February 26, 2025 Budget Workshop

001good evening everybody we're here for a workshop uh before we get started let's just stand for the pledge of allegiance The Pledge of Allegiance United States of America and to the Republic for which stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all good evening everybody will we begin where basically all our discussion should begin around budget around instruction which is revisiting our mission and vision uh board we know spent time last year going through what we believe to be our most important values and I think this really does a nice job of summing up what we're trying to do here preparing our students I always call it grade 13 we're preparing our students for what comes after this this isn't an end this is the beginning for whatever comes next and our goals

002were around communication culture and climate and of course academic outcomes as we went through this process uh we talked last year about ensuring that we were recording the pathways by which we arrived at these budget meetings and we started about in October kind of a difficult time to begin this process because we approved our budget last year developed approved implemented July 1st and really almost a month into school we're already trying to pre-plan for what's coming next year difficult in some ways because we may have gotten the uh I say may because sometimes the 38 scores don't come uh by September October November but we're operating on scores that we got after the budget was already approved allocations that we decided to make so we're we're having to make decisions based a little bit on

003intuition as well so the process begins with our principles uh speaking to the building leadership team content specialist and various faculty um and obviously the directors and we they did uh various surveys and the Committees in the district obviously cni um our buildings and grounds our other committees have been having discussions about what's best and what's going to fit into our mission vision and values and our goals so it kind of culminates with a number of meetings we uh had meetings in succession with each department and with each of the buildings so they had initial meeting to tr and get get a 30,000 foot view of what people are most interested in and we had followup meetings with them in order to try and boil down all the ideas that came from all those various

004parties to bring us here over these past few weeks and what we'll see in the next few months and as a reminder we use a lot of different order to help make these decisions we've talked about them Jean's been talking about them for the past uh two meetings or so and it's not just uh the state assessments we have our ongoing Assessments in classrooms and some shared assessments among grade levels and disciplines so I'm going to show data last uh I think it was the last last meeting or the two meetings ago Jean showed a threeyear of our scores uh primarily great three through eight and in some instances comparison with the state and what I'm going to show you is fiveyear comparison omitting two of the years because uh the testing obviously wasn't offered

005during the pandemic and these aren't trends that we haven't already spoken about we have had discussions about this and the concerns that we have around student performance so7 18 all the way to 222 or 2324 omitting those years of Co so this is a combined performance combined performance on those exams Ela on the left and math on the right and uh it's just discussed at the cni meeting the last cni meeting obviously uh Trends in laa are Mo most alarming and I will tell you that the the trend in math uh proficiency especially in this last year um going back up was probably significantly influenced by some very high scores in our seventh grade math classes who were trying something new this year uh that that turned out real or sorry try something new last

006year that turned out really really well results on our state test our youa precip efficiency has has had a slight Decline and I should have explained it before the area in blues means students that are reaching proficiency are those students that are not I kind of like this depiction because red usually indicates there's a problem in areas uh for improvement uh our scores on the ELA State Ela are about on par are a little bit above the state average but still we we want to be better and improving each year sure back is it okay if I interrupt to ask a question okay for this one is it what grade did they take the LA regions in I'm sorry I don't I know covered 11th okay it's a weird one unlike most of the brig

007exams it's meant to be a comprehensive of everything theyve ever learned so they they really learned from kindergarten through so they just take one in 11th grade and that okay thank you very much sure algebra one is uh usually eth and ninth grade our Advanced students take it in eighth grade and our ninth graders take algebra one and our regions geometry similar to what I described about grade seven our geometry teachers pated last year a shared common curriculum and uh results were outstanding I think what I calculated as like a 41% of lot hold on 43% 43% increase in proficiency over years years the new test came in isn't that was it geometry that we had the new state test all the implementation the whole new curriculum and testing and they started doing in June

008yeah you know I should have it would have been helpful to help describe where all of those implementations were because any parents who have high school students may have noticed like we're giving regious exams the first or second week of June because the state needs more time to develop the rubric for how it's going to be graded because it's the first time and actually when we when we go to the US History you'll see that it wasn't even offered in one year because we were doing that large it's a it's a good Improvement either way but I think also it just shows hopefully that our staff was able to adapt to once they saw it for a year knew what they were because nobody knew that first year what they were expecting even with all

009of the forecasting and if High School teachers are good at anything they're good at capturing how the state is intending to assess some of the concepts that are being taught in standard uh right Region C science and um living environment I think living environment was actually one of the first sciences that went over to the the newer standards and again it would have been helpful for me to identify apologize the the years of the new assessment coming into play regions Global and US history and that was the one in 2122 there was no un so again our students on the region exams are performing above the state averages for proficiency and um you know there's there's always lots of other comparisons to take into play we want to it's sensible for us to be thinking

010about the state so other similar schools throughout the state which had allowed that data in the past as well it's difficult you know because sometimes schools that are like us are 300 miles away they meet us demographically number of students the social economic status special education rates and things like that any questions about the regions proficiency okay thank you um I understand the the regions for ELA is only given in 11th grade do we have other markers you know I mean kind of similar to like our 3 through eight Ela for how the rest of the high school may be doing you know those other three grades they're doing shared uh actually probably better than some other disciplines because most of them are one year and you're done one year you're done I think even

011back for when I Wasing principal The English Department has consistently had uh very good common assessments and and complex common ones too because they are Depending on time of year they men have read the same texts so they the idea is you know are they be able to um to take information to be able to process it and to be able to respond to cues different questions so they have progress monitoring constantly so I guess my question is is more in you know sort of in these fiveyear Trends you know do we have anything to look at in in those other grades you know I mean to your understanding from what you're saying does that mean you know they've been pretty consistent over these five years because I mean most of these are seeing you

012know a fair amount of variation so I assume those grades are also seeing some level of variation right statistics whether or not measures what it's intending to measure and then looking looking to see whether the longterm outcomes are I don't know specifically but we can certainly can certainly understood thank you but I have always been impressed with the department and their quest to find a way to predict you know be better predictors of that but I am you know considering some of the struggles that we had in have you great speed through weight and that has been continuous the performance of our students on the ELA assessment 11th grade has always been examp yeah um quick question this all these charts you showed us were RCS charts correct only RC only RCS what how can

013we compare this to the comparable districts in the state how they're doing we can do that Mike that's something easily done uh we last year we did a lot of disaggregating and you know there was mixed feedback on what was valuable and what wasn't we did I think we settled on both uh similar ones which I said they're literally spread throughout the state right but I think we also we like cherry pick Regional ones that we in our minds think we just like them so sh like that Kinder hook like that U but we can we can do that for you because that is it's relevant as well we've had discussions we said that test was harder or you know we're recovering from the pandemic and really what tells the story is that we're not

014competing with the other districts that are also experiencing the test being harder and also having experienced Co that's a a red flag for us right that is the case this is at least I'm saying at least have the state average right well the state average would be you know economically benefit you know right it's just everything right but if we look for a a good number of comparable districts with the you know the amount of Economics the amount of like like you said um disabilities the amount of employ or we could do both we could ask for the state average and we could ask for comparable District it's really difficult that way so at least for me I'd like to see the state average aggregated it by um comparing it to the state um and

015also the subgroup data over time um because we wanted that often times they are smaller subgroups but they do tell a story where some of our needs might be as far as who we focus on in instruction um one other thing about what we talked about at the last Board of that cni meeting that was kind of an interesting conversation was um are the global exam and the US history and government exam have both changed um since some of us took it um and it is really a very much a reading comprehension and writing test less so you know remembering dates and and the content knowledge and you still have to have content knowledge don't get me wrong about that but what we noticed was our our performance on the social studies tests which are

016reading and writing heavy don't align with our Ela results we we'd like to see that increase um so we're trying to figure out where the disconnect is because the English department is very strategic in how they prepare students for this test you know they take task three and they really emphasize that in nth grade they take task writing assignment or writing task and they focus on that in 10th Grade and then they bring those skills together in 11th so they're very systematic about it but it doesn't seem to be yielding the same results that we see in the social studies exam now they're also graded differently um they've different rubrics and all those pieces but the skill set should be there and those scores their proficiency should be similar across those I remember seeing um

017some of that stuff at the cnii meetings that that you're speaking about I just don't I mean come on that's a lot of information I I I just can't recall exactly what it was that from back then till now we can absolutely share some of the same data with those comparables because it gives it it's much more robust than just looking at a state score yeah we'll have that I'll have that for you between now and next okay thanks so in taking into account these conversations that you put from the buildings and thinking about so where do we need to focus our attention um and when I think about areas for growth there there's a lot that we could address and I think part of what is important in the work that we focus on

018this year and in the coming years is being strategic and being attentive in deep thoughtful ways around some core ideas so thinking through the lens of mtss multi-tiered system of supports you've got tier one core instruction that is intended to have most of our students 80 to 85% achieve at grade level rates um and beyond that having systems in place that identif help us identify students who are not track to meet those expectations and providing intervention support at tier two and tier three for those students so you identify where the needs are you provide intervention and hopefully you close those gaps yes yes sure sure so when that tier one Core Curriculum is the curriculum that all students have access to um that the teacher implements using whatever pedagogy whatever instructional strategies match those learner

019needs when we talk about tier two and tier three it's when we've identified students who are not meeting the expectations in tier one and providing targeted intervention and support around skill and content gaps um so tier two and tier two can happen in the classroom with the general ed teacher providing it it can also be pullout support um and tier three is also typically pull out support and what you see is a level of intensity that changes from tier two to tier three so if you're in a tier two support you might be in a small group of five or six students all with similar skill needs um and you meet three to four times a week when students are not responsive to that Intervention when you're tracking it you're you have a set goal

020and you track your progress towards that goal um if after six eight 10 weeks of instruction the students aren't responding to that intervention shifts May made within that tier or there might be a determination made by the intervention teachers that we need to either change what intervention we're providing so what resources are we using we might need to change the intensity um which would mean smaller group size more frequent um and that would be maybe shifting you can still do those changes in tier two if you're talking about a change of intensity um then you're shifting to a tier three intervention support um the the other piece is and it is worth explaining because we use these terms all the time but you know to say to to understand like the Journey of a child

021through that when we talk about our interventionist our speech teachers our reading teachers they are when we're talking about tier tier two and three they are 100% involved when we're getting to tier three and sometimes involved in tier two and you know we've been trying to practice the blend of having those professionals with these skill sets pushing in the classrooms so they're helping all students sometimes they might and they help students at tier two and then when they're pulled out of the classroom that's always one of our interventionists that are helping with that but and we have math remediation folks as well but that just so you know because we're talking about Staffing you know as we're always talking about Staffing as a component of it uh and you see what our scores are like

022it's a clear explanation as to why we have so many intensive remedial staff members with us so try to make the pieces fit together um so when I think about through the lens of a multi-tiered system of supports we want to and the work that we're doing and what we want to fund through budget resources is making sure that we're we're addressing tier one core instruction because all the intervention in the world is not going to help if our core instruction is not implemented with Fidelity tightly aligned to standards is rigorous um engaging is relevant to students and those that's a big ask there's a lot there's a lot around that and at the same time we need to make sure that we're attending to our intervention processes and resources and making sure that those

023are also very clearly aligned to the standards to student needs and we're tracking that data closely pleas um and one way that we can accomplish that is thinking through what other the supports that we currently have so for example as Brian mentioned the level of inter our intervention support both in reading and math AIS support at the in the Middle School um and lab Lab support at the high school level um and on top of that thinking about what core instruction we want to focus in on to make sure that it is aligned of the standards research based implemented with Fidelity because we've seen evidence of that working um we saw it in the data we reviewed this year when we were talking about the results seventh grade math and the geometry results but I

024also I got me thinking about some of the questions around this and I thought well what about the results from implementing really great reading so at the last meeting I presented some information to you about the science of reading in the literacy briefs and it talked about the big six so one of the moves that RCS made prior to me arriving was to implement a research-based curriculum that addressed one piece of that big six phonic instruction um and we are in the third year of that impation and we're already seeing the impact positive impact on student achievement around their phonic skills in early literacy skills so we'll be looking at some of that data at the next Board of Ed cni meeting um and and also taking a closer look at how some of the

025interventionists are reviewing data and using it to make decisions about what students need uze that program I mean saying phonics I didn't know uh so that is it's there's pieces of it that are introduced in prek and then kindergarten first and second grade there's an additional component that some of the third grade teachers are working with right now and then another component that fourth grade teachers are using around vocabulary okay so those are more pilots though those weren't fully adopted by everyone um so when I also talk about tier two and tier three academic supports so many of you are familiar with the interventions that happen at the elementary level I think we have some really rich resources the Middle School schol level not as much Staffing necessarily as far as interventionists but we do

026have AIS we do have the grow program that I see real potential in being able to utilize that in a slightly different way than maybe we have been that can help Target student skill building set goals monitor their progress Beyond just successfully class passing their classes which is really important also but really trying to utilize some of those resources in a different way and then you'll see later in this presentation the recommend to develop some summer programs that are really really targeted around tiered intervention and credit recovery for our students so taking this mentality of what are the supports we're putting for kids academically that we need and how can we continue or mirror some of that in our summer programming and then the other piece that I think is important and because I feel

027like some of our conversations about about how things are you know our performance isn't great we need to be doing things differently we also want to make sure that our programs are rich and Eng enging and relevant to kids so we want to continue to look at and making sure that we're expanding our program offerings and maybe revising some of the things that we're doing so that we are making our students ready for year 13 so when I think about some of the programs that we're thinking that we're in the process of um developing you know at the high school level with the Seal of Civic Readiness we had a long conversation about volunteerism and the impact of that Community forum and Civic Readiness is something that we want to encourage all of our students

028to be able to par participate in understand the world around them their immediate community and what they can do in order to make it better um and I think everyone would agree that that would be a benefit for people in general um and even something like it's it's a small ask monetarily but um the inclusion of a unified bowling team so Unified sports bring students with disabilities together with General Leed students in um Athletics and they typically have a shorter season but it really allows for building the of all that we are a community that Embraces all kinds of people and we can celebrate those strengths together um so thinking about programs like that and making sure that we're inclusive for students who learn differently um and then I we're still in the process so

029this is sort of a sneak preview but right now we're also exploring um moving band to the fourth grade level right now students are um exposed to that in fifth grade and make choices about playing instruments and there is a proposal that's to The BLT level and we'll be coming to the Board of Ed cni at our next meeting around starting that um not only is it important for students because they can develop these skills over a longer period of time be more competitive when they get to the high school but I think more importantly when we think about its impact on academics is that the research strongly suggests that students who participate in music programs do better academically so if we have an opportunity to gather more kids and get them excited about it

030early on we need to do that on that in ail Park where I teach unified program is absolutely phenomenal I know a lot of schools have it I know firsthand kids that are excited to come to school so they can participate in that and I am all for band in second grade let's get it as early as possible I'm dead serious other districts do it real early I mean it's I agree with you as far as it academically but again I seen in my own children excited to go on days at band and days at that they have their lesson and things like that so any reason to be excited to go to school is POS I I would absolutely agree my child is over at music right now so start completely with what Peter

031just said just as a question though if we were to expand band down to fourth grade would we need additional Staffing or would that be within our current music program well I don't want to give too much away for the presentation um the way the way that we have built it so far it we would be able to do it with existing FTE initially um and I asked um shell our our ccs to really think through if this is something that becomes bigger what would be the longer term plan how might we address that um because we know that we have to be mindful of Staffing I have one question about yes yeah yes for the Seal of Civic Readiness is that I I think you told in the meeting and I'm sorry I forgot

032what's the plan for when that would be approved because that isn't just like our decision to do but it has to the program has to be approved as well right so uh a small team of us started uh we've met and we have sort of an ongoing plan our goal is to have a plan that we can submit to the state by September okay um that might mean that implementation of it is a little bit delayed because I'm not sure what the turnaround is for getting approval for okay thank you I just forgot what you said for those in addition to the current teams yes and it actually the season gets sandwiched in between two seasons so it's shorter I think it's only a month long so the athletes who participate in you know typical

033athletic teams will still likely be available to be part of it so they could be on the normal team and then participate in this season as well yeah just the top bullets um so the first bullet is clearly regarding math curriculum when you talk on the second um second and third bullets is that referring Al only to math or is that directed at that's for okay I just wanted to make sure was totally skipped over because I feel like I've talked about it so much one of the focus and you'll see that in um it in our in our plan for next year a heavy emphasis will be the implementation of a new math curriculum K5 okay um and again we've seen success it's it seems like a broken record Simple Solution Implement an evidence-based

034curriculum with Fidelity track the students who aren't Meeting those expectations provide intervention and you see success we saw it just this past year with seventh grade math and and geometry when it comes to intervention for tier two and tier three I'm talking about math reading uh behavioral supports and social emotional that would be across the board I just wanted to make sure we were talking about Beyond just just math I just wanted to make sure that I was understanding and I and I talked about really great reading because it when we look at our Ela scores 3 through eight that's really the greatest area of need and I do think and and and I approach this work maybe you don't agree with this but when you have a lot to work on a smart way

035of approaching that is to go to the area that you are closest to closer to achieving like I I just I remember being uh getting a paperback in English class and it was covered in Red so where do I start and oftentimes that makes you do nothing so so when I think about this we have some momentum with math it is a more concrete um there are there are curricular products that have proven that they are effective they have um they're even ranked as how easy they are for teachers to implement and I think the other thing that's important for why why we're starting with math is this also was driven by teachers so my first year here there were some conversations about it with the content Specialists um but really I didn't want to

036be the person that came in and said we need to adopt a curriculum where is the need here are teachers asking for this and the committee that has been um part of the process to identify the product that we're going to recommend has been so invested and they they understand it and they want to make a change in fact one of the products we excluded because it was too close to what we kind of already have and they they want a fresh start so I I think that's important for you to know because there is there's a lot of work to do but I I want to be thoughtful about math we've seen some progress let's build build on that um that momentum and and see and see where we can do that and with

037math being a little more concrete too also in sort of tracking progress when teachers see the success of implementing something like this because it is a lot of work it's learning a new curriculum it's learning a new actually how you structure your math lessons um they have to see that it works and I think that we will see that very quickly with math even the research suggests when you implement for for reading it takes longer to see the benefits of that instruction move on so on the first three bullets yes I think the third one down the summer programs we have that in front of us as far as the budgetary impact I'm going to talk a little bit more about that sure yeah yeah the the first two points is there is there budgetary

038impact on those points or is that just redoing the way that we do things now that is I I worked very hard to think about how we could manage some of these pieces within our existing budget so they aren't there's not initial um impact okay and then the curriculum for the K5 math so there's some outside Source outside the district that develops that curriculum that we're going to adopt and we've done a study where we looked at different options for that and there's evidence backing those and yes okay so you're all on top of that and this youve you've identified it sounds like the curriculum that you'll be recommending yes okay um and we'll talk at the board of ed cni meeting a little bit we'll we'll kind of walk through that process um just

039so you have an understanding of how it um but yeah it's been it's been we started in September okay uh and then last if I can read my own writing here oh the Seal of Civic Readiness is there a budgetary impact to that program when our team initially met we talked about how we can build this using what we have um including the coursework when I when I did some outside research some school districts um have utilized they created a new course in order to address some of the needs so our goal goal was to use what we have first um and then see if we can build it out I should say our goal was to use what we have and also try to make it as accessible to as many students as possible

040a lot of schools built it and it's pretty easy to achieve it if you take AP classes or college and the high school classes um but we're considering using an element we're considering actually starting it in eighth grade in Middle School so that they all students will have exposure to it and they know that they've got the starting blocks so that they can achieve it okay and then that continues all the way through till 12th grade 12th grade okay yeah all right thanks encourage kids to come and watch a board meeting you got have a big audience she got encourag I'm Dreaming ENC so I want to shift uh just for a few minutes to talk about um enrollment because we we've spent a lot of time um at bard of Ed cni meetings talking

041about class size its impact on achievement um and you know both in the meetings around at each level that we talked about it we were you know we kept saying we really value small class sizes and I kept pushing and saying what is small like what and I I don't have to have an exact number but like what are we talking about so I I actually presented this data a little bit differently than we've been looking at at the cni meetings so let me just walk you through I broke it out by primary versus intermediate so this first slide are our prek through second grade classes and across the top um so it's aw Becker and Peter B it's just the number of students currently in those class in those grade levels at those schools

042for 24 25 so at the you've got a total and then how many teachers we have across those sections or that's what I would use it as so for example at aw Becker we have 191 students at the primary level with 12 teachers or 12 sections so an average class size of just under 16 um and so and then you'll see that Peter B has a slightly larger class sizes but they have a couple more teachers um and when I looked at these numbers and then what we do for projections for next year is to roll the numbers up um and then use previous year's numbers for prek we always want to have them full at 36 um and then using this year's roughly this year's kindergarten numbers because those that's also an unknown by

043the way Reg ation open um so get your paperwork in um so when you look at that from year to year from this year to next year you're not there really aren't big shifts in how big class sizes are or how large the group of students are so overall we're looking at a net change of seven students across four grade levels um slightly different in in each building but if you look the average class size remains pretty much the same K prek through second grade from last year to this year if we just roll those numbers up the intermediate is a little bit different and I highlighted one particular area um oh and I did one thing I also wanted to point out sorry on this primary is um and when Jesse did his presentation

044a couple meetings ago he talked he showed you um enrollment changes and that it's going down at every building except Peter B so um and that is true in these numbers also if you look across the top the number the class the groups of students so at aw Becker first grade has 51 students this year Peter B has 74 so the school itself is smaller um we don't have as many students enrolled at that school so we have fewer sections when we go to the intermediate level that's grades three four and five um you we start to see the impact of those smaller classes at aw Becker moving up into the intermediate grades so this year Becker has class size of 18 Peter B has an average class size of 17 about 18 we can't

045don't have half children um next year if you roll our numbers up and they've been pretty consistent in that there might be some variability um those smaller class sizes at the primary levels are starting to impact our class sizes at the intermediate level for aw Becker so um our net change for students we're only down about 17 so about a class but what I think is interesting is it's actually that grade class is down will be down about 21 students at at aw Becker so I circled that on purpose I'll come back to that yeah know you can ask a question question I skipped ahead to the you know the anticipated Elementary retirement yes I see that it's not reflected in the teacher totals on these charts but there's probably some explanation that you're getting

046I I didn't I wanted to be upfront with the board that this is what the numbers would look like um if we don't if if we don't go with the recommendation that I have so if we if we fill that position at one of the elementaries that we're anticipating a retirement these numbers would be accurate but if we don't fill that position then one of the grade levels or more of the grade levels in one of these schools would be impacted by not filling that position yes okay um well so look well maybe I'll just jump ahead to that I can come back to secondary so we have we have an anticipated retirement it happens to be at Peter B right now Peter B doesn't have any room to reduce sections if we did that

047the numbers here if we reduced a section at at third grade or any of those grades we would we would have larger class sizes so what I'm proposing is that the retirement at peterb we keep we keep that section but we take a teacher from a from whatever level um to fill that classroom so we wouldn't be losing a teacher wouldn't be losing their job but we wouldn't be filling a position due to a retirement so when I think about this and Mike coin you you made me think of it fairly recently when you at some point you had said to me you know Bethlehem laid off six teachers last year but they didn't what they did was they looked at teacher attrition and this is what a lot of school districts do when they're

048thinking about even projecting out and thinking about bu challenges in the future when you have teacher retirements are there opportunities where you have lower enrollment and you can still manage class sizes by not filling that position so we aren't laying anyone off and we hopefully won't have to lay off people in the future if we continue to manage class sizes and our FTE numbers so my proposal is we take that retirement and we don't fill it but we keep the number of sections the same at Peter B so that their class sizes relatively the same if we did that on this slide here at aw Becker they would go down to 10 sections and that would put them at roughly 18 kids 18 kids in the classroom which is what they have now section be

049eliminated from it it'll be Becker it would be eliminated from fourth grade how how do we do we know that well I guess I'm not sure how that works but do we know that somebody who's currently at the fourth grade level would want to go go to Peter Bay and we we would have that affect that grade level and not a different grade level so we I have not lived through that process here um I have lived through that in other districts so I and we didn't fles that out entirely it's something I would want to discuss with the principles um and probably the teachers union because I didn't see it in the contract what happens when we have to uh make a move but um I think our first step would be does anyone

050want to make a move um uh and quite honestly the first question is does anyone want to make a move at Peter B so I'm a second grade teacher and I want to go up to third I want to I want to work with these kids again um so we have th those would be things we'd have to work out at the building level um and then the process if no one does want to how do we go about making a decision of who's the best fit to match what we need at Peter Gate I know we can only plan for what we know but we also do know that that cerk Reserve um the lights are on in a lot of those buildings so it at some point next year whether it's the start

051of next year or in next year there's going to be students that are going to start being enrolled we know obviously we don't know how many are going to go to aw Becker middle school or high school but if we go down to teacher do we have a contingency plan set up so when I here's and here's what I say I I mean I try to think about if 10 kids moved in at one at one even at one grade level which seems like an extraordinary event Could Happen um what would that do if you had three sections at a grade level you'd have three more kids in a class so when you look at these numbers is having 21 students still a small class size yeah 21 22 so I think there's even even

052within this now Michelle's looking at me like please don't make them any bigger um but I I think there even within this model there is room for us to you know absorb new students should there be a bigger influ but you're right I don't I don't know grade levels we don't we don't it's an unknown but I think with these numbers there's still enough room that we wouldn't be looking at having outrageous class sizes um with my crystal wall so just to follow up on that obviously not surprised I'm Leary about cutting any positions um two twofold because we know we can only project what we know now and we do know traditionally there's numbers out there for us about the number of kids that suddenly show up in our door you know the beginning

053of every school year and then I did make a call so they're going to be filling those apartments starting April 1st okay so um they're again not knowing who's going to be in there unless we're looking at you know big need to save that money to budget I'd be more inclined to leave it in the budget even if we don't fill it but so that's still there versus having to come back you know cut it and having to come back and try to find the money to add it later so just because of that uncertainty this year and I know we're not going to likely get 10 kids in fourth grade and I understand exactly what you're saying but there's a good potential for enough kids in there that we may need to have that

054flexibility for an additional section if it wasn't for that place maybe I wouldn't feel the same this year but I think we should be careful about that unless we were hurting to save that 125,000 well how many units are going into the new space do either of you know 76 something in the 70s yeah Z okay yes they're not and they're not one B of they're they're two and three for low inome or you know below the yeah yeah I I know that I just wasn't sure how many units they're actually work to understand how many families we could be looking at I again no decision I'm just saying I'd like to say us keep that flexibility because of that uncertainty um the other thing one other because we talked about um you know students

055moving in and at one of the Board of Ed cni meetings and Tara our our data coordinator was there and she said I know it feels like lots of kids moved in but what people pay less attention to or it doesn't stick with them or how many families move out so our net gain of students over the course of the year um often is pretty flat um teacher it doesn't feel that way because when you're getting a new student in January or you get three new students in January it feels like a heavy lift and you don't know that two kids moved out of a classroom down the hall so that that balance tends to kind of work itself out um but that's for this past year that's historically what I mean I I don't

056have the data to prove it but that typically is how it has played out okay along the same lines there with Matt that this could actually be an influx that we don't typically see because if there's say a subdivision that's being built it takes years to build that out so the families come in gradually as the homes are built in this situation we're going to have the apartment buildings built all at once and probably leased out very quickly quickly uh understanding what the the type of this project is I wouldn't be surprised if there's a waiting list to to get into these units so they could get filled very quickly and have enrollments uh begin next year so it's a little bit different than your your typical scenario yeah and well and I do think

057because I I want to bring it back to the primary level there's even more room I didn't want to mess with any of those those class sizes for a number of reasons one we're talking about you our youngest Learners so keeping those class sizes as small as we can I think is a priority and you know 16 17 students at a at a grade level is is very small so I think even even at this level without looking at any Cuts any you know elimination of any position or not filling that retirement position would leave us some room if there is an influx of of families requirement do you know Matt to move into these apartments are there is there potential that within our own Community there will be people applying so that it would

058just be potentially a shift from maybe Peter B to not impossible I think it's they have to make is it 60 or 40% yeah you had to make I think they could be you could see that applying to C there might just be a okay but then you know somebody's going to go into those places as well either way think is going to be influx because they're going to be shifting from one kind of housing to the they might want the newer houses and somebody's going to fill the places where they live and not BR or whatever um I I do want to point out and I I appreciate Mike or Matt your your thought about leaving the money in the budget but not filling the position um because one of the one of the

059challenges in having class sizes of 15 and 16 or 13 um can be balancing them and I know we've talked about this before but we think about having a range of Learners um and having a class size of 13 and we even talked about it at one of the board of AD cni meetings there's there is a there is a point where a class size is too small uh for collaborative work for kids to be able to learn how to work with different kids for a range of high medium lows so it's it's something to be thinking about too because those numbers at fourth grade if we left it with the 11 sections they're going to be very small class sizes what what say business managers love flexibility I wanted to see if Jesse was

060[Laughter] awake so uh and I didn't spend much time on secondary because the the the changes right now are not significant in any way shape or form our average class sizes are looking right around 17 18 students at the middle school I think I've mentioned before it's harder to do average class sizes at the high school level because there's such variability in what courses students are taking but our overall enrollment is relatively flat so um there seems to be some room there if families again there's no need to make changes or recommendations for changes here so um where there is a budget impact um thinking about and I did give you a copy of sort of just an overview of summer programs um and so I want to just talk through a little bit of

061that tried to organize it just in sort of high level what our intended outcome from those summer programs would be so at the elementary level really thinking about one of the things that I've looked at the data with the content Specialists and the principles there's you know very real thing called Summers slide um and when we and particularly for students who are slower to develop their skills they need repetition and practice and when they come back to school they need that a longer period of time in order to get back to where they were when they left school so focusing our elementary program it still can be highin theme based units but really making sure that we are targeting key skill areas and monitoring that um and we'd have a we'd use pre- and post

062assessments to measure that um and we did include I I do want to hear a little bit from the kids um maybe a reflective Journal how things went what we would do differently um in this scenario I did try to think about managing costs um based on what we had with the Discovery Camp and what this might look like so we would be looking at about 100 to 120 students they would be students and kindergarten through grades five uh slightly shorter day because we wanted to align it with the um extended school year program for students with disabilities so a 4H hour day instead of a five hour day um and this these would that summer program would be for students who qualify for tier two and tier three so um in the past with

063Discovery Camp once we filled it with teacher recommendations for students that were you know High need students we opened it up for parents to take to you know get in a lottery to take a spot with this model we would not have an opportunity for a parent Lottery it would be filled with students that we we know need the intervention the programming be the same as what we've seen the past two years with Discovery Camp or is this a different structure we're talking about I think it would there's going to be elements of so prior to Discovery Camp we had adventures and reading which was a two and a half hour program for students who needed tiered support we didn't provide transportation it was very skill driven um I don't know if that will yield

064the results that we want because part of the engagement with Discovery Camp were the theme- based community experiences relevant so kids got to choose there was there there's the playfulness to it and I don't mean play like everybody's just doing you know fun stuff a joy in it and I want to hold part of that um and tighten up the academic I'd like to hold all of that I thought Discovery Camp was was great right so I'm I'm trying to figure out what what was Discovery Camp last year versus what is this proposal so like the numbers what was the enrollment and Discovery last year we'd be looking about half the number of students I have one question one of the things that I thought was most spectacular about that from the slideshows that I'm

065sorry who runs the program Tony shared were all the field trip opportunities because that is something that I feel strongly that our district lacks is field trip opportunities at all grade levels for all students because if we want them to be ready for the Civic world we need to expose it to them but does this budget allow for those kinds of field trip opportunities yes maybe not as many because part of what was a big driving cost for Discovery Camp in addition to Staffing that would be twice this um transportation so trans to and from the program but also transportation to those field trips most of the field trips they went on were of no cost there wasn't a charge to get in but there was a cost to get them there but this this

066would give them a long enough day that they would still be able to do field trips that are theme related um and you know go to the library and visit local businesses depending on what the themes are for for the right but this is a this is a much smaller grouping of children is there a reason Beyond fiscal that the Discovery Camp proposal isn't in the budget proposal this year so part of what has been um and I don't have anything to share with you right now is when we pre and post tests Tony has shared in his presentations that pre and post test our kids who went to Discovery Camp maintain their skills um with our youngest Learners that isn't always the case so just even though some of our many of our students

067I'm going to use kindergarten as an example our students left kindergarten on Fast Bridge assessments and they were performing 71% of our kids were proficient when they returned in September our kindergarten classes were at about 41% proficiency on Fast bridge now the assessment changes a little bit so it's not just letters and sounds it includes sentence reading but that says to me we need to job of focusing on skill development as well like I I understand that it is a joyful engaging environment but we need to make sure that we are prioritizing making sure that these kids we are targeting where their needs are we're monitoring that and that it is it's impactful on the academic side I I really feel strongly about that but wouldn't a wider group of children benefit from that also

068I mean I guess what we're looking at here is the potential that there's going to be a large number of families who had had their kids enrolled in Discovery Camp last year and we're looking forward to something similar this year uh and perhaps half the kids who attended last year won't qualify this year although all of those kids I would think benefit from the Continuum throughout the summer so is this purely a financial decision or is there some other Factor driving not proposing it again this year it is uh primarily a financial decision and we should have really our discussions are discussions R into budget proposals with the Baseline because when you have a $54 million budget it's very hard to say it's only 125,000 why couldn't you just add that and everything be okay

069uh 275,000 is 1% in our tax level for every $275,000 we add has the potential to add a percent on everybody's taxes it it be magnifies really quickly because uh half of our budget is supported through uh state and federal funding so we like $27 million of belongs to us so the um we're very conscientious that just the 174,000 is about twoth thirds of a percent on the tax ly and each time we have these hard discussions around like U when Jess is talking about healthare um disability comp those numbers when they say they're going to go up 11% they are crushing numbers they are half of a Discovery Camp you know in a lot of situations so this is purely a financial one and you know and and uh we were talking a lot

070some of the programs that that we were able to offer through the very very generous leftover end of the grant money from co co were programs that would traditionally been offered by a town um you know Town Summer Camps pool uh painting uh field trips something that you know would have been vibrantly offered in other venues and I don't know that it's something we've ever had really black you know in our community but now that we've done it for two years it's going to be very Stark change if um you know not being able to offer the same way it was offered so I I hear you 100% it was a joyous wonderful thing opportunity for our families um and and we do have grants that um are available to us our grant writers have

071applied you know the town is interested and they've been trying to do some things as well so it's not to say that there couldn't be some kind of windfalls specifically directed toward this but the whole purpose of what G is describing is the charts that I started with you know we want our students to be performing at or above all the other kids in this area and this is the best vehicle for us to get there that T remediation there won't be as many kids exactly what would be the difference dollar dollarwise between this and doing full Discovery Camp full Discovery Camp last year was about $25,000 so it would be double this including Transportation yeah so Transportation obvious okay so Transportation would go up too this very different Discover right mean we're talking about

072this is more remedial based looking at students that specifically working on skill-based tier two tier three Adventures versus more just keep your skills going by keeping you active and engaged which Discovery Camp did right but I also I don't want it to come across that because I four hours of skill instruction will be deadly and no kid wants to come to that so it has and really we also in addition to building skills you part of what the science of reading talks about is also building knowledge and using that knowledge to better understand what you're reading be a able to develop your vocabulary so I want I want to see this merge to be something that is still theme based kids are learning about something that's important to them and they're building skills at the

073same time the kindergarten level where you said that they they were proficient but then when they came back to school they weren't how do you measure that though because that could just be the fact that they're not being engaged over the summer are the parents reading with them are they continuing on are they maintaining it so when you say uh you know they were proficient but then they weren't coming back yeah so it's not that it's not helping them we don't know why they're not coming back and they've fallen behind between that time period correct right but my point is I I would like to see the elementary program shift so that it is more academic driven so that for the students who do participate we hopefully will not see that level of slide yes

074I'm sorry to interrupt but before when you mentioned this you said it was like the Kings Kingsbridge what was it fast Bridge okay we meas 71% before they went into the um um that Su the summer program right but then when you measured them in the fall that it was 41% or whatever whatever you so was like a 30% drop but you said they were still kindergarteners wouldn't the kindergarteners have been being first grade yes it was it was the the fall test for first grade all you said kindergarten oh sorry I spoke all right but you're also when does Discovery cam take place in July yes so you have a whole month yes where that slide is occurring and even special education programs are only six weeks of a summer so you have a

075full month off even if you are getting the highest level of intervention it is the way education is designed it's unfortunate but it is part of the education process and being able to recover from that is something that students need to do too any student does any all students display regression to some level I'm not saying that that's good but it is the reality of the situation yeah and even the children who are deemed most needy only get six weeks of Summer programming like my preschoolers only get six weeks despite the fact that they benefit from school year round not to say that I wouldn't like Discovery Camp are the support staff still going to be students I'm sorry are the support staff for this I didn't include that no the support staff this for

076Discovery Camp the support staff were Tas and some teachers who were partnered with a classroom teacher the teen employees were actually paid through the town and they partnered with us so I didn't include them as a as a cost because we didn't pay for them so there would be no no I've been in conversations with Linda to continue that okay who who is she truste for the in of Ravina quean quean council person so is it fair to say if we if we were interested in expanding this program to serve the same number of children that we have the past two years it would be roughly double the proposed budget is that something that would be operationally workable if the board was inclined to do that I I think we can I mean I think

077we could make that happen um and I I should have said at the onset because I've said it at the board of ed cni meetings when I approach building a budget I do it through a zero I try to approach it through a zero I mean I it it doesn't make sense to me to keep adding without really thinking how are we using our resources that we have so I this is hard for me because when you see I didn't get to zero we're still over where I wanted to be um but I see some value in it but I also want to see yeah some potential changes I think the town and the village both have money budgeted for the summer programs too but we can find out about that but I'm pretty sure

078they do um the middle school and high school carry a a lesser cost um but and they have slightly different um purposes so when working with the middle school team at the board of ed cni meeting we talked about that purpose really to be developing underlying prerequisite skills for literacy and math that are impacting student achievement and their ability to pass their classes so we would be looking again this would be more of a traditional because it would be a slightly shorter day of two and a half hours this would be more direct skill uh development um I did kind of although we didn't have much conversation around it thinking about um programming for math skill Ela skill and some level of study organizational time management skill building also because I do think that that

079impacts some of our students ability to be successful at the middle school level so well in a way in a way yes um and we talked about you know what are the implications if a kid is invited to come but then doesn't so how might we remediate those skills once they return to school um and we talked about using the extended um what do they call it home homework club that goes well do they call it homework club that's what they call it the the extended um homework help that goes uh later in the day being that being a requirement for kids until they get their grades up what what about at the eighth grade level for example as it is right now if a student is not passing I mean they're going to go

080on to ninth grade correct is this a way to implement that where if they're failing they don't automatically go they have to you know go to summer school and pass these classes before we just push them through so we talked a little bit about that and there are implications um around retention for students um and [Music] also for some of these students that is not a motivator necessarily so we won't we would want to consider that but we thought when in our discussions it was less about punitive if you don't come you're going to be held back and it was more if you don't come we know you need these these skills so we're going to build it into your schedule so maybe it's during your structured study hall that you're going to be working

081with an AIS teacher it might be that you are assigned to stay until for the first quarter or the first marking period until you get your grades up I mean I don't have any knowledge of this but I'm not sure we're we're serving the students any justices by P by putting them through if they're failing and they're behind well um I just it's just a way to look at it it is but the research especially the older students get really does support if we retain students in middle school we are very likely to see them drop out of school okay and we general research but what about at what about looking at that we we haven't done it here yet so we don't really know you could be talking about two or three kids I

082mean I don't know how many kids you know at the end of eth grade are actually failing um I don't I don't know I'm having a hard time with that pushing seeing kids I'm not talking about someone who's failing one class but you know kids that are are traditionally when we went to school they were they were failing they would be you know held back I'm not saying holding them back but then giving them the interventions that they need over the summer so they can retake these classes or get up before we just push them through to ninth grade and then try to give them intervention where they're already behind and now we're trying to get them caught up it's just like they're always seems like they're always going to be behind so Matthew effect

083yeah yeah so is there another way to look at this and Implement something else into this summer program specifically targeting eighth graders before they go on automatically go on to high school I I don't see why not okay um I and I guess I I approach this through a different lens like I understand I understand the Matthew effect I understand the kids come into the high school with some serious deficits but it's not always because they don't have the skills it could also because they have other things that are impacting their ability to participate in school um and I would be really cautious about retention or holding students back for something like that I really think about approaching this through the lens of what do they need in order to be successful in these classes

084and have we given them the instruction that will help them achieve those expectations I guess that's what I'm kind of saying instead of holding them back give the instruction over the summer require require it not opt right not optional over the summer so so they're ready to go or or they're further ahead they may not be totally up to par but they have a better chance when they get into nth grade so and I think you rais a good point to prioritize our eighth grade students for that because we know that we don't have two more years to work with them do six gr so it's it's a good recommendation is that something that could be possibly be done okay was the Middle School included in the Discovery Camp at all it was we had

085much we only had one class that ran that had sixth through e8th grade within within the Discovery Camp it was a K8 so these those students would not be participating I broke it out so we were doing Elementary Middle High School okay thank you and then um high school is on the flip side and that really is um mimic it's she's still on the summer we're not there yet she said go on the flip side on the flip side of the summer program summary it's the just the high school um which is a which is a slightly different Focus um that is credit recovery for students who earned which is similar what we've been doing for the past two years um using a mixture of online instruction and teacher support um identifying students who earned

086between a 55 and a 64 in their courses and um providing an opportunity for them to to gain credit back for those courses that they would not have and in some cases get them ready for the regions in August um the unified bowling team as I mentioned earlier is a is a small ask but it's an important one so I wanted to highlight that um if we're successful thinking about what other Unified sports we might be able to bring on board in future years um and then the last item that is listed as um an addition and this one I struggled with because cell phone storage there's been a lot of conversation around it otherwise known as Yonder bags I hate to sell a product um so I'm just going to say cell phone storage

087um with Governor hok's proposal and with some of the conversations we've had the BLT at the high school had sent out a survey and teachers are in favor of it one of the challenges I have with including it is it's not just about the bags it's about um the impact instru time Building Systems to get kids into school it's impact financially Beyond this actual purchase because students have are responsible for those bags they have to bring them with them they have to put their phone on it what phone are they putting in day the bags are they bring the bags with them so I picture any of the students that you know that have a difficult time with their Chromebooks getting back and forth to school and magnify that with their cell phone storage bag

088oh I'm sorry they bring the bag from home every day every day goes home with them and it stays at their house yes and then it comes back to school yes so I'm G to say that any kid that doesn't want to use it is gonna leave it at home every day it's is so you got the tip of the iceberg there the other we didn't want to get hung up in the implementation uh limitations of it she's right there's a lot of limitations or additional things have left to considered that would require more discussion incling potential of more staff because when you have 550 students walking through the door all at once first thing in the morning there probably needs to be a grownup there making sure that they're doing what they're supposed to

089do and putting their actual phone in it instead of an old phone or something that looks like can I just say that we had a really really great discussion at BLT today and Ryan has a fantastic idea and so there's a lot of work around this going on at the high school well just four hours ago that's good what we wanted to do is we wanted to have this in there as a fail State this is by no mean by no means our final budget proposal but it's so it's large enough that not to have included it in this part of the presentation because we'll moving out to our directors the next meeting and we still have time um to talk about some of the measures that uh the middle school has employed have made

090significant improvements it's not perfect it relies on adults you know it's um having the phone is an added conflict or added potential conflict and an added distraction even if kids are following um the prescribed behaviors um so $220,000 would be the cost of the bags themselves the equipment that opens and closes them at the beginning and end of the day as well as they recommend buying 10% more so that you have them in case they're damaged or to your point Jenny they show without it you put it in another one and they carry that around all day so and and there's a so that it doesn't go home and get lost again like the the extra ones that you're buying and that the child who left theirs at home doesn't then take home another one

091to leave at home well we give them textbooks we give them Chrome books we give a lot of things we expect right but those aren't taking something that they value very highly away from them the textbook is like well hang on a second they don't bring their Yonder flag in with them they don't bring cell phone they're not even there yet so we don't even need to have this discussion yet let's just let them put the budget line on and move on okay that's another night that's another night we can talk that up a on on this though for $220,000 I mean how many of these bags are we getting you know to the end of students losing them you know what are we getting for $20,000 honestly to me seems like a crazy number

092for something like cell phone storage so I'm I need a lot more to understand what $20,000 is getting us50 usange plus 10% overage for any to get lost or damaged so I'm sorry so we're getting 500 of them well there 550 students in the high school okay no that's why I'm trying to understand how many of them we are intending to purchase because we have 500 students at the high school how many of these are we intending to purchase when we all know that high schoolers will do exactly what jimy said uh especially if they know that there's not a placement there to immediately hand them another one yeah and we really didn't want to intend to get into the procedures of it we right but I think in the cost we need to understand

093that like that is getting us enough to cover things like this otherwise what's the point ACT first right I think this is a policy question before it's a financial question there's been no direction from the board yet on the approach with respect to Yonder bags so I don't know how we can make a decision based on dollars if we haven't even reached the point where we think that's the policy okay path that we want to pursue what we didn't want to do is we didn't want to not have this conversation now and right we have had some dialogue and it wouldn't pre-planned just there wouldn't be anyway in May to go back and do it we be waiting a year to do it but understood what what is the um what is the governor's Direction

094on this topic is there some law or regulation that's come out in the budget she's she's got something in the budget and then she had her budget additions last week is it is it funding or is there going to be some type of mandate do we do we know what that looks like and they're leaving up to local control how you want to do it they're going to provide the availability of funding so it's there so if we decide you know if it goes through and everything passes if a district decides hey yeah we want to do these Yonder bags they're going to give you the money to do it if you decide you don't want to do it and don't get the money or if you doing you know so initial budg proposal for

095I believe for 13.5 million there are what 1.2 million students in New York City alone do the math with $30 a bag that 13.5 million won't even do one municipality so the funding that's proposed is wul excuse me if that's the solution that she's proposing what's happened in other states is that they do do a phone ban and allowing to local control over the implementation of what it looks like right um so it doesn't necessarily mean these specific devices they to my knowledge they are the only thing like it right so they have a certain a lead on the market and that other than that you know they say leave them home put them in a a locker you know some actually I do know some people have like in a uh like when we

096visited um uh Labs with clean rooms and plug power things like that they have lockers that put physically put their phone in and that's where it stays for the day so there are other options I don't mean we don't mean to limit it to just this one and again and then the option could also be uh empower the classroom leaders to enforce the rules that we have in place and provide some mechanism for phones to be deposited in the classroom which is the high school attemped to do because middle schoolers shouldn't have them at all supposed to already supposed to be I'm not going to make a Valu judgment about like the developmental what happens developmentally is no cell phone okay so right and sounds like we have a great start on the high school

097having no cell phone s like a great start high school us lockers lockers and book bags aren't allowed in classrooms and there's a big difference between them but not getting there's some really great ideas coming out of Feld not going into well anything besides this budgetary item but as we we go down this path and policy and all that would it be too much to ask to have Bethlehem come in a representative from Bethlehem or scoary a district that has implemented this and hear from them on the challenges that they had how it worked is is that I mean it's a neighboring District it wouldn't be too much to ask to see if they could come in and give and give us some insight in last month's board you know that that on board Bethlehem

098was listed on the front page right as being the one that is showing everyone throughout the the the the state on how to go about doing this the Commissioner's Office grabbed the hold of them because they they've had so much success at it now I'm not saying everything is Bethlehem I'm only just saying this happened last month and it was on Beth on on the front page of on board I don't remember everything that was in the article I'm sorry that's okay and I read part of that too scary was probably the first adopter in the region you know what also we have at our disposal is other schools who have contemplated this have already held Community forms and may have had those school districts who have already implemented um present so and they're they're

099publicly available and I've watched some of them um I'll find what I can and I'll share that with the board as well but um would be helpful here I mean this is a this is a significant policy shift so we can put a placeholder on the budget that's fine but I think before we take that any further we need to really take a good look at whether this is the path we want to go down I am the last person who wants this because I am with Pete I I believe that we are responsible for teaching our children to become World ready it's right in our mission and vision and they need to be they need to learn self control they need to learn responsibility they need to follow rules and regulations we've all been

100to workplaces where students are sorry not students young adults are standing at the register not paying any attention to you because they're too buy fiddling with their electronic device so they're marriage though if we just lock them up and say no what what are they learning in that remainder of it so I've always been on both sides of the argument and maybe there's different ways to deploy but yeah and one last question on it the $220,000 is that a one time or is there some recurring cost there it would be one time except that um when a class graduates we presume um you know our Chromebooks have about a fiveyear lifespan they've built in obsolesence in them the idea is that the bags they're pretty rugged that the bags stay with the student through their

101time in high school knowing they'll be have to be some replacement but each time a grade level graduates I don't think anybody's going to want those bags so we would be puring another grade level which is at this juncture $30 times class of 120 kids so there's recurr we should anticipate a recurring cost in the future three to5 every year y okay discussed at policy level because you're talking about taking someone's personal property and essentially requiring that they lock it up and I understand that the policy exists surrounding cell phones and I agree that allow the Educators to implement it with support so that it is followed through I I think the honestly I think the money can be spent better on academics or some other core focus of the district yeah to be honest

102I wouldn't even be inclined to to make a hold on that money for for this $20,000 to me feels like a very large number for something like cell phone storage um and I I struggle to to Grapple with that number um for something like this and I understand and I respect the idea that you know we need to have a better handle on cell phones and you know not having them in the classrooms I understand the disruption but $220,000 when we are cutting a summer program um when we are not back fill in another position $20,000 for bags for kids cell phones is it's a really hard sell for me even to put a marker on that money uh that's a really hard sell for me I guess what I would what I the only

103thing I would ask because I so we can move on from this um really quickly is uh the money is a is is a big deal and I think there is better ways the money can be spent I can read the articles in the onboarding I can I can watch the news I can hear what all these other Educators say I still think it would be beneficial to get some firsthand knowledge to hear about you know okay what were the pros and cons the cons was the money that was spent but did grades go up are students socializing have have things changed dramatically in the eyes of other districts where that was money well spent um my only hesitation with that is they're not going to come out publicly and say it's not working right

104we're not going to get that I have several people who will publicly out in this type of form right I mean Beth's not going to come here and say Here's here's why it's not working unless people from Gloverville unless they've already made a decision to move on from that we're not going to get that type of candid Fe that work if the board is comfortable with it I do think that that could happen those kind of conversations can happen less publicly with a BLT with a team um with some stakeholders that can ask those probing questions because you're right there are some districts who have implemented these with not the same level of success um and and I I know Brian said we wanted to have it here as a placeholder I I tried to

105connect it back to academics cell phones are impacting our students ability to attend and be present for instruction um and for me trying to and and I'm involving in my thinking about this um because I've doing some reading around it and I just I'm trying to understand why this is a different problem than we've seen with other things with students um you know some describe it as a cell phone addiction and without us cutting it off they will not be able to stop themselves from using it um so there's there's there's pros and cons but I think I I think you're right Mike I I said I was I was hesitant around this because I've been waffling I believe that we need to have some education around this too um with the community too why

106is this import why why would we spend a big chunk of money like this on something that is so important to those kids it is like their Lifeline why would we be making these decisions people have to understand the impact of it I'm less concerned with their feelings about the the phones I I don't think that they should be out in school I just think that we should have a very clear policy that's enforced consistently and to Dr Bailey's Point uh teach that level of self-discipline and and control to put it away and and keep it away part of that is teaching them to want that self-control and again Ryan has a really great idea that I can't wait for him to be able to share have a separate conversation yes because there's things happening

107at the building levels that and I can tell you Dr BR I have the have had discussions about this many years back when I was sitting in the classroom and and the philosophy of teaching them and when I have a biology curriculum that I gotta get to to keep those grades up we don't have time to do that unless we find a different place to do it you know I mean so and you have strong teachers you have less strong teachers not teaching but their personality a KN for another it's a it's a whole conversation phones go right there when you walk through this threshold I I agree with that right I'm saying not everybody does so but the whole conversation around this not as part of the but right I think I think at

108the end of this you know in order for $20,000 to feel reasonable here I think that we would need more information on not just on this program but also on like what are the other options for this that maybe wouldn't cost $20,000 or a recurring cost to the district um you know what other options are there um and I know you know you have alluded to that perhaps there are other other thoughts but I'm not I won't go further into that but I think you know I think before we earmark any money for this I think we would need more information thank youut from the people who are doing work is the most relevant one jean and I can can guess and take other people's input and try and make informed decisions but the BLT

109and the folks who are and the Middle School to that exent they also they are experiencing the same things whether we say keep them in your lockers or not there's nobody being x-rayed or CH or anything and kids are smart so they are still having an impact at the middle school so um we will um Circle back on this we have we'll have some discussion and we don't have to commit now we'll tell you you know as Mike said having someone come in to speak about it what other districts have done they had like a panel discussion for u a forum you know so that people could be informed and hear all sides of the argument have people from other districts come in describe what they did what the effect was when they did it

110most of them very positive the social emotional stuff that highlighted that kids having conversations instead of looking at their phones but um having a little bit more threedimensional vision of of what it is doesn't have to be for next year we can have this is actually a very short span of time to have a really good solid discussion like that so I think we're probably looking farther ahead than that anyway thank you so sorry um you were mentioning using a new math curriculum what's the impact like was that cost included in something no within here or that would I was using existing textbook funds professional devel vment funds um and managing that within so does it mean that fewer teachers will be going to conferences next year possibly um but I'm also trying to be

111strategic in when we make those purchases okay so it is being addressed alternate way okay perfect that's that's high priority but it doesn't have a budgetary impact okay interested oh go go ahead the end just we fled around I want to make sure that I get to everything school so yes I put a a placeholder of and again I want to be really clear about this using teacher attrition as a way to manage your fiscal responsibilities is not that next year if we have 15 teachers retire we're not filling them that isn't what I'm proposing I really think it's smart to look at continuous enrollment where we are where does it make sense where are their opportunities for us to take those retirements and not fill them if we can still manage our class sizes

112and also impact the long-term budget goals that you have as a board so I I I want to be clear on that I'm not about like who knows next year we only have one retirement this year we might have 15 next year um we we will there there are we have a lot of experienced teachers um that I will be hard to see them go um so my goal was to try to come out flat and we are still at about $50,000 um above where we are um for instructional programs where we are this year I'm not sure what that is percentage wise um you've asked a lot of questions but there's opportunities for any others that you have right now um and just a heads up about what's coming up um at at the

113board of ed meeting coming up we've got buildings and grounds instructional technology transportation and Food Service all wrapped up into one right package um and then an anticipated uh budget workshop on the 26th where Jesse will present the three-part budget proposal my only remaining question question is I'd be interested in learning more about whether there's any proposals that have been recommended up from the building level okay that are not included in this budget due to funding limitations or other limitations I'd like to know what those building level priorities are so we can keep track of those and if they're not in this budget for some reason we can keep focus on those next budget cycle or for free up some money in this budget we might be able to have flexibility to look at those

114alternatives thank you for that reminder I know that was when we talked very early on that was something that you had listed as a as a priority anything else about um you know we've talked quite a bit about the ELA scores particularly in the elementaries um as a parent I brought it up a few years ago um you know our our libraries in the elementary schools are not used in the ways that they used to be and in all honesty at at kind of some of those potentially higher percentage levels um you know for a few years we didn't have really library at all uh preo and obviously through covid um and personally it has not come back in a way that I would like to see in the elementary schools I would like to

115see Library much more of what it once was um I understand that steam has come in and it's tough to to balance all of the things that we have um but personally you know steam kind of replacing Library a few years ago is not something that I have ever been um a fan of and I am concerned that our lack of library in the schools and again I know our libraries are being used but they're not being used in the way they used to be where it was a regular you know every week all of our students were going to library um have we considered you know reigniting what library used to look like and what it looks like in many other districts um to help encourage are reading um scores and things like that

116and I know when we had Library predates when you were here um and when that program kind of went away um I mean for a few years our libraries in the elementary schools were not being used at all um the books were not able to even be taken out um and no before covid it happened and during covid and then throughout covid they then you know our libraries were then kind of reorganized re Reed and and things like that and I understand we have not had a full-time librarian although we have a media specialist now that's split between the elementaries but again I mean looking at these test scores I I have to say that it looks a whole lot like the lack of library has had an impact on our Ela scores personally I

117want to see Library back um I know that there are fair number of other teachers who also or other parents who feel that way as well as teachers who feel that way I know at least a few years ago I don't know you know now there were teachers at peterb that were walking their kids to the public library so that the kids could have library because they couldn't in our own school um so I I'd like to know if we've even discussed the possibility of returning to what library used to look like and what a lot of schools still have it look like so Jackie in in the budget process that Brian outlined at the beginning so we started and had you know multiple conversations principl working with teachers libraries did not Library class did

118not come to any of those conversations so I I have to argue that maybe that's because we haven't had it for like six years I mean since my oldest who's now in seventh grade the last time he had a regular Library class was first grade first so and I and I guess the other thing that I'm wondering because I I've been in different school districts when we say library um if you're talking about a traditional go to the library sit on the rug l listen to a read aloud learn about the Dewey Decimal System how the books are organized um what is the impact of that on un literacy development whereas many school districts have moved their library media programs to include so many of the elements of steam programming pre-coding and and um students

119understanding how the world Works um really exploring through inquiry based projects that you see happening in the curriculum that I know it doesn't feel like library because we don't call it that but that has been the shift that many school districts have made they probably still call it a librarian but um a library class but they're doing a lot of those things that you see in what in what we're doing with our steam classes I mean to the argument on the other side of that is the entire country has seen a decline in ela so I mean I don't know that that other districts also removing you know like our our entire country has seen a a reduction in reading skills and things like that I don't think that saying that other districts are also

120removing those is saying that it's not impacting these skills um you know I think that having a routine practice where you are going into a setting that is based around books and encouraging students to explore those books in a different way than in a classroom setting where they're handed you know books or may have a brief period of time for this I think has an impact so again I I'm interested to I was interested to know although it sounds like no no conversations have been had around it um I think a fair number of teachers would want to see Library come back especially in the ele particularly in the elementary schools where it really has been kind of pushed out any other questions thanks so much thank you okay stand no thank you all right

121that's it thank you everybody