001e e e let's try this uh each person wishing wishing to speak is asked to speak into the microphone identify themselves and respectively limit their comments to three minutes uh all speakers are to conduct themselves in a civil manner obssed language liist statements threats of violence statements advocating racial religious or other forms of prejudice will not be tolerated persons wishing to discuss matters involving individual District Personnel or students should present their concerns their comments and or concerns to the superintendent during regular business hours with that I leave the microphone open to anybody who would uh like to make a comment for us good evening everyone um and a happy New Year because I haven't seen you since 2024 uh if you remember I'm Natalie Ren from Mother's out front um since the last time I
002dropped by our team has grown to 23 local residents who really excited about you know working for a livable climate for our kids and while I know you probably enjoyed the respit from our comments on electric school buses I thought you might miss me so I'm here again uh to tell you uh just to give you a little bit of an update so first thank you to uh Mr kraan for forwarding my email back in December about West Point tours they did apply to the EPA funding for 10 school buses so we're thrilled to hear that they're as excited or invested in this project as we are um and I want to thank you all thanks to those who uh chatted with me offline and offered some questions or or con concerns or just to
003have a conversation we're we're really grateful from others out front that you're willing to consider this uh project so um of course we're all aware that the political landscape has changed and it's likely that the EPA funding for um electric school buses is probably not available to us at the moment however I wanted to uh to come to you to let me step back uh just to remind you that nerta New York State's uh school like the clean I can't remember what it is nisip the school bus program does have a lot of funding still available available to our district and I'm urging the uh the school board to please consider pursuing those programs so the next step um just a reminder even without the EPA funding ni ctis funding can still lead to a
004cost neutral or an almost cost neutral uh transition or purchase of a bus so the next step for us is to have West Point Tores apply for nerus funding to conduct that full Fleet electrification plan this is something I'd mentioned to you all before and um it's uh I I might have emailed you a link to a very convoluted government site which you're probably familiar with I've got a a little bit more decipherable uh documents I'd be very happy to send to you and to Mr Dade and you're welcome to share them with the board but for now that seems like the most obvious Next Step so we think it's really important to start working on this plan now uh it'll answer our questions and it'll let us know exactly what kind of resources we
005need as we start working to uh meet that New York State mandate and oh I would like to just mention that uh another step that we've taken is uh reaching out to our local uh legislators so Senator scus and assemblyman yukus if that's how you pronoun okay uh assembly man yucas to get their support with bringing Central Hudson into the party uh making sure that that they're aware of of our needs as a district and uh yeah so so I'll I'll send an email to you all please thank you for reading it in advance and I'm going to pass this on to my colleague uh Lofton hi I'm Lofton Riser good to see you all again um I just wanted to take a moment to um kind of dispel some of the misinformation about um
006some of the uh perceived drawbacks of uh going to Electric uh school buses um overall they've proven to be very safe um they are actually less likely uh to be involved in fires uh than Vehicles powered by diesel or gasoline um in 2022 there was a study done um and uh 1,530 combustion powered vehicles per 100,000 were involved in vehicle fires compared to just 25 electric vehicles per 100,000 and that's electric vehicles across the board but uh the engines themselves are you know uh overall much less likely to be um involved in fires um they are also uh the buses specifically are less likely to roll over um and I know that's a thing that we have to worry about in this area more than some other areas um the location of the batteries um
007at the base of the vehicle gives them a lowerer center of gravity than traditional engines um and they do lose their battery capacity in very cold weather that's one of the concerns um about them it it's about 80% of their rated range at uh 32 Dees and about 60% at 10° uh however today's um electric buses can travel 100 to 200 plus miles on a charge um and that's much uh longer than the average 80 mile route so most routes are still feasible even in cold weather um and you know uh the school bus company can allocate the electric buses to some of the shorter routes if necessary during cold weather um West Point tours did conduct a Central Hudson uh electrification assessment uh with our electric grid West Point currently has the capacity to
008run four electric school buses um additionally um as Natalie mentioned we have been in touch with our representatives to um you know make sure that they're aware of our needs and that um you know they can get behind us on wanting this for our district so you know um it is not as uphill of a climb getting this funding getting everything going as it may seem like and as Natalie mentioned she is um going to provide um Mr uh craan and Dade with um some more information um that will help really make it easier for everyone to take the next steps to get this going um so you know the money is there let's let's take advantage of it you know we pay into it for our taxes anyway like I said the last time
009I was here why not us why not let our community benefit from this money um cuz someone else will take it if we don't so um i' love for my kid personally and all of our kids to you know have a cleaner breathing um you know at least begin the process of everybody getting a cleaner ride to school thank you thank you very much uh would anybody else like to join us for a public comment all right thank you thank you very much we'll move on to the next item in our agenda uh mateline and AA will present uh the student representative reports take it away please this is the good news for Cornwell elementary school after a very restful winter break Cornwall elementary school is back in the swing of things and staying busy
010with lots of events and activities on January 6th we were thrilled to welcome the Hudson Highland Nature Museum to our building staff memb MERS from the museum pushed into first grade classrooms and taught them all about the animal kingdom they covered topics such as animal characteristics used for classification life cycles habitats specialized adaptations and more they also introduced the students to a snake a toad a frog and even a blue tongue stink the the students had a wonderful time getting to know the animals and the habitats they need to survive we hope to see the Hudson Highland Nature Museum again soon the CE drama club put on an amazing production of The Lion King Jr this month our talented and dedicated students put on three incredible shows an open dress rehearsal on Friday and two
011performances on Saturday congratulations to director John Hines and all the staff members and Cornwall parents involved in bringing this show to life we can't wait to see the next one our fourth grade classes along with Mrs Moors Miss manda's and Mrs L's third grade classes attended education day at West Point they watched Army woman's basketball play against Holy Cross the students had such a great time our students are now preparing oh our teachers are now preparing their students for CBT New York State Ela testing simulation on Tuesday January 28th they are gearing up for the math and Ela State tests in the upcoming months which will be completely computer-based for the first time we are looking forward to the coral Workshop President's Day weekend and hopefully some warmer weather want me to go the willow
012AB good news for January Willow Avenue kicked off the new year with kindness our students have been learning about Dr Martin Luther King Jr we have heard that Dr King had a dream where everybody would be kind helpful and respectful to one another Miss Hogan and Miss Bell's third grade class were inspired after reading an article in Scholastic Magazine about a group of students who raised money to send a veteran from the Hudson Valley on an honor flight the next Honor Flight is in April with the support of the PTO they took over the sale of popcorn during lunch on January 17th they advertised the event bagged the popcorn sold it and counted up the proceeds in February they will sponsor hearts for Heroes and in March we'll sponsor pops for a purpose our fourth
013graders will travel to Urban Air for a day filled with steam Phone activities have a wonderful week and stay warm and now the good news for cooh the character trait of Integrity has been prevalent through the co Community during the month of January students have been reminded daily that Integrity is how you act and what you do when nobody is looking during the month of January many random acts of kindness have been awarded to students who have been caught showing Integrity on January 22nd the students in the first grade along with the student council loaded several cars with the donations from the keep it clean drive that that was held in December the items were then taken to the Hudson Valley food bank the children were scheduled to walk to the the food bank however
014the cold temperatures prevented that from happening the experience of collecting materials for others in need was very educational and gratifying for the children in the student council and the first grade this January the PTO and the fourth grade student council have been working in conjunction with the local Lions Club on the cran initiative the cran initiative is a small organization that takes old use crayons and melts them and remanufactures them into bright clean paperfree form the new crayons are then shipped to Children's Hospitals all over the country each floor at Co has a cray collection box which will hopefully be filled with old used crayons and then given to the cray initiative the third and fourth grade students participated in a simulated New York state computer-based math assessment today January 7th January 27th the teachers
015and students have been working to take exams on their Chromebooks the hope is to get the students used to test taking on a new platform and to test the capability of the network in the building January brought the start of drama rehearsals at cooh the PTO is excited for the upcoming production of Newsies the adults and students involved are super excited to once again be working towards putting on a show for a live audience now we have the Middle School good news the CCMS music department held their winter concerts at CCS the audience was treated to beautiful performances by all of our bands Orchestra and choruses many thanks to the CCMS music department for all of our work planning these events we appreciate all you do to allow our students to make music CCMS students
016in grades 5 through eight took part in a computer-based testing simulation to prepare for the New York State assessments this spring students and teachers practice access and neuro system and submitting a short 10 question trial while our Administration and IT staff monitored the back end to make sure everything was in prepared for the spring students in Mr Daniel's technology classes designed built and raised their co2 cars during the process students developed valuable skills that go beyond just building a car they learn about the scientific method problem solving teamwork and the importance of creativity and Innovation lastly we have the good news for the high school December and January were busy months at CA CHS the concert Cho kicked off the holiday season with their annual caroling tour spreading FES festive cheer through performances at the
017Local Schools before the new year begun we came together to honor the life of one of our own at the Glen mcginness basketball tournament the event was a heartfelt tribute and celebrated the life of a pillar in our community throughout both months our school showed incredibly generos incredible generosity with numerous drives collecting items for homeless shelters and animal shelters these efforts made a positive impact on our community and exemplified the compassion of our students in sports CHS track and field made history by becoming division 2 champions showcasing the dedication and talent of our athletes this week marks the start of the second semester for Cornwall schools the high school will be implementing a new method to limit congestion in the parking lot during morning drop off they will create two lanes to eliminate the bottleneck
018when leaving the parking lot all in all December and January were month fills with ref reflection generosity and pride as we look forward to the rest of the school year uh thank you both very much for that update anything else you'd like to add or good thank you very much uh next item in our agenda is the superintendent's update Mr Dade uh due to the length of our uh next discussion I'm going to seed my time to Mr Argo so I'm going to pass okay uh I'm next with the president's update and I will try to be brief but there are a few things that I um think are important um the board probably knows most of these but the public might not uh know all of them um first uh I got a 1
019a and a 1B here um the governor released her uh proposed budget uh this past week and uh as her current proposal has the state aid amount uh the total state aid amount increasing 2.99% for our district which is of course good news and we hope that it stays there additionally I would assume most of you have seen in the news that she is proposing um a cell phone ban from Bell to Bell at all school buildings in the state um so stay tuned for more on that from the state um I won't get into the details there because I um everyone knows my stance on it uh but would that that that may be a discussion that we need to have uh we will see what the legislature uh has to do on that
020um RFP for legal representation has gone out um as that's been a topic of discussion wanted to update everybody there uh strategic planning is one of our board goals this year um we met um as a strategic planning um sort of ad hoc committee last week um myself Christine Christian elanora and Terry and the five of us agreed on a vendor um uh I didn't put it on this week's agenda because uh as Terry said we have a packed agenda but that will be coming soon um and uh just as a general update for for um our board uh and the public the residents of shadowwood Lane um asked for a meeting with us uh myself Mr Dade Mr Frink and um Walter Moran went and met with them a few weeks ago uh about
021a week last week time last week time flies when you're having fun um and had a good discussion with them um and said that moving forward um in terms of planting trees um you know for visual ual mitigation as well as sound mitigation steps that we would present some solutions to them uh in the future so uh that's it for my president's update and the next item is the state data and curriculum presentation Jim can I ask you just a quick clarifying question uh so on the strategic planning I thought we we left it as we're going to go back just to make sure that the quoted prices were still in force there were a few follow-up items yes and and and have we got clarification on that not yet okay yeah take it away
022Megan thank you okay good evening and thank you for postponing this from the last Board of Ed meeting because you would not have wanted me here my family had the flu so I kept my coties away from everybody but um so this evening I will present our assessment highlights um and then at the end we'll do a curriculum update and just um almost like teasers of up presentations that I can certainly give to the board um upon your request good okay so um the first part will cover the 38 test refusals uh 38 exams for ELA and math and then our New York state region results and the second part will be next steps um as I always do in the past we look at where we've done a really nice job where we have
023work to do and then just a general curriculum update um and just so everybody knows this information is extract extracted from the New York state report card and school meter and school meter is populated by the New York State education department okay so just to give you a little flow of timeline um I shared previously last year our state assessments are changing um in regards to alignment with the nextg state standards so um spring of 20123 was the first administration of the new 3 through eight Ela and math exams this past spring was the first administration of grade five in8 science in Algebra 1 and then as we look forward to this spring we'll administer the first round of geometry and biology and then as you can see moving forward we'll take um algebra it's
024going to be Earth and space science um moving forward going we call that Ela and then 2027 rounds us out with um chemistry and physics so in taking a look um everything I have is linked for you so on your own time you can certainly go back back do a deeper dive if you choose to um this is currently live on my page so if anybody wanted to follow along that way they can I'm not going to click each link but you'll see that they are all um available for you if you want to see those memos as to where the timelines are for the alignment schedules okay so looking at our 38 refusal report this past spring we had um for grades 3 through 8 we had um 1,171 students across the 38 levels
025or 85% of our students participate in the exams as a reminder when we look at what this means um our 38 exams are based on a one to four measure so one is below proficient two is partially proficient three is proficient and four is exceeding proficiency the next couple of slides will show a comparison of our state state proficiency from our district um against the state and so you'll see here um and this isn't our report card I just snapped the slides from it overall our grade 3 through 8 Ela proficiency was at 67% compared to 46% um across the state so you can see the breakdown on each grade level um and then this is just another slide that breaks it out a little bit more and it'll show the number of students across
026each of the one through four levels and then remember uh proficiency is declared for levels three and four um so you can see from grades 3 4 5 through 8 where we were um in our proficiency level and then overall 67% as a district for 38 compared to the 46% as a state uh level standard and then I just gave this to you guys again um if you I'll I'll do it for the next slide but for subgroups if you wanted to take a deeper dive you could certainly do that this is every subgroup that the data is extracted for we couldn't do a presentation that would cover every single one of those areas but if you were to go into the report card I can show you here so this is what we had
027I just showed you above that's the snapshot this is the bigger breakdown but let's say we wanted to look at for example um female students in grade three Ela so 109 female students took the exam um sorry no 100 were tested 109 um are in in the grade so if we look across here nine were not tested they refused we have um 92% of our students um overall did take the exam 10% scored a level one these are for our female third grade students 16% were at a level two 52% were at a level three and 20 2% were at a level four so our third grade females um scored a 74% proficiency overall and then you can see that breakdown for each one of the um subgroups I shared before as well as for
028every test grades three through eight so you can certainly take a deeper dive if you had a question on any particular grade level or a subgroup um you can take a look at that go ahead B bass could could you just speak into the microphone um for the folks watching on the YouTube they can't hear you thank you sure thanks thank you uh when we say the percent proficient uh that's kind of the yellow and blue uh chart this comprises level three and four put together correct yep so that's our students who ranked at a level three or a level four and then of the students who took it you see that percentage based on that good question okay so as we look across so that's our state comparison if we look at our countywide
029comparison for 3A Ela um this past spring our third grade students ranked first in the county um they previously ranked first as well uh grade four ranked first they previously ranked second um we ranked second and grade five previously third first in sixth previously first third in grade s we did go down we were second previous and we ranked first in grade eight uh previously fourth and overall our combined 38 Ela we ranked first in the county yeah yes okay so mathematics I have it set up in the same format just so it's easier for everybody to follow um again we had an 85% participation rate of our students combined for grades 3 through eight you can see the breakdown it does seem to vary uh between the grades and it does seem to decrease
030in participation as the kids move up in the grades compared to our younger levels they're a very high participation rate but overall we're at 85% again the reminders Bas just do you had there too again the level one is below two is partially three is proficient four is exceeds and then the three four is the combination of the two okay so as a district for grades 3 through 8 we um scored at 77% proficiency for for our uh 38 students uh the state was at 54% you can see for each one of the um the grade levels across and how we ranked compared to the state and then again this slide just breaks it down a little bit more in regards to where we fell within each one of the levels um and per grade
031so we did very well as well in math these are our subgroups if you wanted to take a peek you could pop back on there now this is for math the previous one was for ELA so same thing you just saw these two slides but let's look down maybe at fourth grade this time and this is 3 through eight if we looked at this time say male students so um in our district for fourth grade students we have 134 male students 122 tested which means that we had um 9% not testing of those students who did test um 5% were level 1 10% were level two or 12 students 60 of our students tested at a level three or 49% and level four 44% of our male students tested out a level four or 36%
032which means of our male students in fourth grade 85% are proficient okay and then you guys again if you choose to you can break this down on any one of these subgroups that's noted and you can do the same um exercise throughout for all the all the levels we have up to eth grade and then the algebra okay so our math countywide comparison for 38 we ranked third for third um for fourth grade we ranked first place uh we were previously first place for fifth grade we ranked first place we were previously second place um for grade six we ranked first place we were also previously first place um grade seven we ranked third we did go down we were second place previous and then grade eight we ranked first place we were previously second
033place so our 38 overall math scores puts us at a ranking of first place in the county which is again awesome I should clap again though I know I agree B I did since I did for La we should see lots of smiles around the table on these can sorry can I can you go back a slide or two just while we're here um here one more yeah yes so we've got grade eight Regents 8 and combined eight and um I know you're in my head here I can do 44 + 30 equal 74 so I could perhaps test it a level one um but what so what's the what's the breakdown there so we have so Regent 8 meaning we have some eighth graders who are taking Regents exam correct so those are the
034students who are taking algebra got it and they were 99% they 99% so that's a really good question so our algebra students in 8th grade who are on our advanced track we have 77 students in the eth grade that did not take the Gen 8 exam they took the regular or they took the algebra exam um of those students we had no one with the level one which you would hope because they're taking Advanced one 1% am I seeing that correctly yes one student had a level two no students at a level three and 76 of the 77 students received 99 9% for level four or above so that's the 99% proficiency which is outstanding and remember this is the first year again of that new exam so they did amazing yeah that's why I
035had the question it kind of threw me off how the the the grade was split into two different groups there so and I'm not really sure why they do that with six and seven because there is really not an alternate exam for that but you can see how they have it's it mirrors that except for eighth grade it's different because the algebra breakout great thank you you're welcome okay so so we did this okay regions exams so now we're going to switch up to the high school okay just as a reminder these are the exams that are students participate in we have English language arts global history and geography US history and government earth science biology chemistry physics Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 okay this is slightly different in terms of the levels they
036rank it on of one through five so the New York State considers level three and above is proficient um you'll see the score so level one is they students who take it if you got a level one you don't demonstrate the Knowledge and Skills which means that you scored below a 55 uh level two means you partially met the standards and your range of your score would be 55 to 64 which means you don't you did not pass that exam level three means you partially met the standard 65 to 75 would be your score uh level four you're you've met the standard expectations with the score range of 76 84 and a level five is you have exceeded the standard expectations and that's also a Mastery on a Regents exam which is 85 to 100
037so you'll see here this is our first exam we're looking at the ELA region so our district comparison Accord uh against the state we had 92% of our students have proficiency compared to 79% across the state of our students and then you see the breakdown per each okay the algebra 1 this is the new exam we had 93% of our students um scoring the proficient this includes our eighth grade students who took that exam plus the students in n9th and there are a few kids in 10th Grade that take it but it's 93% um for US versus 62% in the state and you you want to see in the level ones and two US lower you want to see us higher on the right side uh geometry just as a reminder that was the last
038time we're administering exam this exam is new this year 90% compared to 57% Across the state Algebra 2 96% compared to 74% across the state okay then we move into our Sciences we're in biology where we um have 86% proficiency compared to 62% across the state um earth science excuse me 81% compared to 67 % chemistry it is closer it's 77% compared to the 65% across the state the majority of our students who took it received a level three on that exam um physics 79 compared to 74 we are still doing well we're living in that 34 range but you can see that that is a closer measure um so in social studies we have global history and geography we're at 95% proficiency compared to 77% across Ross the state US history and government we're
039at 92% proficiency compared to 78% and then again I gave you guys the breakdown so they do the same in the report card as they do with the 38 measures looking at each subgroup um and I'll just kind of talk a little bit about why that's important in just a minute um but if you look at the state report card you can see for each exam that's listed that I just spoke to you can break it down for every single one so this is Ela specifically you could pick any subgroup that you wanted to to see how they are doing you go across and you can see what levels each of our students um scored and then our proficiency and then remember this would not be there's no refusal rate in here the kids have
040to take it okay and so that's noted for all of our exams and then throughout for the rest of the regions this is super important for us when we look at this these subgroups is where we really dive in when we do our data and I'll talk about that as we go through with areas of improvement and areas that we're doing well because we need to know how each of our subgroups are doing and how we can meet you know meet their needs and that's where the nitty-gritty work comes in the analysis of when our teachers are working with administrators to you know make plans for what's next and then we have our countywide comparison so you can see for ELA this year we're we ranked fourth global history we ranked first US History fourth
041Earth Earth science sixth biology we ranked third chemistry fifth we increased our scores in chemistry physics we increased increased our scores as well to fifth Algebra 1 we're first uh geometry third and Algebra 2 we are third okay so this is this is the work part of what you guys just saw this is so we Contin we continue to be super super proud of all the work that's being done of the success of our students we're so you know appreciative of the the day-to-day work that that takes and we always remind I always remind this time of year that what you guys see this is one dipping point of how we're doing it's certainly a good measure of how we're doing but the the daytoday analysis of our students with the instruction that's being done
042the assessments that are taking place our data team meetings that's where we really move the needle um in addition when we get our results taking those and breaking them down with the analysis of how they kids are doing percentage wise based on each of the standards that helps us design what we need to tweak and change in our curriculum to move the kids forward plus also look at like hey what are we doing really well let's make sure we're continuing to do that so um and I also noted here like there are there are gaps and and we did we will talk more about that but that's where like specific to special ed enl our minority student population like how are we meeting those needs for each of our students as we progress throughout their
043their curriculum so the next couple slides there's a lot of information you guys like I said you'll have this but this is going to be kind of our key areas to focus and then our areas that we're we're doing really well in and this is how we grow as a district um it's certainly awesome we sit here and we celebrate all the accomplishments as we should and the hard work that it takes to get the scores that I just showed you but we're always looking to grow so um for ELA grades three and eight I'm sorry three grade three Ela and math um some areas that we need to focus on you know using key phrases and text um kids at that age are having a hard time with literal and non-literal language you know
044they're very they're in third grade so that's very a hard concept for them um but some of our strength areas they're doing a really nice job of pulling out key ideas and details um we've had our highest proficiency um in three years above the state average in this particular area so we're really proud about that um for math for grade three we have found that we're having some challenges in those foundational Concepts you know the good old multiplication and fraction we have to look to ba you know reinforce those basic principles for our third graders so we're working on that maybe using some more visual data to help the kids understand the concept Concepts um for math some areas we're doing really well is understanding fractions as numbers so you may have recalled in the
045past I've talked a lot about fractions are really tough for kids multi-step problems are tough you're going to see that rears its ugly head again here too but um we are making gains in fractions in general okay grade four Ela areas to um focus on you're going to see that figurative language come again you know kids don't always understand that um sometimes even when you're talking to them and you try to make a joke with them they look at you like what does that mean I don't understand that so now trying to put that into Tech structure is very difficult for some of our kids as they're moving across the Upper Elementary years um and then linking those visual elements to textual meaning is also a difficult concept so our teachers are working to move
046the needle in that regard um some strength areas um again our kids are doing a really nice IDE uh really nice job analyzing those key ideas structures and then integrating the um what they've learned into their text vocabulary skills this is something I'm proud of too we really tried to push this based on our um some of our findings last year vocabulary was an area throughout that we didn't really do so great in and so we're really trying to push push that area um grade four math again fractions are an area that we are continuing to you know learn and grow with I mean there's still times I struggle with fractions I'll be honest I mean there's certain things that you know are are difficult and they it's a little harder for some kids so
047um and and also interpreting the data with measurement that's another area that we're working on um kids are doing a really nice job in fourth grade math with operations understanding factors and multiples um and then we're starting to get a stronger basis with geometry so conversations from our high school math team was please work with our lower levels on some of those GE geometric Concepts and so we're we're looking to move forward with that and I'm glad to see that that's a positive for this this past Year's exam grade five narrative writing um you know incorporating those Rich details into your writing that's an area that we're working on with our students and then on the other end they're doing really well incorporating the figurative language and vocabulary so now we're starting to see some
048of the areas that we were you know gaining that foundational three four now in fifth it's starting to click more so for our students areas for math to focus with are those M multi-step problems um you know it does kind of show up across several standards for the exam so we're going to hone in on that um strength there is operational fluency our kids are doing a really nice job with fluency um with decimals and whole numbers okay grade six Ela um we're we're doing doing some work with that literary text and informational you're going to see that throughout it just kind of builds you know and so if we're having a gap in it on a lower level and it's not being addressed it's just it will continue so we're working on that um
049comprehension analysis and critical thinking we're doing a really nice job with that for ELA for math um we're going to look to improve some of our um uh ordering and comparing rational numbers by incorporating more work with number lines um and then absolute value is starting to re its head here in sixth grade which is obviously a concept for later on harder math um and then some things were doing well with math um algebraic skills the kids are really getting a strong beginning basis of that and starting to apply it um as well as um their geometry again is is looking like it's improving on this level okay grade seven craft and structure is an area that we're working on um what's the author's purpose and so on and how are we incorporating that into
050our writing um good areas key details and integration of previous knowledge so we've we've been hammering in the kids head since they walk in the door you know what is your previous knowledge for this because not every kid comes in with the same so trying to get that even playing ground and now by seventh grade those kids are really starting to pull in life experiences into their writing and so we're we're seeing that um areas for math multi-step problems um and then applying it to real life application so now it's you know the the abstract to concrete um you know how do you actually apply this to your day-to-day okay and then in eth grade um informational text we're working on that again kids analyzing relationships and informational text pulling in those real life details
051um but areas that we're doing well is um they seem to be able they're doing a nice job um between disciplines so they're pulling in again what they know from their background what they might have learned in a social studies unit they're pulling it into their Ela so kind of marrying the two and then also um increasing their vocabulary acquisition that's a nice area of improvement for math grade eight multi-step problems we have a theme so that's something we're definitely working on um because that certainly builds into deeper understanding for algebra and geometry and then for math our strength areas that we're doing well with our Expressions equation um and algebraic reasoning skills okay all right regions exams I'm not going to read through all these I'm just going to give you guys kind of
052the general you can certainly read through it um but based on what I just did with 38 I'm kind of summarizing it for you um so areas of focus based on the exam percentages and the standards that the kids need to meet um we are working on vocabulary and language standards standards authors rhetoric and structure analysis and then craft and structure you know creating that really strong essay um some areas of strength though um analyzing a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and then determining two or more Central ideas and then analyzing their development and a lot of times then bringing it together where it's like a logical journey in the essay from the beginning to the end Algebra 1 again a new exam but what we found um some areas to focus
053on is interpreting parameters in L linear and exponential functions um understanding domain and the range as a function in a relationship and then some strength areas we found our kids were really engaged in this exam so there were no non-response um areas across the across the test which is awesome you don't usually see that um good engagement competency and foundational skills we found that the kids were really able to recognize properties around rational and irrational numbers um suggest that they've mastered those essential foundational skills um and then real world real world context problems so you know what does this mean on the day-to-day and how do you apply that in your everyday life so the kids are doing really good with that all right geometry kids are struggling with abstract abstract Concepts analytical geometry and
054then applying the problems um but some strength areas is um the coordin their Proficiency in applying coordinate geometry techniques it seems like they have a solid understanding of advanced trigonometry um and then reflecting their preparation from algebra and carrying it over into geometry okay Algebra 2 and just as a reminder we teach it Algebra 1 geometry Algebra 2 so this is in that sequence okay complex quadratic Solutions exponential Transformations and conditional probability are all areas that we are continuing to work on our students with um some strength areas though solving equations graphically which I noted earlier some of our kids were having a little bit of a struggle with that so it's nice that as they're moving across that is not an area of concern systems of equations and structure of Expressions okay biology um
055some areas to focus and just because it's up here doesn't mean like the kidss are doing terrible in it it just means that these are the areas when we pull the strands again these were the percentage areas based on the standards cross-correlated to the exam this is what popped out so molecular and cellular biology reproductive ecological and evolution and scientific context or areas that our biology teachers are focusing on whereas some strength there is are ecosystem interdependence developments and disease um um and the immune system in homeostasis during the covid times this was a very hot area that the kids were 100% interested in okay earth science as we move here um we're you know this has been an area that we have continued to try to increase on is you know applying the math
056concepts to the scientific scenarios so that's an area that we are falling a little bit below on um but our earth science teachers are working on that and then the complex Earth phenomena which with our new science standards everything is phenomena based so they've really been honing in on this um strength areas is deductive and inductive reasoning GE geologic history and plate tectonics and then heat transfer and erosion those are areas that the kids are scoring well in within the exam chemistry some areas of work that we have are potential energy diagrams reduction of half reactions in average atomic mass um but we are doing well with acidity and alkalinity periodic table we really start that early on in the kids science world and continue to move that forward and types of chemical reactions okay
057in physics um some areas that our teachers are working with the kids on improving are mechanics um energy transformation and experimentation and Analysis um and our strength is um momentum conservation so recognizing that enclosed system weight and mass and then problem solving and experimentation the kids love doing the experiments okay moving on to social studies almost done with this part of the presentation so um for global history 2 we are doing very well but we need some help with deeper contextual analysis so having the kids analyze those historic events from different perspectives um and specifically as it relates to the to the Cold War and globalization um and then again making those connections throughout various content areas um but we are doing very well with interconnectedness and change human rights and social justice and then
058government and Civics for the US History regions um essay writing across multiple standards we spent a lot of time in our social studies classes having our kids expand their essay writing skills I'm sure these ladies can attest to that and feels like you're in another Ela class um but it's important because these are areas that we have to focus on now you have to pull all the information that you had apply it across multiple context and you know make it applicable to what's happening within your exam here so the kids are having a hard time sometimes pulling that historical knowledge into the essay I think it's more of a craft and structure piece which we talked about earlier with Ela um but we are doing very well with certain aspects of World War II specifically
059the impact of Pearl Harbor the kids are all very interested in that um the executive order for Japanese removal and the contributions and challenges of minority groups those are all areas our kids are doing very well in so just a reminder our graduation rate is at 97% which is fantastic and we've maintained that uh percentage since 201 22 um and then just as we shift gears so as I was doing this presentation I also kind of wanted to give you guys just some you know other things that are happening in the world of curriculum because there's a lot that's happening in the world of curriculum um and there's a lot that we've been doing over the last I'd say five years that have brought us to where we are but the state is also putting
060out new stuff that we're we're getting right behind and we're moving forward with so I put this out here just as things for you guys to think on and perhaps presentations you want to see in the future because each one of these slides is a a pretty in-depth presentation so K12 science there's been a lot of changes you've heard me speak about um a lot of the elementary changes now we're moving into the uh secondary world with what that means um so some some areas that we could cover in those is you know how are we building phenomena based science throughout our curriculum what is an investigation mean versus what you might think like the typical science lab in a secondary world looks like and then what does that look like in the grade three
061four through eight worlds um and then we have changes throughout our upper our secondary science so biology Earth and space science chemistry physics um what are we doing to get ready for that what have we done um you know what are the preparation steps and when are the next exams coming literacy you know we heard a lot about last year about the science of reading and I know there was some nervousness around that but um you know I think it's important to understand what guided reading really looks like in an Elementary classroom also what are the components of a strong literacy block within an Elementary classroom um we use FMP which is ftis and panel um we have lli which is leveled literacy intervention for our AIS teachers and then foundations which is a phonetic
062based um for kindergarten to second grade so how are these resources connected to the science reading and then most recently nit has released our P3 literacy briefs so what's that all about and I didn't add it in here but how are we connecting it to prek because we can't forget about prek okay and then um math pilot why are we looking at a new math program what's the pilot process what's the timeline Who's involved and final steps again open to any of these presentations you guys want me to do them because each one of them is really important and there's so much happening in curriculum right now that I think it's important for you all to be up to date on each one of these um seal so where are we with social and emotional
063learning what's DBT so dialectical behavior therapy all about and then what are the components of DB of a DBT lesson for our students Mr Debold and his his team have done a lot of work with this Mist triassi um and then lastly portrait of a graduate so what does this mean I know there was some you know conversations about this earlier this year um when does New York State propose that these changes take place what planning will need to happen and does this mean Regents will no longer be required to graduate and if so what exams will we have and I will share with you that many of this is to be determined on this slide okay so right now like I said this presentation is live on my web page the link is right
064there um but I will take any questions you might have thank you for the great presentation I'm glad to see again uh excellent results here gurus for all the teachers and the administration um I have a question about uh upon request who's to request you can request to me you can request to Mr Dade you can request to Jim you're welcome yeah so um maybe just for that I'm seeing three or four slides here Megan that you said hey if we want to hear about k through eight math um or K through 4 literacy etc etc it's probably best to just have everybody email that to me what we' like to see a future presentation on that I think will be the cleanest way to do it um and each one won't be as this
065is the very this is the longest presentation of the year I promise you the others won't be as long yeah uh Elanor I believe next first of all congratulations the test results were wonderful congratulations to our teachers for all the hard work that they put in um I noticed that the AP scores weren't included in this um yeah you are correct and yes is it there's no other reason than just yeah is it possible to get those at some point yeah I can definitely have those for you and last year I had them in there and um yeah you're right slipping them up yeah I can I can work on those and I'll share them out with you guys this week thank you yeah uh great thank you Tiffany Megan great job thank you so
066much for that um couple of questions um the eighth grade optout rate for math seemed to be significantly higher in the other grades would that be uh attributed at all to the students taking the advanced SL regions who opt out of the regular or did I misread that um let me see here that's okay you you can email to us if you don't have it at the your fingertips so okay so grade eight math let's just take a peek at this so we have um all of our students so we have 259 students 115 were tested so you are correct it appears as though there's more but remember part of the grade is taking algebra one that's what I was asking we can attribute that to I mean I know my own daughter didn't take
067the eighth grade because she took the region so I'm thinking the opt out looks high but really because a chunk of the students are in I mean there were kids that opted out but that's but it's not that hum is not as high as it appears based on that um also I just wanted to make a a comment on the um the strength areas and the key Focus areas on the global history 2 regions um strength areas are evident in topics on atrocities and human rights and principles and we need to work on encouraging students to analyze historical events from multiple perspectives particularly in underperforming areas like the cold war and globalization and then also on the slide regarding the US History region it says St um about the um we one of our strength
068areas is questions related to President Roosevelt's executive order implications um Etc uh impact of Pearl Harbor internment I just want to make just comment that I I just hope that that deficiency is not occurring I'm I'm very proud of our teachers and proud of the education that my child receives in the Cornwell Central School District but I would just must hope that there's not polit political uh ideology being imposed upon our children in any way where they're they're learning this social activism as opposed to critical thinking in any area I'm not looking for an answer I'm just that's just my comment thank you uh Brendan than uh so uh thank you for all the work that went into it and of course all the the work that everyone involved in this District uh went into
069creating these numbers uh it's always great to see it's great to see some of those uh improvements over previous years um just a few questions I want to start just by uh defining terms I know in in previous years this has been discussed you know we have the comparisons to the state and then also to the the county but when it comes to proficiency and above proficiency those are uh those aren't relative terms those are absolute terms right like it's you're either proficient or you're not it's not graded on a curve no yeah so that's what the stake is you're proficient or you're not so it's a three or a four for 38 and it's a three or higher for Regions forent levels uh great uh one thing that uh jumped out was the uh
070well I'll go back to the relative numbers drop for fifth grade both in ela and in in math and both did uh well generally but not as well as the first through fourth and then 6th through eth and I wonder if there's if you have any other thoughts behind that I I know in in our district anytime fifth grade is an outlier for any reason the first thought is well it's because we send them to the middle school that seems like an easy answer but I'm just curious if you have any other thoughts about that no I mean the only thing I can say is I just think that it's a big learning year for the kids you know so your it's your first year in Middle School your first year kind of going through
071that now it's not their first year taking the exams but it's your first year in fifth grade you know because you're right like fourth grade they are doing well and then sixth grade seventh grade but there are like gaps in different areas within those worlds and you do kind of see the divides of who the kids who start to do a little bit better in like Ela and social studies versus science and math so I can only attribute it to I you know I don't think it's um any lack of preparedness I think it's just more of the kids their ability to be able to do it at that point because there's just so much going on it's a big it's a big growth year for them yeah um I just want to say two
072more things one quickly the uh I like how you're tracking performance at the higher levels with changes at the lower levels uh I know I I see that just in my own kids I'm kind of stunned sometimes that they're learning geometry concepts Etc so early so I would be interested to see in a few years how all of that stuff pays off and for anybody body that is interested in this I think it you know that's an incredibly uh daunting task to keep track of all this for for years but I think that's where you see the results it's not just year to year it's but kind of like as as the cohort Mo moves throughs where are the trends yeah yeah yeah um and if I may uh Tiffany pointed out something very granular
073so I'm going to point out something very granular it was in the um and this is just I don't know maybe there's a million things in here and they're all important but uh perhap so perhaps this is just a pet issue mind but but you point out and it's very helpful about informational texts you know that they consistently perform better on literary than informational and absolutely I'm all for informational uh proficiency increasing but not at the expense of literary understanding I know that like you know it's only so many hours in the day um but again that's just me throwing out my my personal um issues onto the presentation but yeah I I I would just love to see the uh the uh appreciation for you know long form text to not go by the
074wayside but overall again thank you so much the work on this presentation sounds like it must have taken you all year so I appreciate it takes a minute uh Christian okay uh so some of these are just questions for more information at a later time if you could get back to me and observation and but let me start with the one that Mr cardi brought up which is you know grade five and you know this is not in your presentation but when I pull out uh the data and I track cohorts which means the same students as they go grade byg grade proficiency you can see a clear dip in grade five and that's for 10 cohorts over a long period of time uh so that's not because that was the covid year or that
075was something else happening and I think that means we might need to pay more attention to providing more support um to that and that what that answer is I think is a bigger question but um I share that concern um the second thing is that I'd be interested in seeing what percentage of our high school students are taking the second and SEC second and third tier regions and what I mean by that is I presume most students almost if not all students are taking the algebra one regions but probably not as many are taking the algebra 2 regions and so there's kind of a winwing effect and therefore when we're looking at the overall performance we're not looking at the same population because the ones at the algebra 2 are presumably the ones who did
076best in Algebra 1 and so what you're seeing is yes they're going to do better because you're not looking at the same population so I'd kind of be able interested in seeing what that looks like in the math sequence and then also in the science sequence meaning uh earth science and living environment or maybe I'm not Earth and space science and um compared to chemistry and physics and I would just be interested to see that data if you have it um at some point I mean so basically you're asking like so there's required regions required math required science versus what kids then choose to expand on um we can see what we have for that okay um and then just kind of just year-over-year and while I I share that we're doing well um when
077I look at and I realize this is a different test and different standards but we're basically comparing proficiency bands so if I look at year-over-year comparing same grades we're down in four grades up in two grades and overall down in overall proficiency from uh 20 and I don't think this reflects on any teachers or anything but basically you have the things where some are going up some are going down it looks more like a a push to me and that's just struck me that I'm trying to make sense of why those patterns are and as I said before I try to track the same students as they go through grades because it might be that one grade is just having it's a different mix of students and therefore it does better not because of anything
078we're doing but just because the mix of students has changed Year from year and I kind of like to see that I would like to see that broken out that's I mean I'll probably do it myself but I'd be interested to see what the pattern is when I kind of take it out of just comparing of just grade to grade because this year's fifth graders are obviously not last year's fifth graders and so maybe we're not looking maybe that's not really telling us as much as we'd like which is why those subgroups are important and also you know kids come in and out of District every year within each grade so that's tough data to extract but it's a good point great does anybody else have questions I do just want to make a comment
079on the uh regions um we're all kind of in this holding phase of you know with ba of breath wondering where the state is going to go on that um so I just want to make sure that we're keeping that in mind as well as we're thinking of um how many students are taking which regions and things of that nature you know talking with my own uh son who's an 11th grader um um even in other states you can get an advanced diploma or a regular diploma and that dictates which students are taking which exam so it's in my opinion this is just me speaking as a dad it's it's skewed based on the track that your child is on and every District looks different based on kind of what that philosophy is even state
080byst state with regards to Advanced diplomas and and the like so it'll be interesting to see what happens with uh regions um and then the other um I love the conversation around fifth grade um for me I'm I'm uh with Christian on this with wherever the transition is uh so high school uh there's tons of programs and um funding and um energy put into that ninth grade year because it's such a big transition year some high schools have ninth gradey just to make it smaller and and things of that nature um I think our fifth grade does a great job of um making that fifth grade experience uh as easy as possible going to the midle school um but all that's to say I just wonder if we were to compare our fifth grade dip
081with other District's sixth grade dip so I I can I'll put money on it that anytime you have that transition year you're going to see that uh dip most likely so I just wonder how our fifth grade transition would track with other districts who are transitioning at at sixth grade so great questions and I think that's what our teachers and Department chairs and administrators do a great job of of trying to get to the why um but these are great questions for us to ponder as as we um look to the years ahead thanks Terry and I so I'm going to close it out I've got a couple of questions comments kind of dovetailing with some of the other folks say um one thing I think we've seen before and you and you didn't have
082today but is really sort of how our district compares to the state in percentile um ranking and I don't know I think there's a paper at Syracuse that publishes every year and I was looking through it and you know for most of the three through eight there we were in the top you know 10% of New York State um so you know Echo the the sentiments of of everybody at the table that uh we have a very strong academic district and every year I appreciate that um you and building administrators and Department chairs and individual teachers really take a hard look at those hey here's where we're we're strong and here's where we're weak and really looking to continually improve you know it's really hard to get from like you know nine top you know
0839% to top 6% to top you know uh but I appreciate the effort um that our staff in this District takes to continually improve and get there um and I I will Echo Brendan's um sentiment that one thing that really caught my ear in talking is saying okay we've got a problem in high school math on one issue and they're filtering that down to the middle school and the you know later grades in the elementary to try and improve that proficiency from the bottom up which is great um and I had a question similar to Christians about the different tracks like I would assume that chemistry and physics is not like how many how many region are required um to graduate versus I would assume yeah some of the upper math and that chemistry and
084physics I I don't have that off the top of my head but I would assume that not everybody has to take physics no and so I I didn't I took it down but I forget what we had I mean the the percentage of kids who take that compared to say an earth science or um a biology which is required is it's it's much less because remember to then kids also jump onto that AP track so they might be taking an AP chem or an AP Physics so yes region is an option but a lot of the kids jump because they're taking the accelerated courses onto the AP World or a college level class so they can get those credits going into college so if you were taking for example an AP Chemistry or an AP
085Physics you do not have to take the region exam you can just take only the AP test okay so that would certainly yeah explain a lot that someone that would be obviously if you're taking the AP Chemistry exam for example you would do pretty well on the but most kids have taken prior to that the chemistry exam and then they take AP chm the next year it's so it's very rare that a kid would not take chemistry prior so they've taken the regions and now they're going to take the AP cem got it make if I could just clarify something you said so what you're saying is they might take regions chemistry or um and then they'll take AP Chemistry as a second course correct yeah a lot of kids will take um Advanced chemistry
086right accelerated chemistry and then the next year they'll take apem both my kids did that so that way you you did well in it why wouldn't you take it the next year and get the AP credit for it great yeah um so maybe just as a followup to the board if you can just email what regions are mandatory and what regions are optional um as we look at the datea I think it' be helpful information but um you know overall I Echo the sentiments of you know we're a very high performance district and I appreciate the steps that we continually take to um improve that even more so uh thank you very much you're welcome uh next item is our consent agenda the use of the consent agenda permits the Board of Education to make
087more effective use of its time by adopting a single motion to cover those relatively routine matters which are included any member of the board who wishes to discuss individually a particular piece of business in the consent agenda May so indicate and that item will be considered and voted on separately um can I have a motion on items 2 through 25 so moved do we have a second second from elanora um and then who would like to pull any of the numbered items here in our consent agenda anybody um I'd like to pull number six just have a clarifying question on the prf um architecture contract uh so hearing nothing else we will take a vote Yes Yes it appears that to me that number um eight is the first so we'll just pull number eight
088uh I take okay um so let's do this let's take number eight first and ask your question and then we'll go back and vote and then we'll talk about I'll tell you what I will I will withdraw my request and not ask to pull any of them okay um so let's take a vote then on number two through five and 7 through 25 all in favor I I uh any opposed seeing no opposed any extensions seeing no abstentions um my question on number six it's a uh just a pre-referendum work for um our tetratech for our Architecture Firm uh and this question is for Terry or for John I didn't see an overall dollar amount here is this just build hourly I saw the the rate schedule at the end that's correct yep great easy
089enough uh any other questions number six okay all in favor I I any opposed and any abstentions all right the next item on our agenda a lot of pages to flip through here thank you uh old business uh polling place discussion uh the board was um circulated a memo put together uh by Mr fin in conjunction uh or working with the um Orange County Board of Elections on some of the options with um the iPads for voting um so John maybe if you just want to give us a brief uh walk through there to make sure we're all comparing the same on numbers for discussion sure um couple different options we have the status quo um budget vote option at the middle school with the cost associated with that then the board was looking at
090adding in an additional site um so we gave a cost associated with adding in that additional site um and if we were to do that additional site kind of under the status quo method we use poll books so we would have to separate the district out really um the district would need to be divided where would that division uh in the district B how would we decide that where would it go where would be that second location um so then we looked at um going within an iPad signin um many people are familiar with that uh the company that does that is NTS um they can move us over to that there are costs associated with doing the the iPad um sign in um however it is Bose's aable and they they broke out the
091cost and whether we want to do a four iPad approach or a six iPad approach they felt four was sufficient for the number of Voters that we have in the district um and some of the key there uh keys there were do we want to go with one polling location continue at the middle school um or if we add the second location you're looking at potentially keeping the same amount of iPads four iPads or six iPads you're you're just going to go two at each location or three at each location um cost increase um but again you can have the district uh selected as one site with two locations or you can break the district up into two separate sites um so some key language there uh really the question is is what are we
092looking to accomplish by by this process um what data are we looking at um particularly when we have have you I think it's 13 over 13,000 registered voters in the district with about uh 2,000 voting for for a budget vote so and I just want to make sure that I understood um you provided a table here with with a lot of data as we look at the iPad options you've got a total cost in year one a total cost in year two and then a reimbursable cost is that reimbursable cost the cost after Bose's reimbursement so that's the all-in number to look at or do I need to do some subtraction so so it's that's the all-in cost but it comes a year later 's reimbursement so you have to outlay the the full cost
093up front and then get reimbursed a year later so just um for those in the audience who don't have the numbers um in front of them just some some quick numbers here um if we do it as we have done it in the past with the polling books at one location it's $177,300 a year um four iPads um at one location uh the total cost is 47,00 800 in year one but that after the reimbursement is 25,000 um so 7 or 8,000 more um year two that reimbursable cost goes down to 23 that's some there's initial software startup costs um so really not you know from 177,000 up to 23 um for one location not a super significant jump $6,000 and then um if we were to do two polling locations that year two reimbursable
094cost would be 34,100 so about double from 17 to 34 so to go with four iPads and that I assume means four iPads at each polling location no four iPads total two in each location okay do we think that's enough again NTS felt that that was enough okay uh but again you're you want to make a decision about convenience of signning right your your times when your registered vot ERS are probably early in the morning or late at night people are then trickling in throughout the day this is just kind of ballpark estimates of what most budget votes look like um and those busier times are when you want to move that convenience of people through those lines great that was why the four iPad versus the six iPad was exp and the then the
095six iPad number so after reimbursement in year two the four iPads is 34,100 and six iPads is 35,3 so only an additional $1200 so it you know for the two iPads so there may you know I assume if you go to eight it would be similar increase yeah a couple Grand more um great so you know really I open it for discussion um I guess I will just say if we want to as a board um think about two polling locations I would say that's locking us into the iPads because if we were to say that we need to split our district into polling districts um it's going to cause confusion and you're going to have people show up at the middle school and go no you can't vote here you have to go to
096the high school and vote um and that's going to create uh that's going to create a problem uh so I think that would be a pretty awful idea so to me the discussion is um do we do the way that we have been doing it um do we add iPads to one polling place test that out see how it goes see the data there um and then make a decision uh further on down the line into two polling places um or do we think the two polling places is important so um I leave the floor open to to discussion anyone I'll start by just addressing what I think the true options are um I agree that having two polling places but do it with hand signin I the the the cost that's not on there
097would be educating people about where they have to go which I don't know if a dollar figure could truly capture how much of a pain in the butt that would be so I think the the real option the two options are status quo or iPad for both because to me I mean I I understand the iPad solves a convenience problem but it would really just be solving the problem of getting people to uh I would assume anyway that we would allow people then to to to go to either location because they you can only sign in once right so it would be a way of resol solving that other problem um again so that's the numbers there would be 177,000 versus um I don't have it the second but 58 I think was it 58
098before Bose's reimbursement so after reimbursement yeah yeah yeah so um let's find that table yeah I mean it would be 58 before reimbursement and then 35 um after the reimbursement comes in yeah I think there's um there's a middle ground argument to be made to piggyback on your point of switch to the iPads this year at one polling location because I think one of the questions really raised was are we seeing proper um not proper but are we seeing the the right geographic representation in the people who vote versus the people live in the district and I kind of went to that was the question I asked myself uh cuz Christian you had talked about where Board of Ed members who are elected where they came from and what that breakdown was and that's cuz
099you didn't have the information on where people voted and you didn't have that information because if you went to go get it you would be directed to the basement and you would get a banker box with eight books and you would have to manually go through the 12,000 registered voters and write down who voted and where they lived um and at that point I gave up on that effort so I think there's um there's a case to be made to switching to the iPads leaving one location analyzing the data and then having the discussion on you know are we trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist um or are we seeing a disproportionate representation geographically speaking Christian um so four points and the first one I think is that I think we're framing the
100choices I would frame it differently I I think if there's two two locations it's CCMS and cchs if it's one location it's one location at the high school because that is the most centrally located both by the population distribution and also just the straight line distance for most of the residents in the district and so I think that's the basic choice that we're facing the second one is and this is really confuses me because um I'm not sure why you're talking to the County Board of Elections because they don't supervise govern or regulate School Board elections and without getting into all the details about what that means I'm just going to read one sentence from isab summary about the annual meeting in election Logistics and this is the first line law governing School District elections
101in general the education law governs school district meetings and elections not the election law and so you're talking to someone and you're creating a requirement that would be required for a general election but is actually not required for School Board elections because the legal framework of it is actually a meeting we could have the budget vote by a Voice vote in one room and people did and that actually would be still as allowed in New York state we could do it with just paper ballots which means here's a paper ballot there's some minuted education law about how the paper ballot has to be structured but it is not the standard that the ballot for example in a general election has to follow so there's a lot of differences between that you can see that from
102the candidate petitions which would never f u would never conform to the level that petitions have to do for any other candidate in any other office um most uh most obviously is that you can't sign your own petition if you're running for any other office you can do that on a school board and Harvey suland confirmed that to me when I submitted my own and there's no adastation and things of that sort because the standard an education law is that it is a meeting and you can look at the language of every resolution we pass each year and that meeting as every commissioner decision on every single impropriety by elections it says there's a rebuttable presumption of regularity which means that it would have to be egregious and therefore fraud is not let's say a
103consideration and so just to give you one example in 1995 in Valley Central just under 700 people voted that were not in their poll book this was appeal to the commissioner and the commissioner says it doesn't matter because they were actually registered and therefore there's no difference and it did not have any substantial impact and therefore individual cases of fraud even when they Grant the facts those individual cases have not been a cause to impeach the election because just like we have a meeting here we could let's say conduct our votes the nine of us through an electronic device and we could decide that it would probably be uneconomical but that's more or less the type of vote we're taking the same type of vote it's more akin to let's say a shareholders meeting or
104to a condo board meeting where you have an annual meeting and so that is why the election law standard particularly the idea that you need to divide into districts and therefore they require a different poll book the poll book doesn't serve the same function it's more or less a sign-in sheet um for School Board elections and that's pretty clear and I don't want to I've read all the education law governing elections in the last few days and if you could show me where it says you require a separate poll book for different sites um I I would be interested and then because we don't necessarily have to go to the minimum standard we could say well we were really concerned about fraud but we should look at what the data says or in the last
10530 years there have been just about depending on how you classify 30 cases of School Board elections being appealed to the the commission education commissioner and at the same time we've had 20,000 School Board elections not including ex second elections meaning like uh re-elections meaning when a budget fails or when there's been a separate V vote which means the allegation to failure yeah sorry allegation to fraud is approximately 1 16 of 1% and that's and of those allegations only one of them actually led to any action which would be one to 100th of 1% and so that seems to be a relatively infantes possibility to consider when we're not required to do it and that increases the cost dramatically I should also add that if you look at our own regulation and our own policies
10620.2 where we have a policy about voting procedures it allows us to do paper ballots It also says we have to be able to walk into the machines and if you've ever seen the pulling machines I don't think any one of us could actually walk into the machine and it's because the machines are the old hand crank machines where you go behind the curtain you pull the crank maybe Richard you have not experienced this but I think all the older ones we've you probably voted on one of those machines and actually there's specific legislation the education law saying we can use that machine and even if we use it we don't actually have to maintain it we're actually ensure that it operates properly we were G there was an exception specifically for that in 2014
107which would all indicate the intent is that we're not going to the same standard about fraud so I have some other points about how we could solve the problem of dividing the district because I know what the numbers are and because districts have done this with indicating it actually can be done for the cost of updating a web page because what you can do is what Newberg does and allocate electoral districts and and then test a link to the New York State voter lookup and that would show them and you could just put that into the budget bulletin which is what Whoppers that operate six sites or Newberg that operates 12 sites does currently so I don't think this is a really huge logistical problem because many districts already do it and found ways and
108lingers doesn't just New York State lookup they use nts's uh voter information portal which I presume would cost money but I think there's a free way to do it Tiffany so um team we're creating a problem that doesn't exist though it would be nice to have a second polling site or a different polling site and and I value and respect everything that you had to say Christian I think at this time it's just not a fiscal priority for us um I believe that every person that should or can vote should should go and exercise that valuable right um I think it will create conf confusion and to Brendan's point where do we put the dollar amount on people being confused on where to go or they didn't get to go to the right place and
109being turned away um I just think we have greater priorities right now where to spend our money I mean we spent a couple months arguing over a a smaller amount of money on on upgrading our scoreboard um this is a problem that we don't have it would be nice but it's not a problem um people can drive one time per year here in in nice Spring weather not in the mid middle of winter five or six miles is it ideal no of course not is it the most convenient of course not but right now our priorities are getting our teacher contracts done I'd rather see the money go there getting um our upcoming negotiations getting our capital projects that are um underway and we might have another one I just think we need to um
110focus our priorities and perhaps revisit this issue in a couple years when our when our contract negotiations and our capital projects are behind us thank you I just wanted to location I'm sorry location wise I just want to say I I strongly emphatically say CCs is off the table I have no idea how you run an election with Community lunch and everything going on so I get really uncomfortable with two sites um I think we would be looking at down the district and and making it a a work a teacher work day or something of that nature but for me I I just I I cannot see cchs being an option uh for this year for a myriad of reasons that I would not be able to look parents or staff in the eye and
111say that we we would be able to solve uh in such a short Runway thank you Terry bass yeah thanks um I struggled with this whole proposal from the very beginning and I'm going to repeat myself uh today uh I know you know people seek everything that is convenient but what I'm struggling with uh how the kids of that family who would vote go to the school where the vote takes place for a whole school year and you know I mean I have kids in the district I mean one day one kid is sick I have to go take him out sometimes they have dentist appointment take them out return so you do this whole thing you're not detached from the school where the vote takes place for a whole year and for one day
112when you have to vote if you decide to vote many people don't vote but if you want to vote is that too much to ask to go to that school I struggle with this idea from the beginning and I'm still struggling with it thank you bass Richard thank you so I'm not going to repeat what others have said I think everyone knows my position on this I still think we should explore two polling sites I don't think you could put a dollar sign or figure on voter accessibility um we don't have specific data to back my claim up that I think voter turnout is lower on the west side of the district but through living there talking to people I think it's a very educated guess of mine that not as many people from that
113side of the district vote it's just it's really just common sense because they're they live five six miles away compared to people that live in the village or the town takes them two minutes to drive there so the bottom line for me I still think we should explore a polling site and I know bass you brought up uh how did their kids get to school it's not just parents that vote it's senior citizens it's those without kids and I think those are the ones that really make a difference in budget votes because a lot of people that don't have kids do support our schools and when we're looking at capital projects in the future having second capital projects I think starting to have more accessible polling sites would help us because people that live in
114the reserve and live in New Windsor they do support our schools and they're moving here so that's just my two cents thank you thank you Richard um Carl elanora we hav't heard from you any comments thoughts I mean I guess the only thing I'd like to add is everyone has has made their argument and their case two polling places is would be convenient for because we do have a large population on the other side of town um I do agree with Tiffany that we have a lot of things we need to um Finance facilities that need to be repaired we have contracts coming up that need to be addressed um so we have to take all of those factors into account I just wanted to comment on something that Terry had said because it's been
115weighing on me for years you're right it would be a logistical nightmare you know with especially with Community lunch but I've always been concerned with the Middle School even the flow of people going in and out voting during the school day so I mean that might be something we we might want to talk about as well because everybody just walks into the building and kids are walking in the halls and you know just something we might want to discuss that's my two c um as you know I have a daughter at at the middle school so you know her safety's uh Paramount along with everyone else's um but my concern with again with spreading it to another District school is we have so many security Personnel coordination with um Cornwall PD monitors everyone is focused
116on making sure that that flow goes directly to the gymnasium and and write back out so we we put the additional personnel there I get concerned about what that looks like with devil uh the location so Christian and and if I could ask you you know I listened to your comment and to to be honest with you the one real concrete um proposal that I heard from you in your comment previously was that you would prefer that if we have one location it moves to the high school versus the Middle School um because I don't think you're proposing that we have a Voice vote and I don't think you're proposing that we go back to paper ballots and I don't think you're proposing that we find a butterfly uh mechanism uh voting machine I understand
117your point that you know those are technically Allowed by the law but I don't think you're advocating for that so um for my clarification I'd like to know what you um what you would propose uh that we do as a district so I think I put as two choices and this I think is and I'm sorry if I was not clear that if we have two sites what those two sites are and that's question but if we can't have two sites because of economy reasons or otherwise I think there's a clear preference to have the one that reduces the distance for all voters in the district both because of where the population is distributed and because of where the actual straight line distance to the polling site is and with the logistics in our propos
118proposed list of capital for our next Capital project is the traffic because of the traffic ingestion at CCMS we don't have necessarily a similar one for cchs so if we're talking about disruption and things of that sort I mean one school versus one school someone's going to get disrupted if we have it at a school it's about the same I'm not sure um I think you probably lost more instructional time in terms of total time just by moving to a drop rotation schedule I mean just in terms of the number of hours that we're seeing kids Less in in class are instructional time facing and so what I guess someone saying that is I if there's one school it should be at the central if there's one falling site it should be at a central
119location and the most central location available to us and so my point is that this is kind of a two Choice the first one is should we have two or one and if we have one I'm not sure it should be at the same when I wasn't the original one to propos the second polling site but the reason why I would support tooling polling sites because it's not geared at taking away someone's preferred polling site but being fair to an equal number of people uh who are also members of our of our district um and so that's that's that's my proposal I have another comment but I'll stop there if that's if it's clear what I am proposing so you're proposing your preference is to have two and if we only have one that it
120be the high school uh yes and I think that for the reasons that I stated so let's um tease out you think it's okay to have the printed books if we have to and not split into electoral districts or you think it you think uh splitting to electoral districts is uh so you're not you're not necessarily having I mean I I could go into the logistics and details um my reading of the law and I'm not a I'm not an election lawyer um but my there's nothing there about creating a second polling Book for a second district in the education law that governs and there are a lot of specifics things about the nature of the ballot that's set up the machines you're allowed to use which and so my point about that is if
121you if you've seen that um maybe you're reading more carefully than me but I'm not seeing that that is in the election law uh which means for New York State it is not in the education law and my reason to bringing up those other examples is that those suggest that that there's not that kind of requirement uh for School Board elections because it is it's within a different legal framework than the general elections even though we think of it as an election that is not how it's cast and that affects how the law governs it anyway so point is like I think there's my preference would be for two because I think it's worth it but if people feel that it's not worth it I think there's another consideration which is what is fairest for
122all of the residents of our district and that means it would be one site but at a different location I'm sorry I kind of I was trying to be clear about it because it seemed to wasn't clear before yeah but again so I I'm I'm I see you Carl I'm going to come to you next I mean so what I'm hearing from you now is you think the polling books are not necessary so we would just have the polling books at one location and not a second location well we would do exactly what we're doing now in just in a sense same cost different location it would wouldn't be any increase in cost and we have to have an election anyway so those costs are baked in that's if we move it to the high
123school I'm talking about a two-location scenario so I think the law is silent on this there's nothing that that seems to be requiring that and there's nothing that seems to be forbidding that um I could tell you how I would probably do it if you're going if I was running it which is I would run a polling book and split I would split the district um where I would put New Windsor Woodberry and cornall electr listic 63 and 11 which is basically everything west of 9W you split into two districts and that splits roughly the population to 6,500 in both wealth one so it's nice and balanced it also makes it easy to tell people where to go because then you can use a New York State put a look up which would tell you
124what district you are in simply by going to the link and therefore that would handle the m to cover the fact that people might go to different polling sites you can have a complete polling thing or you can have people who are not in that District cast a provisional ballot hold them aside and only count them if it would affect the outcome of the election and then you can decide to count them and that would create the problem of this double voting that was brought up in the memo so I mean this is a problem that happens and that's how no I understand so I just so just so we're clear you would propose splitting into two different um districts for voting and you would have to go to a specific polling place and printing
125the paper books of the uh appropriate voters for each location if you want I I don't think you need to split the district I just think if you do that that's how you do it I think you could have two sites for and a choice of polling site so I'm not going to be Dr n about this because people see that it's confusing I wouldn't insist on it so if you don't split the district into two different an A and A B for voting you would Advocate what in terms of the books the iPads um I think the iPads are a nice little gimmick but I don't think they're necessary and I think you can do it without the iPads um I'm convin I'm how H specifically how is the point I'm trying to get
126so you have so you would print polling books for so let's just say there's 12,000 voters you would print the 12,000 voters and have those books at the middle school and have those books at the high school for the same 12,000 voters something was my ear and I lost what you were saying I apologize so you would print the 12,000 voters and have the 12,000 voters at the middle school and the 12,000 voters at the high school and they would sign the book where they showed up is that what you're saying separate by where they live I think what I would do is I would have the two halves and there' be one polling book so there' be two tolling books would cover the 65 one for the 6500 in one district and 6500 the
127other district and that if they don't match like I.E I come to a different polling site that I'm not assigned to you have them as cast a provisional ballot you put it in a middle envelope or you seal it just like you do it an absentee ballot and then you only count you count those last and they're only in if they're decisive which is how the commissioner has generally ruled on this do they actually get counted and then you can therefore check against the other book to see that there's no double count something just say that that is so convoluted confusing and and chaotic I I appreciate it and I know it can be done but it it just not reasonable or or or something we should ever consider doing I do have to agree
128there if we are going to do the two polling places I think the easiest thing is the iPads because then it would have the signatures correct is that am I understanding that correctly yes so then if they if someone tries to go to a different it's already signed correct right I I think it would get very confusing with the box and then we're back to cost have iPads at all places yeah I I agree with the folks that say if we do two poing places we need the iPads to your point Christian is it legally required no um but I think it would be important for you know the confidence of the voter to say hey we're not having fraud in this election um and certainly you know not to get into National politics because
129it really doesn't have any place in this but obviously it's been an issue that we've heard about um in in the last several years so I I just don't think that's a an Avenue that we want to introduce so you know what is the bare minimum legal standard um I don't know necessarily um has any bearing so I guess the question is um I I think there's General consensus looking around the that if we do two places um we should do the iPads so I guess let's just take a little um maybe a straw poll here I know for me I'm I'm just I agree with Richie uh for several reasons that why we should have two different places I you know I don't want to get into all of them today but you know
130we can talk down the road there's uh physical some of it could be physical reasons why people can't come into the places we're having a m right now and more so though is that like Richie was bringing up the people on the other side they don't come out here to vote because one of the reasons is you you can't even find a place to park in here half the time so there's a lot for me but um I I agree with what Richie and Chris had brought up um okay so let's take a little we don't have a motion here this is just a discuss can I add one to the vote is your suggestion of one iPad to collect information this year I mean I I'm I'm hearing a lot of anecdotal reason why
131we might need a second polling location but to I mean several people have made this point now we have we're not quite sure if this is a problem so using one year to uh diagnose that seems to me like the the most viable or at least the wisest option if we're going to consider anything other than the status quo um I agree with that are you saying use the iPad use the iPad at one location this year so you can see we can see is there a Gap are there people that are unrepresented at the polls and then next year because what's also occurring to me is like man it's getting kind of late in the game to like totally be changing the way we vote as a district um so yeah that either we
132just keep it as is or we use this year we we buy two iPads or however many we would need put them at the middle school and then analyze the data and then in September we can be ahead of the problem yes I I agree with that sentiment I think there's still um people at this table who would say I don't even think that's necessary this is um not that big of an issue for one day of a year and the cost the additional cost um of going to the iPad is not justified because it would be better spent on um staff and Capital Improvements so I I think that's a view that we've heard from the table so I guess the um we'll lump we'll lump um we'll lump two things together because again
133we don't have a motion here on the table so I just want to kind of get a sense as a group if this is a discussion we want to continue so I'm I'm going to I'm going to put us into two different camps one Camp is um we should explore um two polling places um and we'll we'll we'll work out the details later um but I think Brendan's is is wise of you know um add the iPad at one location this year so the additional cost of the iPad um at a location this year so the one uh Camp is that and that covers you know that covers the range from we should go to two locations this year to you know kind of anything two locations and then if we have enough support there
134we'll tease those options out and the other is I think we should just do what we're doing and use the money elsewhere um so I will guess if we can just get everybody to give me a one location or two location and that can be two locations now in the future um and let's so Tiffany one location Richard I'm going to one location for now I would say I'm I I'm capped at the iPad so if that puts me in two locations yes but I don't think we should do that this year two locations okay yeah I feel the same way as Brandon just if I think it's like a one and a half maybe it's the middle we're we're briding the the middle right wouldn't you say I resent the two op because I
135I agree with the costs like but if we want data then just do it at the one location this year if we want the data again just to to drive discussion and action I'm G to put that vote as a two location vote uh Carl I'm gonna go with the two Christian if the choice is just one and if the choice is just one and two I would go with two pass one so wait did I do that right I think it's TW three ones and one one and a half and Christine is not here Christine's not here so we've got I'm I wrote down seven and we have eight people it was two two two two five twos so uh at this table is 52s to 3 ones um we've heard two of the
136twos say um if we're doing I I don't think we should go to two this year we should do the iPad at one location this year um I am also in that camp um so I guess um that trying to do math here again I'm I'm category one not proficient I think that we are what what we're saying is there's no support as far as my reading for doing two locations this year I think if we are going to explore anything else Bas these numbers it's just should we do the iPad because out of the five that I counted as twos two of those five were not to do two locations this year yeah so um so now the question is now now we're going to get to action um we do not have support
137to go to two polling locations this year um so I'm going to propose as action um that we get four iPads six iPads like we can quibble on the number because the price was not that different but between the two options but go to the iPads this year um I'm going to say at our current location uh because of the operational challenges that Terry mentioned in terms of holding it at the high school um and I you know I agree with that I think if we were to do two locations we would have to give the students off that day at least at the schools that we do it um that would have to be a teacher in service day or something so that's another consideration as well from a calendar um perspective so um
138let's get a yay or nay on uh four or six to be determined later iPads this year at the middle school yay or nay I'm sorry compared to what compared to doing nothing doing the paper pole book that we've been using compared to yay is yay is sign in on the iPad and are we convinced that that's going to be a huge thing for us I mean like no some people are convinced and other people are not but if we have the iPad so to Brendan's point and you know what I encountered as well if we have the iPad we will have the data of who voted and then we can compare that to the geography of the registered voters and we can see is there uh a disparity we can have that I mean
139data I mean we can have that data if you I mean look you might be daunted by going through poll books but I've been doing that a good chunk of my life and that's not really that daunting to me um if you want me to go through the poll books I didn't want to do something that would be just getting just addressed numbers because we don't need to know individual people we just need to know their street address and that would be very easy just to lump them into different electoral districts but I'm not sure I don't think the problem was ever about whether it was a paper pole book versus an electronic iPad sign in and so it seems like this is morphed from the original concern and I think the point was is
140to be as Fair as possible and some data was provided to you on that that I sent all of you back in November and I don't know if anyone's looked at it but I think it's pretty convincing when you're from one half of the district your chances of getting reelected if you run are near 100% And if the other half of the district your chances are lower than 40% for candidates who've already won an election which means they're a relatively high quality candidate you would assume that it was the same number of people there would not be a geographical difference over 25 years but we already moved past the issue only three people supported two polling places this year we're now on the issue of iPads or no iPads at are current po correct but
141our administration had said that that's not feasible for this year logistically so our president reiterated that uh and I to be honest with you I'm not moved by the data of people running for the Schoolboard election I don't think the sample size is sufficient I'd like to see the data of people who actually voted and where they lived and I'm not going to go spend two weeks in the basement of the admin building typing up everybody's address who voted and who didn't vote um so if you want to do so you are more than free to do so it's public information but I I don't have the time to do that okay can we rent the iPads is is the only option purchasing them I I think John would that that is a rental fee
142we we don't purchas oh that is the rental fee that's the rental fee yeah we could we could get data and say there's no problem and we go back to what we were doing next year I can so think of it it's almost like we're we're we're taking a a research project in a way and like we're not committing ourselves to anything long term but if somebody if somebody's willing to do the research and save us the money then I mean I know I I could spend that money for you guys elsewhere that's not a problem I'll give you a list but yeah the yes we obviously have the needs of where we can spend it so um and and so that's the question we have now is do we want to spend that money
143on the iPad for this year to have that data or do we want to continue with the status quo um so let's go around and say iPad versus status quo Tiffany status quo Richard IAD for right now okay I'm gonna say status quo again Elanor I I'm with you I don't think that the cost is is Justified Brendan without thinking of any other way to get the data iPad Elanor Christian doing the research in the basement can I change my vote um you again go ahead ditto I would love to see that uh live streamed be a long video carview iPad status quo status quo okay so elanora well I I only have I only have three for the iPad um so your status quo I if we have to spend that kind of money
144when someone's willing to if he's willing to get the information for us there we have so many needs sure for that money look and if if um if Christian or anybody else is willing to go check the poll books um for the last uh you know election two elections three elections whatever it may be and what's that um I I would I would I would welcome that information and and bringing this discussion uh back up so um okay I just thing I don't think people realize that I did 70 years of police data for Tokyo Bri Precinct level which is by far a magnitude greater than what you're talking about and I did it you know that in a foreign language going on they scheduled the national uh the National Diet library of Japan okay
145which gives means you can't even touch it you have to have it brought out to you and that took me about two and a half weeks it's not it's really not that hard in we could arrange for some of those like white gloves for you when you look through the old Pole books yeah um I I don't I don't to your point I don't think it's an insurmountable problem it's just throwing the man hours at it so um so we we'll leave it at that for now um thank you for that discussion everybody um next item up for for bid here is public comments dare John what do you think about the public holding Place uh no takers for public comment uh closing comments from Boe members uh I'll start with bass and whip around
146um okay I will reiterate that I was uh very happy very glad to see the results from the presentation from Megan tonight uh you know that again uh Kus to the teachers and the administration um and I would add one more item uh Kus to coach Daniels doing modified wrestling uh uh undefeated so far uh I've seen him in in matches he's doing great job thanks thank you P Christian in many cases those are things that we don't directly control and I just want to bring to people's attention mention a study that was published this year in the American educational research association's Journal um by ivy league Economist Matthew craft titled you know the big problem of little interruptions and what he did is observed a whole school district and looked at where actual instructional
147time was lost and one of the biggest things he found are these little interruptions which he mostly attributes to administrative interruptions and I just want to give some of the figures from his study so if you look at if you take out unexcused absences these interruptions are about 50% of the total interruptions of class time in the high school 57% of the INR at the middle school and 46% of the lost time at the elementary school and what does that equate to at the high school that's about 11 days out of 180 and even more at the ele Middle School level and a little bit less at the elementary school level and that seems to be something that's in our control and I would urge people to kind of take a look at that and
148maybe revise about some of our practices that actually interrupt the flow of classes interrupt and actually lead to pretty significant losses in terms of instructional time thank you Christian Carl hi um I just wanted to thank um Megan for everything she did it's a great job kids are doing great real proud of all of that um I did do my visitation at the schools I've got nothing bad to say Richard's going to give you the reports I guess with in the next couple of weeks and um we're good to go thank you Carl yeah we we'll Circle back Brendan uh yeah thanks uh again to Megan for the incredible uh work that went into that and then also just the the work that went into uh creating those results uh not only not only on
149the administration but uh all the teachers everybody throughout the buildings uh only other thing uh is uh congratulations again to John Hines the director of Lion King Jr but also uh the others that were involved uh Denise Carter Jess Henry um and the whole slew of of volunteers it was a uh an extraordinary production it is always the uh the highlight of the year uh for I think everybody who who gets to be a part of that and it's just a great Showcase of uh how the Arts in this District are such a vital part not only of U the kids experience but also the community experience we had a record number number of uh kids in the program and also uh record number of people as they would say fannies in the seats uh
150and then uh we've got a whole spring uh selection of shows coming up so everybody keep an eye on that and oh I also want to thank Mercedes because she's an essential part of Lion King Jr as well um thank you for entering stage right just as I was about toh finish up all right yeah so just uh you know watch shows uh cheer all that stuff support the kids thank you thank you Brendon Elanor I'll Circle back to you I'm sorry I had to yeah no please uh congratulations to everyone for everything they've done it's been a long meeting so that's it wonderful Tiffany uh I am going to thank Ava and meline who departed but they hung in for a long time I would have left long before they did so Bravo to
151them uh thank you to Megan for putting that together um super proud of the academics in Cornwall Central School District always have been uh been in this district for over 20 years and continuously impressed with the um education that our children received I will say the the one place we got beat by Tuxedo in seventh grade ELA was my daughter's class so I'm gonna I'm going to say Bravo and you could have had her thank you uh Richard yeah thank you try to keep this short one because it's late two cuz I have no voice hardly so I just want to thank Megan for your presentation tonight um I want to thank all of our teachers and staff for making these great results happen and you guys are the lifeline of this district and I'm
152just really really proud and impressed uh we did have our visitations uh last week I just want to thank all of the teachers and staff for warmly welcoming us into your classrooms and it was clear how much they valued having board members in the schools and seeing us there so we definitely want to continue that it was it was just really great and lastly I just want to say I went to the Civics fair at the high school last Thursday and it was just very impressive got to talk to a lot of our students about the issues they chose to research and present to us and just a job well done by all so with that have a good night thank you rich Richard um I will let my um comments about the educational presentation
153from earlier stand um I will um yeah make two points one uh on the visitation it was my first time in the high school um seeing the community lunch I was um proud to see just you know a lot of Life a lot of vibrancy what you want to see in high school kids being social um few kids on the phones not too many though uh with their head buried in the phone not talking to anybody I just saw a lot of you know interaction between the kids and laughter and and the different activities going on in the gym and elsewhere so um it's what we want to see in our schools it was great um and to your point further on the um Civic fair I'm glad you uh reminded me to pull up
154here um so the teachers who put that on were uh Mrs biasi Mrs and Mr wellie um so you know great job by them great job by the students um it was their participation in government class and I believe they said they had over um participants and they all kind of did trifold Billboards in the cafeteria they actually did two shifts and they had a local um issue and being participation in government was you know who do you contact for this issue um if it's a pothole you have to figure out this a local Road a state road a County Road uh who do you contact um so there's a lot of thought in the presentations from the kids in terms of the issues and who they present to but really hats off to the
155teachers who organized that and and uh and principal Wilhelm um it wasn't just Richard and I that were there uh assembly manikas was there uh County Executive new house was there uh supervisor well jsky from the town as well as uh Karen Reyes on the Town Council uh supervisor bedetti from New Windsor um and mayor gallano from the village so they had a lot of um you know these folks going around talking about it and that was kind of question right is this a town issue is this a village issue is this a newor issue is this a county issue is this a state issue uh and there were Representatives um from all of those levels so I thought that was really great um interaction for the kids to go I got a problem with
156the county issue uh go ask Steve new house he's right there um so that that was pretty cool um to have uh it was the first time that they had done this is my understanding so uh it's something that they should continue uh and hopefully they will have the um enthusiastic participation um from all those different levels of government and not just those there representatives from New Windsor Police um from the volunteer Ambulance Corp new and you know other other Civic uh organizations but I just pointed out some of you know the elected that were there so um with that thank you everybody um we are going to this is a question do we adjourn the meeting and then go to Executive session we leave it open so we're going to go back into executive
157session um so we're not going to adjourn the meeting uh we're going to go executive session to continue our discussion earlier on bargaining Union contracts we've got a motion from Christian do I have a second on Executive session second from Richard um we will not conduct any business when we come back out we're just going to go have a discussion and then we will come back out and formally adjourn the meeting uh thank you John for attending e e e