001good evening everybody i'd like to uh remind everybody before i call this meeting to order that it is being recorded um we're going to start off with the pledge of allegiance all right okay if you look at the bottom right hand corner of the screen this is where our district-wide school safety plan has been posted for the last 30 days and i'm not going i'm going in between the live and the i'll stop sharing my screen for a second i probably shouldn't be doing both tech and and um the only uh change to this year's safety plan from the previous year was that there was a requirement that the plan include the pandemic operation the continuity of operations plan and so the board on march 23rd adopted that continuity of operations plan and now in
002the district safety plan there's reference to it so that's the is there anyone here would like to speak to or address the board on the public hearing portion of the district safety plan was there a hand up there's no one okay we have 14. if there's no comments on our safety plan uh entertain a motion to close the hearing motion second all in favor aye anybody opposed all right i'll uh call to the regular meeting uh can i get a motion to approve the present agenda second second any questions or comments all in favor all right entering into a public comment it's opportunity for the public to address the board once again uh this is being recorded anybody in the public have any comments see no hands board member comment anything new with the board
003members you got anything to comment on i had uh neat experience of the other day uh watching uh med uh moving up ceremony uh it was a drive through uh it was like a miniature uh graduation uh so that was pretty neat kids were pretty happy uh cars were decorated went real smooth so oh i have one go ahead matt i actually had the opportunity to um to be both at the uh the njhs induction um as well as the uh which is the national uh junior honors society as well as the eighth grade moving up society uh ceremony so much excitement there um i had a couple of children that were genuinely excited about a school activity it's been a really long time um since i felt that for my school children so i
004know it's some of this is end of the year but i also think um you know creating an event with community participation and recognition is a it's a big deal and i'm glad we were able to do that that's a lot everybody all set gonna move along well tonight's uh kind of uh i think i've been through one of these it's an exciting time um so long overdue but uh we're gonna honor a veteran william henry sillman with a diploma honorary diploma so we're gonna pause and bring their family out [Music] yep they were welcome come on in we're going to begin by reading the resolution yeah well thank you guys for coming uh it's an honor for this uh board to uh read this resolution r71 we resolved that whereas mr william henry silliman
005is a veteran of european african middle east war and world war ii whereas mr william henry silliman was unable to complete a secondary education and never received a high school diploma whereas miss kim suzuki granddaughter of mr william henry sullivan has submitted evidence of his service during 1943 to 1946 and receipt of an honorable discharge they're from and has affirmed he has he was a resident of new york state submitting mr sillman's death certificate and does not possess a high school diploma whereas miss kim suzuki granddaughter of mr william henry settlement has requested knowledge requested the chatham central school district award him a high school diploma based on his knowledge and experience gained well in service whereas the board of education of the district would like to recognize mr william henry silliman we resolve as
006fouls in recognition of mr william henry sullivan's service to the united states of america during chatham during 1943 to 1946 and in recognition of the knowledge and experience gained while in service the chatham central school district hereby bestows upon mr william henry silliman a local high school diploma congratulations to the family of mr william henry silman motion approve this emotion second all in favor oh yeah get that boy up front there thank you folks congratulations [Applause] there's a piercing microphone i'd just like to thank some folks here this is very nice and very emotional time for me and the rest of my family but on behalf of my family i'd like to thank the board of education superintendent dr deangelo the office of new york state senator daphne jordan columbia county veterans service department and
007a very special thanks to somebody who's been helping me all along um debbie potter and i just prepared a brief statement which i cannot read so i asked my daughter lauren to read if that's okay yes right absolutely i do okay so my grandfather william henry sullivan was born on december 18 1911 in old chatham the fourth child of lawrence and julia silliman he attended school in a one-room schoolhouse at ryder mills in old chatham until he was 15 years old and had never earned a school diploma it is not clear why he did not finish school although i can speculate it was because his father died when he was nine years old leaving his mother a young widow with five children in the 1930 census he was found to be living with his mother
008sister and brother of ma on locust street in chatham he was 19. they may have had to relocate due to financial difficulties my grandpa my grandfather signed up in the army when the united states entered world war ii he was a sergeant in the u.s army transportation corps second mrs railway grand division 741st railway operation battalion he worked on the railroad transporting supplies to allied troops in europe it was a dangerous job as the german access powers was successful at bombing rail cars and locomotives throughout germany and belgium killing many soldiers on the rail lines before he joined the army he married his first wife who passed away only a year after they were married in 1942. his mother passed away two years later in 1944 he seems like he could not catch a break
009luckily after the war he met my grandmother who was a friend of his sister lydia kitty and henry married and raised one child together and enjoyed spending time with their beautiful five grandchildren they lived on woodbridge avenue here in chatham for about 40 years in closing i want everyone to know that my grandfather held education in a very high regard he was interested in our local history in the chatham area and as a member of the chatham-american legion post 42 he made it possible for chatham high school graduates to receive scholarships through the legion organizations when we were kids going to school here at chatham he would always remind us how important it is to do well in school and finish because he did not have that opportunity today maybe he is looking down from
010above and is pleased with his long overdue diploma thank you very much it's an honor to give this diploma even though it's many years overdue so thank you thank you for coming out and uh enjoy i just want to get a picture i don't know if we got a picture of the actual diplomate okay [Music] thank you guys have a safe night okay uh that was pretty incredible um but i had the opportunity to be here next incredible thing is honoring our retirees they also have done an incredible job around here and uh we're going to miss them hand that over to sal so tonight's full of celebrations and this district would not be what it is without every employee but especially uh our teachers and um the other staff being recognized here tonight for
011their service so what i'd like to do is even though not everyone's with us i'd like to read the entire list perhaps there's some of you who are joining us online and then i'll read the years of service and when you are here if you wouldn't mind standing being recognized so the board um can see who you are put a name with a mask raymond pulsiver one of our cleaners two years with the district mary west a special education teacher 41 years with the district anita lasso a teaching assistant 17 years with the district karen southard network systems support 20 years with the district marie myano a food service helper four years with the district deborah roberts bus driver and a trainer 32 years with the district uh julie delile our public library director six
012years with the district lisa wink our teacher a teaching assistant 19 years with the district patrice tommaso art teacher 41 years with the district she started when she was seven years old here right behind her starting when he was nine jim flanagan our math and science uh computer science teacher 32 years with the district peggy myers food service worker 22 years with the district cecilia hederick an english teacher at the middle school 18 years with the district michelle dubai sacrifice english teacher at the middle school 19 years thank you michelle loretta cassidy uh in the guidance office here senior type is 24 years colleen dodge secretary i think she started when she was 11. that's 24 years with the district darlene english teacher 34 years the only thing we didn't add it up but it's
013it's well over a century so folks thank you so much um for all the years of service the students of um the chatham central school district uh you will be missed um and and so thank you we greatly appreciate your service yes let's do that of course and everybody on zoom okay speaking of honoring uh this this uh next one uh i wish they could made it here um but i'd like to uh honor our departed uh board members denise berry served us well for six years um she's gonna be missed she's got uh she's got her name on uh one of our goals uh we we worked we worked really hard uh i don't know we probably had an hour in and we were going all different directions and we glanced over at denise
014and she uh rattled off a simple sentence that just summed it up and we just all sat back down and it was amazing we're gonna miss you denise uh but you're not far enough away if we need you i still know your number don't change it and uh thank you very much we have uh i understand you were in and picked up a certificate and ted i want to thank you you're always our utility player you've been there for uh some community work for the school you served when we needed you on the board and once again i really thank you and i don't know if uh we're gonna have a we got a plaque for you um also so i'll hook up with you somewhere if you uh are attending on zoom uh any
015other board members have like make any comments to our board members that have served okay i just want to i want to thank you guys again um you're a great resource and you're staying in town so might hear from us again thank you superintendent's report thank you um craig so i'm gonna actually reverse the order i'm gonna start with uh item number two um first of all i want to um right a wrong um we got we got a little distracted uh last meeting um and we did not acknowledge like we did this evening um those folks receiving tenure in our district and that was a huge error on our part um i take responsibility for that so we're going to try to make up for it in one very small way and that is
016to make sure that tonight i read the names of those who so deserved receiving their tenure and my apologies to those of you here tonight with us and also um hopefully connected online so first and foremost um our uh our fearless middle school building leader mr burns receiving his tenure as a school administrator and supervisor we um might i i think sometimes we take um we take service for granted and uh you're always there to step up and serve this district in huge ways and uh although i i am grateful and appreciate you all the time up here sometimes it's nice to come through the lips so mike thank you for everything that you do i was going to say this in my other comments but i'll say it now um for those of you
017who either were at or uh perhaps online the eighth grade moving up ceremony was like no other in the history of chatham under mike's leadership we took it outside on our beautiful football field it was a gorgeous evening last friday night and just like we learned last year with high school graduation i think good bad or and different i think we have a new tradition and as long as the weather cooperates mike you and your team did a phenomenal job like said uh jackie and and those who helped you out it was just a phenomenal evening and it was a culminating event for a week that we started to get as matt mentioned back to normal with a couple uh junior and junior national honors site in honor society um and like i said when
018i spoke that evening it was surreal because we finally feel like things are just a little bit more normal than they have been the entire year mike thank you for your service it cannot go without um great recognition so thank you so the the other teachers i would like to i've reached out and personally congratulated as well um through email but i wanted to uh re at least read their names so the board could hear um the contributions that they've also made jonathan vince uh music teacher here at the high school has done a phenomenal job for us many of the um concerts and theatrical uh plays performances that have gone on under jonathan's um leadership we appreciate that jess decker a teacher a high school math teacher that switched over to ais at med
019passionate teacher helping us at the elementary level we really appreciate it our heather howard our preschool teacher at med kelly madsen teaching assistant we thank you theresa rossi another teacher who taught at med and then switched over to our self-contained class at the high school knocking out of the park as you know from some of the presentations doing doing a wonderful job with those young men and women in her class jessica simpleski english teacher here thank you jess and of course christina scott who came to us um three years ago um as you know teachers who have been previously tendered are only on a three-year track christina did an amazing job at med and now she is going to move over to the high school and take over the leadership there and take over for
020patrice who you met tonight and is retiring so folks i apologize for not sufficiently honoring you last week but please accept on behalf of myself and i i know the whole board heartfelt thank you for the hard work you put into receiving your tenure here in chatham and we hope you're here for a long time thank you okay so that's probably the exciting part so i did mention the national site the other thing uh to mention uh and craig both both the fifth grade moving up and the kindergarten graduation were drive-throughs and kristen thank you for your leadership last week at med those went out uh we had weather cooperated and they were really fun events if you'd like to see um there's some photographs on our facebook page you can check that out so
021thank you to the um to kristen and the entire staff at med specifically the fifth grade teachers the fifth grade team and the kindergarten team thank you okay i need to share my screen for the net next presentation and um dr root is going to help me a little bit with this one as well up close okay hopefully the viewers at home can see our screen we can see it here with the board so annually generally the last one of the june board meetings uh we typically kind of review the uh the goals the priority objectives and some of the action items um that we've accomplished in the year so that we can kind of set the stage for the next cycle in our strategic planning however this year like everything else covid kind of
022put a little bit of a wrinkle in our plans and what the board decided to do is to kind of modify the objectives in terms of adding the term mitigating uh the impact of covid on each of the goals and some of the objectives so tonight what i'd like to do is just um kind of do some like i've done in the past some highlights of the um of the four goals and priority objectives i've um we typically um i took taken them a little bit out of order tonight um i've put the um finance and the safety gold goal up front mainly because they're goals that we continually work on and we've done a nice job um and i think what you're going to see as we move forward in the coming months and
023coming here that these goals are are in good shape and we're going to start a little bit more laser focus on probably two of the more important goals not that fiscal stability and and um safety and security are not important but we actually have a lot of work ahead of us in terms of wellness both staff and student and academic academic success academic performance so um the first goal is a is our fiscal goal the goal as it reads is the district will ensure long-term fiscal stability by maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of resources we um by design have um three priority objectives under each main goal and i'm just going to quickly kind of reiterate that the three priority objectives that were somewhat carried over from the previous year were to complete the end
024of the capital project to ensure that we're always monitoring our our staffing to make sure that it adequately meets the programmatic needs but is also also fiscally responsible and to begin to explore what future capital projects may be needed so under selected highlights um you've heard this before um we'll put it to bed but all phases of the capital project were complete and under mr chudi's leadership um everything was submitted on time and under budget to the state education department and that project is now in our rear view mirror uh the district leadership team continues to monitor staffing requirements in all areas uh we have conversations on a somewhat regular basis both instructionally and non-instructionally instructional and non-instructional staff in terms of what we need to make sure that we our operations are not only
025efficient but effective and we have a plan in place for addressing staffing as which was a directive of the board so that we can ensure that if we are put under much stricter financial constraints we know how our stre how we will react in terms of our staffing uh the board approved a building condition survey to be completed were required by the education department to have that completed by the end of the year and submitted by next march the facilities committee will then convene and discuss the scope the results of that survey and the scope of any future capital project items we anticipate that that committee will begin to make a recommendation uh to the board by the end of the school year next school year to include um some oh there's a spelling error
026sorry about that pre-referendum planning and timeline first for a future project that would have to go to public vote so in terms of um and maybe i should pause at the end of each one real quick to see if there's any questions that you might have but this was our fiscal goal and a quick kind of um overview of the highlights and board members have any questions for sal at this point we're good okay so on to um you know we we um we put a lot of time and effort over the last several years um understandably with a lot of the school violence and school shootings that were going on to make sure that we were strengthening our school safety school security program we've worked with two entities we work with the questar iii
027health and safety service and we also work with a private consultant to help us that's their expertise to come in and do assessments and help us with some of the mandated and uh additional training that we provide staff to make sure that we can respond appropriately during an emergency so our priority objectives mitigate impact um mitigate impact of covid on campus safety and security enhance the security of district facilities foster a safe and supportive learning environment and develop and implement strategies to mitigate potential threats and form and educate all staff families community members and students on relevant strategies um so as you could well imagine this entire past school year um we have been um busy with mostly related to our coveted response and none of these bulleted items will seem unfamiliar to you but
028everything from having to work with our operations and maintenance to revise cleaning and disinfecting regimens we've had daily health screenings and temperature checks we've had the physically distanced students we've performed covid testing during high risk athletic programs and we've also had to do quite a bit of contact recent and quarantining under the um assistance of our school nurses who have been um really uh phenomenal we we complement a lot of different staff along the way but our school nurses uh were truly heroes uh this year as well uh we do annual staff training on co we did anno staff training on covid uh and and school safety protocols and uh we continual communication with staff and families uh during the entire um covid crisis to try to keep everybody transparently updated as the best we
029could um please recognize and um that a lot of times the information we were getting uh was uh late in coming to us and that we made decisions with with in the most timely and most efficient effective manner we could based on what was given to us and as a illustration of that a little note here i put on here as of the date of this presentation today june 22nd we have not received any guidance for the opening of school for 2122 from the state education department the new york state department of health or the governor's office so we still anxiously await what that will look like we're all cautiously optimistic and hopeful that things like physical distancing and other mitigation protocols from covid will be such that we can return mostly to normal for
030next school year but we're going to have to patiently wait until we have better directives from agencies that we um uh are responsible to all right on to um two goals that i'm going to ask dr rood to help me with um the first being our wellness goal the district will create a culture sorry the district will create a um culture and programs that promote intellectual physical and psychological well-being and um i'll just kind of go over the protocols or the priorities but then i'm going to turn it over to dr roo to kind of go over some of the things that we have been working on and we'll be working on throughout this school year so again to mitigate the impact of covett on student wellness we cannot take that lightly we all know
031both anecdotally and empirically that student and staff wellness is of serious concern i think we've all and including when i say staff i mean all of us district leadership building leadership uh instructional non-instructional it has been in no small stretch of the imagination a difficult year from a wellness perspective uh develop and implement uh reassess our wellness strategies reduce chronic absenteeism which was a goal set by the state we're gonna have to get back on track with that that was a challenge during this um school year in terms of remote full remote hybrid uh in-person learning and inform and educate all staff family and community members and students on those strategies so dr rudy do you want to just kind of highlight some of the things that you've been working on and that we'll be
032working on as a team this year sure so first thing i just want to explain is the compass target at the at the bottom compass is uh we're working with the university of albany um on continuous improvement and one of the the threads is co-constructing a humanizing school community so that ties i wanted to try to show some linkages um where they're appropriate so uh as you know um we've approved and um have we and we've not hired yet right that's in our agenda later correct our school psychologist um this is a tremendous opportunity for us right to have two school psychologists at the elementary level we're doing a tremendous amount of work this summer on tier one of social emotional learning i'm working hand-in-hand with uh brian to and our counselors and our school
033psychologists to define roles and protocols um is it in a this came out of our special education review but um definitely you can you can see the need for it everyone wants to help in and you know kind of chip in and help each other um but we do need some clear guidelines with that um one of the things is referral um entrance and exit criteria to some of our programs um we are working to get to team together um and really i'm looking at the building level here um to take action on cohort data so what you're probably more familiar with are child study teams where we look at individual students and look at differentiated supports for those students but we're going to start the work of looking at cohort data so we can
034start to look for patterns and trends and what's happening uh say with ninth graders or oh that's that type of work um sal mentioned there dr d'angelo mentioned this earlier that we're really focused um not just on the health and well-being of our students but we're acutely aware of our entire learning community and when we think about strategies um that we're all taking care of the kids we have to make sure we're taking care of each other as well um i got the last thing on here is and this is um we just submitted or one of two grants that was almost a million dollars and in that grant one of the items is increased offering or funds to allow for increased offerings of before during and after school activities for kids and last but
035not least probably most important is our academic role the goal as stated is the district will sorry uh through data-driven and rigorous programming our school community will foster and inspire our students full potential advancing their post-graduate preparedness and again mitigating the impact of covid but also improving the fidelity continuity and rigor of our programs we're going to talk a little bit about science in a second and our third being maintaining academic programming that is comprehensive and meets the needs of all star students okay so i'll just touch a little bit on science um this summer we um really limited the curriculum work um one thing that is well noted is there's a lot of people working very very hard but they're not all necessarily going in the same direction so we're taking a step this
036summer to bring teams together to really get us all moving in the same direction there are two exceptions to this however one is in science and that's what to help us work on middle school high school on spiraling the curriculum in alignment with next-gen science standards why sciences are near and dear to my heart and i think with our mission and vision statement in terms of inquiry science is the heart of this work so in addition to this we're taking a targeted view next year looking at the curriculum of science ela and art we are working in collaboration with sequester coaches and some neighboring districts in this work as well um looking for in the 2223 school year um to add smithsonian science kits to the elementary curriculum we've got a big literacy push next
037year and really can only nurture so many things at one time so we're going to give a give a little bit of a break on the the science and elementary for next year um in terms of some other pieces um really having some starting some robust conversations at the start started at the high school but really uh and i mentioned this at a pr a previous board meeting about kind of getting back to what it means um to be a student and especially in everything that's changed for us so i wanted to add on here that about scaffolding supports not just to meet student needs but to really grow the mindset of high expectations that um into to start to look at our different coursework our advanced coursework look at who's in those classes and
038ask ourselves why and why we why don't we see a representation of our entire community and what can we do to scaffold kids to reach higher levels of course work and higher level and higher expectations um a couple of things uh where like i mentioned earlier again where there's some pockets of amazing things that are happening i'm just trying to be a connector to connect um to connect practices together and to connect schools together um so we can share that work and let's see so we are starting i guess it's a little backwards here a nice starting place here is to build these building level inquiry teams i think you could if i said data teams you would understand more but data is like saying spiders or technology there's usually not a warm reception when
039you say data but if we really start to think about inquiry and asking questions about what we see around us and how to take action steps that's the type of work i'm beginning with the building levels um and i think i mentioned the other two points previously this is just yeah keep going this is the continuation of that slide okay so this is um some additional things that were written into these are the the gear and the esser they're it's a grant that just went in in consultation with the building level principles we did write in for two additional ais teachers one at the this is grant funded through one for the elementary one for the middle school um i'm i'm looking to see if i can't uh allocated funds for um either a math
040scheme or pbl teacher um with a mindset again not on just uh remediating and closing gaps but accelerating learning as well and trying to ignite some uh ignite some fire um in students we're looking at some increased release time for teachers uh for instructional rounds to go and see other teachers teaching and especially in different buildings um some of the professional development that we've written into the grant is some of it's on brain research we have a component on dyslexia as well as some work with the carnegie institute which is sort of the mothership of improvement science and that's uh that is a continuation of the work that we're starting this summer as a leadership team i mentioned the expanded summer offerings um very exciting on this one is to develop an active learning space
041and at minimum each building i think the library media center is a perfect spot for this but really when i'm talking about active learning space we're talking about uh flexible movable funeral furniture furniture robust technology and then the pedagogy that goes along with those spaces so we're looking to have a couple models like a model space in each building but in addition to that providing additional flexible movable furniture especially at elementary and middle school level when you sit through a lot of 504 meetings and and you know some of our kids who really need to move um to have those options for them i just want to interject here so because we throw a lot of acronyms out but pbl project based learning so um you know the notion that student many students learn um
042better when they're solving a problem and learning math and social studies science and english through problem-based um inquiry so uh doing much more of that i will tell you that when we interview new candidates where we have a mindful eye to their either direct experience or knowledge with concepts like project-based learning and technology integration in terms of the active learning space the only thing i want to mention there is that's where the nexus between some of our um uh kind of action research with that concept and the next capital project kind of meet if we look at the next project as an opportunity to not just repair you know infrastructure but we look to refreshing some of our instructional spaces like other districts have we have to understand how to best create those spaces and
043then leverage the funding to kind of get where we want to go and then last but not least okay so under our last priority some of the linkages here one of our compass targets and again i should mention the compass targets all um they link their evidence-based approaches um for schools that do well um so we're not recreating the wheel on some of these things we're looking to districts across the state that do that do well in looking at what makes them tick and using them as a resource so one of the targets is collaborating to define and achieve success so under under the conversation of um grading policies and practices that are fair and consistent we have to first and foremost define what that looks like um and what success looks like so an
044example of a tipping point that we all saw this year was the senior project and um that actually ashley and i just had a conversation today um about potential changes to the project next year but being very mindful that we want to be inclusive of student voice in this project at the middle school we i know that mike burns and i get pretty excited when we can talk about some competency based metrics um but there's a lot that's involved with this and there's um there's a lot that looks different and so it's we really need to include the community and families to understand the shift and impacts of grading and also under consideration of a portfolio assessment moving forward that there's not just one measure that of how you can indicate what a student knows
045and what they can do either the last two targets they go to sleep but they also run in a battery sometimes they go to sleep or run out of batteries that's like you're like please please stop remember remember what he's yeah you wanted me to stop to start talking i didn't do that so um the two other compass targets that i wanted to put on here is is really for the leadership team in terms of cultivating culturally responsive inclusive and facilitative leadership one of the things that we started this year is leadership coaching and we have that coming from questar we've just started that practice of having all of us actively reflect on what we do and the last one is customizing innovative policies programs and practices and i think that what we did to
046pivot during covet is an absolute perfect example of this awesome so that's kind of a highlight of where we've been and where we are i'll just kind of give you a little preview so the administrative team um we're meeting this summer and are in an annual retreat that's where we'll um kind of put some context on this and then of course we'll bring it to the board in august for a larger discussion and and some consensus around reaffirming the priorities for the next school year based on board input and then we'll put those into place so that we can we can monitor them and report out on them this next school year so that's my update we certainly entertain any um questions you may have at this point matt do you have a question uh
047if i could have just maybe 30 or 60 seconds a little bit more expansion on what building data collection looks like now and maybe over the next year or two data collection looks like yeah where are we what do we establish this new versus you know what we weren't doing before i guess i don't think we have right now a magic bullet for what is how we can identify learning gaps what we do not have is enough data on formative assessment and summative assessment so some of we will have some additional um methods to to collect data there's a couple of systems that we're looking at um in terms of that collection so we have so are you asking for like what ha what are we collecting now and where are we going to or
048uh overall maybe vision but also um it sounds like maybe there's some gap analysis going on so what are we benchmarking against and where are we headed sure um so right now they're i mean we don't we'll see what information comes back from the state assessments right there will be limited at best data that comes from that we have metrics that come from iready we have a slew of local data that comes from our student information system everything from attendance to discipline several met several metrics there when i'm talking about um meeting with data teams with uh buildings this is the start of that conversation to say um what data pieces are we pulling in and looking and for why so it starts to come become the issue of do you see do you see
049a problem first are you looking at the data to see to identify so there's that that conversation of data literacy so we it's hard to say that what we have is comparable we have to start baselines we have some baselines um that are normed that we can look at this year but we have to we have to do more work with that okay sort of a non-answer yeah no it it sounds like you're doing a lot of discovery work yes i'm hearing a combination of um hard quantitative data as well as maybe some qualitative collection as well right um i'm curious if there's a plan to put that together into a data dictionary or data universe with a more comprehensive view and i understand that the state has even if we were doing all of
050the assessments that they offer which we're not this year right um there's very limited uh view that that gives us right right um and that we need more than that um and i guess i'm curious what we can expect so there's i would not say i'd like to start at a data literacy conversation um before we go down i know that we that dr danzel and i have had some conversations about some platforms that could display data in a more robust way in terms of data walls or data visualization first and foremost i'd like to utilize what our own student information system can put out before we start to look at other programs we i did come into a somewhat inherited system this year that's a system that's trying to collect and put together both
051quantitative and qualitative data for students it's a little bit wonky it's not there's there's not anything that's really perfect on this so um at some point um before we reach um our strategic planning session yep it would be really good if we could get uh short overview of where we're at on data gaps um obviously that you can always have more data but there must be places that we we need it more than others right um so um right it doesn't need to be today let me let me try to just give you a quick concrete example if i can in terms of the compass teams so we have several pieces of data that there's teams for each building that will come together this summer and they're looking at um there's a mental health survey
052that went out to all teachers and staff and cobit workforce burnout they'll be utilizing that survey we'll be looking at um attendance data we'll be looking at data that came back from our professional development committee in terms of the report that they put together for the end of the year so we have several metrics that we're bringing to the compass teams to say to give um to try to establish this is what this past year looked like so at that point we can identify what don't we know and where do we need to have more information so those those compass teams are data informed i don't want to say data driven um but they are informed by data okay um can are we do you think we're going to be getting more uh updates on
053perhaps what comes back from those teams before we sit down for our um strategic um realignment i think the timing of that is is the teams meet uh for two of the three days and then the administrative team meets and then we meet relatively soon after that so it's it's and correct me if i'm wrong it's more likely that we'll be looking at some of it at the same time that you'll be looking at at the same time that we are okay but if you've noticed a trend i think this is the third time that lisa's helped um present to the board since she's been here and i think one of our expectations is that there'll be a more frequent um smaller digestible presentation throughout the next year to show you kind of the progress
054i'm just thinking about the timing of the priority update and it'd be nice to see um some analysis before we approve a new set of priorities yeah and i don't uh and again i i don't think you have to approve i think that's a work session yeah where we work through that and then we certainly can decide as a as an entire entity when you feel comfortable enough to kind of put them into to action so i don't know if everyone's comfortable with that but i look at that retreat as an opportunity for us to in in the context of not a board meeting in you know the context of three four hours together for us to be able to work together collaboratively with the board and then i don't necessarily think we need to
055leave that session with um you know anything that's approved it's it's a kind of working session i don't have any other questions anyone else so anybody else destiny uh just a clarifying question when you mention the um leadership coaching for culture cultural responsive inclusion is that more like uh diversity uh equity inclusion or is that what is that for they're yeah they're not they're separate okay um so the leadership coaching is we i was fortunate enough to work with the leadership coach when i was at hudson and it's really meant as an individual coaching practice the two don't go hand in hand it's really it's really meant to to be reflective um i'm not exaggerating that was a terrible answer but perhaps mentioning that one of the um compass teams that you're putting together one
056of the threads right this year is on diversity equity and inclusion in anticipation of a separate group this summer this meeting that's all on diversity equity and inclusion and um it's actually one of our school psychologists that's is heading that up she's extremely passionate um in that area so we're starting the preliminary work this summer cool thank you and you know being mindful that we have discussions going on at the board level about policies perhaps coming in the fall related diversity equity and inclusion it's also another um question that i've been asking candidates in terms of their awareness and competency with how they in their practice will implement um equity and inclusion uh so i don't know if that makes sense but kind of had an interview with an ela teacher um you know this
057week we've interviewed a couple ela teachers for their middle school and we're asking questions now how you know how do you and how are you culturally responsive and sensitive to to some of this work and um i've been pleased that most have had some pretty creative and um insightful answers to their practice is there any other questions for lisa or sal all right we'll move on new business thank you just a reminder graduation is um friday night 6 p.m i know several of you are attending um and if you have any questions about where you should be and what time please reach out to justin or i and i think in terms of just other business we are oh uh and we are in the process i'm pleased to report that um we have um
058we interviewed and we have offered um an individual uh the position of director of uh or supervisor of transportation um that individual has um accepted and we're working through the details now so our hope is that that individual will be um a superintendent's appointment and then the board will appoint them officially on july 13th at the organizational meeting but we hope at this point that they're going to start on july 6th and uh that leaves us about roughly a month where that person can shadow steve and begin to learn some of the transition and then um steve certainly is um agreed to be available um to help you know after that as well but uh the committee which was which included um our current uh head bus driver and mr chudi and i and uh
059and steve because he was the most familiar with the job we included him um we're very pleased with the with the candidate and i think uh um we're gonna be in good shape moving forward all right well thank you any new questions okay new business r72 be resolved at the board of education designate the list of withdrawn library materials as presented by the chatham public library to be eligible for disposal in accordance with board policy can i get a motion second any questions or comments all in favor all right anyway opposed thank you r 73 oops that's r-73 being resolved the board of education approved the agreement with the columbia county sheriff's office for school resource deputies to wear body cameras and get a motion second any questions or comments all in favor aye aye
060anybody opposed ocean carries old business policy second reading pat do you wanna talk about 72.50 i don't think there's any questions in the first reading i i don't think um anyone can hear yeah okay there we go okay uh as i explained at the last meeting uh this policy is really a rewrite of an existing policy i was to clarify um the uh the fact that this policy is based on directly on the essentially federal law uh there's four separate topics which made it rather confusing so we did find a sample policy that was very clearly written to present the the four separate areas um and uh so they're really in terms of content there is no change it just it was just a presentation so i just want to ask again if anybody has
061any questions regarding it let's see no questions thank you pat move along to uh adopting it then r74 be resolved at the board of education dot policy 7250 as read at the june 8th 2021 and june 22 2021 board meeting can i get a motion motion second any questions or comments all favor hi anybody opposed motion carries r75 be resolved at the board of education except the consensus agenda k through l as written can i get a motion motion second any questions or comments in favor all right anybody opposed motion carries items for a future agenda can we do m probably not uh yeah [Music] yeah that was uh included wasn't it the motion was k through l yeah i think that's a i think that's it yeah you may need an additional motion then
062deb do you think they should amend the typo in the consent agenda or should they just approve m by itself like to make get a motion to approve consensus agenda business finance m section m and get a motion second any questions or comments all favor anybody opposed uh future items for future agenda uh matt i'm not sure if um we're gonna get that report or not or if you needed um you know some kind of uh doer bouncing around uh linking some data earlier meetings or do you wanna wait and let it come timely it sounds like there's a lot in process i'm not sure that we're going to have like you know our scoreboard ready this year okay um or even in the coming years this is stuff is difficult to put together um
063uh if if we're if we're not formally adopting priorities until we have a chance to digest the strategic overview it's fine okay i just wanted to double check that we didn't pass over uh anything anybody else have any i think for future items i um this may not be an actual agenda item but i would uh uh i think i would like the parking lot to live in a different place it's easier to find we can work on that or maybe not called a parking lot i'm not sure um i think i named it parking lot because at one point it was really jammed up we'll call it future agenda items well it was when i went looking for it i couldn't find it was really the problem um so i'll take a peek at
064that we might be able to just create a separate section and it's been a while since i've been in bordock's um structure but create a separate section like we do board reports and maybe just call it future agenda items and yeah we definitely did a good job of cleaning it out so yeah yep all right so that's a future data item to rename and or relocate future all right thank you guys um no other well before i didn't realize that mr simon was hiding behind uh so i'd like to you may you may not recognize him but that's our that's our new director of pupil services congratulations that's a real beard it's not one of those mass beards congratulations brian um any other comments all right i have a i have a question craig when
065it's time go ahead okay lisa um is there any data data yet on um i have two questions actually on absenteeism this year this year compared to is there is there anyone working on absenteeism are there there's no figures yet for um how much worse it was this year than you know it's i can um after this week yeah i can put together a summary of some hard data points i've noticed in a lot of the things that we have to apply for right i know we need that um that figure you know okay i think we've got a pass from that um pretty much across the board this year right yeah i mean i would just like to know for chad what happened but i can i can give you some numbers i would
066just i would just exercise some caution in terms of of how you interpret but it sounds like it's something that you want to i'm happy to put it together uh i i love more data even if it's all about an asterisk connects to us and lots of asterisk of this data is not perfect is fine yeah i just you know we'll make sure if there's any um yeah i just want to know just yeah and the other thing was um our how many of our graduates are not graduating how many of our seniors i don't think we know that yet um i talked to justin today you know teachers are working right up into the 11th hour okay we'll probably i'll let the board know that but we're hoping that that data's more around thursday
067and even though it's tuesday i know our teachers are meeting with students um this week um we've got regencies going on there's a lot of activity to try to get these students over the finish line so thank you thank you they're likely to be a couple but we're certainly not in the position we were um several months ago and in terms of the attendance that i just want to because i know we have a lot of teachers on the call um taking attendance has been a challenge this year right and not so much maybe at med where our students were in person but you know um or if the student was fully remote but we had a lot of hybrid going on a lot of students in and out a lot of sessions so to
068matt's point we certainly have information but we're going to want to look at it very carefully and cautiously and and there will be a bunch of asterisks with some you know distinction around some of the anomalies both from a practical perspective allowing teachers to the ability to whether they were able to market uh appropriately or not during a remote session so there was a lot of challenges but we certainly will see what we have and um it'll mean something uh we're going to move along to a second public comment uh so public yeah one hand right hand two hands first was chris i'm going to promote chris to a panelist so please bear with us for a second chris you're coming up uh hi everyone how are you um i just i just wanted to
069uh touched based on a topic that was that was noted on at the meeting um you know as a parent in the district relating to just school activities uh going into next year and you know i know obviously there's going to be um a great deal of focus on on academic uh performance and evaluation and i just hope that um we can also uh put a lot of effort into looking at the extracurricular activities for our students i think in terms of wellness and um you know their mental well-being you know getting finding creative ways to get kids back together and engaged and active and having fun outside of the classroom um so i'm just i'm i'm anxious and and hopeful to learn about you know um what what the plan is uh to actively
070get kids uh back on track because i think you know a year away and obviously school was going on but in a very different way you know how to get how to get sports really full swing going again uh clubs all that stuff so i'm anxious to learn more as the as we go forward thank you thank you chris um i just want to mention a shout out to uh mr burns and the other administrators you know we've learned you know we've brought back students from uh remote uh last quarter at the middle school a little bit at the high school perhaps some at med and um you know we have we know that it was some of it was there's going to be a transition for some students um i know ms reno has
071um reached out to many of the families who have full remote students and uh has worked diligently to try to bring some of those students back in summer school um that gives us an opportunity to kind of transition them back i know is that a good is that a fair enough statement uh kristin not everybody has taken it is taking advantage of that but many are and that's going to be a opportunity for a couple things for us to assess uh where those students are and how they've learned fully remotely but also socially transitioning them back to an environment that is somewhat foreign you've heard mr burns talk in his update about how um when you've been isolated for several months and now you're coming back to school to some extent i think about the
072way kristen we talk about early learners having to learn how to do school again and learn how to get along and and um socialize again so chris thank you for your comments um we can um you know we can put something together and you know just the just the ability to not have to be um socially distanced and some of the guidelines that we've and restrictions we've been following is going to help tremendously for us to kind of re-energize all of our clubs and our extracurricular activities and we certainly have an eye towards adding to that you as a new board member we have flexible clubs so when ideas come to the building level building administrators we no no good idea is left behind so um thank you for that and we'll be mindful of
073your comments and now i'm going to um hold on to sandy we have our favorite uh robotics coach and science teacher hold on sandy i'm gonna get you there hello sandy give it a second you should be um coming up as a panelist i think she just has to unmute and now you can on you there you go oh there we go okay how's everybody doing tonight good how are you doing all right so um you know you're you're resident big mouth here so i just want to uh give a few shout outs because uh that's what i've been doing lately um and just give some historical background so uh the first arbor day was celebrated in 1872. new york state adopted it in 1889 and we like many other schools in the district planted
074a tree to george washington uh in 1889 that tree has died but our oldest tree which dates back to is an oak tree and that's the oldest arbor day tree in new york state on record for arbor day and uh this year amid all of the difficulties with covid and the pandemic our senior class dedicated to our five high school retirees so colleen loretta jim patrice and steve silverman who actually retired last year a red oak tree that has been uh tenderly cared for by patrice and hopefully was planted today at krellen park because we have no real estate left on our school campus to plant our body trees so we are keeping with our old chatham traditions which many of you are graduates of chatham so you you you know the importance of our
075traditions and i also want to give a shout out to the senior class advisors so tracy kelly ashley keegan and then with melanie spock and christine mackerer they were able to coordinate a wonderful arbor day celebration at ps21 where seniors went and enjoyed the uh a picnic with a food truck they had the distribution of their yearbooks they watched a slideshow which is pictures from the time they were you know preschoolers to now that was put together by ashley and they had her just a really great time at ps21 and before that they they did uh the award ceremony uh where they were awarded with their senior awards and did the dedication of the of the tree and the ceremonial planting of the tree and then this past friday the 18th they went on a
076dutch apple cruise and so they spent three hours on the hudson river as a class with the senior class advisors and members of the senior team and other faculty uh just being able to spend time together and celebrate their senior class and and and just be able to be in a great space and and and have fun as a senior class so that was a huge undertaking uh with many moving parts and you know a huge shout out to them for being able to coordinate that and get that up and running um and then i also wanted to mention that uh we have been at the high school during the regents days working with seniors in jeopardy because this gets to muriel's question and also other students at risk for the year and i think
077in one day i don't know what the numbers are now but i think in one day we were able to get 30 kids off the list and that would be ninth nine through 12th graders and uh i believe at the moment we are down to four seniors who are still uh you know walking that fine line um and you know we're still just all busting our butts trying to get these kids through so it's a huge effort on the part of the high school to you know really try to to get these kids through and some of the kids are really showing up which is huge so that's all i got thank you uh very much uh we'll talk uh about your time slot in the next upcoming meetings uh new historian uh very good
078great great information if i knew it was gonna be a three-hour cruise i would have been more concerned you know the last time i heard about it good three hour cruises they ended up watching one of those on the clear water and got stuck on a sandbar that was a lot of fun too thank you very much if it's not too much out of order another um follow-up to uh chris's public comment um you know in some previous years and i know it's perhaps late in the year to go around and collect information we have in the past presented to the board of participation numbers for uh the permanent extracurriculars and the flex clubs i don't think we've seen those in in a while so i am i am curious what happened here during during
079covet but also it's a it'll be a baseline number for next year [Music] um we we always have it on the agenda though to approve the the coaches the um no no the participation numbers how many children so the position yeah okay good idea and and our flex clubs are sometimes difficult to keep going right um because of participation um or other reasons and so i don't want to put the principles on the spot but i will i i know um i don't know if you you wouldn't mind commenting um you know kristen you've come to me and um run club was pretty popular this year i think we added um i think we added some intermurals do you have a sense for given the fact that it was a cove gear um a lot
080a lot of things didn't run some things may have run virtually and we certainly can put something a little bit more formal together but do you have just some kind of anecdotal sense of how things went yeah but for the audience hang on and and mike if there's similar mike and justin if they're similar not to go too far down the rabbit hole but i was just curious i know a lot of things were not possible because students weren't physically together but other things were so so john rolison ran some successful intramurals that were very popular unfortunately at the time that we decided to implement intramurals we were not able to be outside without masks yet so we had to cut it off at a certain amount but it was uh we actually let everyone
081even the kids that were on the waiting list and so that was very popular um linda caldwell ran an archery club highly popular club only for the older elementary kids just because of the equipment and the nature of kids using bows and arrows mrs williams um mrs rudet um mrs van note and mrs fleck ran uh run club this year um usually i do it but they ran it um and very popular we let every kid including some of our remote students participate who wanted to a very high level of participation and we had a big race um at the end of run club um very successful and then um mrs morgan mrs and um mrs miss drury social worker i'm sorry um guidance counselor and psychologist ran a wellness club after school where they
082focused on mental mental health and physical health and they had a large population of students and they would spend thursday afternoons walking around the property they did some really amazing things with the kids meditation things etc so i would say those were really highly successful i do want to give i do want to say one thing the we had this year since our fifth grade could not attend um a traditional features classroom experience we had flying deer who are a local community group come here and i've worked with devon and michelle for many years and whatever they put together is amazing and this year they put together a conservation day for our students and it was truly amazing that we want to continue to do that day again so that was an incredible experience for
083the fifth grade and i kind of consider that an extracurricular because they were outside together all day absolutely no traditional academics took place but it was it was wonderful we are hoping that come fall we're going to be back to some type of regular intramural flex club so i was really pleased with the amount and the participation was very high very high yeah you know our um clubs were not full swing like they usually are like a typical year but what i really want to focus on is a lot of our students started to express themselves in writing um and celia henrik who wasn't here tonight but who's retiring had a writing club it was kind of this like underground kind of club of kids that met after school and they wrote and they wrote
084some really awesome things um in the july issue of the chatham press there's going to be a layout of a lot of what the kids wrote that's going to be in there but they wrote about their experiences during covet how they how they felt as a student going through it going through hybrid and remote situation some of them just wrote about who they are um we've got some really great artists that drew photos that will be in the um you know in the chat and press but i thought it was really you know a lot of times when we think of our clubs and we think of everything that we do outside and in the intramurals um we had a lot of kids who put the pencil to the paper and started writing and there's
085some really good stuff um i know i share some with sal i'm sure he can you know share with you as well but you know right now we're looking at um what the fall is going to look like club wise you know getting excited to survey our kids and start seeing what they want at the middle school and what we can start offering them yeah as as mike said we definitely were not um by any means in full swing this year um some successful programs we did have where the karen souza donovan and donna eager ran a book club which was a good way for students to get together virtually and and somewhat in person to discuss you know things that they had been reading um a couple months ago um we started a pride
086club um so they've been meeting pretty regularly um a couple weeks ago they actually um uh handed out lollipops and uh with different facts on them and we encourage students to um you know dress in rainbow colors on a tuesday and a wednesday and i would say that student government that was one that you know was able to weather the storm they were able to meet regularly um throughout the year uh looking forward or moving forward uh you know i'm definitely looking forward to having a club fair next year getting some of these programs back up and running visiting with mr simmons with the robotics and mrs fisher but it was definitely a different year but you know i anticipate you know starting bright and early in the fall that we'll get some some things
087going and justin is reminding me that um student government has now recommended our student rep for next school year so we're actually a little bit ahead of the curve and we're working um to see well i'll work with the board to see if you'd like that person to start in july or in september but um the individual has been identified and we're excited to once again invite student voice to the board which has been a long-held tradition here that you don't see in every district so we'll get that taken care of too and again i hope that was helpful i think it was worth a few minutes to just hear um how we've navigated and mitigated kovid and again just it accents the tremendous work that's being that's happening under the leadership of our building
088principles so thank you i just want to remind everybody uh friday uh you're around chatham uh afraid it'll be going and i'm sure there's plenty of uh people that you're gonna know and run into and watch out you don't trip over any coolers eight o'clock eight o'clock be there and weather forecasts i wanna hear it seems like it's gonna be tremendous a tremendous year again thank everybody that tuned in tonight and uh i think that was uh pretty neat to hand out a diploma so that was uh that was a fun night um we're gonna i just i don't know if you got a chance to look at it but that wasn't you know we didn't create that we actually went back to was it jostens and and had them do a chatham high school
089diploma so that was that was authentic yeah and colleen helped us with that debbie so i appreciate it through them yep thank everybody that was involved that was big [Music] at the close of this meeting i'm going to ask for a motion to enter into executive session second second all in favor i'll be entering into an executive session to discuss collective negotiations and other items i'm going to need a motion to [Music] name sal d'angelo's district just actually because i think you're going to end up by yourselves again so you want to do something we'll uh make a motion to make pat wilson district pro attempt for this executive session and turn open session again after so the board will not be conducting any business or voting on any items when they return good night