Board of Education Meeting - October 22, 2024 - Chatham Central School District (NY)

001of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible withy [Music] and okay all right feedback all right we're going to start our board meetings a little bit differently hold on let get back feed [Music] back everybody's okay I'm going [Music] to is that it yep okay everybody can hear me okay great Andrew and I were in our agenda planning meeting and we were talking about our mission here in chattam and we said it would be appropriate for us to start our board meetings reading our mission statement just as a reminder to everybody about why why we're here and I'm going to do that for every board meeting um going forward so I'm going to start with the mission of the chadam Central School District is to provide students and education

002that nurtures intellectual curiosity and focuses on academic and cultural foundations our students will graduate with the knowledge problemsolving abilities and character needed to participate ethically adapt succeed and contribute in their future educational career and Community Endeavors okay now we'll move on to our approval of the present agenda can I have a motion I have a second are does anybody have any questions about the agenda all in favor so moved now we have board member comment I start public a comment oh I clicked the wrong one okay okay D public comment so the purpose of the public comment period is to allow the Board of Education to hear as a whole any comments that're related to any agenda item or School business um the during the public comment period the Board of Education will hear comments

003um for brief time not to exceed a total of 20 minutes in total duration three minutes per speaker speakers are expected to comply with the chadam Central School District policy 1510 in regard to content okay do we have [Music] anybody I saw another hand up there if you're interested in speaking if you could just sign the form over here so I know your hand was up over there so just sign the piece of paper anyone else wants to speak if you could just sign in the timer's [Music] on hi my name is Wayne Co I'm here with the question I've been asking for nine months why why why why why are my school taxes making kids die why why are you guys blowing up baby for your benefits in the teachers retirement system you guys

004are funding Boeing which is dropping 2,000 pound bombs on schools just like this and burning to death children just like mine why why don't you cease why don't you stop I've asked you to divest I've asked you to have public meetings about divestment because most people don't even know what divestment is it is a Costless beneficial culturally useful way you need direct your to the board it is a cultural it is a cultural beneficial way to steer dangerous murderous companies like Boeing tadine Israel discount Bank Lockheed Martin from destroying other cultures genocide narration folks that's what that Flag represents that's what this school represents how are you guys operating being complicit in genocide and eraser Well I've been coming here for n months and I've noticed that when I speak for three minutes they don't

005post the board minutes the two-hour meeting they hide now I could say Well they're hiding from shame from infamy of being war profiteers in the teachers retirement system but I think it's maybe a a larger uh part of the genocide narra process which we did to the Native Americans which fascist Germany did to the European Jews and which Israel is doing to the Palestinians so we're here and history has come full circle we're standing here committing genocide through this company this $41,000 per student company and you guys should cease and desist and stop funding genocide through neous and the murderous companies that it represents because you don't need to do do it for the benefits of the teachers you don't need to do it for the benefits of these students and all these students should

006be researching what's going on in Palestine and seeing for themselves how the Investments domestic and Global in the teachers retirement system are funding this horror thank [Music] you do we have any other any any hands digital hands hi I'm Mira Pierce I've been going to the chadam district my whole school and career and I wanted today to talk about um the teacher pay and the way that it's affecting our school um if you haven't noticed or if the research hasn't you know seeped into you that um our teachers are making significantly less um than most of the other schools in our district that um our teachers are relyant on Partners uh to be able to live in District um because our school's not giving them a proper wage uh it's really affecting our schools we

007notice our teachers leaving it's like a mass Exodus going on um and it's affecting every single building um and every single building needs stability that we're not getting because our teachers are leaving be mainly because they don't have money to stay um I have talked to some teachers who have left and most of them say that they love the community but they love the students it's the pay that scares them it's a pay that makes them leave and I think it's selfish as a district and it makes us look um less than we are that we don't um pay our teachers more that we it by not paying them we show that we don't value them and that we don't uh see them as an important part of our chaden community and I think that's

008you know disconnected to the reality which is that teachers are our main glue that's holding the community together and that's keeping us um afloat and we can spend as much money as we can on the building but there is no Building without teachers [Music] thank you [Music] Mar um I'm Sandy Fischer most of you know me I'm I know I'm speaking this time um and I just wanted it to be put in the public record uh that Brook Decker's resignation is a huge hit to the chadam community um she's given 10 years of of excellent teaching to this District she has advised clubs she's advised classes she's chaperoned events um she's you know given so much of herself and her time to this district and uh you know her having to leave because of issues

009with the building is is devastating to us in the community and I I just want it reflected in the board minutes that for the science department you know we've taken a a huge loss and we've had to hire two people to fill shoes those are how big her shoes are um and that you know we wish her the the best but we wish she didn't have to leave thank you thank you [Music] Sandy so Mr Co I would like you to put your sign away this is disrupting the rest of the meeting well it would into one of our features and no you got to go further back so people can see thank [Music] you we are moving on to the okay so nobody else all right so now we're going to go on to

010the board member comments anybody have anything to share our Pops concert is this U is the 30th this coming week all of our music um or organizations will be performing um we have a couple of new teachers in our slots so we got to get there and support them and um it's 7 o'clock in the auditorium hope to see some of you there thank you we just come back from a convention some of us I know uh it was a bit of a Scramble for us to get here so I think in our next board meeting we'll be able to give you guys an overview of what you know what we've digested here and uh it was a great it was a great convention uh isth does an excellent job and um just we literally

011are Andrew just coming off the road so yeah so give us a little time we'll get we'll get something to you but uh I was jealous of all the other board members that didn't have a meeting tonight to get back to you scrambling but uh that's okay we're all good all right so we will move on to the building and departments yes that's right that's what we are going to do that's right we are making a change to our agenda because um we are going to listen to our student representative report uh so that one of our students can get back to their volleyball [Music] game okay so oh can everybody see in the back can can okay the sign has to go down I need the rest of the audience to be able to

012observe [Music] okay so I want to start my report off today with uh letting the elected officers for the high school introduce themselves who doing government hello my name is Taylor vanan we and I am chadam president of our Student Government so just some goals for the year um I want to have a very productive and mostly fun year I'm a senior here so this is my last year so I want to go out with the bang um I want to have a lot of fundraisers and a lot of school school oriented activities just to really engage peers and students with each other and also to engage Administration and my goal personally is just to make sure that there's communication between our Administration and our students and to make sure everyone's voice is heard and

013they feel like no voice is Left Behind thank you thank you Taylor good afternoon chadam School Board it is an honor to have the opportunity to speak before you tonight in order to introduce myself as chattam high school student government's new vice president my name is Lian bian I'm a 10th grader at chadam I've been here since uh ninth grade um this year uh based on my previous experience in other student leadership positions I intend to plan activities for student uh students to gain camaraderie and to also uh expand student advocate for student access to technology thank you very much thank you [Applause] hi my name is Vivian Murphy I am a senior this is my second year at chadam and I'm treasurer for Student Government my main goal is to give a voice to

014students of all grade levels and really try to strengthen our community um I also want to improve the clubs and activities at our school and just have everyone having fun thank you would you mind if I just say something really quick I I'm looking forward to meeting with the student government this Thursday I'll be joining you at your meeting um because as one of our members said the goal is to really have that open um communication with Administration and I look forward to that as well with our students so thank you for being here I also just want to uh shout out to ellerie pierce who is our secretary but she couldn't come this evening due to sports um so as I mentioned last or two weeks ago this is a very busy field trip

015month and we got through most of our field trips we have a couple left for the rest of the month um but everything went great it was all super fun the environmental field trip in particular I really loved um it was cool we got to go out to h River for the day and then we got to take samples and we're going to send it to a lab and we're going to compare with other students around the Hudson river to see what all of our data looks like together um and then also on the field trips I know Miss Montgomery is bringing her ninth grade class to the Crandle next week to see something but I'm not sure what that is peanut butter Falcon um um and last week we had a couple I guess

016spirit days uh we had the anti-bullying Day on Wednesday where our uh students and faculty wore orange and there was a very large turnout which I was surprised I know that many people owned Orange um and then on Friday we had our breast cancer awareness day and it was beautiful to see the amount of people that came in pink um for upcoming events we have Powderpuff is November 4th at 6:30 at the high school um all of our clubs right now around chadam are doing great they're all up and running finally um with yearbook we just had our first deadline so people submitted their baby photos seniors um and in our newspaper Club the panther press we just interviewed Mr wheat so um and we're going to try and get that open to everyone soon

017so keep an eye out for that um and then today we had a drama club meeting for next or this Spring's musical um it was just an interest meeting and to try and get an idea of what performance are going to be doing in the spring um it was a lot bigger than last year yeah I'm excited because Eddie uh the director Eddie Knight said that we might get to do a little something that has a bigger cast this time so that'll be fun um and then again we are working on advertising the blood drive that is only for students and faculty but so far I think we've got a couple people signed up already and it's not until November 12th so we're looking good um I that's all I have for today that's great

018so I was thinking of you guys when you were on that field trip it was one of the few very cold days that day um do you guys have like hip waiters I mean you do have the hip waiters and yeah I was thinking of you guys that day but I'm glad that it was such a great trip it was after all thank you it was a great report okay so now we have to go back to the building and Department reports so the administrative team the principles and I have been just discussing how we can best communicate with the board um the different happenings so monthly our principles are going to come up and and just give a um an update on their buildings some different happenings some different things going on um that

019it's not going to be really necessarily data um but we'll be having different data presentations with one I'll be doing today but this is more just a monthly update from our principles so um they're here today to do that so thank you the three of you for being here I assume we'll start with the elementary then go to the middle school and then go to the high school as I said we'll be doing this monthly okay well hello everyone um I'm going to start um we've had an amazing uh beginning of our school year um we started off with two very successful open houses we changed the format of our open houses uh two years ago and it has uh really been well received um teachers are in the classroom students can come and go

020as they please with their parents um we send them on scavenger hunts and they have a great time so they were very successful um we are working on some Community Building skill skill um skills as a faculty and so what we did was we um picked eight words that we are going to focus on as a faculty with our students um respect honesty compassion kindness cooperation perseverance gratitude and helpfulness and um as I think most of you know we all we have houses in our school which there are four colors and um so we had our first big house assembly and we rolled out who's going to be in what houses and every house slash um assembly that we're going to have will have a character word tied to it so our First Assembly is

021October 30th um so we're going to be talking about respect and we're going to be doing some um fun things we're going to be uh celebrating some really cool Awards best behaved in the cafeteria gets a golden tray cleanest classroom gets a golden trash can they get to keep for the month so um we've been doing that for a while we had to stop for Co and now we're going back to it um in addition to these things our house um one of the things that we Tred to do with our houses is to make it meaningful for our students and so we try to do some kind of um activity with our students that is Meaningful for the community so right now we're in the middle of what's called Socktober we're raising socks for

022homeless shelters because we found that homeless shelters uh socks are the most um needed and least donated item so the last count we had over 1,200 new pairs of socks that we're going to be donating I know um next month will be American legit we with the American Legion and we do some Soldier donations donations for soldiers our abandon Orchestra is up and running wonderfully uh we have a couple of after school clubs we have morning announcement club we have a knitting club we have some successful inals run by Mr rollison which is always a big hit um I think as Sasha said we had Unity day and Spirit Week throughout the whole District so if you were if you had a chance to be on campus on any of the buildings last Wednesday it

023was just a sea of orange it was awesome um and then we at the elementary school we meet as an entire building monthly um every student teacher uh we talk about uh diversity equity and inclusion and September's lessons were on Hispanic Hispanic Heritage Month and October's lesson is on global diversity aware awareness month which is celebrating diverse cultures ethnicities and perspectives um we have completed all of our safety drills that were necessary for fire we still have a couple of lockdown drills to do um and of course last but not least we cannot forget that we have our big me Halloween parade coming up so you are all invited to come out on the uh football field 9:30 on Halloween morning question that's fantastic that's great thank you thank you Kristen all right so you

024guys all know me um speaking for the Middle School what's going on it's been a great start to the year um we have uh a lot lot of things that were staff driven and a lot of the fun activities that Sasha talked about as well I'll get into that in a little bit the one thing I want to bring you guys up to speed on is that in eth grade we tried a Home Room pilot program this year it was a recommendation for staff um last year to develop uh closer relationships with some of our students and kind of build the process for starting like an advisory so our eighth grade this year has had home rooms of maybe eight to nine students with a staff as opposed to a typical grade which is divided

025up among four home rooms and may have like 15 to 20s kids and the idea is to have like uh more in-depth conversations there sentence starters and prompts and would you rather conversations just to develop relationships with the kids and the students um and in the eth grade it's it's helped us process some stuff um and it's off to a good start so we're kind of rolling with different ideas this year the idea is to collect some data on um behaviors relationships culture surveys for the kids and see if it's making a better approach and if it's something that we want to expand to the other grades um so that's up and running um sports teams are often running it's been good to hear from our teams this year they've been very active sharing all

026of their scores every morning they come down and run to the office so they're very proud of their uh athletic accomplishments um particularly the boys and girls soccer teams and the volleyball teams um but it's good to see so many kids participating and being outside uh a couple weeks ago we had the eth grade visit the Crandle theater for a showing of the movie The Outsiders which was read in Mr artist class um that's always a a favor to the kids and it's a good way to start the school year off um so we continue that tradition um as they've talked about October was bully prevention month uh we had spirit week we had Pajama Day National Unity day and by the way whoever made that comment about orange I love the color orange um

027uh the best day which I didn't happen to be here for was put yourself in someone else's shoes day and our students dressed like staff and staff got to dress like students um so there may be a slideshow at the end of the year that has pictures of students in bald caps to look like me and Mr but um it was good to have fun uh so the kids really partook in that um like Kristen said we will have Halloween it is still a thing at the Middle School uh and there will be lots of kids there um we had uh the ncbi which is the National Coalition on building Institute Training for sixth seventh and eighth graders and that is a select group of kids um that apply and they work on skills um

028leadership skills and conflict resolution and they help us out as we navigate certain things in the Middle School uh we also had a group of seven gror attend the youth Summit AT green Community College we had our seventh grade key communicators they were invited to the first annual youth Summit um hosted by twin counties for healthy teen decisions many agencies engag with the students from um all schools around the county and our students experienced uh training on calming activities art activities and games um that help them build connections with students from other schools and the presenters discussed healthy coping uh strategies and choices as well as focused on the theme of leadership so that was a first first time for us uh twin count has reached out to us and a lot of the schools

029in the Capital District participated clubs will be officially up and running shortly we go through a process of asking the kids what they're interested in and then asking the staff what they're willing or their ideas and then we kind of Whittle It Down based on interest so this year's clubs we have the service Club the peer buddies Club um Middle School robotics Art Club the AV club this year I think the the leading one will be the fishing club uh Mr artist put that there and there's lots of fishers fisherman here so I think that'll be a really cool one in the spring um we have ski club obviously Movie Club Variety Show Club board games and puzzles the yearbook club and interms are up and running Thursday our service Club is going to go

030uh into town and paint local business windows for the holiday themes uh Miss Hoffman puts that program on um today we put donation boxes out for the soldiers in the hallway like Kristen talked about that's part of a partnership with the chadam American Legion auxiliary uh we do that annually to raise um and collect Goods for the soldiers Fridays we're a pink day in our school to support breast uh cancer awareness picture day is next week the Veterans Day is coming together um November 8th and I'm supposed to add here that SpongeBob the musical which is the Middle School drama performance is November 22nd 23rd and 24th so if you're in this audience I expect to see you there um and then we have parent teacher conferences coming the week before Thanksgiving so it's been

031a action-packed start to the year but all good things things I'd say yeah that's that's fantastic you thank you Brett appreciate it I'm reasonably sure Halloween is a thing at the high school too um so uh this is uh my first time interacting with the board uh kind of like this since uh my appointment a few months ago and uh since then I've kind of been getting in the habit of being impr ressed by the sheer volume of things that are happening here at the high school um and in The Wider chatam Community I'm going to attempt to relay some of the highlights and I apologize if I miss something that somebody is attached to and and I and I don't give it the fair mention I do want to start out by saying uh

032I recently shared a note to the community that you know um we were very sad in of course that uh Brook Decker left um we had retirement last year in our earth science position but at this point uh with the hiring of a couple of long-term Subs we are uh approximating full strength and we are continuing to search obviously very uously for full-time Replacements but it is nice uh to finally have those full those full-time long-term Subs in place happy about that um we are looking forward in November to uh the first of our big uh Senior Team initiatives for our senior class the interview event is coming up I know many people in this room are involved as the senior's interview with a h professional in a potential field of choice to gain the

033experience of what it's like to put yourself out there and say I would like you to hire me for a job uh I think it's a phenomenal opportunity to do that um before uh somebody has a real opportunity to say no I'm going to hire someone else um and then of course they will follow that up with the Capstone project in the spring I was in with the senior team uh today as they were planning that process and I was impressed by the amount of thought and care that they are putting into matching uh seniors with professionals that are in fields of interest to them I was also interest in the variety of fields uh there was one senior that was very interest in interested in both veterinary science and Welding uh so the diversity

034of interests uh is real um and they're trying to do their best to uh you know get something together for everybody uh we also have finished our fire drills uh for the fall uh we were very proud our average time between the call of the fire drill and getting out to the field for accountability was less than five minutes which made me pretty happy we had a successful lockdown uh experience this morning with the sheriff and shadam PD supporting and and we are uh going to be meeting in a with a safety building based safety team four times a year to continue to look at emergency preparedness and our responses uh Sports here uh are really fun to be a part of just before here I was out of the JB volleyball game um and

035the lost some students to the varsity volleyball game just now but I want to offer congratulations to both our girls and boys of RCC soccer team for making it to the postseason uh postseason play begins here at shadam uh first game uh is the girls varsity game at 1:00 followed by the boys at 3 um our disciplinary rates for the year are very very low uh we have convened no superintendent hearings yet um and I have been impressed by the amount that the students seem to be going out of their way to be students um while they are here in school um uh want to make sure I think both the Fine Arts and the sports booster club The Fall season sports are wrapping up and you can see folks from the sports Boosters club

036at pretty much every game uh personing the concession stands and supporting those events uh shakeseare uh performance is up and running and we will see the trim uh the music and art um Honor Society induction tomorrow night um going to be supported by the F hours Boer those organization's been doing a lot of work uh we too had an open house that went very well um we had a wonderful spirit week and I will say one of my personal highlights for the year was the pep rally at the end of our um spirit week which was just generally a good time um we're looking forward to the Pops concert and um I'm just about to wrap up except to say that uh one little piece that I am interest I'm really excited about is uh

037our student government is going to be embarking on a leadership training program through quest star um this Montgomery will be there for most of them but I actually get to attend the first one with the student government and I'm looking forward to getting to spend some quality time with our student leaders thinking about what is what are the things that we can influence together uh as we move through this school year that's fantastic I did have one question for you are they still looking for more people to do the interviews um I was while we were at the convention we were talking to somebody from SEI Design Group and he said I'd be willing to come down of the school and do anything and I said we might need you as an interviewer so are

038they still looking for people they are close to being okay at capacity uh the person who's best position to answer that question would be someone on Senior Team likely Ashley ke um they are close they still do need one or two so I don't want to say that they're full and then miss out on the one sure I'll read so if you don't mind checking if you don't mind checking and then let me know oh yeah that and then we can and we can there's there's people outside of our community you know with our different vendors and stuff that have shown interest in doing things like that with our school district so that's helpful we would be happy to between Maran and I and we can I'm sure get some additional I was so impressed

039by that first one so impressed that uh I I find myself looking for other industry and and when I get talking to people hey we've got this great program so I'm always selling it wherever I am so um I'll see about that and I love the idea that you're going to go to that Questar with the uh the um Student Government that's that you know coming off of this convention I'm just seeing how many opportunities there are Addison Andrews was able to be at the convention I happen to miss her unfortunately but it's just great to be able to have those opportunities just to really get to know the students and that brings me to one of the um the um conferences I went to talking about student outcome focus and it really it's something

040I just keep thinking about you know about spending a lot more time on student outcomes and student Focus rather than adult outcomes you know they ask me what percentage of your board meetings are spent talking about adult things and what percentag is for the students and so I'm very mindful I'm like really drilling down on that so you guys will hear more about that over time but but uh but I love that I think that's great thank you those are great reports and it's a lot of fun if you don't mind if I just say one thing about that opportunity of our Student Government I participated in that last year with New Lebanon and I have to say it was one of the most powerful things I have ever participated in as a as a

041superintendent um the training that the students received and then were able to bring back to their school into into their into their friends um was amazing you know these kids were truly empowered so I'm really thrilled that chadam is taking um advantage of this opportunity and this training for our students um through Questar so I look for mil you're going to enjoy it I might be stopping by as well because I think it's some of the best stuff I've ever seen and it would be great if if that those group of students at the end of the year when they're finished um with their training if they can present what they learned to the board I bet you they would love to hear that so we we'll work on that as well thank you as

042you could see we have a lot of amazing things going and um it's because of our administrators and our teachers that bring it all together so thank you all for being here and sharing everything and all that you do it's always a great reminder of why we're volunteering here these that's the kind of things that we want to hear about it's what we why we're here okay so we will go on to well we're skipping down to H the superintendent reports all right so the first thing I would like to do is thank our Board of Education so um last week we didn't have a board meeting meeting but it last week was Board of appre appreciation week and I have to say I've had the privilege of working with several several board members through

043through my years and every group that I work with I'm just so impressed of what you all do and the dedication and the volunteer work that you put into the community I could tell the I could tell everyone in this audience that each and every one of our board members here in chadam is truly here for the right reason because they care about our school they care about our students and they want to make it better so um I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart each of you um for all of your work and your commitment to chadam and our commitment to our students um I just I really appreciate each of you and you all deserve to be honored every single day so let's give our Board of a big

044round of applause now in in Tradition here in chadam um the buildings take turns um sharing um appreciation week so this year was the Middle School's turn to appreciate you so did you have anything you wanted to say or I did but you took most of it I'm sorry go ahead you can you know what Brett you could say it again and again they should hear it several times well I'll Echo exactly what Andrew said and I've worked with most of you or your kids for the past six years and um you got a great group of kids and chadam is a great place to work um but you guys probably don't get the acknowledgement about all the stuff you guys do behind the scenes uh and in my little blurb wrote that you guys

045are at every event you're the biggest advocates for our students and our staff um and it doesn't ever get said publicly so this is just a small opportunity for us to thank each and every one of you guys so from the bottom of my heart I do appreciate all of you and thank you for what you guys do um as a recognition gift um on behalf of the Middle School staff and students uh the treats that we have baked here we have homemade baked goods for all of you guys um that were baked and packaged by the perky Panthers uh and Miss Thorson's class um along with Mrs Welsh's help we made these morning um and package them um so it's just a little token of our appreciation so thank you for everything that you

046guys do let's give our Board of Education a round of [Applause] applause all right so now now I get to go to the other stuff so I have a couple presentations that I'm going to share with the board let's let's do football first all right so a lot of this I reviewed last time I'm just using the same document and I'm going to just continue to add to it as we go for throughout this journey of of looking in chadam football and the future of chadam football so I know many of in the audience weren't here so I'm just going to do a quick overview of everything um and then we'll get to some of the stuff that we worked on since our last meeting so um the the first part is our numbers um

047as you can see if we look if we look early on our numbers are much lower um in our younger grades right so uh this is this is another reason we need to look in the future of football um because as you look our numbers are are continuing to decrease a little bit so um last time we talked about football considerations and I just kind of gave some data to the board um that football numbers you must have a minimum of 16 suited players that are able to play the ideal number is 25 to 30 it's even better to have close to 40 this allows students to get adequate breaks focus on a position and could keep us competitive even with injuries our chadam football team has really had quite a few injuries lately um

048and and some struggles with those injuries of not being able to even continue some of our games um so so 16 is a minimum because there's all in football there's always injured players so we also want we talked about grades at the modified level um there's seven and nine not all seventh graders are ready to play in games especially those that haven't played football before grades at the varsity level are usually grades 10 to 12 occasionally a ninth grader can play but that's not typical it's often unsafe for a ninth grader um to play on a VAR City team because they're playing against seniors who are obviously much bigger than them so scrolling down um these are our numbers starting in 22 to to 20 to our current year so um in 22 23 and

049modified we had 18 then we went to 20 and then we had 23 this year um Varsity our numbers are 27 31 and 26 so those are our total participation you know through the year so as you can see they kind of been sort of consistent um but we're finding through these three years when injuries are hitting um it's it's really hard to to maintain a team so then I then I had a chart there that said current football numbers by grade so seventh grade um we currently have eight students that are playing modified eighth grade six students ninth grade nine students playing modified all of our nth graders are in modified this year a couple nth graders are playing up when needed 10th grade we have students in Varsity 11th grade seven and 12th

050grade 12 so that number of 12 sen of seniors graduating is a little worrisome for our numbers so looking at 2526 these are all very very um tentative estimated numbers um when it comes to Varsity we're looking at possibly 23 um in modified right now what we had there was 16 if you go down a little bit this is some new things that I that we were able to discuss discover so our athletic director went through um with all of the current sixth graders and asked them who here is interested in all and possibly playing football next year we had six to eight students that were possibly yes one of one or two of those were maybe so it looks like if you kind of took that it looks like maybe six players so that

051would bring us to about 20 players next year um for our modified team which again as we've learned through injuries is cutting it really close so if we keep going down from my list some other information from last time um what we did is we we reached out to our to our [Music] friends at Pop Warner and we kind of we took a little um did a little overview of all their students now Pop Warner here locally has students from all different um communities that play football so we needed to figure out who actually living within the chadam central school district so the flag team which is our agent 5 to S three students are chatam students in the 9u which is ages s to n seven are chatam students and in 12u which is

052ages 10 to 12 12 are chatam students now there's no guarantee that all those students will continue to play in high school because they'll have other options too um if you know maybe they're also a soccer student as well so we we had a discussion last time um the board was looking for that other information um and then we had a discussion deciding to reach out to our area districts to see if anyone had any interest in possibly merging for football so I um reached out to the following school districts I reached out to New Lebanon skodak Hudson iaba crane tonic Hills in Germantown the um the the districts some did not get back to me others did get back to me the two that said yes right away and showed a great deal of

053interest is iaba crane into T conic Hills so at this point we were just truly asking um are you interested Ed and those two districts said yes they are we haven't gone any further than that um I said I I we needed to get all the information and decide how we're moving forward so um the next the next thing that that I would recommend to the board is and I want to talk a little bit about this I've had some experience merging teams um when I was a superintendent in New Lebanon um we merged with Berlin and there's ups and downs in that but one thing I can tell you and from what after talking to many people in here in chadam we have to make sure if we move forward with this it has

054to really be a 5050 relationship um and I'm I'm going to call these non-negotiables you know and and and this is just my recommendation to the board and to the community a non-negotiable in my eye would mean that everything has to be split 50/50 so that means our location um the amount of games that every Community has um we would have to split the team 50/50 meaning I don't think this community would support if we just went to another community and were called we joined let's say tonic Hills and we were still called the tonic Hills football team there would have to be a true full 5050 merger with a new combination of a name with a New Jersey and we truly would share everything we would share the cost 5050 we would share the

055transportation 5050 we would share the coaches 5050 it would have to really be a 50-50 relationship now I don't know if iaba ionic here um if they're interested in that type of a of a partnership and that's something that we'll have to um really look into next time if we decide to move on to a possible merger now last time we talked about we really have three options here option option one would be can continue with the numbers that we have okay and continue to try to continue to have a program option two is to say that okay we don't have enough students to continue um a a football program here in chadam and option three would be we do a merger to try to build our program the other part of the merger that

056I would say would be a non-negotiable would that we would be able to develop three teams so if we if we added with another District the positive of it and somebody that has a son in football and have you know has followed football is if you have three levels of a sport in football it really builds the program so right now we only have numbers for modified in our VAR City if we merge with another program another non-negotiable would be that we would have a modified program a JV program and a varsity program and that would build our students up by the time they got to Varsity so that would be another thing that if we decide to move forward um we could do that so that is kind of what I mean by non-negotiables

057um so I want to open it up for the board to kind of share any thoughts that you have anything else you want me to research anything else we want to do um as we move forward with this discussion of the future of football in chat if we did merge with another school who makes the decision of which um class we're in class C Class D uh we're we're right now we're traveling up to up above Lake George which something that's been new in the last two three years yeah the the section decides that based on the numbers of players yes yes we don't we don't really decide that we based upon the number of players that we have and do you know um I a community me member called me this week and ask

058me how come we're in the section we're in is it does it have to do with the number of male students in our high school does anybody know that re I I don't know that off hand I don't know I know it has to do with numbers I believe it's the N there's it's like a formula of the numbers playing and the numbers of available students students we have yeah there is a formula to it when it comes to the J question yeah I can write that down in ask JB say say your question one more time Uriel just to um um so I get it all how we used to be a Class C now we're a Class D I believe and when we change that um I want to know why is it

059is it because we have fewer male students in our high school available to play does it have to do with numbers of male students huh you first asked about the section you're actually asking about the class correct because section two the sections go by location right right yeah yeah yeah okay so you're asking about the class yeah okay but correct yeah yeah I think you're correct in that at one time it was the formula was based on number of male students that may have changed and if so I don't know that and it's a good question but that information didn't come just out of here I'll get information on that oh you share yeah if you know it go ahead New York stetes based on the number of your enrs usually it's you have kids

060they DET half % male but based on that in New York state triaa is enrollments of roughly 1100 a is 111 to 14 141 ab and C schools um have 111 to 141 and D schools have 80 to 1003 so the classifications are based on our enrollment and it changes on a JB can give you a more technical on that but that's roughly how it's how it's detered and sports some sports JB have specifics but that's roughly it is partially based on the number of males and females for the female sports as well but JB can give you more um so I have a question for the non-negotiables when you say it's 5050 will that also be so let's say because we're basically forming a whole new team right and I assume you have to

061try out for this team right so let's say we share a coach we decide on this coach and um I don't know if he'll be employed by chadam I don't know if he'll be employed by another District I don't know if he'll be a new hire how that work okay and so the kids go and they try out and he's decided we're going to have a 40 person team our 20 spots for chadam and 20 spots for the other one or is it could there be a chance that nobody from chadam makes the team it's a great question and those are all things we would have to work out with the other school district I could tell you just from experience what we did um when we first this is when I worked in in

062um New Lebanon um as their superintendent so we made a decision that both schools were because we wanted it to be fair and equal both schools sent a coach a head coach and it was considered a co-coach so there was a representative from every single district and that's how we started it so so chadam would hire a coach they would hire a coach and they would be co- coaches and have to work together now as time went on and we started to really figure our things out that didn't always happen that way as years went on so by the fourth year a lot of the teams only ended up having one coach and we split salary of that in half is what we did and the other thing that gets tricky um when you get

063into a merger is that um contractual obligations are different um and the C and the and the salaries are different so what we decided to do because we could not negotiate um between both districts the same number to pay the coaches so what we did is we said we're going to take the total of both coaches and whatever their contractual obligation is and divide it in half and that would be how we would do it it was truly a 5050 share of everything thing okay so that's how we started that's how I would recommend that we start so chadam is represented equally um and the other thing I if we move forward and one of the districts agree I I worked with our attorneys so the superintendent the athletic director of both districts and the

064um the district's attorney sat down and we wrote everything out in in paper so it was all in writing it was a legal contract that we had to follow um that was all because hand Shack a handshake agreement just is not it has to be really really detailed and really really specific so that's what I mean by by 5050 truly everything is split um but I would recommend for that purpose to have a representative coach from from both districts okay and then um just the next steps yeah in investigating this like how do you go forward do you do you sit down with each of the superintendents and have a list where you're like okay what does this look like with you and what does this look like with you so that we can see

065correct so what I would say the next step would be to go to the if this is something the board wants me to continue to explore um tell them we're not making a decision right now um this is what we are looking for we're looking for a 50-50 split and I would have a list of ideas and to see if they're even willing you know to move forward on that one of the districts might say um no you know that's not what we were looking for right and then then one of the districts might you know both might say okay we're we're you know I could tell you both districts were quite interested um they have very similar situations going on as we do so so then from there then um we would just make

066sure that they're interested in the 5050 I would then report back you know with an update on that um and then we would have to start really looking at very specific details about what is going to work best for the district what's going to be fiscally be most responsible that's when we'll start pricing everything um we're going to have to look at numbers we're going to have to look at location and really look to see what would be the best option for the district Okay so I mean I guess I just want to say as a member you know I do feel confident in your process and that you will thoroughly bet this apprciate um I know there was confusion I wasn't here on the board last January and um so yeah I think what

067I'm really looking forward is I think you'll you'll research this well and then just your recommendation on what to go forward I think we can trust you in that I appreciate it and the other thing that I'm doing because I I I need to get feedback of the community so I already I have a meeting set up with all of our coaches coming up on the 25th to really get their perspective and their thoughts on this because they have to be a key player we'll be doing a um a student meeting as well um you know as we're going throughout this um and and then I also want to do a parent meeting as well to get their perspective as well all right so those are the other three pieces that will be interweaved in

068all of this work I'd like to say I really appreciate the transparency of what we're doing here as I said the last time we recognize the significance that football has had in the history of ad them and when you look at that number that's ideal it's really more than ideal it's what's safe and that's what we want but for most kids they want to play I just read in the paper tonight the Kaki Athens combined with tonic Hills in order to do an eight-man football team because the kids wanted to play we want you the students to have what you need recognizing that you want to be safe too you have other things in your life other than just football you don't want to go out do and get hurt but you want to be

069able to participate so a merger sounds scary and there's a lot to it but I think Mr court has really outlined what the process is going to be and we want to listen to you as um AR said earlier we want student voice as well as our voices and adult voices so thank you and uh we'll go forward and we'll do the very best we can did you say they merged with the kind Hills or did you they are played with jonic hills for eight man football just recently playing against each other okay I'm sorry that's you made me ner because they're on my I got nervous too I was nervous however if they did that's that's the thing and that's the other thing that I'm a little worried about you know we have to

070move ahead on this before another District swipes a partner right so this has to be something that we have to work on because that could happen yes that could happen thank you merge was absolutely the wrong word in the context and and when you were in Lebanon and and you merged is it done a sport at a time so I was in New Lebanon 10 years and that's how it started a sport at a time but our numbers you did soccer up there right yeah we started with swimming we started with swimming um but it was kind of it was a year-by-year basis depending on the need and then it just kept on being more and more Sports and then they made the decision in about 2019 um to do a full merger um so

071so so I wasn't superintendent I was superintendent for the full merger I was a principal for when they were doing one sport at a time but I could tell you new lebanon's numbers are you know are smaller than chadam so I I don't want anyone to think we're looking for a full merger that is not in the even in the discussion um you know we're we're certainly looking at football right now that's the biggest need but we could see how this goes and if that's something that comes up you know it it's it this is a this is a discussion for many districts right now can I just ask you said they so they reduced the number of size so there's only eight players yeah that that is what's happening in some communities do we

072play what do we play 11 11 sorry I am clearly not the football person that's just how they're finishing this season they wanted to be able to finish season so they came together they and they played each other there are there are some districts that started with that as an option but here's the issue you have to the only way you could play an eight man man team if there's another eight man team and this year I could tell you there were I think two only and they only could play each other right so it there was not much of a season so um there really wasn't an option because there's not enough um teams to play so there was really no competition but it sounds like they did it as an emergency um to

073do that just to finish it out thank you for that okay Andrew so what do you need from the board you need us to say so you know the thing is it's an update I know we talked and you said you really I will be giving you you um my recommendation right as we go through this process um and I really appreciate the board's support um what I would like to do is tomorrow reach out to those two districts set up meetings with JB and I and their superintendent and start looking at all of those what I just described to as non-negotiables and see if they're willing to work that out and then I'll bring that data back um share with you you know in the mean time I'll be scheduling all those meetings with

074our stakeholders and then I will present the board with a recommend and that seems agreeable the board all I support that process we are all in support absolutely I promise I will keep you updated throughout the entire process but again I there's a little bit of urgency because I want to make sure we don't miss out on a partnership great thank you okay so now I have another presentation so as I discussed with the board when I first came on I'm in I'm in about week eight week seven I think at this point but what I told you I would do is I would go back to last year's data and do a little presentation for you so I didn't get too deep into the data from last year and this is a presentation with

075only the data from grades kindergarten through 8th grade all right I didn't want to add the the high school yet at this point um just because I thought that would get a little bit too complicated so this this presentation is mostly with I ready so this is I ready data that I felt was really important to make sure the board clearly understands so I'm just going to do a little overview of what I ready is I ready is a webbased adaptive which is difficulty if questions adjust to each student's ability level diagnostic which means identify strengths and weaknesses in reading and Mathematics so it's a diagnostic tool so how it works is our students um are given this assessment in grades K to8 the elementary school is given twice a year beginning and end and

076I have that data to share with you Middle School three times a year beginning middle and end and I'll share that with you um there's one data point but this allows us to compare Norms um and Norm or anyone else that uses um the I ready tool throughout um the country so it tells us where our students are in comparison um and it also assesses our student progress but it's only one data point that we have it helps determines if students need extra support um which we call AIS or RTI it's only again one tool um that does that and as we talked about at our last board meeting we're going to be really looking at our AIS RTI program um that Mr bordell is going to be looking at to really review our procedures

077and our process if a student is not not making progress with AIS or RTI support we may have to look into special education supports and that's why it's really important to have a real clear procedure when it comes to AIS at RTI also if a student is above average the teacher knows to challenge the student um and then it helps assess the progress as a district the progress that we're making so when it comes to this there's two different parts di ready there is this diagnostic tool which we give two to three times a year and then the the classroom teachers are then using based on what they found out um to get to supplement some of the reading it's not the reading program but it's another way for kids to practice their reading skills

078so there's two different pieces to this program so I'm going to kind of share with you some numbers so we're going to start with the LA now what I try to do is I try to show a cohort on every page okay this is kind there's many ways I could have shown this information and I can share others as we go especially with this year um but what I wanted to do is I wanted to show you where our current second graders are okay so so again we're not doing current data we're going to do a presentation for current data after we have a couple more data points um so this is this is past data that I'm just kind of showing you where we're at so um in 2223 our kindergarteners um in ela

079um we had when they started in September they were 20% on or above at reading level and again just to review that how this assessment works it starts a kindergartener at the normal kindergarten level and then it's kind of a you know it's it's AI actually it's AI this is exactly what it is it's an AI tool that will actually then based on the questions that they answer is going to figure out where the kids kid is at so it's either going to go up ahead of kindergarten or down below kindergarten right so when our when our kindergartners took this test in 2223 20% were honor above grade level then when they got to um 2223 79% were on or above grade level then when these students were in first grade last year um they

080did it again and and again now they're getting a test at a first grade level so it's not going to where they left off it's going to right at that first grade level and then again the AI tool and I ready is predicting where they're at by by either going up or going down um 22% we're on or above and 69% in June were onor above um so so what that means is above um and then if you look at that number underneath that shows the above um that were above the first grade reading level so 34% of our students were above the level then we look at this year now I I don't have the data yet from this year because we're still collecting data points but you'll get that when we when we

081do this so I wanted you to see uh what that means with these kids so we these kids are now currently grade two they're currently in second grade TW there are 55 students right now in the fifth grade cohort 26 of them are receiving RTI support eight of them are receiving special ed support so you could see that RTI support means that they're reading below grade level what we're going to be doing is we're going to be looking really close at those numbers um when Terry comes on and he's going to be really assessing exactly how you qualify for RTI and the goal of RTI is that they're not in there forever the goal is is that they should be able to show progress and then not get that support right so that way you

082can hone in on the kids that really really are low low on that support level so you call it a tier system so we're really going to be focusing and honing in on that tier system and and having the ability to move our kids up and down the tiers based upon their need okay so that is our first cohort that I wanted to share with you we're gonna keep going so you you'll see this is our current third grade cohort here in chadam um if you I'm not I don't have to read each number with you but you can kind of see you know this group started a little bit low in 22 23 and you know 46 by June you could see where they we're at by grade two 59% were're onor above grade

083above and then you can see um the support that this current third grade group out of 58 students again 28 are in RTI and 17 are getting special ed support and that specialed support is many many different things right um and the RTI support is either Ela or math I didn't decipher it between who's getting Ela and math we can hone in on that a little bit deeper as we as we go our next cohort we have a grade two this is where they were at where they were when they were in grade three last year and how many of those kids are receiving support as you could see here in chadam our RTI numbers are are pretty high right our goal is to get those down our goal is to get those down we

084want our kids reading at level and we want to make sure when you're doing RTI the more support you can give the kids are struggling the most so the ones that are really needing that that top tier intervention you want to give them a whole lot of intervention to hopefully give them everything they need and we want to make sure that we're letting our kids that maybe don't need as much intervention we're letting them get some intervention in their classroom so we can hone in on those kidss because the goal is to keep as many of our students out of out of needing special ed support as possible that's always the ultimate goal in the RTI group and the special ed group have to really really work together right because you need our special ed

085Department to say all right we you tried this and you tried this and you tried this and you tried this and it still didn't work okay maybe they need support but RTI has to try a lot of things in order for them to move forward right I don't want to put you on the spot is there anything I know you and I have talked a lot about that I know we're speaking each other's Lang anything about the RTI that you wanted to mention as you're thinking as we're talking through this I was thinking about the direct link between the two and there is a really tight overlap uh the goal is you're saying to bring down the amount of students in RTI and then we would also have fewer in special education uh before we

086get to a referral for a student in special education ideally they've been through all three tiers of RTI which the tier one two and three uh tier three RTI is the most intensive RTI where the students are really very close to getting special education services as a non-classified student at that point in time if they are not making the gains they need uh then we get that referral to the committee on special education and look at it by the time it gets to that point our CSC meeting should be very smooth and clear that we we know if there's a learning disability or something else that's directly impacting ing the students learning at that point uh so there very is very strong link between the RTI system and special education system and it's a good

087link really uh RTI goes back in special education I'd say close to 20 years prior to that there was something called a discrepancy model where we gave students IQ tests and then if their achievement wasn't equal to their cognitive ability we classified them uh that went away which is a good thing that was a proven model that was research show never worked and we were stuck with it for a long time RTI says are we teaching the way this child is learning so it's really on us to teach the child the right way to impact their learning that answer to yeah I just want to get before you retire I just want to get all of your knowledge out right I know I know can I just ask you a quick question yeah of course

088so when you say uh so like for grade four um there's 49 kids corre and there's 27 that are receiving RT support correct so like had they been receiving they're just receiving the RTI support in fourth grade or they have been receiving the RTI support since kindergarten so hopefully not hopefully not because the goal is you should be assessing them and re-evaluating every I know when IAL if any of you principles want to jump in Kristen if you want to jump in I know Kristen and I talked is the goal is is that that number is going to go down throughout the year right okay so I don't have the numbers how many were all the way through some could have been picked up this year some could have been on for a while um

089and that's what the goal of RTI is doing is you're really honing in on every kid individually you know to see what they need at that time but the goal is our job as Educators in public education is to provide the most res the least restrictive environment possible and that means the goal is is is not to have kids need extra support right not special ed support not RTI support So by by by giving them too much support we're not providing them the least restrictive so we have to really make that criteria so we know what kids are are are really qualifying for that so that number is just fluid through that number fluid should be ideally extremely fluid so you might hit a skill that a student is struggling with so at that point

090in time you're working on consonant Blends a child's struggling with consonant Blends and they need some extra help so we provide that RTA support on consonant Blends when they catch up they can leave RTI ideally once a student enters RTI they should not be in it correct they learned that skill so the numbers change throughout the year and tier one RTI is done in the classroom by the general education teachers so that is just varying levels of support the child might be receiving they meet that skill they don't need it anymore uh other students struggling with multiple skills they get so they switch out so that's why in June of 24 there's 62% at or above grade level but then beginning of 2020 or 20 24 to 20 2 we have more than half are

091now receiving correct at this moment are can I let me explain that so one of the things that happens is because we're in September and October we have long break of June and July and a lot of kids just regress that's just a natural normal so actually we take our tests three times a year and so what will happen is when we do our assessment or actually the student just needs a little pressure they may start the RTI process they might be in a tier two or tier three intervention class for a month two months and then all of a sudden they're like I remember this and then they get and it's very fluid so the numbers that Andrew has are the numbers right now those numbers May drastically drop in um January when we

092do our our second assessment sometimes they increase depending on what the grade level is um but we typically see in primary grades this kind of regression over the summer it doesn't happen as much in the four or five four and five but it does in K12 so the K1 two three are usually SE okay thank you and the goal is and that's why you have to have really good procedures and processes because you need to be analyzing that constantly you know and and that's why it's good to have somebody overseeing the whole RTI process and that's why I put Terry in that role that's gonna be a big part of his job um to really work with the RTI teachers he's supervising them and in conjunction with the principles of having those conversations so we

093can be looking at this data constantly and getting kids what they need thank you all right I'm just going to keep going through these I I'll move a little quicker as we go because you're going to see all the cohorts but here we go um this is this is our current grade five um and you could see the numbers with ourti support are up and down depending on the grade and depending on the cohort um so just give this a second everyone to look at here's our next cohort this is our current sixth graders I know where were they were at 18% of them were reading above grade level in the end of June last year and I apologize I didn't put the June or the January numbers on here but you're good okay you'll

094see the Middle School ones on here though but right I'm G to keep going all the way so this is our five this was our current seventh graders and this is a big special education cohort 22 students but the number of students is more now as you go throughout you'll see the the grade levels are are larger in the Middle School than they on the elementary school and this is our current eighth grade cohort look like I'm missing their sixth grade numbers from 22 I must have forgot to add those any questions on Ela so we're going to transition over to math oh no never mind we have one more cohort these are our current nth graders which I don't have nth grade data yet but we'll get we'll get that to you but these

095are our current nth graders now in ninth grade they don't do um I ready it's the product isn't available and we're going to be looking at um you know one of our goals is to find what other things are available in the high school that we can collect additional data on um that's something we're going to continue to do now we're going to transition to math so it's the same format here so this is our current second grade support our current third graders in math 25% are doing math above grade level the nice thing with the program it's not just about who's reading below it's about who's doing above so we can look at all pieces of it a current grade four in math current grade five students in math current grade six now as

096we go because we're going to be continuing to share data you know what what we want to look for as we go throughout the years is the numbers of RTI support and the special ed support lowering that's the goal that's our job as Educators the nice thing with RTI when you have small groups the best RTI groups are really small so that way you can really interview with you know one to three kids at a time the higher the kids need support that really individual intervention is key um to that kid success so you want to keep those numbers small because again it should be quick and it shouldn't be continuous forever and here's our current eighth grade cohort and this is our current ninth grade so I know this is a lot to look

097at now so what I would you know what I would recommend the board does is just really review the data a little bit see what you notice um as we go and these are just next steps that I wanted to talk to you about what you know after being here a couple weeks what I really am hoping to be able to accomplish um the district adopted a new Ela curriculum during the 2324 school year called cka I think everyone's familiar with that it's a real phonics Focus I'm really curious what the data is going to look like now that the kids are really working on some of these these these um numbers right and that's going to assess that program um so a lot of what you saw in here was not really and when

098you start a program it takes time to really get into it so um you don't really see results for a couple years so this will really be a big thing we want to look at to make sure this program is working for our kids and um the I ready data is a really good way to do that um we are what I'm in the Pro you know after looking at this data I I really just made a decision already that we're going to really do a full review of our RTI AIS program um our procedures and our process and we put some more leadership into that role as well um so that's a big piece of this you know that I learned from the data that we're going to continue to look at that and

099make sure we're really working and honing in on giving our teacher support um our RTI teachers and also our classroom teacher support too because um I know in the and I forget what it's called what is your block called for your with so that's one thing I know Kristen has a big goal this year of working with their teachers to make sure that they're providing intervention during that Wind Block because that's where the tier one RTI support is happening that extra um reading and math intervention with the goal of trying to make sure those kids aren't needing the RTI support or needing the special ed support so I know that's you know Chris and I have talked a lot about that that's one of her goals and that's also part of the RTI AIS process

100um December 10th just so you know know what's coming up um December 10th we're going to give you a we're going to present on the 2324 New York State D testing data so that'll be really great to compare the state testing with the information that you just saw the reason we can't do it earlier is because it's in Lim it's in embargo still right now they found some errors in it so it's not totally released yet so I can't present that yet to you and it hasn't been released yet um to our to our families yet either because there's still issues with it's pretty crazy it takes it takes until November to get that information but we're waiting patiently but by December 10th we will do a presentation I'm going to have somebody from Questar

101come in and do that for you because they um they we work with them those data analysts so they will be presenting to you on that data we'll also be presenting um they're going to be presenting in a couple weeks to the administrators I'm having them do a presentation and then we're going to do a similar presentation to our teachers as well of all of our state tested togethera so three of those presentations coming up um February 25th that's when the principals are going to present all of the updated information on I for the 2425 school year and also um miles is going to be presenting information from the high school as well information that he has available so that will be coming as well on February 25th reason we wait for February 25th is

102because the midyear assessments will be done by then all right so that's when we're when that will happen we'll present again in June at the end of the year so then you'll see once all that end of the year data you'll have another so then we'll have all these different data points to be reviewing and keeping track of all all of all of our assessments that we're using and as we go and as we have need we'll be adding hopefully more assessments that we can share with you as well um the high school is collecting inhouse data points that way you we can share that with you as well the other thing are in math um they did a little bit of an update to the program Kristen remind me the name of that update

103that you so what's it so it's updated and and has better results so that will also show in our data too with those updates and changes to the curriculum could be that was a theme of the superintendent it was a big theme of the superintendent um work any questions on what I presented to you I think this was laid out great and I appreciate how you did the next steps too so can see the continuity with the process I think that really feel very informed right now good happy to do yeah happy I know there was you know it's funny so I I had I was presenting it one way and then I when I was in the city um when we were at our conference I changed all of it so I kept going

104back and forth to try to figure out all right what's the best way to do it it's just my it's my craziness in me but Andrew did I hear you say that we are going to be looking at the high school data but also looking at it in terms of what we might do there in order to help students who are entering the high school not reading anywhere near their grade level correct because it's a hardship for teachers and for students to encounter them so I know there's programs that are used in other districts that are have entrance and exit criteria which is absolutely what you need as RTI does uh special education becomes a little more difficult because once a student is identified you really as you modify IPS you still have to take

105all other things into account so we are going to be looking at a program or something that will assist our currently we don't have a program that does that but that is our goal to be looking at different programs and seeing what what tools we can use um to give us some more data points for the high school age students thank you yes one last thing I just wanted to mention um during this meeting was was our Spanish position at the middle school so so I know we mentioned a little bit last last week I talked a lot about the um the science positions that that we were struggling with I'm happy to say they're all filled at this point um and we are hearing of of possible maybe some people certified that have reached

106out to us um for maybe in the future of those positions um in science that maybe we can find a certified person so better you know I'm happy with that but Spanish we still haven't found anybody certified um for that position so it's been a real real struggle um so we're looking at options right now and the and the option that that we came up with and we we talked to our um colleagues out a Questar they have um something called a virtual option um that they could find a teacher who doesn't live in our region um that is certified that could present virtually to our students and what that would look like that would have we would have a teacher assistant dedicated into that classroom to help with all the management and to help

107with all the individual you know aspects but that teacher would be responsible on a screen um for all the teaching and all the assessment and all the you know the other pieces of it but they would rely heavily on that teacher assistant in there as well to really do that so that is what we're looking at currently but I wanted to just kind of talk to you about some of the other things of what our Spanish um what our Spanish looks like at the at the and what this would look like at the middle school so there are currently um this would be for seventh grade Spanish what we did we had we had a a teacher that left um just last week that used to teach eth grade Spanish so what we did is

108we moved Mr um Mr mcmanis to the eighth grade section and he's teaching one of the four seventh grade sections and he also teaches a sixth set already because he has an enl block that he teaches enl students so he is completely filled it's a capacity what I what we were able to do with Mr um mcmanis is what what I did and I worked with the Union to do this is to have him um plan for the substitute teacher because right now we have a different person subbing in there every day we are unable to find even a non-certified person that would take that on we only have a day-to-day person um Brett has reached out to all of his contacts um and he has not had any Lu he called out retired teachers

109he's called people that went on leaves he's called of the the the only thing we could do we might have somebody that's non-certified non-spanish speaking that could maybe do it for most of November if we wanted to but right now what's happening with that day-to-day position is our seventh grade teacher is is getting paid a couple hours a week to do plans for each class which is not ideal not ideal because it's you know it's plans but they are they are from the plans are from a certified teacher so so what that means is we have three sections of seventh grade that we don't have consistently okay so um trying to think what else we have here um so if we you know so we have really two options here we keep doing day-to-day different

110person every day with Mr mcmanis teaching while we keep looking for a Spanish teacher or we move forward on this virtual teacher now there is a time limit on this virtual teacher because this person is currently working somewhere else and they have to give their notice to their other employer and we need to sign a contract and the contract would be for the entire school year so we would be committed to this for the entire school year if we sign the contract I did not sign the contract yet because I just wanted to bring this up at the board meeting to get any of the board's opinion because the worst thing that could happen we sign the contract um what I would do when we are looking at the contract I would have our attorney

111look at it to see if there's any way out of the contract um I would have to look into Logistics of that if it wasn't working out um but we certainly would you know we would certainly do that but right now we have to move forward because we're not finding any other options at this moment I know it's not ideal it's not what we want to do here in chadam is to have to rely on this virtual but at this moment I don't know other options other than having a day-to-day person be doing this anyone have any comments or thoughts um as far why are we we we don't have any more long-term Subs is that why we're doing day-to-day is that I understand correct we can't find anyone that can do it consistently so

112it's a different person every day like a so we have yeah so they a lot of our subs maybe could work one or two or three days a week right A lot of them are not available five days but it's but the long-term sub doesn't have to be certified it's not like or do they have to be certified no so well technically yes they should be but we have a lot of positions unfortunately in this day and age in every school that aren't certified but we can't even find a consistent non-certified typ person to do it okay and then the other question is so three sections of seventh graders what does that equate to like how many students do you know is that like 20 per class or is that like so about 50 total

113students okay and then are I assume I don't know does Mr McManus have like office hours I know a lot of like the Middle School teachers if you're struggling in a subject say right well would the so with the virtual person be available for anyone like do they provide like a support system if there's any students that are usually I've worked with a couple of these programs before and usually yes um did you have a I know Brett has been in conversation with them have they mentioned anything about that option yeah she could we we could request that for sure that there's that Avenue yeah I guess like as a parent too like I would be concerned with the virtual aspect but if you know if they're able to get it okay but do we

114have like any in school we have any do we have any ways to butress that's a great question program I guess is what so so when a kid is struggling how are we going to how are we going to provide intervention yeah I think we all agree that virtual learning would be our last Choice which it appears that we are at our last choice but for the students who struggle with online learning I feel it's very important that we have to have a support system for them because the children that had Mr mcmanis and have been doing very well are now flipping to a new way of learning and if they strugle how do we address that that's a great question so I will make sure that that is um part of the conversation that

115we have an Avenue either from that virtual teacher or or from another Spanish teacher and figuring out a process that we can make sure that happens not it's not usually specialized tutoring you know I think we could I think we would have better luck plan doing something in house with that than having Quest or do a tutoring thing so I just wanted to kind of give information on that um you know I I I don't I don't know if there's any other way at this point you know we I think the kids need someone consistent is a it is a certified teacher you know I looked at her resume um she has some good experience teaching languages a few different languages as well um and is really excited about the opportunity R do you know

116if she's done virtual learning before I know she is this something yeah yeah yeah yeah okay all right I just wanted to keep you updated on that okay that's all I have all right Andrew so Mike's not here yeah Mike is sick today so he is not here so no skip the operational update so we'll go right to board committee reports okay so policy committee had their organizational meeting on October 9th we have two new community members this year um Mrs Gus who I think is here is she yes hi Mrs Gus and also um Ashley wle bird has joined us this year in our community seats um Maryann is The Other Board member on our committee um we Cruis through this meeting we uh set our dates so we'll be meeting once a month

117through March and we will schedule April and May if needed as needed [Music] um what else we do here our two main focuses the first one was the uh finding out where our status update is for the policy manual with nisba transferring it to the m nisba platform last year and over the last couple of years actually we've been transferring our policies from the the Yuri bosis platform to the nisba platform and we are in the final stages so um hopefully we'll have a a followup from nisba at the next board meeting that I will present but that will be one of the steps that we'll be looking into throughout the month the other big item that we had was we reviewed the updates to our Board of Education handbook regarding the strategic planning SE

118sections um so the superintendent and board relationship is needs to be successful for the district to be successful it's a very important part of what we do here um when s came on we had created a a handbook to help guide us and support all the different roles and we looked specifically at the establishing and maintaining a strategic plan section with Andrew to really make sure we're all on the same page and everybody's understands the lingo understands the process and is an agreement how we operate together um so the board I don't know if they were attached to the public agenda or not but um the board should have had the opportunity to review the three sections that were attached the first one was section 16 which is establishing and maintaining a strategic plan Mission

119Vision and goals and in that uh the main part that was updated was the timeline for the Strategic plan process and defining how that strategic plan process worked the second section was section 16.1 strategic planning process process mission and vision um in this we did not articulate it step by step as we do in the goal setting process we felt for future boards we would give guidance and then whatever future board actually tackles the mission and vision would need to put in place their own detailed processes but we set recommendations of how in general organizations go about setting their vision and Mission um the third section was section 16.2 strategic planning process District goals and in this one we also went over this one at the workshop and I made the Ed edits as noted

120by the board members this one is much more articulated to make sure that we are all on the same page and how the goal setting process go goes every year and for the district in general um so we have a really cohesive integrated working relationship um with the superintendent and the we go about this process um so for those three sections from board members was there any feedback in what you reviewed or questions comments things that you'd like me to take to policy Committee just on those three sections we'll start with everyone I just have a comment to say that um the reason why we are Rachel and the policy committee is doing this is because of the last couple of years we have identified gaps where things that people were assuming other people knew

121and then found out no they don't know this so we're looking for a continuity of plan so that everybody understands future boards that we're not here that they have this all written out clearly of how how this is done um we mainly this has been driven by a lot of the looking at each other going wait what you know I mean there was a lot of that so and and thankfully Rachel is great at like filling in those gaps those potholes and and making it a smoother path for future board members to understand what it is that we do and the role between the board and the superintendent and and how this is supposed to be done so I'm I'm really looking forward to having a nice clean copy on this a guide book a

122map I I also see this part of the training of new board members as well right so we will have an organized approach to when a new board member comes on of doing some training and this will be this will be a huge part of it is is reviewing this book with them and also in general I mean in 2017 when the other handbook was written we really just we thought we were articulating it clearly so it's uh you know it's interesting seven years later being back on the board being like no like we we wrote this map and then we didn't tell anybody where it was then and um I'm hoping that like this go around we make it much more clear and much more digestible and so if you have feedback um when

123we attach these drafts like let me know so that we can really address them and get clean drafts written so we have a nice handbook to adopt that everybody's feeling really confident in using for their own resources and understanding clearly yeah okay okay are we good to move on to the policy okay you're welome okay um we did address one policy during the meeting and it was policy uh 1510 which is the has a long title so I'm sorry I have to it's regular board meetings and rules Quorum and parliamentary procedure um there was one update that was recommended by our attorney to add and it um was under the public comment section okay here was on page three of4 of policy written of 1510 as written and um under public expression it is the

124fourth paragraph down after the first sentence we added due to the possibility of distractability or disruptiveness visual Andor audio AIDS are not allowed during the public comment period unless spe okay sorry due to the possibility of distractability or disruptiveness visual and or audio AIDS are not allowed during the public comment period unless specifically approved beforehand by the Board of Education um the policy committee discussed and we said we weren't even going to like edit it we we felt it was good we had a discussion of where to put it in the within the written policy as is and we decided under the public expression fourth paragraph would be the best place to insert it at this time and I believe I have my notes drafts but I believe the clean draft that was submitted to

125the agenda is the clean draft is the correct draft okay so that is so Muriel that's somebody showing video or sound Clips we would have to approve them ahead of someone someone presenting to us rather than we presting okay so are you good with the language does everybody feel confident in this first reading okay then um as long as we're confident we will have a second and final reading I believe at the next meeting yes okay um we also went over our next steps in the future agenda items we're going to be looking at other chapters in the handbook in policy committee this year and really making tighten it up making sure it's good and it's useful to everyone um we're going to finish this nisba transfer guys a seven-year project um other uh polic

126policies on our our docket to review our policy 76 or I'm Sor apologies policy 7316 policy 3271 and I will have to go through misa's fourth edition installation update and just really pull what our priorities this year that we have the capacity to tackle and get updated um and then if we have time we're also going to review the board's committee Charters so in uh may I believe April or May of 2020 we reduced ourselves from a nine member board to a seven member board um which has worked out great we've had a great efficient efficient working relationship however we never adjusted our Charters to meet seven member board from the nine member board so we're going to go each through each Charter and make sure that we are well balanced and have the capacity

127to really tackle the work that we want to work without spreading ourselves so okay I'm title um so Nikki brought to my attention actually she was in a class at nispa she went to the Title Nine uh class and they had said that as of August 1st of 2024 all of our title n should have been updated which we will have to review I believe we did because we uh we're using a lot of nisa's recommendations from their legal department when we went through last you know last spring and updated everything to transfer to their platform um but that is something that I will add to the Future agenda to make sure that we're in good order and compliance with that policy that's great just speaking of title 92 because there has been some Law

128changes where I'm scheduling a training for our ttle 9 coordinators and administrators um with our attorney so we can double check if there's anything else there too because they they did just update some of the Title Nine laws all right Rachel thank you very much okay so we're going to move on to consensus agenda R35 be it resolved that the Board of Education accept the consensus agenda K through L as written can I have a motion does anybody have any questions on these items okay all in favor I any opposed so moved all right so uh M are there any items anybody would like to add for future agenda okay now we'll move on to our second public comment is there anybody out there that's still with us would like to make a comment great

129there we go can you hear me um hi I'm Patty sanalo um for anyone who doesn't know me I um am a science teacher at the high school primarily chemistry and then whatever else needs to get filled as you know that that's quite a challenge um so I um I just wanted to um uh go on the record as saying um that the the data that was shown um about students uh being on grade level in um uh Ela um and math in Middle School grade eight was was uh was eye openening um I feel like a lot of us at the high school have felt like um you know the kids kids move on from eighth grade into nth grade in the high school and then they get to the high school and it's

130kind of syn swim um and there's a lot of sinking um and I think seeing that you know in a lot of those cases 50% or less of kids are on grade level for English and math going from 8th grade to n9th grade and we don't have that AIS or RTI or whatever it is support system at the high school um and yes we do you know we have concept concept classes in in ela um and we have you know lower level math but it's certainly we certainly don't have 50% of the kids not a grade level in those classes it's a small percentage so I'm concerned with how how many of those kids that are below grade level are slipping through the cracks and aren't getting um and aren't getting what they need um

131and it impacts us you know I'm a science teacher but they need to be able to read and do math um in my course so I think it impacts everything and I know um Miss mentioned um that they do want to look at uh getting assessment data in high school and look at how we could you know further that program but I think I think it's something that has been sorely needed and seeing those numbers it kind of makes sense as to um why that transition is so hard because they go from you know you know know we go from knowing that those those students are below grade level um and and they have the support for that um and then they come to high school and that all goes away um so I just

132want to I just want to get on the record that I think that that's a really really important thing to look at um uh so that so that that doesn't happen and so that more more students get uh get their needs met so thank you thank you anybody else have anything to add okay so um we don't have any need for an executive session tonight so so um can I have a motion oh yeah please I just want to say thank you Brett to for all these yummy goodies and thank you Andrew for Thanking us we really appreciate it can I just thank our students for being here today I really appreciate you guys being here and if you ever have any questions about anything that went on today that you're wondering about don't hesitate

133to come find me okay thank you for being here one thing there's any student who needs credit for their class you can come on up and sign in okay okay well let's do the adjournment first okay so we'll do the adjournment first quick let's do the adjournment quick second motion second all right all in favor any oppos so all right