001un States of America it stands one nation godible m the Buffalo City School District respectively acknowledges the Cen Hy Confederacy whose ancestral territory our schools were built we honor and pay tribute to the indigenous ancestors of the land we use we acknowledge the historic intergenerational traumas they have endured and offer hope and opportunities for healing and Reconciliation as we go forward together one key hu principle is to live in peace and harmony with each other and the natural world all life should be respected and care for because what happens to one living thing affects all living things we are grateful for the Abundant natural resources in this land of the hados people and for all who work to protect those resources we acknowledge the hados sun people as the past present and future caretakers of
002this land and water and and we are grateful for the opportunity to live work and educate our children on this ancestrial land thank you okay rail statement by Board number a back okay this is the Board of Education resolution guardrails for the board as the Buffalo board of education has committed to becoming a board Focus on improving student outcomes we recognize that our adult behaviors must change to uphold this commitment as we have given the superintendent specific guard rails that protect the values of our community we understand the need to establish guard rails for our Behavior as a board the board shall operate within the board's role as defined in board policy 110 and 1310 and the board's current operating procedure specifically as defined in board policy 13311 and 6110 the board either collectively or
003through the actions of individual board members guard rail one shall not invest less than 50% of its minutes each month into monitoring student outcome goals guard rail 2 shall not perform or appear to perform any of the responsibilities delegate ated to the superintendent guard rail three shall not violate any board adopted policy or District procedure guard rail 4 shall not behave in a manner that would violate the student code of conduct thank you thank you so the board held an executive session as FS to discuss number one a pending legal proceeding for the New York state division of human rights with complaint number 102590 number two appending litigation matter before the New York state supreme court with index number 2017 number three matters related to employment and potential discipline and or dismissal of a specific
004District employ number four Collective negotiations with multiple bargaining units including the bcsa the BS the basa best the subs United Buffalo and AFS CM goo q64 service center employees number five matters related to the superintendant search and the appointment and appointment of a person with the district and last for the purpose of receiving legal advice before it did take action um I would like to call out our chief uh Anette Amos and she's going to briefly share some highlights from black history and from women's evening afternoon superent president honorable board member my St colleagues and listening audience we're just going to go over I don't have a PowerPoint but we I did uh you guys cop sorry the bo copies of a few of the things I was going to go over so just to
005talk about what clri um did for both Black History Month as well as women's history month and if you take a look of course that first that second page is the big Urban form uh sheet because of course we did that and I hope that most of you came and that you were pleased we had a very Dynamic speaker uh Tim Wise is there we also did the African-American read aloud which was read by our distinguished second grade Scholars at Harvin Austin School number 97 and if you would like to see that there is a link under CL clri events on our web page the next page shows um a celebration across the district so we had as I said the district africanamerican read aloud we had the Tony Awards black Broadway Media communication students
006from braa um produced black Broadway vet we had an interactive black history trivia all schools across the district scholar and school performances many schools um engaged in spoken word traditional African dance and motivational songs and school 61 connected to the theme you come from greatness we had a districtwide Del I'm sorry districtwide diversity celebration series package which is actually sent out every single month for all of the diversity celebrations that should happen we also had door decorating contest highlighting famous of African-Americans and HBCU Community Partnerships we has school 79 a visit from the mobile Museum of Tolerance School 54 of the field trip to the underground rail World her Heritage Center um we've had Collective uplift of greatness who am I a gallery walk at school 37 we also participated um in the black history
007month program for the eth judicial court uh where we had students perform as well as their art was displayed uh students sang and dance and actually had a really good time also engaged in lunch with the judges uh our story project we had a black entrepreneurial panel for the students my brother my brother's keeper and My Sister's Keeper we brought in National Society of black engineers and sat on a panel to assist the the students with business ideas um and that was a lot for black hisory month and there's more stuff that we don't have But please understand that through the through the district we try to Spread spread all of these celebrations for our heritage um and then we have women's history monom as we are still in women sister month right merch is
008flying but we are still here and before I get started if I may say those of you sitting at that table and I want to speak to my superintendent first and the board president and all of you women standing up there and actually to all of my colleagues and beautiful principles out there but thank you thank you for being women of History thank you for stting the stage thank you for fighting for us and our children thank you thank you so in addition for yes please you are amazing H as part of our celebrating your greatness uh we had we had school Partnerships and Buddy readers we had the speaking contest that LE us Hill and we I guess awarded theing last month during the bo meeting um full School Collective learner we have speakers
009and presentations School 192 is hosting Kelly Diane Galloway from New York State task force on missing women and girls it's a lot competing with that hell um we also had again the districtwide diversity celebration series that we send out every month um also for women's history month for our My Sister's Keeper uh we had Council woman Zetta everheart come and speak to our girls as well as participate in the pain the tone which is also led by two black women artists and for also for uh March we have Irish American Heritage Month puan citizenship uh day world Down syndrome day and you if you look on the uh the packet that you were giving you see some of the other things that we did for women's history but I don't want to take up too
010much time but again thank you history makers thank you for your time have a great [Music] [Applause] up okay so now get into [Music] I think the Bell is all right so now we're going to get into our speakers so the guideline for speakers at this time the board welcom speakers who have signed up to speak at tonight's meeting please be be reminded that all speakers must be limited to three minutes or less we access speakers remindful that this is a business meeting open to the public and televis attend attendance and viewers include persons from throughout Western New York incl children the board acts that speakers protect themselves professionally and that their comments remain civil and courteous bearing in mind that they will be heard by people of all ages if you have have printed
011information to share with us please do not approach the board table provide your information to the district clerk who will then make sure we receive it this is an opportunity for buff residents to address the board of educ ation about issues that Ser the public interest and District Mission and the board asks the speakers demonstrate appropriate the quum so what I what we tried to do is categorize the subject so for example our first person is Jennifer Batista is she here conern citizen staff [Music] recognition [Music] Jennifer no not right now all right before we call the next person um the superintendent will not be able to respond we have ay so I won't respond to everyone individually tonight like I usually do because of the sheer volume of speakers that we have but what
012I will promise you is that within a week either my myself or one of my executive cabinet members will be responding to every single concern that's shared tonight okay we just wanted to let you know up front because I know sometimes you wait until the end to hear the response and so you don't have to wait I'll be taking copious notes and either myself or one of my cabinet leads will be responding within a week to any concern that is shared tonight okay next person Whitefield teacher cuts to instrumental music no [Music] microphones good evening everyone my name is Tiffany Whitefield band director at Waterfront Elementary and I'm here because our Middle School band program is at risk of being cut and we cannot let that happen this is more than just a budget decision
013cutting the band program means cutting opportunity creativity and a sense of belonging for hundreds of kids 140 at Waterfront it means taking away a space where kids learn discipline teamwork and confidence it means silencing music that has brought joy to our school our families and our entire Community music education is not a luxury it's a necessity studies show that students who participate in band perform better academically develop stronger social skills and have higher self-esteem for many students band is where they find their voice their passion and their purpose I understand that budgets are tight I understand that difficult choices must be made but we must also consider the long-term impact of this decision once a program like this is cut it's incredibly difficult to bring it back we must ask ourselves what kind of education
014do we want to provide for our children one that focuses on test scores or one that Fosters well-rounded inspired and engaged students Waterfront has a million dooll band hall with a 30t ceiling four practice rooms and $300,000 worth of musical instruments Waterfront has a 55 yearlong history of tradition of bands performing at level two and one and three and four MMA level we are the second largest program after performing arts and we are Performing Arts feeder school we shouldn't put a community school musician or a young audience musician casually in charge of instruments there was um a concept that instead of instrumental music that they would have after school program music or Saturday Academy Music but band classes are during excuse uh at Waterfront they're during the students music time and during that time I
015test them I organize them we drill and repeat and we learn muscle memory exercises until they get it learning to play a musical instrument takes dedication and work and guidance from a certified music teacher a young audience grant program certified a adult uh would not be a certified adult it would be um a a musician that has that performs for kids and performs with the kids and they join in and have a jam session together but that would not teach individual students how to play instruments like flute clarinet saxophone and all the instruments so please continue to fund waterfronts music and keep it alive I do have a video but there's no microphone for it so here thank you very much thank you thank you [Applause] par music program Ang hi uh I'm English is
016a new language teacher at bilingual Center School 33 I'm here to speak to you about the inequitable education that the district is providing to its students in our bilingual schools tonight I'm asking for the reimplementation and expansion of rti in Spanish our students home language in all of our bilingual schools RTI stands for response to intervention it is a multi-tiered system of interventions matched to student needs designed to improve outcomes for all students especially in Reading RTI is the time during the school day where the instruction is differentiated appropriately for students to meet their academic needs for at least the last 8 years that I have been teaching at school 33 we have been providing rti in both English and Spanish however we were recently given a directive to provide rti in English only English
017only RTI is not acceptable in bilingual schools bilingual education research consistently shows that English language Learners who receive literacy instruction in their home language develop higher levels of English proficiency than those who only receive mainstream English programs more English in the instructional Bay does not lead to higher English uh proficiency this has been studied and researched for decades the RTI guidance for New York state school districts clearly states students receiving core reading instruction tier one in the home language who also need tier two instruction should receive tier 2 instruction in the home language now if you visit the BPS website you will find that the district set says they will provide access to appropriate instructional programs across academic settings and are grounded an evidentiary base of scientific research and they will provide literacy development in
018both English and in the native language the website also States a primary goal of the Buffalo Public School District is to ensure that all students receive Equitable access to the curriculum and to instruction that is differentiated appropriately to meet their academic needs now I bring these specific points to your attention because these standards programs and curriculum that the district claims they are providing are not a reality about half of the bilingual schools in the district follow a 50/50 model of bilingual education a 50/50 model is literal the school day is 50% English and 50% Spanish it's not just the Core Curriculum but also art music F and RTI this is not happening in our 5050 bilingual schools um it's baffling and alarming that our school district who claim to provide research-based bilingual education to its
019students are enforcing englishon rti in bilingual schools when this is exactly the opposite of what the research says so I am asking for the reimplementation and expansion of rti in Spanish in all of our bilingual schools this is only the first step in of many in ensuring that our students become bilingual and biliterate thank you [Applause] te next we have Linda Myers a teacher equity and legal education my name is Linda Maas and I'm a second grade bilingual educator at school number 33 bilingual Stander I stand here before you today not only as a bilingual educator but first and foremost as the daughter of a civil and human rights leader that tirelessly advocated for Bilal education I was raised with the understanding that access to education is a fundamental right not a privilege and yet
020when I look at the state of valal education in our schools I see systemic inequities that continue to deny our students the education they deserve right now it has been three years without a k222 curriculum resources available in Spanish and what has been put in place for the home language acts is an outdated based program one that was already deemed ineffective and removed from the P2 to CLA not only is it outdated but it also Rel essential consumables forcing teachers to piece together materials just to meet basic instructional needs why is it that what was deemed insufficient for monolingual students is considered good enough for bilingual students additionally rti's response to intervention should not be a choice between English and Spanish it should be a holistic approach that honors students full linguistic development bilingual students
021do not learn in an isolated in isolated language silos the current structure fails to support their bilingualism as an asset instead treating it as a challenge to overcome it creates inconsistencies that impact the academic growth of bilingual students leaving them vulnerable to be misidentified including special identification referrals curriculum decisions should not be made based on what is convenient or familiar they should be made with one priority in mind to students they should be made with one for our Bal Learners as they deserve the same evidence-based high quality instruction as any other students they deserve a curriculum that reflects their needs a system that supports their growth and an education that recognizes and values their Bing loyalism as an asset not an afterthought if we truly believe in equity then we need to act on it
022that means ensuring the bilingual education is not a patchwork of outdated materials [Applause] teacher inity and greetings my name is Stephanie mongello and I'm a bilingual integrated co- teer at school 33 I am also a proud alumni of the Buffalo Public School System and I am passionate about bilingual education BPS is where I fell in love with learning Spanish in seventh grade I'm a guardian of equity at my school so I'm here to advocate for the equity of our marginalized bilingual students what I'm asking for is to implement and expand response to intervention or RTI programs in Spanish for students across all bilingual buildings there are many philosophical perspectives on bilingual education one of which is additive versus subtractive bilingualism in the additive model students develop both languages leading to bilingual proficiency flexibility problem solving
023strengthening cultural pride and self-esteem the additive model encourages multilingualism as an asset subtractive bilingualism prioritizes English at the expense of Spanish leading to first language loss hindering cognitive development and academic achievement in the home language because it's devalued and it's often rooted in assimilation ideologies that view minority languages as a barrier to success by limiting RTI to solely be provided in English we are moving further away from the additive model which is what has students best interest in mind and moving closer to subtractive which is a hindrance to Student Success and pride in self a popular theory of multilingual education is known as basic interpersonal communication skills or Bix and cognitive academic language Pro proficiency calp Bix is the informal social communication typically developing within 6 months to two years kelp refers to academic language
024and content specific learning which takes a minimum of 5 to 7 years but often longer to fully develop when students have a lack in kelp or their academic language it is because they need additional language support in their home language before they are able to transfer it over to English their second language if it takes students five plus years to be fully fluent in academic language that means we may not see the proof in the data while they're with us but it is still important to provide for their future success research states there is mounting evidence that bilingual programs that focus on building proficiency of both home and English language are associated with the best outcomes I'd like to share with you a portion of a fifth grade essay titled being biliterate Is Amazing by
025one of our students being bilingual and biliterate benefits my community and World by being respectful of different cultures you can learn more about a person's culture and where they are from by talking with them if someone is in the same color as you or speaks a different language you should treat them respectfully just because they're different doesn't mean they can't teach you something being bilingual helps me be able to communicate with many different people and new learn new things we as professionals and experienced Educators know that in order for our students to be successful District programs need to be implemented with Fidelity currently the district has failed to provide proper Staffing and a comprehensive bilingual program thank you [Music] [Applause] te Support Services hello I'm a social work at6 and the Cod Department social Department
026um I'm here to express our deep concern regarding any uh potential reduction in Social Work Services as well as psychologists and school counselors um the student Support Services we are not a luxury but we are a necessity we are often the bridge between students and their success and that children facing academic emotional Behavioral or social economic challenges receive the support uh Dr Williams we will like to thank you because last year um our department was at risk of a reduction and you stepped in to ensure Social Work Services continued in all of our buildings as of today March 19th there was projected 12.5 buildon level Social Work positions slated to be cut this impact of reducing Social Work positions will be felt in a multitude of ways first and most importantly our students we know
027that many of our students face significant barriers to learning including trauma mental health struggles homelessness and food insecurity social workers provide essential interventions Crisis Support and refusals to Services referrals excuse me to services that allow students to focus on their Education Without adequate social workor Staffing more students will fall through the cracks leading to decline in attendance academic um performance and engagement second on our beautiful Community Buffalo is a city that takes pride in looking out for one another our schools are reflection of our community's values and when we invest in students wellbeing we strengthen our neighborhoods School social workers are do not work just within the walls of our buildings but we are in our homes with the families our local organizations to ensure that our students are supported both in and out of
028the classroom when we reduce these supports we increase the strain on families and Community agencies leading to a greater long-term cost for intervention services unile Justice and mental health of course um without that second additional social worker in the buildings who would be responsible for all of the services that I mentioned such as The Crisis Support um assisting families with linkages and many more that Soul social worker in the buildings will be responsible solely for CSC work um which although even if your building is not heavy with CSC work we are now responsible for over 600 preschool CSE uh cases which is a lot um we do thank uh Dr Hodson our director as well as um Chief Barnes for rolling out the Medicaid program that we spoke about last year at the board meeting
029um and I'm just asking that you allow that to work right you allow us to gener generate Revenue so that way we can see um where that goes and how we can be impactful with our positions as well as our students um obviously I recognize that the board is in budget you know constraints um and I know that it's a high test at balancing many priorities however I urge you to consider the true cost of reducing Social Work services in any student support services and not just in the financial terms but on the Student Success Community will be and sta for attention our students deserve the best possible chance at success and that means maintaining and ideally one day expanding all of student support services so I thank [Applause] you uh social workare regarding budget
030hello I'm miss the co-chair was Sterling of the social work so um I'm here today to express concern regarding the budgetary constraints that our district is facing how these constraints will affect SST positions and more more specifically the social workers and how our students will be impacted last year I stood before you into the same and you listen as certainl said and we thank you for that um that said the needs remain the same Buffalo continues to have one of the top 10 highest child poverty rates in the nation and Mental Health crisis continues to affect our children and adolescents what also remains is our steadfast commitment to helping our students while we acknowledge the budgetary constraints Buffalo is facing we are asking for fiscally responsible decision making to align with our priorities and our
031purpose do we want to continue to provide interventions to students to promote their social emotional Wellness let's talk numbers currently the special ed Department only provides funding for one social worker per School regardless of the size of the student population and special ed population that means that some social workers have case fls that can be double or more than their colleagues from previous years buan administrators would use discretionary Monies to fund additional positions but this year the stress on our budget puts that uh we're we're on the chopping block many currently SSS follow a multi-tier system of support framework to deliver the behavior and social emotional interventions at tier one 80% of the population is reached and SS spe P this programming for the schools at tier two 10 to 15% of our students receive
032these interventions they're skill building and they help to reduce the number of specialized students place these placements special end placements cost the district more money at tier three we provide those mandated supports to our special ed students including I counseling with proposed cuts to social workers our larger schools with the highest number of special ed students will be disproportionately and negatively affected like money time is a finite resource there will not be enough hours in the day to provide these interventions which will create a Snowball Effect stressing the SST systems at all levels so what can be done as I stated last year social workers can generate income for the district by billing for counseling what has stopped us from doing so why has it not been a priority for our district and currently why
033has it taken so long for us to initiate this process maybe part of the problem is there's never been a social worker in the uh supervisor in the special ed Department to help navigate the Nuance intricacies of this process instead of cutting Social Work positions perhaps the district could make it a more urgent priority to help social workers incorporate billing for services [Music] [Applause] just pquality teacher student Support Services I'm sorry Jennifer my apologies Jennifer here okay all right next Anita has FL teacher Support Services no no Anna coun good evening esteemed board members District leaders colleagues parents students and community members if you can please allow me to take you for a brief visualization trip into an imaginary classroom [Music] the teacher is giving a lesson the number students are struggling with what appears
034to be life-threatening injuries do you see the gosh W to a hat to one student what about the one with an open fracture over there in that corner and the third one with a dark bloody spot on the side of his stomach with a big puddle of blood P around him take a moment to observe the other students how very fed by the gruesome injuries that they see on their classmates and they're lost and what to do to help them could you see few violently throwing up just not able to handle it what would you say is the most out of place part of this vision I think you thought it as the teacher giving a lesson as nothing is happening as there's no pain raw pain being right in front of their eyes like
035this eer like scene is unfolding could learning for anyone take place when pain is so raw and so real let that image linger for a minute we all have heard it and we heard it time and time again there's a worldwide mental health epidemic it predated co and has reached new alarming levels since the closures it is life or death that's what Matt Rachel warns in the New York time article about Mental Health crisis Among Us teams life or death means that there are more students in our classrooms with depression and anxiety there are more students who self harm there are more students with suicidal iation and attempts and there are more students that complete suicides this students pain is no less real than the pain of the students that I talked about in the
036beginning in the visualization trip it's a real pain it's like a physical War the learning is just as impossible as it's impossible for someone with a physical injury and it's largely depend on access to people who could recognize it connect youth with resources support them while they're dealing with it I'm referring to school counselors School social workers and school psychologists and not as in school counselors or School social workers or School C psychologist they are all needed all bring something to the table that someone else cannot we are all certified to provide students with something specific that they need and without us the wounds the gashing picture of hurt and pain is going to be in front of us students will not [Applause] learn I know I'm my and I'm so sorry but I want
037to say I know that you B this award members and District leaders in a hard position right now the budgetary deficits are real what I want to say is it's so easy to get lost with numbers with ratios of how are we going to balance the budget please let's not forget about our kids who are suffering while we're doing it and do not with de people who know how have thank you so much [Applause] first Sal uh vice president subun regarding sub and members of the Board of Education my name is Chris salamony and I am here on half of the substitutes United of Buffalo which represents the substitute teachers I'm a retired Buffalo teacher so most of you know me um with my involvement in the Buffalo parent teacher organization or you might know
038me through my involvement with benit Alumni Association or the BTF and N pack organizations and I campaign for probably half of you so you all know who I am so I'm hoping that you can um help us in our um Endeavors we are about to embark on negotiations for a new contract and I'm here to remind you that it's it's time to negotiate and that there are a few things I would like you to consider when you are thinking about the substitutes and that new compensation package for us first of all our substitutes are devoted career Subs many have worked 10 20 or 30 years we actually have Subs that have worked I know one that's worked 38 years in the district our subs are required to have a bachelor's degree to teach in our
039district this is not common most districts do not require a bachelor's degree we are paid just slightly over minimum wage 17 bucks an hour to start up to I think $22 I have a master's degree 24 years teaching experience and I make $22 an hour as a sub we teach more classes per day than a regular full-time teacher because they are protected by a New York state law that uh restricts them to five classes per day our subs are being forced I shouldn't say forced they do it willingly because they want to help the school that they're at but they're teaching seven or eight classes a day in some instances sometimes they don't even get a lunch okay they're placed in long-term situations where they have been starting in September and going all year as
040the full-time teacher a sub and a sub is not required to have any background in education except for a bachelor's degree which could be in anything so they're being thrown into these positions they're being that when they're in those full-time positions they're doing lesson plans which they have never been trained to do they're doing grades uh they're staying after school to help put the grades and they're not paid for this and they're not trained for this but they are getting paid minimum wage uh requests for change of assignments go unheard they don't the pr the princip aren't listening to them they just put them where they need and right now there's a lot of situations where they're being placed in special ed classes that they're not qualified to teach things are happening and they're being
041charged with with um child abuse and being put on unpaid administrative leave and many of these people this is their only income so one child attacked another child the teacher substitute teacher grab the child scratch the kid's arm she's out on unpaid leave being charged with child abuse and the kids got scratched um act train we need training we need to be paid therefore and we need the respect of the principles for the protection [Applause] Des picture spe therapist 33 [Music] if you wonder what I said then you may be empathetic to what our kids feel and go through imagine our Spanish speaking kids what they feel when all they hear is English with an hour or less to learn in Spanish all of my students reive bilingual speech and language Services because their evaluations
042found them to be Spanish dominant so providing them with the RTI the response to intervention in Spanish is essential for appropriate age and grade level language proficiency for example my bilingual students with auditory processing difficulties require many repetitions of the vocabulary and the language Concepts they need exposure of their native language it's a bilingual speech and language school they need their RTI Spanish time bilingual speech and language research proved that even after bilingual Spanish speaking kids were mainstreamed in English classrooms they do not they do not once again they do not have the academic English proficiency and consequently causing them to fall behind two or three grades research continues to show the importance of mainstreaming our children's native language so they can carry over the skills and become successful bilingual students Implement and expand RTI
043response to intervention in Spanish which is our students home language across all the bilingual schools give our students the opportunity to be successful to be proficient Buffalo bilingual citizens did you know that you hired a bilingual Puerto Rican Spanish English speech therapist who graduated from our district in a Bilingual School that is testimony thank you [Applause] have angel [Music] hi my name is Angel Rodriguez Matos h i play percussion at Waterfront Elementary Schools man and today I'm going to talk about about why music shouldn't be cut I think music should not be cut because thanks to waterfronts music program I biged out my love for music and managed to get accepted into my first High School TR performing music [Applause] focus in other classes because learning and instrument can improve your cognitive skills like improved
044memory and focus our music program is also responsible for our fun con for our fun concerts that everyone enjoys [Applause] [Music] are you Angel also yeah I'm the father are you father yeah my name is Angel Rodriguez Ramos I'm father of three children of Waterfront Elementary and today I want to speak uh so the reason why music is show me remain in school one of my kids was so child at school and when he hear about class a music class he was excited because he could participate in concert they have also because Co Sho the instrument he like now my son feel more confident and more secure in what he can perform another thing is that music class help more student Express their feeling through each instrument use thank [Applause] you oh no Mar good
045evening I stand before you tonight to highlight the profound impact that our student support teams have on the students of Buffalo as you know student support teams consist of school counselors social workers and psychologist each playing a critical and unique role in ensuring our students safety wellbeing and success both in school and in life this is especially true for our most vulnerable students and families the strength of our student support teams lies in our ability to work together while each position has distinct responsibilities our success depends on collaboration by working in unison we ensure that our support is both effective and efficient whether it's providing services to general education or special education stud students coordinating tier 2 and tier three interventions or triaging crisis situations our Collective efforts make a difference the students in Buffalo
046need and deserve to have all these critical staff members present in each of their school buildings school counselors social workers and psychologists are urging this board to take immediate action the district's current building based budgeting model is a major concern we strongly advocate for a change in this process support for our students at the building level should not be negotiable however the current school-based budgeting process often gives principles a budget that has an an adequate number of student support team members to begin with based on the number of students that are in their buildings or it allows principls to reduce student support team positions to either halftime or Worse eliminate a position Al together this must change now the number of counselors social workers and psychologists in each school should be based on the number
047of students including special education students and heing students the national recommended ratio is one school counselor and one social worker for every 250 students that is the direction we need this District to move towards we are calling on you to change the current process the current system is outdated and ineffective it is not just protecting our jobs but it's more importantly protecting our students research consistently shows that schools with adequate student support Staffing sees a higher academic achievement fewer behavior problems and improve social emotional development students in these schools tend to have better attendance and lower Dropout rates because of their mental health interventions that uh that prevent them from esal you say you care about the children of Buffalo now it's time to show it it's time to show the commitment through action I
048ask you to prioritize our students by changing the school-based budgeting process today this the support students receive from school counselors social workers and psychologist is essential to their wellbe beinging let's work together to ensure that every student has a resources to to tr El parent the changes in our TI [Music] okay po teacher inequity enironment more education hello I am a seventh and eighth grade home language arts teacher also known as an HLA teacher or an SLA teacher which is Spanish language arts which is the same as an Ela teacher just that in Spanish from bilingual Center School 33 I am grateful that I have had the privilege of serving the students in families of the Buffalo public schools for 24 years I am a proud Costa Rican American who grew up from the ages
049of 1 to 24 in Costa Rica I am a proud bilingual biliterate and bicultural adults in Costa Rica I was very fortunate to receive an education in an effective bilingual dual language program where we acquired both languages at once to ensure success for all students there is a high need for not only interventions but Equity of interventions for all students who need them I understand the challenges the children face as they arrive to our school because they were also my cultural Challen ches reducing language barriers while strengthening real cultural and linguistic representation are essential to my mission as a bilingual educator in our bilingual schools we are fortunate to have many professional and certified teachers who advocate for our students without supports such as response intervention in Spanish our students with interrupted formal education flounder
050bilingual students must be able to transfer their language skills from their home language to English without rti in Spanish we block our students learning in our bilingual schools effectively eliminating the proper creation and strengthening of our bilingual biliterate and bicultural students research shows that students who are biliterate from an early age demonstrate strong critical thinking skills as their brains can switch between languages and Excel both in school and once they graduate these student strengths help cultivate long-term success as doors open to more opportunities in higher education the workforce and Beyond keeping rti in Spanish implementing and expanding it properly will help schools identify students who need extra help early reduce the number of students referred to special education keep Pace with the grade level peers and build confidence in fav it is our responsibility to
051create a better world by designing a better future it is understanding that often one moment or decision can have a tremendous impact on the direction of our progress I am living proof that when properly implemented with Fidelity a dual language program leads to success to best ensure that instruction meets the needs of all Learners supports like response to intervention need to be provided in students home language I am there for respectfully requesting the reimplementation of daily Spanish RTI for students who lead and will benefit from this intervention thank you very [Applause] muchene parent El barel substitute teacher substitute teacher value good evening um thank you to the Board of Ed and um superintendent Williams for the opportunity of speaking to you tonight my name is Elaine barel and I have been a substitute teacher of
052Buffalo public schools for the last 12 years and uh uh building sub for the last 3 years so as an educator for many years before substitute teaching I value my work with the students and staff of Buffalo Public Schools as a building S as a pum building s working each day I work every day of that as I available this is not now my this is now my main employment and my liability but as opposed to a regular full-time teacher I as well as other sell are not really compensated and so um they uh regular teachers will receive the full pay where we do not receive any of those benefits such as sick pay sick day pay snow days or holidays for these we go without pay as the need for substitute teachers is growing
053steadily over the p last few years we are often placed in teaching positions for long periods of time with added responsibilities not being compensated for that responsibility as a building sub I have worked longterm and of single classes in different situations and I have been placed in these classes but I am willing to work wherever I am placed but I will say that I'm fort forunate very fortunate to work with an administrative staff in my building that support me and consider my needs as well but the pressure is on to cover these classes in fact some of the um administrators have had to go in classes to cover these classes as well when there are absences or when a teacher is out for a long period of time so seeing as how we as substitute
054teachers of here really are a big need in the school system I urge you to consider compensating us for the work we are doing so it's all these things plus what Chris suon had mentioned so thank you for your time and for listening me to today thank [Applause] you har hellers my name is Grace whitean I am a parent uh I have some deep concerns um one is I need my daughter to get some more help in school like serious okay um with the teachers she's being harassed by certain teachers um and and she can't get no correct education like that she cannot um I've asked I've brought lawyers I brought special you know um Advocates and still I would love to meet whoever my district or the superintendent is I've been down here on
055several occasions and never met this lady or man so I need help I had to all the way go to uh Brin to get help from my daughter because I could not trust any of the help that was getting received by school 93 I see more support here tonight from Miss an and Mr Sterling and I wish I had that in the school system please I need numbers before I leave I need help kids I need help sir I need help for education I need help for my daughter please I'm beg I have to come to this place to get help for my daughter because I'm tried on numerous ages I need help for my dog okay thank you so [Applause] much thank you miss me out next we have Quinn Carol concered citizen regarding
056Su success and team activism program hi everybody um thank you for just like everyone that is here today I love the recognition and the ability to have so many folks in the room but I'm here today to recognize SBO public school students who participated in last week's youth Lobby day as part of n's team activism project um I brought some of the students with me today so if you guys want to stand up you can my is not long um so these [Applause] students so these students joined over 70 others from across the state to raise awareness around education issues like suspension reform the need to update our state health standards and ending Legacy admissions in New York State this group of students participated in over 30 Lobby visits last week spoke in front of
057press at our youth rally and had the opportunity to meet with local leaders like Senator Baskin assembly members Burke Conrad and Rea and Senator Ryan I wanted to take time today to get them a shout out because these students are absolutely leading by example and Demon demonstrating the power of Youth activism and the importance of listening to and uplifting student voices and honestly what kind of advocate or Program Coordinator would I be if I didn't take the opportunity to highlight their wonderful work so I would like to acknowledge the following students we have Ania Joseph Caleb Walker and Somaya woods from City honors Haley pepper Carly Pilgrim and Genesis Stover close from Olstead kahira Muhammad and Lena sadiki from Hutch tuck and Bass aher from South Park I'm incredibly proud of them for their commitment
058to building a future for the next generation of students it's absolutely not easy to get up at 3:00 in the morning to take a 4:00 a.m. train to Albany it's not easy to speak at valys inste of press and to be like vulnerable enough to share your experiences with local leaders and to obviously meet with elected officials so they deserve that big round of applause that you all give them they deserve everybody just stand up I'm do right [Applause] thaning leaders love it okay next we have Lisa Dixon teacher regarding transfer lisax okay Jonathan sft substitute teacher regarding educational environment thank you for the opportunity to address you our very important Board of Education I especially appreciate the honor and tribute you give to the indigenous people was original land we live on I am
059Jonathan David Swift a graduate of buck Public Schools 41 now closed 37 taches Academy now East High School and University at Buffalo I'm a former East High mathematics teacher currently a substitute teacher for the past five years a proud member of The Substitute United teacher Union our members strive to help our students succeed and support the full-time teachers as a substitute teacher I have filled in for almost 200 teachers at 48 schools and many subject areas about 900 of us substitute teachers are essential to the education of our youth because our approximately 4,000 certified teachers need Replacements when they take time off immed time off there are an estimated 20 to 40,000 teacher absences per school year you know the statistics well sure so there's a big need for us some subs work as many
060as 180 school days and deserve a living wage and some time off of pay as was addressed by my colleagues earlier they are essentially full-time employees with no significant benefits other than participation in the teacher retirement system which is a very good benefit I Echo the comments of the subun vice president Chris Salamon and long serving substitute teacher elae barel who spoke to the value and importance of The Substitute Teacher profession and some of our our challenges that we're asking you to to address truly we are professionals who deserve respect from the board the district the school administrators teachers staff students parents taxpayers residents of Buffalo and elected officials I urge the board to support the substitute teachers in achieving a fair contract in the upcoming negotiations sure begin very soon a contract which reflects
061our essential service value and dedication to the education of our youth sincerely and [Music] [Applause] respectfully Smith teacher inequal and bilingual education if you didn't understand what I just said imagine if your entire school day and tests that were supposed to measure your intelligence were conducted in that measure I am a proud teacher of Home language arts in Spanish at at M Academy my school building stands in Legacy ofand a Puerto Rican senator who advocated for bilingual education my school has nearly 60% of students in enl not counting those that have already passed through enl and I received at least one new refugee students every single week from Colombia or Venezuela I give you all this contacts not only as a matter of Pride but as essential for my comment today outside of politics and
062the morals of providing culturally relevant education for our demographics studies show the importance of both continuing and in some cases developing a student's first language as we are learning another unfortunately as an HLA teacher where I teach Ela in Spanish in seventh and eth grade I've encountered constant inequity over my few years as a part of this District now not only am I last thought of if at all when materials are ordered but I don't even have access to resources that I desperately need an important example nearly all of my Refugee students that I receive every week are scy students and have missed multiple years of education in my class of continuously growing 34 seventh graders over half of them read at below first grade level some of them not even at the K level
063in their own language let alone English aside the inequities of measuring literacy in English only at a bilingu school I have no access to email or resource provided to some lower grades to develop with literacy and Spanish I'm constantly learning and often left inventing ways to try to support these students while I somehow also comment grade level reading and writing skills of another 20 at the same time in the same classroom this carries into subjects beyond my own I offer you an instance a few weeks ago I was translating in math class where a student who was in his second year in our district and in our country was absolutely lost because he didn't know the difference between X and Y in e8th grade this sort of example can also offer insights as to why
064Danielle has had so many behavior issues completely lost and embarrassed at his lack of knowledge at his adolescent age all of this is only F compounded by the recent instruction for lower grade rti in English only I beg the board and other stakeholders in our district to consider when we say our goals are numeracy and literacy when we constantly and consistently analyze test data to measure our worth when we recognize the suspension and punitive consequences are overutilize who are the students that we are leaving behind who are we continuing to fil when coming here tonight s the noed with us I asked my kids if they remembered who Dr Martin Luther King is and Leah who is Dr Luther Martin Luther King a person who time made the world I ask you in a district
065that is celebrated for Equity please stay tuned to your word and upholding it and continuing to make the world [Applause] [Music] better Samantha Andrew psychologist hello right so good evening board members and superintendent Dr Williams my name is Samantha Andrew I'm a fourth year school psychologist at school 6 I'll say this is my first time speaking at a board meeting so I'm excited I like it so far um tonight I'm here in solidarity with my guidance and Social Work teams and tonight I'd like to Advocate the need for clinical guidance and support for social workers and school psychologists schools are continuously facing new challenges each and every year each and every day and also therapeutic techniques are evolving and becoming more responsive to our communities so with that it's important to have continuous professional development
066from someone in the field who is also continuing their professional development to be able to make sure we are using relevant and culturally responsive practices according to the National Association of school psychologist clinical supervision promotes adherence to high professional and ethical standards ensures the delivery of appropriate evidencebased services to Children and Youth and also provides opportunity for constructive reflection and evaluation upon graduating my um it's been so long now right and completing my master's program and coming to the professional field in Buffalo I was very excited but I did find myself missing and yearning for those connections and collaborations on case studies what do you know that I don't know and that you can bring to the table for me to make it better and as best as it can be are we looking at
067this case from every angle it can be what is X Y and Z that's happening a lot of the times we start out fresh and new and we remember all our knowledge but over the years things keep become in a rut or you're unfamiliar with what is going on in the world this clinical supervision would serve to uh supplement that and continue the development of our skills um I would love the opportunity to be able to collaborate more and even as my professional career matures I am still seeking support and guidance from others to make sure that we are serving our students um our special education supervisors are absolutely amazing right now they possess so much knowledge um however they don't always necessarily align with the specific goals and standards of social workers and school
068psychologists so to combat this we already have something similar in BPS which can be seen in the guidance or yes the guidance counseling department so they have many clinical skills supporters through their assistant super tenant they have a director and they also have two tosas one for elementary and one for high school um my proposal is that with the introduction of that minimum two tosas for social worker and psychologist that would be able to begin building a similar framework to the counseling department and um in term better making sure we're delivering the highest quality services to our students and families and also increasing our own skill set means that we are able to provide a more varet of services maybe we don't have to call in so many Outsourcing if we are able to tackle
069that from Empower our own professionals that we already have um I thank you for your consideration of these concerns and your ongoing support for the well-being of our students and our families thank [Applause] you teacher instrumental hello I'm going to speak in my band director voice so you can all hear I know it's hard to hear back there um good evening my name is F Contra and I'm a music teacher at West Turtle Academy 94 my position is 34 instrumental which means two days I teach instrumental lesson and 66k through General music uh first of all I want to thank you for your response last year when I and two other music uh teachers spoke last spring about music cust instrumental programs in high school music I know you were able to restore some programs
070and I want to thank you for that first of all um I did not expect to be addressing you again this year but I recently found out after anmt presentation at our last saulty meeting that the instrumental portion of my position is being reallocated to General music in next year's building budget that was surprising and frankly highly disappointing news um I'm here to ask the board to give additional specific funding to Westland Waterfront so we can maintain our successful instrumental music programs West Turtle currently has 115 students in grade seven and eight taking lessons at 94 we also have a waiting list of sixth and seventh graders that would bring that well over 200 um um a few years ago I was four days instrumental two days General music and that's when we were able
071to sign up fifth graders and none of them quit so as my position has been reduced those children just moved up and that's how we became start of the 78 program um let's see I quickly put together a list of students who currently study instrumental music as well as some pictures from lessons just yesterday and today and I apologize the percussion Lon should be on here but we got so into the music we forgot to take the picture but who would I give this to to ask thank you so I want you to be put some faes this is just yesterday and today's lesson the fourth group of violin group um I think a guitar group but a reducing budgets to look it on paper but these are real students who are impacted will no
072longer be able to play it is exhausting trying to maintain a build a music program when we never know year to year if our program will be funded I'm also asking the board to consider moving instrumental funding from the building decision based of budgets to a district uh funded budget line in the future if a school can show interest growth or successful program I would ask the board to fund this just like you do classroom teachers is a difficult situation in spmt student based manage uh school-based management are deciding between extra support staff reading teachers counselors Administration for the need of students versus an instrumental program instrumental seems to always lose no matter what data or participation levels we have instrumental music is proven by studies to raise test scores and improve performance in other
073subject areas it utilizes the whole brain and devel velop synapses between the right and left band that helps students maintain Health throughout their life it helps student manage and regulate their emotions gives them a creative and expressive outlet and bring sense of Pride and accomplishment is often the reason some of our students come to school um work one thing I wanted to add listening to all the things about bolal education and the social emotional things we need instrumental music is a universal language students I have students who are the leaders in our school and student council I have students who struggle all their other classes behaviorally but they are fine for instrumental I have immigrants bilingual students and they can all play and be successful and have a place in our school through instrumental music
074and it gives them something to come to school before I look forward to so please consider that thank you very [Applause] much safy with school buildings my name is k and I'm a mother within the Buffalo Public School System I have four of my children who attend this district and have since they were old enough to begin school I'm here regarding my 5-year-old daughter who is level three autistic nonverbal to little word she is the child that was referenced earlier from a substitute teacher Union that she had scratches on her arms scratches don't woren parent to have the reaction to want to take them for medical attention based upon looking at them if I sent my child to school with her arms looking the way it did CBS would have been knocking on my door
075as you are mandated reporters I'm my daughter's voice I am the one that keeps her safe and protected my question is why was her Safety and Security impeached when she was under a substitute that did not have proper training in the special education classroom I understand there's a staffing shortage but that does not give any excuse for a child to come out of a school harmed traumatized or upset especially when just last year there was a notice put out that there was going to be changes for the staff in proper training and regarding student safety and teacher safety how many kids have to get hurt or how serious do they need to be hurt before this is taken seriously my daughter could not tell me what happened no one knows except the substitute teacher and
076the one a that was in the room she should have had two AIDS in that room that day her EP was also failed while within her EP as her faith you're required to bring in an SLP if there's not one available within a district which where she was emergency transfer she is not receiving speech services I have concerned sending my children to school and no parent should have that fear superintendent I politely asked I hope you will want to meet with me so you can see the pictures of my daughter's arm because if you are a parent I am sorry did not do the research to find out your heart would break seen them photos my daughter has pulled back emotionally from her father and myself no parent should feel like this no child should
077feel like this I'm going to be the voice for my daughter and I will not silence until I can get some proper answers and I can provide tools that New York state offers for free for training they're planing staff days superintendent days and half days utilize them to give all Educators administrative nursing proper training it is something that is very serious in the school we focus on bullying we focus on students struggling with mental health teachers need the help too they need the proper training to be able to work in their classroom keep themselves safe keep their students safe that's all I have thank you for hearing me [Applause] Grand's wow I have follow that mod please um superintendent I know you will reach out to her and have a private meeting with her uh
078it's pretty alarming story first I'd like to talk about the fact that there are many people that attend board meetings every month that had to wait out in the hall didn't have a seat and we're regulars here um the speakers got to come in but there were people that didn't get to come in and we did not hear anything you said we didn't hear one word Miss amamos said we didn't hear any of it until the speakers came up we heard zero uh as the vice president of the South Park Alumni Association I'd like to recognize that when uh speaker Quinn was up here and she spoke about the South Park student that's the valid Victorian for South Park so I want to shout out to that and as a vice president sou Park L
079I'd like to thank the SS team from South Park here fighting for what our students need in the building um I I also have a concern that the district is going to spend $25,000 to print code of conduct books when every student has a device and we can just download it into their device why would we waste $225,000 and I believe that's the second printing so I believe it's more like $50,000 yeah thank you we could use that maybe to keep a social work on um then as most of us are aware the people in the know we know there some difficult situations will be coming up with talking and maybe not this year but next year talking about maybe closing schools merging schools and stuff so I got a question for Larry Scott why
080would you have a meeting at North Park on Saturday to discuss a high school and North for North Park students when we have a an issue where we have too many buildings and uh not enough students to get you know to fill a new building so and why would that meeting only be on a private Facebook page and not out to the whole public so the whole public can come and hear your wonderful presentation because I'm sure it's well thought thought out and um so can we please uh make sure that we support I support almost every speaker here 100% tonight so make sure we support thanks [Applause] [Music] good evening I'm Jessica Bar Walker um here with r Kashi a student thank you for accommodating her we'll use these three minutes that I signed
081up with together hi my name is Ry I a 12 grader in the Buffalo Public Schools initially I started my my education at school 45 and at school 45 I was afforded the opportunity to be a wellness team co-chair a student coach here and I think this is a really important role that I played because it showed it showed me that I can make real change with like just talking to people and able to like have meaningful conversations that impact a greater good now as the coach here of connect I am able to advocate for change in the commissary the commissary issue the getting you know building relationships with the food service director and ultimately impacting change in various areas and this is very important because a lot of times when we think about student
082engagement or like involving students it's just having students at the table but it's having students at the table and giving them leadership's position because when I was younger we didn't have things like recess snack time or even um a salad bar and all these things were able to be initiated by having students in the room who are directly impacted to have a choice in say thank you thank youo part of our large organization connect is a recognized parent group which we have now had as a student co-ed group so I'm the parent co-chair rahema is the student co-chair and we when we say that we believe in student voice and engagement we are practicing what we preach right so we've actually just come from school 45 where there's a family and wellness night going on
083we had a dozen youth community health workers many of these students had serious challenges when we engage with them we' met them in suspension hearings we met them because they were having issues the people who are closest to the problems are closest to the solutions you see young men here mentoring and helping other children they want to help it's beautiful so our students really need opportunities like this not just as student council leaders we really appreciate them and support their leadership there's tons of un untapped potential with our students here so I just want to lift that up I want to lift up um MVP and many other organizations having a family ifar night tomorrow at lafay yet one of our youth community health workers is kadia Hussein who's now not a youth anymore but
084has advocated for more recognition around Ramadan and Eve and efforts of parents and students there's much more recognition around um Ramadan and and Eve right now we're hoping we can keep making progress on that the commissary issue and suspensions again these are priorities for parents and students students have really L the charge everything from salad bars to really pushing forward with this food commissary that we would really like to see happen and suspensions we need to be building our relationships with students and again when they're acting out in some ways let's recruit them and give them positive Outlets let's give them an opportunity to come and help and not suspend them thank [Applause] you coming up here uh Rodriguez concerned citizen bilingual education welcome I got a few remarks before we start my statement I've
085attended many board meeting I have to say that this is one of the best on let me say why all the subject matter that was covered by the speak I Comm all the speak subject matter that been covered by the speakers hit [Music] home I'm a product of the Buffalo Public School I was taught by education and that opened the doors for me worldwide I travel the world speaking two languages and when I finished my assignment I spoke four languages and I'm very grateful to the Buffalo Public School to the teachers to the staff to my parents and to the community that's why I like to share with you my my thoughts and much of what was said today by the speakers some of the symtoms that result into my delivery this even so if
086I can and that time class you know tortures all of us but good evening members of this board Educators parents and Community leaders let's not forget that the beginning of bilingual education within the Buffalo Public School that ultimate transition as to what we know today as multil Department began by our forefathers in the 1960s the 1970s where a group of passionate and commit committed individuals organized at the Buffalo Public School number 76 that is known today as the himo Bilingual Academy to speak up and to appeal to a board alike we see today that there was a need for programs to educate our children in their primary language which at the time was Spanish and today I stand on each of those Pioneers shoulders to address this dedicated and committed body of leaders the Hispanic
087heritage Council of Western New York has always supported the Buffalo Public Schools and the division of the multilingual education in their commitment of bilingualism and biliteracy we recognize the value of bilingual and enl program and the dedicated Educators to make them possible as I reflect on this discussion I want to acknowledge that it is good that parents and teachers advocate for their children we need more engagement not less however advocacy should be rooted in constructive dialogue The District must listen to families but we must also communicate concerns directly and respectfully rather than fueling division through accusatory social media recently we've seen inflammatory statements about bilingual programming in the Buffalo Public Schools rather than debating online let's ensure that open and transparent conversations with administrators so that we can work towards clear communication and collaborative Solutions
088not confusion CU I was very confused more importantly let's focus on the real challenges our students face let me share some data with you according to the New York State Ed data site as of 2022 2023 20 21% of English language Learners Ells are classified for special education that's over 1,000 students and more than 60% are Latino 31% of the Latino students overall are in special education a significantly High number the Latino dropout rate is 19% the highest of any group the Latino graduation rate is just 63% compared to 76% for white students and 74% for black students these are the critical issues that demand our attention just recently as a result of the latest concerns I personally visited bilingual schools spoke with administrators and seeing firsthand the dedication of our educators our Focus must
089remain on strengthening programs and ensuring Student Success not on narratives that may create unnecessary conflict we all have a lesson to learn in closing I urge to engage in meaningful solution driven discussion let's Advocate with facts not rhetoric by working together we can continue continue building strong bilingual education programs that Empower our children for a successful future I speak from the heart this evening we got a lesson to learn our community has a lesson to learn our parents need to get engaged speak with the teachers speak with the Educators but in a respectful honorable man than you very speakers um as not that Dr Williams I so I won't respond individually uh we will do that within this week to each speaker that came before us tonight um I do want to thank all of
090the speakers uh for being here tonight I heard a lot of passion in every single speaker that came to the podium I did chunk um some of the discussions I heard um a lot from our student support team staff including psychologists school counselors and social workers and I just want to assure that team we do have some really difficult you know all of us before us and I can't make any promises but last year we certainly did prioritize and see the value and the need for the work that you do and I don't believe the needs have lessened from last year so we will do all that we can the you know uh budget process is happening right now and so we'll see when things you know but know that we're going to do everything
091that we can this board is very very diligent about looking at every single dollar and making sure that the needs of our students are prioritized as am I and as is the cabinet and building principles and folks that are right now engaged in working on the budget uh substitute teachers boy do we appreciate perk you do you probably have one of the most difficult jobs in this district and we do see you and we do appreciate you and I know that I'm building principles certainly I see one nodding her head very vigorously right now appreciate the work that you do um music is really really you know very very important I I'm on my 60-day tour right now and um you know schools are showcasing a lot as I go out and it is amazing
092to see uh the children who are playing strings and you know uh whether they're doing the I don't know if there's a name for it but they're like buckets that they turn upside down and they're drumming The Pride The Pride the confidence that I see from the children we value music most all of our schools have some kind of a musical uh theatrical performance during the year and they're amazing to see so know that you know we certainly value music in our schools you know know I have to say about the bilingual U program first let me start by saying that we have in our midst tonight if she still here and assistant superintendent Alicia ber Vinz FZ who was honored with the New York State as the New York State administrator of the Year
093award from the New York State Association of bilingual education if she is here it is women women [Applause] assistant superintendent VZ is Jem and when you talk about being committed committed to multilingual and bilingual Pro programming it doesn't get any better and I believe you know one of the things that I heard from Mr Rodriguez you know is that together together we stand divided we fall we're not on the opposite side of what was shared tonight but we do need to get in a room we've heard we've heard from our parents we want our parents parents and our teachers to also hear from us and so I think it would be good for us to get in a room and to talk to talk because at the end of the day we all want the
094same outcome for our children so we will be reaching out to do that I want you to know that our chief academic officer is very very committed to doing the very best that we can for all of our children so we will be arranging a meeting where we will get to hear you know from some of the staff at 33 and you will get to hear from some of the district and I believe that together we will be able to resolve some of the concerns that were shared tonight so I won't go individually that's kind of my spill but we will be reaching out to every single speaker that took your time out this beautiful 70 degree evening to come to City Hall and to speak before us because there is something that was passionate
095enough on your heart that you wanted this board to hear and know whatever it is that you shared so I do thank you I thank you for coming [Applause] tonight yeah a speaker um presented a concern and I just wanted to respond to it so there are parents from North Park Community School that have organized a meeting for Saturday um with intention to discuss a North Park Community High School um I do not have any presentation I don't I have any plan I was invited to the meeting and my only intention is to listen and to hear um certainly tonight from the speakers hearing from the speakers we have far more immediate priorities that are on my mind and on the mind of all of our board members and the superintendent um parents have a
096right to organize to have discussions and we have a responsibility as elected officials to hear and listen to them whether we're for neutral or against them thank you thank you representa a video to update us with the showings of the council so we set that up many of our commun students teachers sta Andes Ramadan start our inner High students onor logo contact the goal is to create a logo that represent buak students our leadership diversity and un the Flyers is ready and the deadline of submission is the winner of the contest will be awarded and recognized and we're excited to see the creativity students brings to this project we're hoping this content give students a chance to get get involved and on on another note we will be attending the University uh youth leadership conference
097tomorrow at the fall convention and depending IDE and participate in student Workshop it's always great great to see students learn from each other and I'm looking forward to the discussion and connection that comes from right now but you have got a lot more coming I always thank you for your time and I look forward to sharing more I with you guys soon in the [Music] next we're going to go to the superintendent update we don't need we need air conditioner cut off so I am going to uh be briefing tonight you have seen some of this information in the past but I'm going to update you on our current year next slide please so as always we are moving to the next level um I'll Focus part of my presentation on rigor da Elementary education
098because we're going to be talking about literacy and then we will Mo to some of our Innovative High School um targets next slide pleas as always we are focus on superintendent 5525 goals specifically today I'll speak to number one and two eliminating achievement gaps and providing access to educational excellence and acceleration next slide please so just a quick refresher um goal one is related to literacy so we're looking to in increase the percent of economically disadvantage gr three students who are proficient on the New York State bre through Ela assessment so in the last year we uh we're at 17.1% proficiency for this subgroup we're looking to move that to 19.3% next slide please this is just a quick um snapshot for you so you can see where we were and where we want to
099be um by the end of this school year we should have our data in September so we're looking to get to 19.3% proficiency for our grade three economically disadvantaged students next slide please several interim goals to help us stay on track so the first goal is interim goal is the percent of economically disadvantage grade three students who are at or above Benchmark on our I ready Ela assistant will increase from 30% from last year to 32% this June next slide please so here you can see the past three years um and our current trajectory so you we have a continual improvement over the past three years you can see that um we ended at 30% last year this year we're looking to end at 32% in the middle of the year we are currently sitting
100at 27% efficienc for this particular subgroup on the I ready assessment which is an increase from prior years next slide please we set a second interm go for literacy we'd like our grade three economically disadvantage student population be proficient on dibl as well so last year we ended at 40% and this year we'd like to take that goal to 45% inun next slide please so again you can see the past CP years worth of data um the doed line represents our Target at 45% to the end of the year so we started this year at 35% beginning of the year we increased 37% so we have a little bit of work to do but you can see compar like similar to last year we expect to um be able to this we typically have the
101most growth from middle to the end of the year and this year we started a little bit higher than past next slide please our third interm goal related to literacy is to move students out of the well below um category on the dble success so we want to increase proficiency this is sort of a growing Target for us so last year um the goal excuse me the group ended at 47% in that sort of that red category that we talk about white below average we'd like to decrease that total to 43% this June so basically we're trying to reduce the number of level one students next slide please so you can see over the past few years um we are actually starting in a better place than we had since 2022 um and currently we're
102sitting at 49% we need to decrease that number to 43% uh but we're actually beginning in a better place so you can see last year we were at 54% down to 53 by the middle of the year so we're in a much better place than we were in the past um and I feel comfortable that we'll be able to meet this particular you can also see similar to some of the others there's always a bigger decrease from the middle to the end of the year so we anticipate that that will be in our um I'm not going to go through all the topics on this slide you have seen this before nothing has necessarily changed we've just continued to monitor classrooms continued to provide support continue to provide professional development um we monitor the data
103we offer students extra opportunities we're focused on making sure they have exposure to um computer-based types of Assessments because they'll be taking computer based test this year so we're just trying to stay as focused as we can between monitoring and implementation next slide please so we're going to talk briefly about our high school goals so just as a recap this is our first time ninth graders so it's not students who might be classified as nth grade because they're repeating it's the first time they've entered nth grade so our first goal is the region so we want the percent cohort 2024 students who passed at least one region exam by the end of their first year of high school to increase from 38.5% to 39.5% typically students at that in that demographic would be taking either
104the one of the science assessments usually biology and algebra but it does vary by student and by school so this is just to show you um where we need to be by the end of the year that dotted line reflects the 39.5% next slide please we also set a target for course credit so we want students to earn 5.5 credits by the end of their first year of high school we need that to increase from 59.9% last year to 64% this year you can see again what the trajectory would look like if we reach our Target next slide please so an intern goal just for a quick review the percent of cohorts 2024 students passing the 5.5 uh or more classes at the end of quarter 3 will increase from 69% to 74% so that
105is um an internal Target we have not reached quarter 3 yet but you can just see a quick snapshot of where we are today um if you go to the next slide please so we are following sort of that darker blue strand um it has a similar trajectory to the way um the averages SP last year we want to reach that dotted line we want to reach that 74% by the end of third quarter um so soon we we will know where we just finished the progress report so about the the uh what it be the 35 week Mark um excuse me the 25 week Mark so we'll be getting 30 pretty soon and we'll have an update for you on where we are in terms of the five and a half credits students are
106able to include an 8th grade course that they may have passed the previous year that will count as one of their five and a half credits um so if they pass a World Language if they passed a Science assessment as a graders that will count for their F next slide please so I am not going to speak here because we have talked about all the supports that we have in place but I would really love our NST team to come up and take the podium because they are going to Showcase some of the Fantastic things happening can we ask questions at this point and question I do I have a couple questions on this um the um grade nine students passing at five at least 5.5 credits after quarter three uh does this reflect the
107uh latest exams that the children took credits don't no the credits don't no there SE that's a separate goal oh that's a separate goal okay how will I know I need to know how I know if a child is on um Target to be a a solid ninth grader is it the 5.5 credits that they have to do that would beud five and credits okay all right so if a child is 16 years old and does not have 5.5 credits and they age out at 17 is is there a um a way to make sure that happens do we have a mechanism in place that we can take over a under credited child and make them um reach it so in other words they say additional credy right um we have credit AC programming we
108have credit recovery programming depending on the needs of the particular student those will be available any of these children involved in any of this at this point I know but if you recognize that they haven't passed shouldn't they pass at least a regent or something right now not at this point not in ninth grade so some kids might have if they took it so you see a student coming with a World Language exam credit and course credit or biology okay actually to get credit for biology ande to have ay exam do you feel this is a goal you'll meet uh I think this is definitely going to be a stretch for us but it's similar to what we've done in the past so I think we we can cuz some of these you said you
109knew you would make some of them I'm was just wonder these were on every High School met with uh so we brought all the principles in for principal meetings and they looked at their data they made plans to Target how they're going to make changes or um continue to implement programs they might have had in place um so I actually did ask n to speak to that in particular because every building has a slightly different the only reason I was asking this is that at this point in the year do we know how many kids are on target to get the 5.5 credits is this what this is reflecting okay and so what are we doing for to make sure that that happens I guess inside the schools is that what uh princip MST in
110the house going speak to yes principal am to speak to what m is doing but it's similar to the types of things all schools have thank you they're all making targets to um okay so have you learned any best best practices set in regards to well I mean in regards to the um Dibbles and the grade threes and things have yeah so we actually brought the consultant in from the the V the vendor the dis train um and they've been giving us really powerful feedback they do side by side coach it with the teachers in the classroom and then they de break with them afterwards to talk about the methods that they're using and we've gotten terrific feedback at the 10 schools we visited we will bring them back next year to to reach the
111other schools but we were very targeted we wanted schools to have an opportunity to get a little PD in the morning and then practice implementing in the classroom with the coach there and then we can replicate that with our others we've trained six people about to get their um certificate as trainers so then we have internal staff also that can go out and support thank you thank you for your efforts um this is encouraging thank you any other questions Meers well itly sounds like you know we're uned in terms of providing the middle of the year um data um um and I'm glad to hear that uh we're optimistic that these tets will be met we have time this is 20 Mar right now back I am I had a question um I was wondering
112if in the future can you provide a glossery like I don't know what imsc stand stands for suw that's the name of the vendor oh okay and um step up to writing is the writing program thank you I was looking at 1.2 the literacy goal for third graders I was wondering how you chose these schools that are listed and I'm sorry really oh I'm on 1.2 the monitoring report 1.2 go oh page two page two it's so it's um I'm in yes thank you the schools that were selected as the first round of visits yes um it was based on mainly visits to the school um watching impation in the classrooms determining that there were specific needs um so that was from the reading Department from different School leaders from my the ASL okay and
113then um implementing Orton Gillingham with Fidelity is not going well do you think like is this I'm not saying it's not going well but that's why we brought the consultants in to ensure that everybody understood it's under what is not going well so the the nature of that document ask us to okay Fidelity would be the one thing that we want to do across the district in in all of our work um but we want to make sure that everybody understands the purpose of fidelity to the pram so that you want continuity across the grade levels so at kindergarten for example if you're using certain language and terminology you want to repeat that through the other grades for consistency for the students you want the routines to be consistent so the second grade teacher doesn't
114have to retrain students because they learned it in K and one and it's have it so it saves us time it makes the students respond um more strategically and so we want to make sure everybody has that fail so they went through a training now they're implementing the classroom um and as good leaders we have to provide that support to make sure that they and then other schools will receive support in 2025 2026 um when will all elementary schools be captured next year okay that'll be the rest and then um we did jump the six points last year do you think eight points is a reasonable you on 1.2 I'm on 1 point two yeah so dibles yes I actually yes because Gordon Gilling has specifically Target many of the skills that um are assess
115Byes so really we're going very deeply into phonics um and so nwf in grade three is one of the primary indicators nonsense word fluency so it's measuring specifically whether kids can deot um so yes I do feel comfortable that we will thank you over talk I just want to thank you because I know this is the first time you guys have had to do a monitoring report and there's a carved out template and this is the first time they've been asked not not only were they asked to do a monitoring report they had to do last month's and this month's um combined into one and so that was a lot of stuff to be able to present out to us um and get ready for us so thank you um I know we're kind of
116working through this as we piloted out this year um but it is uh the hard work it's it's showing and we appreciate the fact that we had it and it was displayed to us in this why I said and we do want to thank Osa too because they kind of they they pull all that data responsible in the house fairy in the [Music] house well first of all I want to greet everyone and super attend I want to give you a special greetings on in March for sister mon thank you for having me um board members thank you as well and all of our female board members I want to wish you a happy woman's History Month having M the same I have some people with me today and I want to introduce them before
117I start our presentation um I first want to introduce my students Aila Davis her uncle is here and her grandmother is here here waited patiently so she's going to talk briefly in just a second and my second student Mila Halo I have two staff members here with me these are the women that stand with me shoulder toos shoulder to support me in this work and I have a tremendous amount of respect for them Christina Torres that's my my early warning indicator facilitator abbreviation is ewi we one of the few high schools in the district that maintain that position um additionally I would like to um introduce you to my attendance teacher Charlotte Watson well is a new addition to our uh building this year and she has made a tremendous impact on our attendance and
118I'll talk about some of work that she has done um I'm a former English teacher in the Buffalo Public Schools I was an English teacher at school 31 and an English teacher at International prepatory High School 12 years total so I'm going to tell you a story before you know while I'm explaining what we do with our ninth grade next slide next side so the story is going to be in three parts the past the present and the future we're going to start looking at the past first so in 2018 when I first arrived as an assistant principal at the math science and technology Preparatory School we had a number of challenges and some of those challenges revolved around safety our students attendance um we were losing our students to Criterion based schools to private
119schools our parents wanted more opportunities um our school wasn't a healthy school environment we had to um solidify safety we had to ensure that our students were able to go from class to class in the allotted time there were some things and systems we needed to put in place to ensure that we could get to the academics we had to address the social emotional before we got to the academics um one of the points that I wanted to point out in this particular slide because I think it's important as we get to where we are now is we had very high suspension rates and we had each of our cohorts and I was a new assistant principal when I was trying to look at this data because I came from East High School with the
120position of a ewi was at East High School so when I came to MST I was very familiar at looking at the data looking at the individual student data and I'll say that in the frame of the ABC academics attendant behavior and coursework so think of the ABCs attendance behavior in coursework every student in every high school well let me rephrase at every student in my high school the high school that I run we constantly look at the ABCs attendance behavior and coursework every two weeks that's the work of Mrs Torres that's the work of Miss Watson Wells so getting into the past we can go to the next slide getting into the past we had to stop our higher achieving students from leaving our school and we had to put support in for our
121students that struggle and right now we have an equity mindset so if you look at those three things on the left hand side the present we're focused around Equity access and opportunity that is in our set plan that is in everything we do as a school and I know a lot of people start uh on conversations about academics behavior and attendance oh we use data when I say that I mean we do not make a decision that is not rooted in the data and I'm very Stern on that with my team we don't do things for fun we don't do things because they look good or they feel good we have to use that data to move us if we're going to continue to move and I should have started by saying the title of
122this presentation is a journey from CSI to LSI and if you don't know what that means is CSI is the lower performing schools in the state and LSI are the higher performing schools that I think the title used to be a school in the or something like that but we have been a LSI school for two consecutive years so [Music] [Applause] that's and I didn't say anything about my ASL my ASL helps me in everything I do so shout out to my ASL as thank you so going into what we do when I said we implemented an early boring system so my second year as AP was 2019 20 2018 2019 we had the budget right so we talked about having this this person that would monitor each student academics behavior and cours room or
123excuse me attendance behavior in cour um then we started to as we identified those students we started to tear them you you hear a lot of people talking about the multi-tier systems of support some the tier one is what we do for all students tier two is what we do for some students and tier three is what we do for few students we started to activate that and we are currently activating that so every kid does not always have the same data points some kids are red for attendance but they're green for academic so they're not coming to school like we need them to come to school to get to the five and a half credits but they're doing their work when they get there so we still need to address the attendance need because
124the attendance for that particular student would be read so we have things in place for that and I'll talk about that in um the next slide we talked about developing Advanced coursework um one of the things that I'm proud about about MST is the fact that we are the second nine criterian high school with the second amount of highest Advanced Place courses we have a total of 12 we have several duol accredited um opportunities for our students like I said in the beginning our students that were achieving at the high levels they were leaving they were going to Criterion based schools we had to be intentional when we had those exit interviews with their families they talked about opportuni and wanting their child to have exposure to Opportunities so we started backwards planning and addressing
125it um where am I created the third uh bullet on what we do we had to be intentional about the work for our teachers you can't support children without supporting the people that educate them so we started doing plc's and a PLC is a professional Learning Community it's behind the research of before uh what do you do when students are you know aren't learning what do you do how do you support that work um we use that research mindset to get us a strong professional learning community at our school and we started implementing teachers as decision makers we broke down our six uh areas parent engagement Wellness um several other committees and we started to give teachers opportunity to have leadership roles with that came High by with that came High Pride um they wanted
126to you know excel in that area and grow our school in that area we are a very proud school if you ever stop by us on Wednesday we will see a sea of green and you look at the staff here today we are always wearing our green on Wednesday because it's called wolf pack Wednesdays it's that climate and culture it's that fullo Pride we believe in winning we are winning community and we're going to continue um next slide before I go into this this is the opportunity that I want to bring my I call them my babies but I I I'll call them my students in front of people in public but these are the the babies of our school right they're our first time ninth grade students and these two young ladies are the
127top two out of 116 116 so out of 116 of my sweethearts my little ninth graders that just started High School this year these two beautiful babies are by number one and two I won't tell you which one is one and which one is two but they are in competition and they're good friends so without further Ado I'll bring Miss Davis up first or Miss H Miss Hilo up first and she's going to talk a little bit about how she's successful [Applause] good evening Board of Education members my name is n Halo I'm a ninth grader at Math Science and Technology Preparatory High School I love my high school even though I've only been here for a few months my key to success is going to school every day on time and participating Studies have
128have proven that participation engages students and allows them to understand what their job is as a high school student such as doing homework if it's a lot doing little by little is key don't give up asking for help that's what friends or family are for and having motiv motivation for me I want to excel in life I want to become a Dermatologist when I grow up and another example is with my friend my friend she wanted to join track and field k at our uh at our school meaning she had to keep her grades up and so that's why I reminded my friend that she wants to join she has to bounce back and get her grades higher so this opened her eyes and led to asking teachers and friends for help so this shows
129like we're like a wolf pack we're like we're we're here for each other and all of that and so some accomplishments I've achieved are going to the St program after school and getting accepted at the Buffalo Healthcare exploration at Rosell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center to the atlas program to work in the summer for skills such as applying knowledge and developing key skills in the medical field and I'm going to be working in a dermatologist [Music] [Applause] clinic through hands on activities also um since middle school I have been dedicated to achieve high honor roll every quarter and for first and second quarter I had a GP GPA of one so the biggest key to my success though is self-discipline and not allowing distractions and objects and even people to get in the way of your
130of my awesomeness so and I'm going to end with end it off with whatever you do let it be done [Applause] well I'm bring [Applause] [Music] hi um My Name is ailia Davis I'm in Grade 9 10 MST High School a key secret towards my success is to take consideration my mental and physical health for example studying the work that is given to me and to have understanding what I working on so that I can have good grades and get rewarded from my Great accompl accomplishments I achieved which is called a self-awareness and self organization next formal example is positivity within a friendship having a positive friendship can encourage you to work harder and to have a clear and open mind with the form of goodness I can persuade you to study and Achieve bigger
131dreams lastly communication communication is very important firstly communication can get you very far I need communicating with my teacher or Professor about my education and Athletics causing me to show determination and by me being determined it caused me to be in the National Junior Honor Society being more successful in track and getting pick to local prep which is of course that prepared me for high school and is now preparing me for college CLS I want to also thank my family for preparing me as such a young age for educational upbringing and making me better and better each day with love and respect and lastly my long-term goal in life is to become a neurologist and with a medical program MST I can accomplish my dream thank you um as you know because rahan sits on
132the board you know that at M we truly believe in letting our children be leaders now is the time for them to grow in their leadership I'm going to allow my ew Mrs Torres to come because she is leading this work with ninth graders and her the impact that she has seen this school year was based off of um do Monica field she was working with us for a number of years when we were a CSI then we went to an we improved and went to an atsi and then we jumped I mean our data just jumped and um I do give a lot of credit to the structures and the systems that are put in place by Mrs Tores so I'm going to let her leave this discussion this last slide okay thank creating
133a culture ads well so so um one of so when we're talking about the nth grade remember we're talking about two things with our school that we were're focusing on um prior to the pandemic which is making sure we have the opportunities for our high achieving students but also making sure that we have supports for students that are struggling um so that was our big Focus but we want to turn everything into proactive we don't want to be fighting fires so that's the work that we do in utilizing data to make sure no one falls into tracks and that we're being as proactive as possible um so looking at the nth grade and trying to make sure that we have things in place by 11th grade that's really the change in the mindset that Dr
134phills put us in saying how would it look if all of our kids were prepared by 11th grade so now we have to push everything back and it was so great it was like right on time that we ended up um changing our goals to ninth grade because that's a mindset we were already in so it was perfect um but I'll wrap this up so um making sure that all the students understand in ninth grade what our cour work options are so we would sit there um and by by sophomore year our students were transferring out and record numbers prior to the pandemic so they would come in there almost on the daily and they would say hey can I get transfer papers um I want to go to xise say why do you want
135to leave well we don't have that I don't feel like I'm being challenged we don't have the opportunity so we said we would change that we have AP fairs um we push into classes um to let them know we have all these opportunities unfortunately um we have a video from rahan um who was going to speak to some of this but he's in 10 classes he took 10 classes along 10 college credit classes along and he was in we have more than 12 he said because I took 10 and I didn't take them off so so we definitely um have um made that um opportunity available that equity and then make sure that our students know it's here so that they know they can stay here and and have all everything that they need to
136be a dermatologist um to be a neurologist anything that they want um also making sure that we're early and proactive with the interventions so we don't want to again fight fires after the fires are and we also don't want to be saying oh it running around with um a hose because we smell smoke somewhere we don't even know where to put the fire out at so we're using data to pinpoint systemically in our school grade level uh behaviors everything and also at the individual level so where is this student at let's take away attendance who's failing courses let's put back attendance let's look at behaviors let's look at all three together so we do all of those and that is happening our tier one teams and our Wellness teams and our re High School redesign
137team um all of those things which are structures that Miss might put in place to allow us to have voice and choice so just like with anything um with our students we do the same thing so we build that capacity making sure they have leadership opportunities and not just as a token so early on ensuring that students like MAA and Amelia who have been in um they're engaged in these opportunities so they want to come to school they have something to do just like tonight you know I'm here because I have something to do so we want to make sure we have those opportunities for everyone else um and then making sure that we collaborate with our community organizations we have so many um academic organizations uh mentoring organizations social emotional organizations that we pulled
138in from the community and they are filled with data so we look and we say here's a group for you here's a group for you here's a group for you are they responding to this do we need to try something different that's the work that our SST does as well utilizing data and um also making sure we have the inhouse support so everyone on SS including myself groups uh we do Town Halls we have had consortiums on healthy relationships all the things that we see that we need partnering with families and lastly making sure we we noticed that this was something we were getting more entering and emerging students than ever before so um again going back to the climate and and culture that Mrs wack has put in place um our this is not
139something that uh she had to tell us to do teachers asked for training teachers look for things and said I want to be part of this um because we have that culture assignement in our building so um making sure that we're utilizing the district resources but also looking at outside agencies to come in and do the work in our common planning times and even in our classrooms because we're all invested she has an army behind her but she's built that [Music] Army I just CL with um a line that one of my students said to you um when she presented and this is our Mantra this is our model this is what whatever you do let it be done though thank you app we certainly want to thank Math Science and Technology school every time
140I have the opportunity to go over to the school is really something Dynamic that's going on and you know principal W you really are a very special very special leader and you have surrounded yourself with a great team I can see that and the students that you brought with you tonight I know that's just a a small fractions of you know the wonderful things that are going on over there with the students and I want to thank you all for being here tonight and there's something that was shared I think someone said they don't you know we don't want to put out fires we want to get ahead of it and you know I've got this little saying now you know don't get me on the takeoff don't try to you know get me involved
141on the crash landing so it's kind of the same thought the same thought so thank you thank you for all that you do um the school is just going to continue to sort and if you know your two ninth graders are um just even a small fraction of what's going on in ninth grade across this District we will absolutely meet the goals that um Chief belli talked about we are on our way [Applause] okay next and to the parents that came out tonight thank you you must be incredibly proud with our Chief Financial Officer and um today I went on my tour to a school and it's important to me that all of my cabinet get a chance to get out into school so you know she proba McGee came out and she said you
142know this is really good for me to get out of my office and see the fruits of the labor when I see these classrooms filled with certified teachers it's exciting and today we had Mr bars and he came up to a school and it was quite something to see him in those kindergarten classrooms and someone challenged them and asked you what how tall are you t i [Music] was that's right that's right oh here okay we get the it's good to stand up at MST we love pictures yeah I in the got yep I have everyone all right good all right that's the good side what about singer alluring all right all right there you go thank you for having us did that r r yeah yeah get job ladies [Music] I would like [Laughter]
143some load we have goad I think yeah we got five let's keep rolling keep it going do it ready so we have our Chief Financial Officer um Mr BS and you know I think during the committee meeting times this month um he gave up some time and um he and our chairwoman Woods agree to give up a little time so that you know we could focus on the superintendent search but certainly we are right in the thick of budget time and it is important that the board kind of know exactly where we are um in the work where we're going it's an important time of the year as we heard from many of our speakers tonight so I will turn things over to Chief burs to share an update on where we are okay uh
144admir uh next slide please I'm going to start right in real quick on the objectives I want to recognize up front though that this board and this superintendent over the past three years have done an exceptional job providing all the services the students need while maintaining our financial health and moving long stall very large projects forward uh I want to start with that however there's always new challenges right the of this year in our budget process for 2526 will be amongst the most eventful in the history of BPS our financial planning decision- making and and controls have to be spot on and well communicated let me give you a a quick overview the challenges and the opportunities that that we're going to be dealing with the current year deficit of 73.5 million right 10 million
145less than than the approved budget next year is the second year of the superintendent's two-year plan to right siiz staff and overall cost the superintendent and this board got Kudos in the earlier discussions even in the midst of all their concern by saying the mindfulness during this budget year to put in place the social workers guidance councel psychologist that put be funded from our reserves by a decision by this board in the super but we're in year two now that the next year's budget while we're still assembling the data we're looking at an initial budget of $17 million we got to work that down negotiations on new contracts for all bargaining UNS over the next 24 months there's a $94 million Capital project program underway in part funded by a bond issue Bond issuance first
146time in 10 15 years uh the lease of a new $44 million commissary over 15 years how long has that been being talked about um and then there's a financial necessity that we have to face schools have to be closed starting in the 26 27 year I'm speaking from a financial perspective they have to start being closed um why I bring all the opportunities and challenges uh together all of these items capital projects commissary uh structural budget deficits they're all funded from a huge pile of cash if one of those they're all interrelated and funded from the same cash so we got to be very in managing through this process next slide please all right so where we are at the current year first of all why this is so important you always want to
147hit your objective but how we end up this year will have a big impact on next year's budget process which is looking tough so let me start out so at the end of the second quarter we're projecting a $ 73.5 million deficit that's been reported to you guys but if we stop all further unbudgeted requests and we control all unnecessary spending that projected deficit could decrease to $50 million the superintendent will be issuing some community ation to help in that effort uh this week um let me stress again the importance of the current year driving that down our cash needs are projected over a 4-year period you see all the various things commissary Capital plan structural deficits school-based budgets if we reduce that projected deficit of 73 million down to 50 we have 23 million
148in in additional unbudgeted cash that'll help us in our decision making next budget year so it's really important we work on that and I think we're going to hit that goal um we received the current year State final State output reports at 99.3% of budget so it's not a revenue problem we just got to keep working those costs um I do mention the FTE it's ad next slide please there was the impact of again what I refer to in some of the speakers earlier this is the superintendent plan for this year she produced 252 bacon F each that's the big chart on the left first time that thing's gone down in a long long time the top chart on the right that's the grandr FTE back TR was due that we had to cut the
149300 positions out of our Bess the bottom right chart instead of telling all those 300 people you're gone there's no funding the superintendent and this board threw in uh $83 million to to move some of them to the general fund those are the social workers guidance counselor psychologist security guides that instead of filing essor they're moved to the the general phone that's something we need to keep monitoring that's all I'll say for tonight um okay that that's the uh what we're looking for this year what our goals are for the remainder of the year edner next slide now here's the budget calendar I show you guys every month all the yellow ones have been completed so we're right on schedule the next items up as you'll see there the Departments and the are meeting with
150the budget Department all their input is in the munus Larry I shared with you like some of that initial input that's now scrubbed next week with the budget department and the school based budgets have been returned uh they'll stop their meetings uh Monday they'll go 10 hours a day for five days at the end of that we need a couple of days to assemble the data then we'll start having reports showing the deficit uh and start reporting it out to the superintendent and the board and that's when we go to work ad okay um admir next slide please we spend a lot of time out on expenditures but we spend as much or more on our Revenue what this chart shows very quickly the or orange chart is what they call the February database is
151telling us this we're going to get from the state this is a much more accurate figure than the governor's budget that gets published what this shows is at the bottom well the state's going to give us $21 million more or 2.3% if you go to the top we're getting a 45% increase in Foundation at $32 million that was a that's a a good number the wise Foundation Aid more than the total we got a $12 million drop in building Aid which is benign to the district where building Aid is used to pay off debt we're paying off our debt very aggressively so that loss and revenue is offset by uh $15 million less in principal and interest payments so Reven are pretty good uh want to thank M scotman Mrs zul and the superintendent you
152guys went to Albany the superintendent was on I don't know 15 calls you know we gave it a shot during lobbying days I didn't go you were you were on the all those calls on the calls yeah all those calls you're okay yeah and yeah Andrew did a great job yeah good gu uh so our revenues for next year that's nothing to complain about um ad next slide please but accounting there's two sides little L we just did we did pretty good in uh Reven but here's our financial challenges right now we're working off an initial rough estimate of $17 billion deficit you might say how can that be if they're giving you $21 million more a well um our salary projections for all of our bargaining units our contractual increases go up $32 million
153uh based on those salary increases and also changes in our uh health insurance which we were just updated by uh uh Wally they're going to go up about 12 million I'm just going to give you a quick fact 9 million of that is due to the gp1 weight loss drugs so we're putting restrictions into there uh 40 or 50 people are signing up a month so we're putting restrictions through High Mark that we'll start filtering out to raise the the criteria anyway and then Charter tuitions are going to go off maybe $15 million we still haven't got final word on this state approved region proposal to change the spend formula and then our our transportation contract will go up we're thinking 10 million uh not the 15 so offs setting those increases a potential $32
154million increase in Foundation Aid a $15 million reduction in debt service and a note on Transportation while it's going to go up 10 million we get 90% of the money that but not for the following year um so the next steps uh departments and the budget Department are meeting next week to review all their level two requests for non-staff check their Staffing levels contracts travel everything and the school-based budget meetings start on Monday so we'll have dating for you to look at superintendent real real uh pretty good data on uh week after next so it's right in the middle of data Gathering we don't have anything to report other than that initial deficit there next slide I I apologize I'm going fast but I'm reading the room like you're all saying enough is enough okay
155capital project20 a month not you you oh okay capital projects and burn upd I want to make a comment here this is a factual update based upon us working with the controller staff on a daily weekly basis and bond councils but a comment up front capital projects should always be funded through bonds it's misinformation and bad financial uh advice for you to for someone to tell you to use cash let me let me give you an example real quick your capital projects cost $50 million you pay for that from cash your cash immediately goes down 5050 million now you're more in this you sell a bond you use the bond proceeds to pay the contractors no impact on your cash then your debt payments are offset by building aid over 15 years it's basically a
156zero cost financing the state has set it up that way for municipality so regardless of what you hear from what sources I wish we were able to borrow more for our capital projects that's the sound financial strategy okay here we are get down here our original capital project plan that was comprised of 27 projects which we presented and was approved with an estimated cost of 94 million if all the submission deadlines were met the projects were to be funded by a $54 million Bond and 40 million in general fund transfer so let me tell you exactly where we are today after weeks of submissions meetings and Communications with the state the controller's office and the bond Council 16 of those 27 projects have met all submission deadlines have Bond resolutions and we'll have approximately 18.6
157million in bond sold now they've pushed off the bond sale till May an additional five projects did not meet all the submission deadlines but we do have Bond resolutions on them already that should allow us these five projects to get authorized but unissued status with a planned Bond sale for May of next year the remaining six projects including Da Vinci they'll be submitted to the controller's office within a few weeks and we will pursue Bond resolutions and authorized but unissued status on these for potential Bond sale in May of 2026 this is really important oh let me finish up with d Vinci regarding D Vinci we're waiting upon the finalization of sign leases Mary and shaa have done a Yan's job working through this Labyrinth of two leases for this project they've actually submitted to
158the state for uh soony the state wherever it should have been submitted it's been submitted it's in their court for a review once we've completed that stuff we'll submit it to the state controller's office and bond Council the biggest risk to this project an em Capital project is delays because construction costs will go up in this envirment so let me quickly touch on authorized but unissued stats this provides the district with a mechanism to utilize the general fund cash right now to get the projects off the ground and going so and to be repaid through the bond sale next year so you use your cash short term or you get it replenished to a bond sale next year I do have to say when I started hour I said you provided all the services that
159for the kids priority number one youve kept the district in Financial Health but you move these long stalled projects forward the Capital plan and the comissary I gotta say again a great job to David and Mel their four project managers Derek who's the laser they've worked under extremely tight time frames G step by step by step to get to where we are right now ready to sell a bond on 16 of them and along the way we've cut time prints off every step demanded more from the a firm submitted quicker to the state got faster State approvals now we're going to shave weeks off the bid process these guys David and preserve [Applause] a Mary SE a great job on that convincing so that's actually where we are next commissary update total project cost about
16044 million all construction related cost except for the design fees are paid by the developer which just s ring to releas our excess fund balance plan was approved by the state February 13th so there's we probably started out with 30 items we had to tackle we're down to two uh a DBA agreement with M and a lease with M uh the new lease that we're negotiating with uh Maguire will utilize as originally planned all those C fund reserves goes back to my initial topic this is all interrelated um and we'll have to use maybe 10 maybe $12 million in transfers from the general funds in years 11 through 15 we're working on in within the lease a potential year 16 reduction in these lease payments down to uh uh to a great extent biggest risk
161now is time so the construction cost don't potentially go up potential time frames we have the least approve that the maybe April or May board meeting it's looking possibly that we could hit that time frame shaa and Mary deserve so much credit submit assign lease to the state so we complete the full documents documentation they approve it we get a building permit construction could start in July or August and there's an estimated 18mon construction period okay David M sh M guys have done a great job um there next slide that's where the comiss is it's St uh foure Plan update you might say boy Jim that's a mouthful you cover an off a lot or spending a lot of money well all of this is Incorporated in what is now a draft forear plan but
162it will be finalized as we finalize the leases and get the actual amount of the Total Bonds it's the most important planning tool we have the budget provides a one-year Outlook the four-year plan incorporates important Trend data and enrollment and state aid and a multi-year projection of the current decisions we're making now capital projects coniss and its impact on our fund balance issues that have to be addressed in that four-year plan to make to implement all the things we just talked about and keep us financially sound we got to address the structural deficits got to start closing schools we have to we're getting to the point where you can't keep cut much more from operations you have to reduce your physical footprint and the cost that go [Music] on so our Capital project plan the
163bidding will give us our final cost any day week we'll get the final answers on the debt and the building a Financial impact of the commissary is pretty much known so I'm going to leave you I won't go through this this is a high level First Step review of is this doable it is all doable anybody can add their next slide first thing you do is put all these things in uh on a gross level and you see what its impact is on your cash we'll end this year with $390 million cash if we do all these things and we don't even have to do it perfectly we'll have $161 million again this is the first step in the financial analysis of this complexity now all of these numbers will be spread out the timing
164of the cash but we've passed the first step we can do all this I hope that forret you with an update on year next year's budget process Capital plan and the commissary yes you did I have a question so when you said that you uh you guys were looking at tightening your belt um have we talked about uh what's going to happen with some of the positions under the title the title program last year came our attention that one person ran five four titles and now there's a person operating everyone is there any possibility that we could start looking at cutting some of those positions we're going to look at everything and and we're when we get all the data together cost budget lines FTE will be presenting we for for discussion uh We've identified
165some programs we don't think are very effective and there's Cost Cuts associated with but we'll bring them all up you know item by item okay the only reason I'm asking that is because from what I'm watching on uh it's going to be augg in the area and to have nine different department heads over our title money it just looks like you know there's a savings there from that perspective other thing um this this this young lady right here had talked about pet Woods that talked about at one time coming up with innovative ideas to create money uh create money flowing into the district wonder if you guys are receptive to start having that conversation again too because um uh she was talking about generating some income or some of the things that we do yes
166examp was presented tonight Med and when we were next in your package from um Albany that's one of the things but what we were talking about at at that U meeting in Albany was a little larger scale what what they're talking about here is just building for basic think services that we're not building for may we did hire us person to supervise the social work so so the C uh our our our CSC chair for the services they provide because I'm being told I'm being I'm being told that they um they're regular teachers social workers social workers can you do it with the who they and I believe you have to you have to be liced but we hired someone who can help some of them are working and over the last four years we've
167increased our Medicaid reever around 25 million to 4 million years that's good the other thing we lobbied for was trying to get more money for CTE uh found out that no one in the big five gets the $3,900 allotment um and that was surprising okay and they have not changed the formula in 21 years so that's money on the table that we're not getting um you know so we're working on it uh Mrs wood have met some of them um we have a very active Revenue team uh headed up by Rachel my who does all our Sam submissions for the 96 million or so we get it St but Kim dman with chars Lori berer with invoicing grp services to Charters non fubs so we can always do better we're not perfect at all but
168[Music] sure oh yes um can you speak on how we allocate mental health professionals um CSC chairs Does it include enrollment special education percentage English language learner percentage are you talking about social work specifically yes yes counselors well so I'm not in charge of counselors but we did actually committee to review our formula for allocating sites and social workers and based on that we actually increased the social worker staff by 5.5 um for this for this coming school year I think when some of the people are speaking about losing staff it may be conversations that are happening at the school level but they're not official because they haven't even had their um school-based budget meetings get correction So based on your projections right now I don't have to project the schools are going to purchase
169on their own but I know that the allocation that comes from the department has increased so one of the things I heard last year from principles was that they were very confused on how social workers and school psychologists were assigned to their schools they were looking for a formula and so I charged Chief belli to go out and meet with principals take a look at her data convene her team and she did and she met with the principal leaders and they came up with a formula that is designed to be Equitable so it is looking at enrollment um this is the first year that I can ever recall even when I was a principal I didn't fully understand how School psychologists and social workers were assigned but now it's transparent you know they know they
170understand and you know when it All Shook out I was a little nervous because it is an increase in Social Workers so I just think tonight the group that came before us just didn't have that information yet they don't know that but you're saying chief that it could be because of building allocated funds that they're not allocating it to additional so we wouldn't have a way from there so at our end the central allocation set so that was an increase and then they purchased additional staff at the building level with their discretionary funds right none of that has happened yet like those meetings start next week I believe Monday so SCH te way to conversations in so can I pck you back on that so is there a psychologist counselor and social worker at every
171school it might not be fulltime but there's definitely yeah but it's PR you'll get your books and you'll get budget reports but it's going to be not till the week after day just just two things that came up last June's budget everybody wanted to make sure that when we take a look at the budget and that we're making cuts that Central Administration and tossa positions are also looked at because the main po important positions are people working with it kids principal Direct Services so that is a lesson we learned and will'll be contining yeah we're looking at all positions cuz we value I mean I know that you know the rubber hits the road in the schools but without the support of central office staff I don't think people know what they don't know so
172you know we really are looking at every Department we'll be looking at every school and um you know we as I said earlier we won't leave any stone on turn so those Tulsa positions you know we'll be looking at them coaches all of that we've got to look at it and then the other thing I think you got an email from um Dr cresy that there's going to be budget training which all of the board members received and we could all use a refresher so that you know what the alphabit soups letters need what our major revenues are and that each of us can do our job knowledgeable because we're all responsible for our schools and we all need to understand the I think we have meetings coming up right right with the cabinet members
173and individual board members so that you can schools and ask questions and you know Advocate and and meet with the cabinet to you know see how we can all support each other we did it last year I think it was a great experience and we're planning to do it again this year thank you for always being transparent and respecting the board and giving us absolutely I will say though one of the things that I I heard is that last year when people did their school-based budget and they did it thinking that that was uh a number that wasn't going to change so they made those decisions and people who didn't make the decisions ended up getting more positions as social workers and the schools like remember uh so there that's something that I've heard like
174so should we should we um put that in our budget or are we going to get a free I don't think there'll be too many freebies this year no but I'm saying but do you know what I mean schools were to disadvantage we were really the principles would buy APS and then come crying back to the super I need a math teacher no no what what we're talking about are the the social workers in the those counselors that were put back I'm not talking about assistant principal and Math teachers last year there was a definite um uh preference put to social workers and guidance counselors when schools that valued those before put that in and then their school was left they could have said well we're going to go with this this and that but
175the schools that valued it we sure changed we did we you know not not I'm talking about any other positions but includ some because you know for some uh the assistant principles um you know if they put in if they would cut them you know I was really looking holistically at trying to very genuinely give what they needed you know what they wanted what they said they really really needed and if they had a little extra money to to buy what they prioritized and said they needed that was good because we were in a deficit so this year um you know we'll be looking and we'll keep the board updated thank you board member Scott quickly one more question last year we didn't have a lot of retirements and you projected that they were going
176to be more this year do you have a sense are any potential savings there pointing out a huge failure of mine I was miserably long really yeah they loveing we were hoping 250 wor think 100 120 oh that's the last thing anyone's going to remember from this presentation so did we talk about doing any in incentives for the uh we haven't gotten together as a group and make that a strategy that's a good idea yeah cuz we can have we can get yeah no that's a good idea uh we we got to get this first set of numbers together just and then we'll start listen you can cut here you can cut here and then you might say don't do that one okay cuz we're going to yeah definitely you don't give yourself enough Kudos
177but this is complicated and you do an incredible job I think you know managing all of these moving cards so [Applause] and pette CU see we all inep that's why it's in this package we didn't do one this month and she made and I I guess I just want to say then because I've worked more closely than ever with this group this year think of all the slings and arrows and ups and downs of the capital project plan and the coner David Mel and those four project managers I just got to sort of end there I've worked more and more closer what they've done obstacles and the submission deadlines and to to get us to this point we're biding projects already we're going to shave mon stairs at Bennett High School for years the way
178that they look and right by now and take a look they J team has bangled from purchase to audit his budget team has kept things under control they're clear they're consistent and so have we cut out all overtime no not some overtime is absolutely essential okay we we're getting a new auditor on board it will follow up on our initial egregious overtime areas but we'll never cut all over some of it is healthy and necessary okay long long as some of it is cuz all of it isn't I believe it the CFO agreed that that was one of our auditing areas that inventory control we got a chance to put an Amazon together if we can work that we can really do do you think we will eventually get to the part a place where
179um when people are ordering things we check to see if we have it in already in the district yes and we're not all that far away in this s it's a lot of work to get that involv but it's just there're a couple steps close they got Mark they got another guy they got some equipment they're making progress to that point yeah so if you if you pull that together that will really tighten the belt a lot you know that's true thank you for the work I've been doing on that too appreciate it okay all right with that said Thank you Mr bars as always thank you we appreciate appreciate you all right so can I get a motion the February February 12 March 5th and March 12 minutes okay thank you um I got
180a first a [Music] second consider agenda oh all in favor I all right thank you cons agenda oh motion to accept agenda all in favor anyos all right next l n personel affairs that's 18 16 16 like 22 a 16 it's 16 it's line 22 oh wait yeah yeah 16 B 16 B okay thank you that yes um this you an okay so that's a CSC cpsc report correct so Chief belli I appreciate the answers to my Bor do questions um I do feel like we should have a standing meeting to like follow up on my follow-ups um and I recognize there are thousands of students with a lot of needs in our district it's not easy work um this is very close to my heart with children with extra needs in districts um and
181the advocacy I've done just want to ensure that um procedures are being followed so I do have real concerns with appropriate placements and classifications um so for example we had a student uh last year with an IQ that was less than 70 however they were in special education misclassified for speech um so when the student reached the speech goals they were Declassified from special education so that's when I'm looking at this I just always like have a lot on my mind uh so the these 51 the past month are they all declassifications or were some of the students classifications changed like for example going to a 504 well that was I think still be declassification but I can yes to okay so I mean like there's four autism students like they're not not autistic you
182know what I mean from last month so there's various reasons why people might Beed um sometimes they're leaving the district um sometimes they have exited Services because they've met their iup goals many of these kids are probably speech um Speech Pathology students who achieved their targets um I see that parents were sent invitations does that mean they were sent prior written notices like an invitation to the meeting I don't know if the correct term but yes they're notified that the meeting is being I just want to inter for a minute because maybe what will help so when the board is solicited for their questions for the Q&A something I can add that might be more fruitful or helpful when I send the answers in I can also set up a call to take all of
183your follow-up questions because my worry is that we could be digging like deep into an area and I want you to get a full answer you can get that it's kind of like what I set up in Juliana for you to get the full depth and every single question is answered so I don't want to interrupt this but I would suggest I can easily set that up as a followup to your Q&A and I recognize like I'm very in the weeds and like the multiple disabilities is one student but to get that impairment that was a unique situation okay so the combination like it has to be so severe District classified that student we did not class we absorbed the student in when they came to the district and it wasn't changed at that time
184okay do we use a the student should not have been considered it did not meet the criteria the other District did it and we maintained it so do we have a different test or metric than this school district or like the intellectual disability okay so are they they don't have an IEP at all they had at least two disabilities to be multiple and now they're not at all I don't know the specifics but two dis abilities were but yes the student is now Declassified they should not have been labeled um in that category I didn't know if there were placed into one of the other 13 categories um for an IEP I don't have to the case I just know that I spoke with um kulire regarding the question and that it was classified in
185another District probably inappropriately was maintain in the student came here but the student did not really meet the criteria okay is Kim holster maybe the one to well I'll I'll set up the call with any person that's related to any of the questions you'll have okay so um and I can work on that with you tomorrow okay I just I feel like one declass that shouldn't be is one too many I know it's one student get right it was appropriate to do class student they were they were classified initially in declassify concern student but like I understand the intellectual disability or but multiple means like more than one so they were misclassified on two disabilities no they they may so they may have had some disabilities but you can't be termed multiply disabled unless you
186need a certain criteria the student did not action me but they may still on another category I just think it just sounds very odd to me I don't know the specific it could have just s a student with speech and something else I don't know particular cases okay and then I I just want to make sure too like sometimes you get a notice and it's like really vague like uh to consider continued eligibility um instead of like a proposal to declassify so I think sometimes parents are going in um not really prepared for what may be happening in the meeting and often don't have um Advocates with them so I just want to make sure we're all is that a comment or a question I'm sorry um I guess that's a comment thanks all right
187so thank you Dr PR for follow all right thank you 18f you're up again I think it's is it D or no it is f you're right uh this is me just talking to talk um I I just like to really see the the locally grown produce and I think we've all if we've gone to the farmer markets the Flat 12 mushrooms five Los farm right on the West Side Providence Farm Collective are amazing I love this I'm glad we still have so no question that was just a comment okay well you know we push for that because it's the local economy yes we got Supply economy turn it over seven points and high our own that's why we push perfect um and then further down in 18 J I guess you kind of commented
188on the [Music] oh yes all right then we have I think this is 18 W okay 18 wpop I'm on this um this is an equity issue and I'm very concerned when decisions are made and and Equity is not taken into consideration and uh superintendent I just I really want this to go on record that I uh Lisa I want this to be part of the permanent records and I'm very concerned that we have an equity policy resolution that was put in place 518 of 2020 and we have children who because of what circumstance has not been able to have access to a computer this year um and because really maybe because the parent didn't file a report or whatever but at the end of the day okay this is a barrier from from a
189child being able to get education and there she no reason why with the amount of money that's been spent on computers over the past four years that uh these children have gone so long without computers okay set in the class uh uh in the school building uh would have helped uh one principal is just asking just give me a cart and I'll take care of the kids that don't have it but this cannot continue if decisions are not being made based on Equity we're not B balancing and making sure that children have what they need in order to function we got problems okay and so I'm very concerned that students so far in the year do not have laptops and that the adults did not put did not reduce the barriers Madam superintendent respectfully okay
190and I know it was just brought to your attention so I know you'll be addressing it but I had to go on record for this because this is a barrier and this is something that we can fix a lot of barriers don't come come around us that we can handle handle it but this is a barrier that we that never should have been allowed to happen I don't care what the circumstances was when that kid gets to that building there should be a laptop he could have left it at home he still there should be laptops in these buildings uh to make sure that these uh kids are getting what they need so you know I'll be monitoring this moving forward it'll be something I'll be watching but I'm very disappointed that we don't have
191uh the children in third quarter have not had computers off all the buildings or no no no it's not of course it's not all the buildings you already know that you making that general statement I just want to make it clear for the public who's listening that it's not just across the board at 6 I would not no it's not I didn't say it was across the board at 60 schools but I said that I'm very concerned that children in this District in the third quarter do not have laptops that's what I said that's a generalized statement but it's children there are children in this District in the third quarter who do not have laptops that's sad so more than not having laptops is really not having access access to it and that's what I'm
192saying if that for whatever reason they lost it they did it where they damaged it and then and when you look at this and uh I was looking at the number H or one of these H where we're giving Pro books 440 460 notebooks and this is one for our our teachers or whatever and built right into the contract is the insurance piece I saw that you saw that and so I expect the same thing to happen for our for our students that uh yeah and and we know that the one parent called me the court uh uh just stopped working and she she felt that after so many years the court should be automatically replaced we know for the most point they only have a two-year life so we got to do some things
193better on an equitable basis and that's what I want it to go on the record my concern about Equity with this issue okay thank you I'm sorry motion to approve the consent agenda all in favor [Music] late agenda it how you vote um board member bon cman no exception board member everheart no exception M no exceptions MOS no exception no exception vice president SC recusal 20c affiliation no exceptions number what no exception no exceptions the no [Music] exceptions no it's it's removed from the table because we have two sittings for it so no they didn't put mine in the redistricting has been in now for two board meetings like a policy we gave the public you know just the opportunity to continue seeing it as a courtesy you're removing it from the table you're voting
194on that and you're also got gotta gotcha and I miss that resolution that I have put out from the council school go next month so hope you guys sign on so we can start um if I have a new school I can start yes communicating with that school I've been waiting to make sure okay I now all right you good so board member resolutions there's two one okay so the first one is additions to the eics commission rer member zul and board member zart everybody got that right the names are there post um have motion 9 been there I know here before oh yeah so Council sir can can you any discuss oh discussion about she was okay no discussion do you want to put their name out there say who you selected sure sure
195so I selected Howard Johnson no ethics ethics oh Shantel douas Douglas Shantel Douglas um I chose Miss Anna fov asquire on the well on the motion to approve board resolution for the addition to the app committee how do you vote board member Bel cman yes board member art yes pres yes board M yes board member yes vice president Scot yes board member wh yes member yes yes passes thank you the second resolution is a 202 sign plan we move from the table last time so it's back on any discussion any discussion thank you no discussion back to council Shing respect to the motion to approve the board resolution regarding the the district you can how do you vote um board member yes board member art yes vice president yes yes yes vice president Scott yes
196member Woods yes yes and yes motion have I see that the next uh item is committee report um I don't know if super the last committee meeting so all we'll pass that I and then the last one is the unfinished business and so can I have a motion authorizing the district to fully settle a pending legal proceeding before the New York state division of human rights with complaint number 102590 in the amount not to exceed 35 ,000 thank youa uh all in favor I any opposed anys okay motion passes number two can I have a motion authorizing the district to fully settle pending litigation before the New York state supreme court with index number 2017 and the amount not to exceed $50,000 sension there second board member Scott all in favor any oppose any access
197motion passes now have February 19th Genevie Stevenson Dear Mother of Dr BT Stevenson assistant principal at East High School number 309 February 24th Richard up hasset father of Paul hasset engineer at school February 26 Daniel C Gorski retired Buffalo Public Schools teacher of 34 years March 2nd Karine Harper grandmother of Denisa Thompson principal of Community School 53 and March 9th Thaddius zalinsky senior father of Thaddius zalinsky Jr facility repair department electrician thank you here