to these meetings and begging and pleading for our district to look at our literacy um our literacy committee or to form a literacy committee to look at what we were doing in classrooms because it wasn't great. Um I was ignored. I was gaslit. I was told to go pound sand. I um yeah, so I I was delighted to know that PCG was given the green light and that somebody I'm not sure exactly who it was that gave it the

142green light, but thank you um for being willing to take a critical look at what our district does and to um and to do better or to attempt to do better. That's all that's all I've ever wanted is for us to try to do better. So, um, yeah, now that we have some recommendations, let's actually do it. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to close public comment. And that brings us to the consent agenda. Would someone like to move the consent agenda? Moved by Barbara, seconded by Marjorie. All those in favor? 6. Great. Thank you. Now we have a gift. Yeah, we do have two gifts tonight to acknowledge. Um, this is item number 15.01 on the agenda. The first is a donation of a Canon AE1 35mm SLR camera with additional lenses and flash

143from Karen Carol with a um estimated value of $499. and that is being donated to the John J High School arts department. And the second is from um the Golden Bridge Acme Markets and this is $30 $50 gift cards for Acme um which have a value of $1,500 and that is being donated to the district um as a whole to Katona School District. So um thank you so much to both of them and could I get a motion to move the um donations? Moved by Lorraine, seconded by Bill. All those in favor? I 6. Excellent. And this takes us to uh item 16.01. An opportunity for any board dialogue or discussion. No, just congratulations to our senior class who's graduating in four five days. Five days. Exciting time and we wish um them all well

144in whatever endeavors that uh life may bring them. Thank you. I I will just say because we did say it with regard to Alter Terrace, thank you for bringing PCG and I believe you were the green light and you should be acknowledged for um having had the presence of mind to bring them here in your first year in the district and we really appreciate the opportunity to hear from them this evening. So, thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Great. I'm going to go to item 17, which is future meetings. tomorrow morning at 8:15 in the district office, there's a sustainability committee meeting uh on Friday, June 20th. Oh, also tomorrow uh right after next week, but isn't that Oh, so they're both next Friday. Sorry. So sorry. our second. So, next Friday, June 20th, at 8:15, there's

145a sustainability committee meeting in the district office conference room. Also, that same day at 9:30, there is a policy committee meeting at 9:30. Friday, June 20th in the district office. Sorry about that, guys. Um, and then our next and final board of ed meeting for this calendar, uh, school calendar year is Thursday, June 26th here in the library. Um, and the time on that is, uh, probably going to be 6:00. So, it's earlier. Normally, our meetings are at 7:30. This will be at 6:00. Um, and then our next meeting after that will be the reorganizational meeting on July 1st where we bring in our new board members. So, um, those are the meetings for the rest of the year. And item 18.0 is just sort of follow what Lorraine was saying that we do have

146graduation next Tuesday. And so we're very much looking forward to it sounds like it is just a wonderful uh venue and ceremony and things like that. And so um again just with tonight on both kind of our our consultants that kind of came in and gave us a sense of the good things we're doing and how we can move forward and this idea about continuous improvement. Thank you to the board for the latitude this year to allow us that opportunity to kind of go ahead and do that work. Um I I like what Jennifer said before the complexity of of the special kids world is is unparalleled I would say and so again thank you for us bringing in you know that expertise because we have wonderful expertise within our schools and within our district

147and yet to have you know thinking partners like that as uh that you afford us is greatly appreciated community affords us. So thank you. Thank you. Great. With that would someone like to make a motion to adjurnn? Motion by Bill, second by Oh, I'm so sorry. Um, and I didn't tell anyone this. Uh, I want to make a motion to go back into executive session um for the performance history of an individual. It should be a brief conversation. Uh, something that we need to follow up on. Seconded by Rory. All in favor? I 60. Sorry. Thank you everyone. Thank you.