001Good evening. My name is Shrur and I'm president of the City School District of Albany Board of Education. On behalf of the board, I welcome you to our meeting. Today we have our member um student member, Miss uh um why am I forgetting your name? Bromel, sorry. Brain fart. Um, member Wolf Gang, member uh, Elmanavi, Miss Crerachche, um, member Wilson, member Savage, and man, we re rearranged our order. I'm just making sure. We also have a superintendent and members of the cabinet joining us both in person and virtually. Uh this meeting is being livereamed and the instruction to view the meeting as well as the link to the agenda including all all the documents we'll share uh we'll discuss are available at alony uhchools.org/bee. This is a good time for me to note that if
002you're here tonight to speak in public comment, you should sign up with Miss Timmons, our board clerk here to my right. And with that introduction, we invite those of you who choose to join us as we stand for the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of addition to the pledge of allegiance. We always focus our meeting on restating the mission of the city school district of Albany, which is to work in partnership with a diverse community and to engage every learner in a robust educational program designed to provide the knowledge and skills necessary for success. Um, student board update, Miss Bril. >> Hello. So, I will start off with our spirit week update. So last week, the student government came together to film an exciting promotional video for students to announce next week's spirit
003week with students even getting into spirit week outfits to promote the video. As of today, the spirit week posters have been up for a week and students have been expressing excitement for each day's theme and upcoming possible event. As you may know, recently there was a talent show held by TryM on January 28th and it was widely wellreceived by students as well as staff. With this in mind, student government is hoping to push forward another opportunity for our Falcons to showcase their talents. Of course, this will take some time to coordinate and we're still figuring out the logistics and the date in which this could be accomplished, but student government has decided to take focus onto this topic to promote Falcon excellence and support student voice and our student voice survey. As you know, we
004recently pushed out our student voice survey to students through out the district. As of right now, we are still waiting on a few more responses from students before we will be able to bring forward the opinions and wants from the thousands of students being supported by the district on a daily basis. When this happens, we will take great consideration for those opinions to make a more enjoyable environment for our Falcons as well as students across the district as a whole. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Miss Brennan. Moving on. Um, so, do you have a report for us? >> We do and we'll turn it over to Mr. Leco to get us started. >> Thank you very much. Faculty and staff throughout the district are engaging with our families today and tomorrow for our
005second round of parent teacher conferences. Teachers and staff met with parents and guardians this afternoon and evening and additional meetings are planned tomorrow afternoon. Uh we also want to remind everyone that all of our schools will be closed tomorrow so that we also can provide professional development for our employees in the morning along with the parent meetings in the afternoon. A reminder that our annual family and community partnership survey remains open through the end of February. The survey takes just a few minutes and this year there is an option for community members in addition to the surveys for students, families, and employees. All feedback will play a vital role in our school improvement efforts. You can visit almanschools.org for more information or call our office of curriculum and instruction at 518-47560. A reminder that all
006of our schools will be closed during the week of February 16th through the 20th for winter recess. I think it's because last week felt like two weeks that it feels like winter recess is next week, but it's not. We're all working and in school next week. It's February 16th through the 20th. District offices at Academy Park and here at our Harriet Gibbons Student Services Center also will be closed on Monday, February 16th in observance of President's Day. These district offices will be open the rest of the break week, but if you are planning to visit one of these administrative buildings, we recommend calling ahead to be sure the person you would like to meet with is in that day. We'll all return to business as usual districtwide on Monday, February 23rd. And that concludes tonight's
007district highlights. >> Okay. Okay. And we'll transition to the district update. I have a number of updates for the board and the community and we will dive right in. We're very excited uh to be unveiling a new admissions partnership with our friends at um University at Albany. This will take place uh on Monday in the high school library. Festivities begin at 10:30 with uh some refreshments and uh morning um snacks prepared by our culinary students. We'll have some uh studentled um music musical uh talent as well. And then the program will begin at 11:00. And uh while we can't share too many specifics yet, uh it's important to uh for folks to understand that um this agreement will impact uh approximately 20% of this year's graduating class that they will have uh with certain conditions
008to be met uh they will have automatic admission to University at Albany. And so we know that um the process of applying to college and choosing a college and all of the hoops and hurdles uh can be daunting and sometimes can um encourage students to not apply to certain universities. And so this this partnership will create a direct path for um Albany High School students and it is the only partnership uh between that we are both aware of between the university and our high school. We also want to uh thank uh Mayor Aleier. She has invited some district personnel um to head with uh a delegation of uh city representatives to head down to Baltimore next week. Uh she has some very significant relationships with um some key personnel uh in the city and and
009county uh elected officials down there. Um, our folks will hear from Baltimore leaders about what works in their city and explore approaches uh that will have positive impacts in our community, particularly around justice involved youth, wraparound programs, um, how the city and the county of Baltimore work with uh, Baltimore uh, city and county school district uh, to support these programs uh, and also uh, social emotional supports not just for students but also for parents. And so we look forward to uh our folks coming back and sharing what they learned and see how this uh relationship will flourish over time. We have a number of uh events coming up and we will hear from our CTE director shortly, but uh I'll steal a little bit of thunder that on uh this Saturday the 7th from 10:00
010to noon we will have our first ever CTE open house. We invite anyone and everyone to come and tour our new spaces including automotive, barbering, construction, cosmetology, culinary arts, health science, and pre-engineering and more. We'll have staff and students on hand to share a little bit about what goes on in those programs. Uh and also uh if you wish you can get your hair done, your nails done, you can have some snacks uh because our Valentine's Day spa day is uh happening at the same time and at the same place. Um this is uh certainly a tradition where our students are able to practice their skills on real life people. Uh I believe uh last time Mr. Wolf Gang and I were thinking about getting our nails done. We'll have to talk offline about that.
011Uh maybe I'll see you there on Saturday. But uh we ask folks to um uh sign up in advance. You can email uh Laquita Love uh or give her a phone call, but we have a couple packages and they are taking appointments. Although there there are opportunities for walk-ins. Also next week on the 11th, which is Wednesday at 6:30 at Albany High School, a really unique event where uh all of the district-wide music teachers put on a concert of their own. um selections chosen by them um where they can show off some of their talents and sort of break out of the mold of just being a music instructor. They now become music performers. It's a fundraiser in partnership with um uh AF and also the Albany Friends of Music. So, uh we hope that
012we can see you there. It's going to be a a great night and it's always so fun um to see kids and families who are there watching their teachers perform because usually they're just up there conducting or or providing small group lessons. So, this is uh really a a great night where our teachers let loose a little bit. It also is Black History Month and this marks the 100th anniversary of those celebrations. Uh throughout our schools and districts are a number of events taking place. Um those can be found on our website or uh families will have those uh communicated to them directly uh from their teachers or their principles. And uh as a district um with a predominant number of um of children uh this is a a really important opportunity for us to
013underscore um African-American history and teaching about um teaching about all of it, especially at a time when um at a time when certain histories are trying to be erased. And so it's really important that not only we we celebrate this um but that we lean into it. And so uh it's it's really nice to be part of an organization um that makes sure that our students uh are seeing themselves through history. And um although we just dedicate or nationally we just dedicate February, we also know that Black History is every month. So if you're interested in in learning more and seeing what's going on in the schools, uh you could check out our website. But we're uh really excited for all of the uh classroom based and school-based activities. It also is school counseling week
014this week and um this uh organization particularly has uh supported all things around student wellness particularly around school counselors. Um they have unwavering support. They do uh so much terrific work for our students. right now at the high school. They're helping with uh uh college decisions. Uh in the fall, they were helping with essays. Uh they're helping with uh course selection in the high school and certainly coming out of 8th grade doing college and career planning and just helping students navigate um the interesting uh interesting situations that of course uh adolescents uh confront on a day-to-day basis. So, we want to make sure that we take a moment to recognize uh the incredible work that our school counselors do every single day. And lastly, we want to celebrate one of our high school um high
015school teachers, Mr. Landman. Alan Lanman uh has been recognized. He's one of our Albany high school computer science teachers. He is one of just 60 teachers statewide uh that earned his national certification. He joins 14 other board certified teachers in our school district and uh he's been a instrumental uh teacher in our programs in the high school. I've been able to meet with him a number of times. I know we'll hear from uh uh Miss Paul Mary uh a little later tonight about uh her work uh with the CTE departments but uh particularly here and also Mr. Landman is a New York State master teacher. Uh so certainly this uh certification was a surprise to no one but wanted to make sure that we recognized him and that concludes my report. >> This is a
016usual practice. Board members I ask you to prioritize your questions. Uh we'll start with one question for each member and go on for a second round if needed. Miss Bramel, >> no comment. MK. >> Um, no questions, but I do just want to shout out our superintendent for the work he's done creating these partnerships across our city. Um, and with our state. Um, I feel like seeing him all around. Uh, he was a VIP for the mayor's state of the city. Now he's traveling with the mayor's team downtown. He's been up in the state legislature what, twice in a month. um new U Albany partnership coming um on top of the existing ones with HVCC and U Albany. So just want to give him a shout out for all the collaboration and going out into
017the community to build these um that he keeps bringing back to us. >> Absolutely. Mr. Almanovi, >> no questions. Just excited for all the good events that are happening. Um, I might show up on spa day just to watch you have your nails done. Um, I think it would be good to record that. But, um, thank you for everything. Um, as, um, member Wolf Gang said, uh, it seems like there's a lot of progress being made. So, appreciate you, Miss Man. I'm just gonna go on the backs of what other people have said. Um, and I don't have any uh questions or comments right now. >> Miss Savage, >> absolutely concur with all the celebration, but then I wanted to just ask for some quick follow-ups sometime relatively soon. It's been a while since we
018had an HR update in terms of our VA vacancy rate, so I thought we were going to get those sort of more frequently. So whenever we can get back to that, it's always just help for us helpful for us to have that context. Um similarly, I remember there was going to be some investigation to try and figure out if we could get to the bottom of some of the challenges we were having with our um families in terms of accessing vaccination and I don't feel like we've gotten an update on that relatively recently. um particularly those who are looking towards the county for support in and accessing that and some something about the need for parents to get directly involved rather than allowing um school staff to help with that. Um so those are two
019things that have been just kind of in the back of my mind for a while. >> Miss Grey, >> uh thank you for the report. It's good to know that you want RSVPs for the program Saturday because I do plan I do plan to be there. Not sure if I'm getting my nails done, but don't forget you don't have to get pol. You don't have to get a colored polish to get a manicure. So really, it's really it's appropriate for anyone regardless of regardless of your fashion sense. So really looking forward to really looking forward to seeing the cosmetology program. This will be this will be the first time I've done it. So I'm excited. Miss Wilson, >> thank you for your report and I regret that I will miss this CTE open house that's
020synergized with the um Valentine's um spa day, but that is a great opportunity because people will naturally already be there to showcase what our students are doing and there'll be more opportunities on Monday as well since they're participating in the Sunni um announcement. I just can we ask a question about the student report? Um, so I know you were talking about Thank you for your report by the way. You were talking about spirit week, the talent show in a district-wide student voice survey. I just had a question. Do you know offhand as of um how many questions there are in the nature of the categories of the questions? >> I can't recall off the top of my head how many questions there are, but I can look into that and get right back to you.
021Again, it's it's great to see all the partnerships that are happening with um you know, institutions and organizations around us. So, thank you for making this connection stronger. Um and and you know, our students are going to benefit in so many different ways because of all the opportunities. Um the um something else. Oh, I just wanted to also mention that on the on the uh on February 18th, I believe New York State OS is having their lunar day celebrations at the Empire State Plaza. So, if there are students who are and it's the school's off that week, so if students are interested, uh that's another uh venue for them to go and participate. Okay, any other questions, folks, comments? Okay. All right. So, moving on. This is the time we set aside to hear from
022members of our public. Uh the board always welcomes input from the community about the decisions we are making. We set aside about 30 minutes for each meeting to hear from district residents, parents, students, and members of the community. There are more than common. If there are more comments that can be accommodated in 30 minutes, which we don't anticipate today, we may choose to extend the length of time of the public comment period or establish a second period afterwards. Uh we also accept comments virtually on the same basis as those in person and we accept comments in writing and by voicemail. We welcome comments in English or in any other language and we'll provide the translation when necessary. All comment all comments must include the commenters's name in place of residence. We prefer not to accept
023anonymous comments. All the information about these many different ways to share your thoughts with us are available at addressing the board information at albonychools.org/bei. We ask our commenters to keep in mind that information about individual students and specific district staff cannot be shared. Not only is that a violation of privacy, but every student and every staff member deserves to know that concerns about them will not be aired in public. We do have PE one person signed up in comment today. Uh Miss Zimmerman, when I recognize you, please state your name. City of residence. Statements are restricted to maximum of three minutes. and Miss Crerachche here will uh give you a minute notice and a 10-second notice, and I'll notify you if your time is expired. It's a good idea to look up occasionally to see
024those notices so you won't be surprised at the end of your 3 minutes. Please note the board's policy is not to respond during public comment. Parent, if you need a response, please contact us by email, phone, or postal mail. Our contact information is available at aubonychools.org/b and I or a member of the board will respond on behalf of this. Thank you. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to present to the board. I am Becky Zimmerman speaking on behalf of the Albany CPAC, the Special Education Parent Advisory Council. As we continue our presentations to share information about the 11% of our school district population who are served by individualized education plans, today I'm speaking about students with emotional disabilities who are served in social, emotional, or therapeutic classrooms throughout the district. Characteristics of students
025with emotional disability can include emotional and behavioral regulation difficulties resulting in intense emotional reactions, difficulty calming down, mood swings, and low tolerance for frustration. Students in social emotional classrooms may have a mental health diagnosis, or be diagnosed with other health impairment, autism, or speech and language impairment. These students may engage in behaviors such as verbal and physical aggression towards peers and adults, defiance or oppositional behavior, disruptive actions that interfere with instruction, and impulsivity, and poor self-control. Many of these students have experienced trauma, abuse, or neglect, family instability, chronic stress or exposure to violence. These students may have anxiety, depression, social withdrawal, and low self-esteem. They may have difficulty forming and maintaining relationships and they may experience conflicts with peers and authority figures. As a result of these challenges, students can have academic struggles including inconsistent
026academic performance, learning gaps due to missed instruction or suspensions, avoidance or dysregulation, difficulty sustaining attention and effort, and school refusal or chronic absenteeism. Within these classrooms, disruptive behaviors such as verbal outbursts, elopement, physical aggression, and property damage happen with some frequency. Successfully educating students in social emotional classrooms requires specially trained staff, higher staffing ratios, including additional teaching assistants, and a dedicated behavior therapist or social worker, a highly structured environment, and traumainformed attention from a consistent group of adults. It is so important for students with social emotional needs to be able to receive an education in their homeschool district and we recognize and acknowledge the important work of the staff who support these students. We thank you for the opportunity to share this information with you tonight. Good evening. >> Thank you. We appreciate all public
027comments and we find hearing from community members very valuable. Again, our contact information for both public comment and routine correspondence is at albonychools.org/boe. We now move to the part of a meeting we call routine consent. During this portion of the meeting, we approve routine matters for the district. These include items like contracts, field trips, personnel matters, and the like. Each board member reviews each item carefully, but we vote on them as a group with no discussion. This allows us to use our meeting time more efficiently. Nonetheless, each board member has the option to set aside any routine consent item in order to require a separate discussion and vote on that item. With that introduction, I now entertain a motion to adopt the routine consent agenda. Miss Wilson, Mr. Almani, are there any set aides? Miss
028Savage, >> I'd like to set aside that item three, the calendar, school calendar. Miss Greeny. Um, >> I would like to set aside item 20 on point leadership, please. >> Miss Wilson, >> I would like to set aside item 22, salvage and shine. Any other set aides? Okay, hearing none. Uh all in favor of u adopting routine consent agenda minus items three school calendar 20 onpoint leadership and 22 salvage and shine. Okay, that's unanimous. Let's start with number three school calendar. Miss Savage. >> So um did you want to do a motion and second before discussion? >> Motion to adopt routine school calendar for 2627. Miss Skelson second miss cre discussion. >> So I turned my microphone back off by accident. Um I just wanted to invite Miss Hulahan to give us a little intro
029calendar committee 101 so that we could understand we I know there's always trade-offs in every calendar and I just like um both the board members and our community to get a sense of of how this calendar came together before we vote on it. Certainly. Um so we always start with it. This process starts early December really at the earliest when we get the Bosey's calendar and the New York State assessment calendar because both of those are main drivers. uh we don't have to follow the Bosey's calendar to the letter but when Boseies schedule their school breaks that's an indicator to all surrounding districts when their breaks typically are and so most you know capital region schools certainly follow when the breaks are because staff have children in other districts etc etc. Um so we start
030with those uh and then we consider as a committee regulations we have to meet such as the number of school days that must be in a calendar year as well as the number of hours students have to be in school um which is a student driven variable uh by regulation. From that point, we consider contractual requirements um such as um our ABSU unit uh is entitled to 16 holidays in any given calendar. Um and most of which are state and federal holidays. Um so most of those 16 are predetermined in that way. Um this year 14 of the 16 were just sort of standard state and federal holidays. Um and then we consider uh our professional development days. For example, state regulation allows districts to have up to four uh superintendent conference days which are
031typically professional development days uh count as student attendance days. Um so that's a consideration and by teachers contract two of those four day our teachers unit um is entitled to two professional development days which is subsumed in those four um that we are allowed to count as student attendance days. Uh we consider our parent teacher conference days that's also contractual now where we have um in our most recent teachers contract uh incorporated two evening family conferences one of which was tonight um the other of which is in February. They are by contract in October and February. Uh and that is an exchange for the day before Thanksgiving being a day off for that unit. Um from that point we consider instructional continuity where possible which when you think about all those things I just said
032becomes a challenge. Um we think about in relationship to the holidays, state and federal holidays first and then uh we think about what other religious or cultural holidays we have the opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate um with a day off. Uh we try to play evenly in that regard given the diversity of our district. Um so that's always a priority. uh this year many of the cultural and religious holidays we consider um happened to fall on weekends. So we had some flexibility there. And when I say I use the word flexibility very rarely in a conversation about the calendar. Um and there are other regulations we have to consider such as uh students don't you can't have a student day of attendance before September 1st for example. Um or after rating day which is whatever
033the last day of regent week is in June. Um so that left us with this draft calendar. Um the other thing we have to consider is uh we schedule our snow days. And what I mean by that is that we have three days that are dedicated to any any sort of um emergency if we need to do. We could have a cold day, we could have a snow day, we could have a power loss day. Um there uh there's a different word for that that's escaping me, but snow days is I think what most people think of them as. >> School emergency. there's like itinerate some there's something else um that's popping in my head but um or not popping in my head but uh so we have those three days but we if we
034don't use those we schedule them as days off typically in that spring range when we can kind of hopefully guarantee that we won't have much left of in the emergency uh area and um we usually package them around Memorial Day weekend to the best of our ability um and this year and we also consider that is also sometimes where Eid falls. So maybe we try to think about that possibility. So uh those days are if we do not have any emergency days we have May 27th, June 1st and May 28th coming as coming back uh in that order. And so with that that is where we landed on this calendar. The first day of school for students um is September 4th. um which is subsequent to three days of professional development, superintendent conference day, professional
035development. Um and the last day of school will be June 25th discussion off. >> Yes. Uh thank you for explaining all that, especially as someone new to this process. Uh quick question for you. >> Starting to stick. >> Yeah. Um, I think we might have talked about this before, but uh, are any of our schools still serving as a polling location for election day? >> Yes. Uh, we have elementary This is not my area of expertise, but we have elementary polling places. Correct. >> And middle school. >> Are we just want to chime in here? I just want to ask and if you if you're not the right person to answer, we should get the answer. I believe when we when we started we when we've addressed this in the past, we have separate entrances
036and complete segregation between students and voters. Could somebody talk into the mic so folks who were listening at home could hear a little bit more about that? >> Yes, the locations that we had in uh student buildings or school buildings, we do have a separate location where the uh sorry, the voters do walk in. It's separated from the students just for that day. So, it is secure, but it gives access to our community to vote. >> Okay. Um, yeah, I mean, that's where I was going with the question was ultimately, do we feel safe enough having our students in the building on election day? Um, because that's something I think we had talked about. I do feel like we did ask for an SBU on this and maybe we ought to just get it documented
037so that because it does come up every year at calendar time and so I feel like we should really have a list of that the that we understand where are we still voting on on a May vote day and on a um general election day and June primary day now too, right? There's a primaries um I don't know if we have any polling. Yeah. So, I guess we should really know um so that we can really understand this better and and and clarify it because I think we have more students in the building in May than we do or more polling places in use on May. >> I think we have it somewhere in in our archives, but in the interest of everybody being new, including cabinet, um it's good to have that, >> Mr.
038Leco. So for the county run primaries and general election, we have two location two school locations only. Monasteri and well we were using a Brooken. I don't know if we're going to continue to use a Brookin. So one or two school locations for our vote in May. We use I believe 11 schools for for that. So I can't I can't enumerate them off the top of my head. I could try if you need me to, but I don't I don't think you want me to. >> You're good. Thank you. Any other questions, Mr. Mavage? >> I did have one other question. Now I just trying to remember. Oh, yeah. The So, school's going to start on the Friday after Labor Day this year. Are we anticipating is there >> Friday before Labor Day. Sorry. Yes,
039absolutely. Labor Day very late this year. Um, has there been any discussion at any um level about staggered start? I know certainly the high usually does a staggered start. I don't know what they're talking about in middle school. Has any of that been discussed? >> It actually has been discussed. Um, staggered starts are problematic. There will not be staggered start ultimately. Staggered start has been problematic because we have to report by grade level. And so, for example, um, and I'll use middle school as an example where we've brought in like sixth graders first um, and then had seventh and eighth grade join or some configuration thereof. Um then when we report we can't have any grade level fall below the hourly requirement and um some of our levels are tighter squeezes with minutes than others.
040Um so we discussed this last year. It's really a practice that has been challenging for us. um we have the minutes and the hours and the days that we need except in the case of you know this building had to close because the power was out or or whatever we we have come close in in times um and that's something that uh April and uh Dr. Prepino and uh Trish Wolf uh do that work and so we have we've had this discussion for several years now but um we have made the decision I know Mrs. Brown spoke with elementary last year that last year was going to be the last year we would be able to do staggered start and it is really the press has come over the recent years with the increased number
041of holidays added and such we just have lost some of that that wiggle room. >> Okay, I understand. Um I I'm I'm interested to hear more as we get closer to the start of school particularly about the high school. Um, you know, I understand the contractual and calendar obligations, but I do and but I recall that we have >> always had a ninth grade day even long before we were doing like the staggered the postcoid staggered start. So, I'm wondering if there's some transition. Let me just finish. I'm like I'm a little bit all over the place. This is my fault for not being clear, but in middle school, I know we have the transition camp >> and I think many elementary schools do some sort of um open house, come meet your teacher before
042school starts, something something. Um and so I'm just wondering what we're going to do for the high school students, >> both for our own um district students who are moving up, but also for new entrance into the district. It's a pretty pretty intimidating space to be in for the first time, especially if there's, you know, 2,400 other people in it at the same time. So I can't say precisely what the plan is today. I can tell you that one thing that can happen, not that this is what's going to happen, but what can happen is you can have students come in and you can dismiss particular students. It still counts as a day, right? Like when once kids are in past a particular time, it counts as a day of instruction. Um so that is
043an opportunity to consider. Um we I've been working with um you know Mr. Reneik is just taking our coat off. Um but uh Mr. Chaffy and I asked the middle school principles and uh the high school team to come up with a plan for our 8th to 9th grade transition that is strengthened from what it currently is which would certainly include the concept of freshman first day. That's um a tradition we started when I was an academy principal which was in the realm of 2013 14ish. So it has been about a decade and change since we have been doing that for our freshmen. But we know that even beyond that particular experience, we need to strengthen opportunities for that 8th to 9th grade transition. Um the middle school and high school principal, the administrators have
044a plan due in on February 13th for their suggestions, what they identify as what would best serve our our eighth graders moving up. Um, we are thinking about what connections we can make over the summer um with uh with those families and I know that there is also always a new family orientation scheduled in the spring um for any new families, not just nth grade families. >> That all sounds great. We look forward to hearing about that. But I would hope that whatever you're doing, it's not just that new family orientation, but the whole process thinks pretty hard about what it's like to be an entering eighth grader because we do tre bring in a tremendous number of students from private, charter, something something um into nth grade. You can see it when you look
045at our our grade level demographics like nth grade is usually about 120% or 115% of the eighth grade. So it's a pretty significant chunk of folks who are entering. Um, and I have heard repeatedly from folks that they are very uh confused and don't feel that it's uh that the pathway into Albony High is clear. So, when we know that we have like 10 to 15% of our freshman class is new to the district, that pathway should be um clear for them as well. So, anything you can do on to ease that transition, we've always known nth grade's a tough year and we lose kids at nth grade. So, anything we can do to improve it. So, thanks so much. >> Certainly. Okay. Uh, just a small flag for you because I didn't catch that
046till we were talking about election day. Um, election day is out of order on the important dates. So, if we could just clean that up before we put the letterhead on and send it out. >> This actually is just for you. The Jake version is very, very different. Um, much more polished. So, but certainly he would he would never miss that. Thank you. >> No, I did have a question in terms of the snow days, the emergency days at the end you you mentioned and you also have it in writing specifically. It's the 27th, the 1st, and then the 28th in that order. Any reason why it's not the end of we go from May to June and then back to the last day of May? >> I think through the lens of continuity. So
047if we lost the 27th 1st, we would have four school days, right? Like so it's it's about not having short weeks on both ends, I guess, is what I would say. >> Are you suggesting that? >> No. No. I mean like you you have 27 28 and the first as your optional days. So, if you if you had two snow days, >> the way it reads, it's like you're going to take 27th as an instructional day and then you're going to take the first as an instructional day, but give 28th off, >> which would make it a 4-day weekend instead of having a day and then back in school and then a day off again. Does that make sense? >> No. >> I mean, I would have I would have thought that you would take
04827 and 28 as your instructional days and but you're done with school and so from the 1st of June is your holiday. or am I reading this wrong? >> So if we let's say we used one snow day, >> right? Um then the students would be in school 24 25 26 and 27 and would have off Friday through Tuesday. If we used a second day, then we'd be in school on Tuesday and giving us a 4-day weekend instead of then these two weeks would not be shorter. You know, you you're taking from both weeks instead of making one week just a little bit shorter versus the other, I guess. I mean, I can certainly take it back to the committee if folks are feeling strongly about the order. >> Am I reading this wrong? Because
049if if you have one snow day, >> so the the last snow day if we if we had one left, we would have the 28th off. >> Right. Or no, I'm sorry. >> If you have the first off, >> right? >> No, >> it's 27 then first >> then 28th. So if we if we need to grab one back, we're going to take back Thursday the 27th. Y >> we'll still have a 4-day Memorial Day weekend. >> Right. Okay. You're trying to keep the 4D weekend. >> Yeah. Keep the keep have fewer stop and starts is the goal >> through the lens of continu. Yes. Instructional continuity. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> My brain's not firing on all cylinders today for some reason. >> Thank you. Moving on to number Oh, so motion to
050adopt the school calendar number three. All in favor? Okay, that's unanimous. Number 20, onpoint leadership. Miss Cerchie motion to adopt Mr. Wolf Gang. I'll second it. Discussion. >> Uh, thank you. I had a question about the the single source on this one because it's listed as single source with the rationale that this person has had previous what does it say? Previous good service to the district. But one of the things on the form, so it says the justification for the single source is onpoint leadership has successfully worked across multiple schools within the district for years and has proven to be an effective provider. But for the single source justification um incumbency does not justify the single source uh nor nor that statements h nor statements that they're highly qualifi there's also like just a rationale
051that that source is highly qualified but doesn't establish whether other sources cannot perform isn't sufficient. So I wondered if we could look more at that one. Thanks. >> So you need us to add to the justification. We do believe she has a unique um expertise. She has worked directly with Sheridan Prep um to get them off of accountability. She has a proven record of working in our buildings and um supporting our building leadership in this work. We do feel like there is an urgent need um at GIF based on their current status. So what additional do you need from us? Um I think it sounds like based on this urgency we could approve it. But in general we would want going forward to look at addition to look at various providers of these types of
052services to evaluate which ones have the best services at the best price that can offer us what what we need. I think maybe is that is that am I understanding that? Maybe I'm gonna ask Mr. Carris. Is that is that what you understand for the single source for the more details about um providers or no? >> So we'll add more just or information and justification. Um it it's a variety of things between the cost and the service that they provide and the track record that they have. So I I think this one is just a little bit more vague than normal. So we'll make sure that we put more into it next time. >> Okay. Thank you. That sounds good. >> Thank you. 22 salvage and shine. Miss Wilson a motion to adopt. Miss Wilson
053second mission. >> Um the only discussion I have is I don't have any opposition or you know um questions about this. I just actually know the proprietor and have uh collaborated with them before. So I intend to abstain. Okay. All in favor? Go ahead. >> Um I was going to set this aside because um we don't generally go into these and you know praise them, but I'd like to do that in this case. Um, primarily because it's seems like a really interesting up my alley vintage clothing like repurpose kind of um project or program. And I really like the the idea that students work outside the box, work on things that they could do on the weekend. Hey, I I see that this is happening at my school after school and I can go to
054the Salvation Army and make my own um clothing style, fashion style. And I just I just really love that um we do things like this in our district. >> Agree. All in favor? That's >> that's unanimous except for Miss Wilson and Miss Wilson. Any abstensions? Miss Wilson is abstaining. >> Oh, and I know we passed the contract for YMCA 26. I was going to pass it anyways. The only point I wanted to make was uh you know where we have the section of instructional non-instructional the um measurable criteria. they do include the measurable criteria but then when you go to the other section where you're looking for how did you measure it that's blank right so there's always this inconsistency where you're we're saying we'll measure by these things and then on other side you
055say that it's not instructional so I'm not going to give you any criteria that that we measured them on so let's just fix that but that's not stopping this contract from going so okay moving on to the next item on our agenda uh policy I pass the mic to Miss Gree, policy chair. >> Thank you. And bear with me because the board ducks keeps sometimes loading for me and sometimes not. But we have two policies tonight on the action agenda which we discussed last time. Uh action 9,000 personnel goals. Remember that's only one minor grammatical change. And action 1000 on policy 1000 communicate community relations goals. uh where we eliminated the word stakeholder, added a more descriptive uh reference about wraparound services and made some grammatical corrections. So, do I have um is there before
056there's is there any discussion before I ask for a motion to adopt these? Seeing none, would anyone like Dr. Chau um a second? Mr. Elman Yawei. All in favor? That seems Yes, seems unanimous. I'm going to pass the gavl back to resident tour. >> Thank you, Miss Kerichi. As is a normal practice, we have arranged our agenda with all the action items at the beginning unless something unexpected happens which we don't anticipate the board will take any further actions tonight. The balance of the meeting will be items up for discussion, some of which would lead to an action item either at our next meeting or a future meeting. And that brings us to a topic of discussion, an early childhood update. first presentation in this new role. Welcome and thank you for having me. As
057you might imagine, I don't necessarily yet know early childhood like the back of my hand as I once knew Sheridan Prep. So, I do have lots of notes here. So, my name is Sulea Sanchez Gail and I am the director of early childhood. Thank you for having me. So, who are we? Um, our early childhood department is dedicated to providing a safe and nurturing child centered play-based learning environment that supports the development of the whole child socially, emotionally, physically, and academically. Um, we, you know, our commitment to equity represent, we're committed to equity, representation. Um, we try to ensure that every child has access to high quality um, early learning experiences that honor their identities, celebrate their cultures, and lay a strong foundation for lifelong success. This feels like the right moment um, to honor
058Melissa Hasty. So much of who we are as a department is a reflection of the vision she had for this work and I am grateful for the foundation that she has built. So this is a a broad program overview. We have eight community- based partners. Uh two um are primarily working with our 12 elementary schools and those um CBOS have 28 classrooms. We also have district classrooms at AIA and Monasuri Magnet School. Um the dual language program has two full prek classrooms and Monasuri has um two four multi-age pre-K kindergarten classrooms. At our CBOS we have 50 classrooms. They are able to hold about 743 students when fully enrolled. Um and so our capacity is about 815 students. So, we um can enroll up to 271 three-year-olds and up to 544 year olds. And so,
059this gives you our three-year trend for um our partners. You'll see um that in 23 24 we had nine partners and this year we have eight. we did gain a partner and lose two partners. Um, and I get into that further into the presentation as to why that happens for us. Um, and that and this kind of just gives you the detail in a different way um that I just shared in the previous slide. Um the staffing of the department, we have a director, one early childhood coordinator, two early childhood assistant coordinators, we have one homeschool coordinator and one office manager. Um we had an early childhood assistant coordinator retire in December of 2024. Um and then we had a new early childhood assistant coordinator assumed that position in January of 2025. I assumed my
060position in January of 2025. Um the office manager resigned prior to my tenure in the fall of 2024 and we hired a new office manager in March of 25. And then we also had a homeschool coordinator position that was budgeted for um in the 2526 no 2425 school year. Um, and in um, not needing an assistant director, we kept our homeschool coordinator on, if that makes sense. And she began in April of 2025. So 2025 was a really busy year for us and on boarding a lot of new department staff. So teaching staff. So the teaching staff we have six district staff classrooms as mentioned pre previously we have the dual language AIA has two Monasuri magnet has four prekks and they are currently educating 72 students when fully enrolled. You'll hear me say fully
061enrolled a lot because that is a really key term those are that's really key terminology in early childhood. at our um community- based organization staffed classrooms. We have um 743 students again when fully enrolled. Um we have had 12 new staff members approximately and this was as of October um across um our department or across all of our sites which is about 21% new staff and then we had 44 returning staff members where we had um 78% returning staff in from what I could find in the data 2020 and 2021 turnover was 34% new staff so we're making some inroads All right. So, the budget is primarily um grant funded. We receive um so in so I this is going to be a little tricky to talk a little bit about. We receive a max
062amount in allocation of 5,511278. The allocation is based off of the number of students we have actually sitting in seats. So we can have a max in UPK3 of 269 and a max in UPK4 in our allocation grant of 418. in SUFFDPK, which is what we refer to as the expansion grant, um we have a max amount of 1,8254,442. And in our SUFFDPK funding, we can have up to 182 students funded $10,000 per child if they are in front of a certified teacher. If they are not in front of a certified teacher in SUFFBK, they will be funded at $7,000 a child, which is less than what they're funded in allocation. So when we're counting children, we're always trying to figure out where the child is sitting, who's the teacher in front of them, and
063then in under which of the grants will we get the maximum per pupil allocation for that student. And so part of the issue of why we cannot max out allocation is because some of our UPK4 students are in front of certified teachers. And because they are in front of certified teachers, we'd rather push them over to SUFFDPK. But we do not have 182 students sitting in front of certified teachers. So we cannot max out UPK SUFFPK. I hope all of that is making sense. It makes sense to me now, but and then in general funds, we receive 1.3 million. Now, the funds that you see in this presentation don't match the max amount because what we tried to do as a department was we look at our enrollment numbers and we created a budget off
064of that instead because last year the budget was created for the max amount and then I we had to do a lot of work amending the budget with the state to match the amount that we received because we only receive the amount that we can get based on the children We have Yay. All right. And so the same thing for 2425. All right. So this is another program over. So two partnerships were ceased in 2425 and that was because of the per pupil allocation not aligning with what the agencies were able to charge for private child care. Um our per people pupil expenditure was 73 or $7,350 per children per child. Um and the pi private pay rate is around $10,000 to $15,000. So I if you are in a highly coveted um child care
065facility that can charge $15,000 for a year um our partnership just does not make sense. We had extensive weight lists in 24 25 for three year olds and um for students with an IEP for special class which would be um the the more commonly termed classroom would be self-contained for our little people. Um, and so we did a pretty quick RFP in last spring to see if we could get additional three-year-old seats and if we could potentially find partners to help with the special class issue. Um, and so we used the enrollment trends um to open a multi-age to open multi-age classrooms at um some district sites this year. Um, I can speak a little bit more to that if you'd like more information. Um, but I want to be mindful of time. Um, and
066then we also identified a three-year-old CBO site this last year that we started this year. Um, and then the special education department, Ela Gryler, came on the RFP visits and participated in the RFP process last year with us and she was able to identify additional partnerships for some um, special classes. So that quick little turnaround RFP did help us a little bit. Um the addition of the homeschool coordinator um really helps us to better align with the attendance policy of the district to support learning specifically for our UPK4 students who will be transitioning into our kindergarten programs. And um you know when the children even though they're non-compulsory even in kindergarten as well um our schools do a really nice job of trying to make sure that we're building good positive um attendance behaviors for
067our students. Um and so we want to make sure that um in our program that we are highlighting the importance of attendance. Um we're currently evaluating partnerships for our RFP for the 2026 through 2030 um years. Um it's still in process and we still need three-year-old seats. Um so our area of focus is cell instruction or social emotional learning. Um I think you can imagine we are still feeling the impact of the pandemic. um and you know children really not necessarily having as much as many opportunities as they may have had to socialize. We're also feeling the impact of technology. Um and so some of our students are not um are not are coming to the to our programs still needing some assistance with emotional regulation. Even though it is an age, these are little
068people and we are hoping to teach um we still feel um very strongly that um some targeted instruction around social emotional um learning is really important. Another area of focus for us is our student support services primarily because of the distinction between our on-sites and our off sites. And so we have about half of our students are at our off sites and our offsite locations do not have the privilege of a homeschool coordinator, school social worker, behavior specialist, a school psychologist, home monitors. They are typically the site director and the instructional staff. And so what we've done with our homeschool coordinator is um we've established a partnership with building blocks. And so in some regards, we're trying to fill some gaps for some of our students at our off sites. Um our homeschool coordinator has
069also established an early childhood McKini Vento closet much like the schools have a McKini Vento closet. And so when we find that um one of our little people are unhoused, we do reach out to the families and see if there's anything that we can provide to support. So, this is primarily for our off-site families um because we want to make sure that we are creating that continuity for them even though they're not in one of our school buildings because they are our students. Um so, we really want to make sure that that's there. Um and then we are working on better supporting our emergent multilingual learners. um we have been able to share some of our resources with our off-site so that they can um have the ability to speak to families in real time.
070So they do um now get to use language lines. Um and then we're hoping to move towards um New York State's um education department office of early learning guidance for our EML EML profile at registration. One of the things that we have been able to do is create a distinction because um you know pre-k students are not official um MLS um because they are not receiving ENL services. Um but what we have been able to do is um create a little um flag for them if they do speak a different language at home that marks that we know that there's a potential um student that h might might need some um extra support. All right. So some of the recommendations. So obviously we're going to always advocate for full UPK allocation funding. Um if what
071we understand from the governor's proposal is understood correctly. Um we are closer to market rate which with which will help I think leverage some partnerships at at um coveted locations and help with some of our teacher salaries um because we know that the salaries are um a a big driving factor for the turnover rate. Um my hope is to continue incremental um per pupil allocation increases to attract certified teachers and reduce the turnover with our enrollment and weight list management. We've done um I think some really creative things this year that'll help us in the long run especially if um some of the governor's recommendations come to pass. Um, so we have had, um, we're planning on doing targeted lottery outreach, um, strategic open houses. Um, last school year I participated at all of the
072magnet open houses as a prek presenter. Um, and I can confidently say that I do not believe that that was an effective use of my time um, in promoting the prek program. It was more promoting the magnet prek program. Um, and so this year we're hoping to um, instead have preksp specific open houses. um one at one of the magnet schools. Um it'll likely be Toast. Um I strategically pick toast because of all of our magnet schools, it's the one that gets the least amount of students uh families picking it as its first choice in the prek lottery. Um uh for our community-based organization, I am electing um Unity House of Troy on Phillips Street in Albany. Um it is also one of our programs that does not get picked in the lottery, but then
073when we offer it and families see it, they they thoroughly like it. There's just an impression of it. And then for the neighborhood school site, I am picking good old Sheridan Prep because I can Um, and so my hope is that through do through through doing a prek specific open house at the different types of site we offer prek programming, it will allow us to um expose pre-k programming to more families. So again, even though I love Sheridan Prep, obviously it's because Sheridan Prep is on this side, Toast is on that side, and Unity House is on this side. So strategically, we're trying to hit as much cover as much um Albany property as possible so that um families can have a chance to get to know our program. Um and then for student support,
074I talked a little bit already about um building blocks. Um one thing I will add is you have to qualify for building blocks as a family. And if you don't, our building blocks um partnership has been really helpful in helping families find other ways to get support or if the child does not qualify um they often will offer um adult adult management or adult adult case management support to the parents. Um and then for family engagement, I'm really excited because we're including books. We have WHT nights where um our families in in that partnership they get books if they go to our WHT night. Um and so as a department we have also supplemented um books in Spanish for um WHT night. >> That's it for me. Thank you. >> Thank you questions. Miss Bravo.
075>> Uh yes. Not a question, more of a comment. what this program is doing for kids is truly remarkable. But I do have one question just to make sure I understand this correctly. This is free for the children, right? >> Okay, that's wonderful because I know some parents can't really afford that kind of after school care or educational support for their children or they simply don't have the time. So, this is truly remarkable. Thank you so much. >> Yes. And just just to answer a little clearer too, um at our private pay sites, it is free for our families. So they are not they they if they pay for anything, they are paying for before and after wraparound care, but the school day itself, if they are UPK student at a one of our private
076paid daycare sites, they are not paying for the school day. And just another question. Um, you may have answered, you may have said this before, but up to what time does this go up to? What does it start? When does it end? >> Um, they follow the same um schedules depending on the site as our elementary schools. So, we have early start 8 to 2:30 or late start 9 to 3:30. >> All right. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Wolfkang. >> Yes. Just a quick clarifying question. So on the UPK4 seats doing pretty good on those but UPK3 were not hitting the demand. Is that fair? >> So we have 269 seats for UPK3. We do not want to go over that because we will not get any funding from the state
077for it. Um what is interesting is that there is demand for very specific places and so what we've tried to do with our weight list this not that we've done. So typically if you picked a site and that and you didn't get picked for that site you would be on their weight list. Um, and so we have sites with expansive weight lists and then we have sites with very minimal weight lists. And so I I mentioned Unity House being one of our sites that doesn't necessarily always get picked. So, we worked off of the wait list for one of our more coveted sites to see if any of those families instead of just sitting on a wait list would like to sit on a wait list and still send a child to Unity House and
078wait to see if they ever got a seat. Some of those families we're talking about like you have a a weight list of 50 and the site has 18 seats. So number 50, the likelihood is going to be really it going to take a lot for number 50 to actually get into that particular site, but we'll let number 50 stay at 50. You can stay there, but why don't you in the meantime still send your child to a program? And so we've had quite a few families take us up on that. And that has been really helpful um to fill those three-year-old seats um where we have them because we do have enough seats. It's just they're not where families want them initially. >> Gotcha. Okay. That Yeah, that was my kind of question was
079like >> if we didn't have those state maximums on the number of seats they would fund, would we see a massive expansion? >> We we would have a lot of three-year-old seats. Yeah, we we we have the three-year-olds. Um so, I can speak specifically for AIA and Sheridan Prep. Um they're for the reason why we picked them to be multi-age is because they have been underenrolled for the last few years as four-year-old sites. Um and so once we went through the four-year-old lottery, we can see we can see the sites and which sites are going to get filled and which sites are not going to get filled. And it was clear AIA and Sheridan Prep were not going to get filled by their four-year-old interest. And then we put them on the three-year-old site and
080their four-year-old weight list is slim, but their three-year-old weight list is expansive. So, it's very interesting how um I think what I think if you're a parent I think what it is is that once your little person is in a is going somewhere kind of want to keep them there, you know, and so I can understand why the demand for three year olds is much bigger because I think sometimes with our foury olds we might be too late because families already have a place that they've been sending their little person to. >> Gotcha. Okay. Thank you, >> Mr. Almani. So, uh, no question. I just want to relay my experience because both my kids went through this program and um with my eldest who's now about 13, I truly found it to be extremely helpful
081for me because I was watching him at the time um managing my business and though I loved bringing him to work with me every day, the the preK3 three opportunity allowed me to actually look for other jobs. I got a job at the throughway in the meantime and like brand my it's just like it is such an amazing program for our families and I know for a fact that not every school district had that program for a long time. I'm not sure if that's changed now, but um it's certainly um extremely beneficial for our families. And um when when member Wolf Gang was talking about the three-year-old group, I do see, you know, there's 271 seats and then for the three-year-olds and 544 seats. So, the max, and I just want to reiterate what you
082said, the max um funding we're getting from the state allows us to have 271 three-year-old seats. Is that >> Yes. So, if we can fill those seats, we'll we'll get our max three-year-old aotment. >> Got it. >> Because the allocation is split up between what we're allotted for UPK3 and what we're allotted for UPK4. And you mentioned something along the lines of we're not always getting the max allotment because of the teachers we have in front of the student and that's not necessarily always in our um our wheelhouse to change that because we have partner programs that might not have teachers in front of the students. Right. So is that >> so um I want to be fair to our partners because this is not a partner problem. This is a universal problem on how
083we value early childhood educators. And so early childhood educators are not paid the way school-based educators are are paid. That is not specific to Albany. It is not specific to New York State. It is just a national issue. So typically on dollar for dollar a early childhood educator is paid pennies compared to what a school teacher is paid. With that said, many of our partnerships encourage their teachers to get their certification and get their licensing because it is a state expectation that the teachers are certified or working towards certification. But if you've put in the time and effort to get your teacher certification, especially during a teacher shortage, you will likely work for the city school district of Wal. >> Got it. So, there's like structural uh like truths about that that you just can't
084move around. >> We're all I think doing the very best we can. I think it is vitally important that we pay attention to what happens with the governor's announcement because that will be instrumental. All of our partners are very clear. They want more money per pupil because they want to pay and keep staff. It is not so that they can have a have some extra you know cushion on in their pocket. Um, and we work it into our contract that anything that we give extra in the per pupil allocation should be designated to increase salaries for the teaching staff. >> Got it. Thank you. >> You're welcome, >> Miss Man. >> So, I I want to start with um your comment. First of all, your presentation was great. >> Oh, thank you. >> You did
085an outstanding job explaining the allocation and all of its complications. >> Well done. Um, and you know, I I want to really piggyback on your commentary about um, elementary um, not elementary, early childhood educators. Um, my daughter, I'm proud mom of a early childhood educator. Um, and uh, and there is an incredible difference how we value teaching um, young children and how we value teaching elementary school and children is is marketkedly different. So to um, my daughter Ana, if you're listening, keep going. Um, so, um, but, um, I lo I love the idea about, um, how strategic you're being around the open houses. Um, Unity House is incredible. They've been doing this for years and, um, and just highlighting them, highlighting toast, and highlighting one of my favorite schools, Sheridan Prep, um, is, uh, I
086I think that's fantastic in in order to spread the word. So, um, so, thank you, And I will just follow up. My intention is to rotate that, right? So it won't always be shared or I promise you >> Miss Savage, >> we all have to love them all the schools equally. There comes a time when you have to. Um so I wanted to echo what uh board member man said about the excellence of your presentation and in particular the way you described the um alternative ways of funding. It was very clear and helpful and actually um something I've been really trying to get my head around for quite a while. So, I really appreciate that effort, even though I hope and believe that that's all going to not be helpful information next year because under
087the governor's new strategy, hopefully we're going to just get more money per student. >> Yeah, it seems much more simpler. >> Yes. And I'm wondering, I think Mr. Caris is semi listening to me and he may or may not know. Thank you. um he may or may not know the answer to this, but I wonder if we know for sure whether that question of whether the teacher is a certified teacher is going to be relevant if the what the proposal that's in the executive budget um comes to pass. Do we know yet? >> Not 100% sure. So I'll look >> All right. But >> we we had a regional superintendence meeting this morning and that still remains an open question. cripples. >> That's important for us in government relations to know and we should identify
088it, Mr. Leco, and check in with our leaders on that one because it is a big big difference because it's very very difficult to get those certified teachers. Um and then I wanted to ask um following up on the question from our um student board member, one of the things I um think we could do better about not necessarily your department but as a district is helping people understand those wraparound services and before and after care because as a parent it's really the thing that drives a lot of decisions. Can I get my kid where they need to go and can I get to work? That is the question people really want to ask. And so I wonder if you already have or are planning some sort of way to share with families what the
089what their options are because like some schools do and some schools don't have before care after care. Sometimes you have to pay for it. Sometimes you need to fill out the form if you want to get a stipen or whatever. So please share what you got. >> So we um had a meeting this week. Um >> Mrs. Brown if she's still here. >> Yeah, Mrs. Brown was present. Um and it was um Trish Wolf um members of central registration, Kyler Raindstöm who is our um enrollment specialist. Am I missing was Jake? Yeah. And Jake. Um, so we all I think that to your point is one of the things that we want to be clear or more clearer about um the distinction between each of the sites and what they offer. And so we've talked
090about um creating a um a landing page that gives all the information before they actually get to the lottery application. Um, so that we're work we're actually currently really working on that right now. >> Amazing. And maybe Miss Wilson will comment on that since she's a lot closer to making this decision than I am. As you know, I'm you know, I'm I'm long gone. So, I'm having to decide if my kids need before and afterare. But, um, but it was very impactful um both in my decision and in decisions I see being made by community members every single day. Um, and it's very confusing in our district because it's just not straightforward. We can't say every school in Albany, prek and up, we can offer you beforeare, after care, and here's what it's going to
091cost. It's like, you got to know you're gonna do New Scotland, here's what you got. You going to go to Toast, here's what you got. And it's it is a lot for parents to be dealing with. Well, they're also trying to understand the intricacies of the lottery and oh wait, my kid has to apply for the lottery and they're only two and a half and I have to put them in the lottery already. You know, it's really it's a lot for for young families. So, thank you for what you're doing. Appreciate it. Miss Cr. >> Thank you. I wanted to thank you what for what you're doing and express yes express optimism that the governor's proposed budget will indeed make it into reality because it really has some really great really great pieces around early
092childhood that I think will be really a great change for our district. And I know one that our governmental relations team has been working toward for a really long time. And I know personally um from my own child um his early childhood education and his first prek teacher literally changed the trajectory of his life. >> It's been and we're not supposed to talk about staff, but this person's no longer with the district, so I can say that. Um anyway, made an amazing difference in my child's life. However, we almost couldn't take advantage of the prek slot because of the lack of wraparound care. That really was a difficult issue to overcome and I know it is for a lot of families. So, whatever we can do to make that accessible, especially when we know there
093are people in Albany that are paying $15,000 a year for the convenience of that, drop them off at 7:30 and pick them up at 5:30 and don't worry about snow days and conference days. And thankfully, we don't have all those half days anymore, but all all that kind of thing that makes makes it hard for working parents to keep going. So, thank you. Thank you for what you're doing with this. >> Well, thank you. It's and it's not just me. I have a wonderful department of early childhood coordinators and assistant coordinators um and my homeschool coordinator and my um office manager. We're a small but mighty little um department um and I am really proud to work alongside them. >> Miss Wilson, >> thank you so much for your presentation and for um lifting up
094the work of Melissa Hasty. Um this has been a long evolution and it's interesting that we're at the point where there's a proposal for universal child care as well as um thank you for your presentation and your efforts in the department. I do get the letters and um like much like Cleanna stated, it's wonderful to watch this the children flourish like walk in being shy um not knowing what's going on, you know, evolving to the point that they're talking, playing um creative play and acting things out. So, it is wonderful. I I'm curious if there's still I kind of vaguely reme remember this as we were coming out of COVID. there was like a workforce development support waiver that allowed um or a grant so to speak that was helping people if they made too
095much for public benefits but you know naturally too little for this not to be an extraordinary expense and I just don't know if that exists still um and for people who for example have to go the pay route and also and just thinking about the governor's proposal and how they're modernizing this whole process and um to Hassan 's point about staff being paid. It's very precarious with the staffing ratios. A lot of things can throw that off and then um cause like for example the center to have to close if the students, you know, get the teacher sick and then everybody's sick and things. And I'm curious if we could like have maybe even like a substitute model to help with things of that nature. So most of our partners do have what they refer
096to as floaters in the event of the need to sub someone out. Um but when you have um but they have but so many floaters, right? And so because as you mentioned staying in ratio is a really um important piece of the entire program. Um not just at the off sites also at the onsites. Um, and so, um, I can speak to, um, I'll use the example of the Boys and Girls Club. So, I can lift them up at one of their practices is that they do have floaters. And in particular, maybe sometimes the floater is just an extra set of hands in a classroom that might need it, but then there are times where the floater has to get pulled in because they need need to actually sub for a teacher. Um but there
097only but so many floaters for um like maybe a department as expan or a a partner as expansive as the boys and girls club is for um their sites. Um and I know similarly for off sites they um live in the same struggle with their floaters. >> Beautiful presentation. It's not easy walking into Miss Hasty's shoes. >> No, it's not. >> Great job. You know, I appreciate everything you do for our little ones. Uh because that's the that's where the first brick of that foundation is being laid. Um you know, my kids didn't go through the UPK system here. We because a we didn't know about it. We didn't know anything about the the school system when we started. And so it's it's very important that we have these communication or or theseformational things available
098to our community because not everybody's thinking that far ahead and you know planning to see where should I be looking. Um >> the um question. Oh yeah. So you talked about the uh special classes for the three-year-olds, right? How many do we have in the district and do our our partners have them as well? >> Um so in district we have special classes do not fall under the UPK purview. They actually fall under um special education and so we have the CPSC chair Aaron St. Lewis like she would um definitely know more about this than I, but we have um special class sites at um Arbor Hill and at Ash um run through beginnings. Um, and then I do know that through the RFP last year, there was a potential um, advanced therapy um, was
099able to open I I believe they were expected to open um, a few classrooms offsite for um, our special classes. Um, it's still not enough. Um, we still have a significant wait list for students waiting for a special class. Um, and so we're trying to through this RFP see if there's a potential to open up um to partner with other sites to have more some of our four-year-old seats from our building kind of pushed out to the off sites so that we can see if there's a potential to um use some of our current preK classrooms for special class sites. But it all has to make C e n ts sense, right? >> Absolutely. >> You got to be able to afford to do it to keep it sustainable. >> No, because when you think
100about it, you know, it's hard enough taking care of little ones. >> It's hard enough when our little ones have some challenges and so anything we can do to help uh will be great. >> So I wanted to ask a quick data followup on that and then I have one other comment. So the my question which I think might be a Dr. Dr. Prespino question, not a you question, but you tell me. I'm wondering about these special uh under under age five, so not kindergarten classes that we were just describing and whether they show up as students who are enrolled. When I look at the um prek through 12 enrollment on state >> oh school tool >> like well and because right now like if I look in PowerBI and I look at the state
101reporting on our enrollment, they match exactly. It's like a magical wonderful thing. Um, but I don't think they include those special classes because I but I'm not sure. I'm trying to understand where those fit in in the accountability side and she >> Yeah, that I'm I'm not sure. Um, we're all looking at the curtain to see if somebody's coming out and here she comes. >> Be careful. This seat back goes back. >> Is it broken? >> I don't know. I went Ron almost um >> I'll be careful. >> Yeah, I can hold it. Yeah, I can hold. >> Fine. Do you mind share with you? >> No, go ahead, girl. I don't think I have a quote. >> Okay. >> Um so in PowerBI there's a feature. So the classes are included or not. It
102depends on whether or not you have PK selected or deselected. So my question is um there's I'm learning tonight which I had not really previously understood that we have three different kinds of prior to kindergarten education. We have UPK4, UPK3 and then we have these special education for better I don't know if that's the right terminology um under age five classes and those are the ones. It's just that narrow segment that I'm trying to figure out where whether they exist in um in those numbers. I don't honestly think so because I think we capture only the ones that are on site in terms of those numbers. I would actually have to go back in my mind. I know that the the three-year beds report has two categories. >> Right. And so I would have to
103go back and double check that with ZULA to make sure that it's this group and this group, but not that group. >> Right. And I know there's there's there's there's CBO, not CBO, and then there's on-site off-sights, which are not a perfect alignment, right? Because, you know, we have CBOS that are on-site, and CBOS that are off-site. Correct. Um I I would like to know the answer to this question at some point because we do like to talk about all of the children that we help educate and we have been usually using that state UPK through 21 figure. And these are new students that I think we were not counting in our total maximum number of students that we oversee. >> We what you see is exactly what is provided to us from state ed.
104>> Yes. No, I understand that. But it sounds like there are children who we are responsible for and we are helping educate them, but they're not in that number. I think >> I'm not sure. >> Yeah. >> So, let's find out. Is that possible? >> Special classes at Arbor, >> right? And the way the three-year beds report is broken out, there's it's so many different categories and it would be just a matter of you and I sitting down and looking at those categories and the numbers associated with them to make sure that we're capturing all the UPK kids or not. >> Or not. Wonderful. >> They're not UPK. >> Oh, I see. >> They're not UPK. That's the thing. They're just a totally they're in a totally different category. So, if you guys can like,
105you know, put your heads together and figure out if we're counting them or not. >> Yeah. They might be captured somewhere else. >> Yeah. And then the only other thing I wanted to just exh was echo what member cr was saying that this has been a long time coming. We are very well aware that we have not been had the resources to provide what we needed on a per per student basis for our providers to be able to be effective and keep their staff. And so we have been in the government relations world fighting for this for at least six eight years. I can't remember you know many many many years >> I think for 10 as far as I know >> 10 years um alongside our colleagues at the conference of big five schools
106and everyone else who was an early adopter of um universal prek because that whole group of um highne school districts has really been being shortch changed for for for decades. Um and so it's I'm very optimistic that what's in the executive budget is going to pass and the difference is dramatic. Um it's the difference between we were at $7 and5,000 this school year per student and it will be $12,000 per student if the governor's um budget passes. That is a huge enormous meaningful difference that will keep child care providers in business and wanting to be in partnership with the district. So I just want to call that up for anybody who has an opportunity to speak to a legislator or a legislative staff member. Um, this is one that we really want to see get
107through the budget process. It's really important to us. So, thank you. >> Secretary of questions. Anyone? Miss Bri Breman. >> Um, yeah, I do have a question. Is there I'm going to assume this program doesn't go continue on the summer. Is there a summer version of this program or is it just like not financially possible? We do have a very small program in the summertime. We call it jump start and it's for four weeks and um last summer we had one class. So it is very small compared to how expansive the program is. >> Thank you so much. >> Anyone else? Okay. >> So, >> you know, you've been on government relations, so you know the story. I mean, how much you been fighting for this funding and uh the whole us getting paid at
1087,000 now gone up to 7,000 from five and everybody else being funded at 10. Uh and if if it's the certified teacher situation that is leading to that, what do you think we could do to alleviate that? You know, I'm trying to understand what the certification entails. Is this like a full teacher certification? Is there like a a smaller version of that certification that will enable us to be somewhere in between? So, I I'll be honest with you. I I I feel a little hesitant in trying to hypothesize what it could mean. Um, I would be fearful if this is tied specifically to certified teachers because of what that could mean, right? Because as I said, um, currently we have 137 students sitting in front of certified teachers and we're serving 700 children. I will
109say in the leg in the language I don't see the word certified anywhere. So and it's again it's as um >> I'm trying to decide if you have a doctorate. Do you have a doctorate? >> No, I do not. >> Okay. I was going to call you Dr. Sanchez Gil, but maybe I should not promote you quite that way. Miss Sanchez Gill, principal soon ex-principal, assistant superintendent. >> What is your title? >> My husband would appreciate Mrs. Gale. My husband would appreciate Mrs. Mrs. Sanchez Gale um was saying it's not an Albany problem. It's a it's a universal problem. So, if they tried to integrate that certification requirement for if it passes, um it would make the whole thing a farce because there just aren't enough certified um early childhood education teachers period. So, I
110don't think that's conceivable. I just don't know much about this um the program that we have now and whether there's some federal connection and then some sort of federal constraint. I don't know. Um so, we'll all be in a wait and see mode on that. Um I know that um Mr. Carris frequently attends the American um >> school business officials attend um ASBO and they and they do dig deep on these things. So we'll know as soon as it's knowable. So thank you. >> I'm just trying to understand if if you know someone has to go through the education bachelors and get a license or is there some other smaller version of it for someone who can be in just early childhood. So, the best thing I can say is that currently New York State
111um requires there to be a five-year plan for uncertified teachers um on file. Um so, for each of our uncertified teachers, we're required to have a five-year plan >> because that is also another career pathway for some of our, you know, graduates. And then also from the university standpoint, what what is it that they could be offering to enable more of these not quite fully certified but teachers who would fit in somewhere in that category. So it it lifts everybody up. >> So I think early on in my career, which has been a while, um you know, prek was seen as a stepping stone into the district. Um, so I will fully admit that, um, the third grade ELA teacher at Sheridan Prep was one of my pre-K teachers. Um, she was certified in teaching
112preK and she taught it for a few years and then at some point it was time to move on. So I think that you can and and I did not um, share this in this presentation, but we just established a partnership with Sunni Albany as well. not to take any thunder for Monday. Um where uh we are partnering with their early childhood education program to place some of their um student teachers in our classrooms. Um again just trying to find creative ways to create the pipeline. >> You you were just reading what I was where I was going. >> Yeah. So currently um we have one student teacher um that is working with one of our prek staff and um we have a couple of um student volunteers working in a couple of our sites.
113So um as a part of this um new partnership. >> Great. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you very much. Have a lovely evening. >> You as well. >> All right, moving on to our next discussion topic. >> CT program update. >> This is the night of uh directors presenting for the first time. >> Yep. >> Rookie night. >> I love it. Well, Zulea set the stage for CTE, so I appreciate that. >> I'm so sorry. This is our home school. No, that's okay. I just want to make sure. Good evening. Thank you. Uh before I start my presentation, um I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Maggie Palm Mary. I am the first and very proud director of the career and technical education districtwide for the
114city school district of Albany. Um, I make it very clear that my students that I have had in the district sit on the board. They sit in the hallways at Albany High School and actually one signs my paycheck. Um, so so I make no bones about the fact how proud I am. Um, and I'm equally as proud to be here. Um, I would like to start by thanking the board for your vision. Um, without that I would not be sitting in the seat. I would like to thank cabinet who I call endlessly and I want to thank them for their collaboration. And then I really want to thank the superintendent um assistant superintendent Hulahan and principal Jodie Kmerford for their support as I have transitioned into this role. Um the last time I sat in
115front of the board was seven months ago and I was accepting the position. Today is per date my sixmonth anniversary in the role and it's also CTE month. So I'm really honored to be here and share some some updates. Um it's really easy to ground our work that we do in CTE in our district vision, mission, and goals. Um that's obvious with the 7-year $190 million renovation that we just completed. Um you know, the partnerships and really just making sure that we are rooted in student achievement is something that we we really ground our work in every day. So, I I want to make sure that I that I note that tonight, uh, I'm going to share some highlights and some celebrations, some enrollment data, our strategic priorities, and then ZULA had set the stage
116for a pipeline. Um, and the superintendent did steal my thunder a little bit about openhouse, but I'll I'll speak about that also. Um, a little bit about our funding. Um, and so I know that the board has not had a presentation um, from CTE since March of 2024. I was able to I had the opportunity to review the board meeting. Um, so hopefully I can address any questions that you had back then and I'm going to walk you through um, where we are currently and then our future. um a wise um new assistant superintendent, Lynn Rutnik, had uh the opportunity to speak to Nisawa this week and she reminded me that the rearview mirror is smaller than the windshield. And so while the data is really important to look at and I do want to
117share that with you, I'm really honestly honored to share our vision um our collective vision for what the future is going to look like with CTE and I think that we are we are really starting in a good place. So, like I said, it's CTE month. Um, and we have our first ever open house in our expanded renovated site on Saturday. It's open from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. The culinary students will be fundraising for Skills USA. Um, and the cosmetology and barbering students will be opening their salon up for their spa day for Valentine's Day. We do three of them a year. And so we thought it would be a great opportunity to allow our students and our parents and our families into the buildings to see the spaces and talk to the instructors.
118Um mostly talk to other students. We have our JOTC students who are going to be the tour guides um for the event. So it's just going to be a great opportunity. Um I have the the opportunity to sit on both the middle school and the high school meetings. So I can hear the collaboration and I I get to hear the wants and needs of both parties. Um, it's really important that the students get to go with their families and tour the spaces and see what they're like. Um, like Zoo Lake I had mentioned with preK, right? Sometimes seeing is believing. And I think that that's nothing short when you walk into to our uh our spaces. I think there it's truly amazing. So, we look forward to hosting and we look forward to all of
119you attending if you can. So, I'm not sure what's happening here, but the first six months have been very busy and I think the superintendent and I have been going on tour around the Capitol region. Um, we've hosted a lot of really important and wonderful visits. We had the Secretary of State come and visit the barber shop. I was going to joke that he should get a haircut. He actually wanted one and was wonderful when he came in. He was talking shop with the class and really did a great job. We've had some regional collaboration. Um, a lot of districts want to come and visit and see our spaces and just engage on how we got here and our community engagement. Um, I had the opportunity to present at the community roundt a couple weeks
120ago. It was a great opportunity to just seek input from the community members and I look forward to the 13th of February. Uh we will be hosting the Department of Labor to kind of follow up on that conversation. Um the superintendent was gracious enough to host the Department of Labor for all of the administrators and it really opened up their minds to what happens in Albany on a daily basis. Sometimes we get so confined to where we are we forget that we truly are the pipeline to postsecary and the workforce. So, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that. Um, some more of our visits. We went to visit the president of the Chamber of Commerce. We were matching. It was unplanned. Um, I had the opportunity to visit CDTA, which was truly phenomenal.
121They're a partner of ours in Albany, and if you have not been to their facility, I really encourage you to do so. They are like an Amazon one-stop shop. They have a health clinic. They have a cafeteria for their workers. Um, so, you know, even taking some of the partnerships that we currently have, I look forward to really digging deeper and offering those opportunities for our students for um, you know, work-based learning and other opportunities. And then, like I mentioned, we gave the Department of Labor a tour of our renovated CTE space, and they will be coming back to um, to present. We hosted the uh, the gentlemen from the Capitol Region Workforce Development Board. Uh, they were so impressed with our spaces. They weren't quite ready for a haircut. They didn't need one yet,
122but they did promise to come back and they're they're very good partners. They look forward to uh collaborating with us further. Um we welcomed the executive director. I'm sorry the slides aren't coming out how they they should be looking, but I'll send you the correct copy. Uh we welcomed the executive director of the big five, uh Jennifer Pile. She had not been in our space and you know was a fierce advocate for urban education. Um so it was really nice. I had come from Boseis and was kind of finding my way and the superintendent graciously introduced me to Jennifer and so we had a great opportunity for her to share out um you know what our spaces look like and so when she is an advocate for us and she speaks about our spaces she's
123been in and she knows what they look like. Um we've also hosted some industry lunch and learns well my fearless leader Superintendent H assistant superintendent Hulahan over there tells me I have to go slow to go fast. Um I I I just can't do nothing. That's not the kind of person I am. So I have to offer our students at least something at the middle school and the elementary schools. Um at the high school, one of the things we've been working on is hosting industry lunch and learns. It gives students an opportunity to just learn about things in the community. We have a real estate one coming up. We had a financial series hosted by Michelle Lavoy on savings and interest and credit cards. One of our hopes is to actually open First New York
124in the high school in the coming I would like it to be yesterday, but I would like to say a couple years. Um, and then we hosted the civil service department as well as a representative from Kids First and some gang prevention. So, they come in, they speak to the students during their lunches and then there's just some follow-up conversation. It's a good dip into the pool for us to see if there's any further interest. Um, and it might be something that the students we we don't have the opportunity for them to engage in as a full pathway, but it's a way to keep those partnerships and give our students a little bit more than just the pathway experience. So, um, I wanted to I wanted to explain all of the things that are going
125on in the classrooms, but I thought who better to do that than um the the teachers themselves. So, I asked them to just send me some pictures and I wanted to highlight some of the initiatives that are taking place in the classroom. This video highlights the CTE approved pathways available within the City School District of Albany, including accounting, automotive technology, barbering, business administration, construction technology, cosmetology, culinary arts, human services, nutrition, health and wellness, health sciences, pre-engineering, and education and training. The CTE progression defines three levels: participant, concentrator, and completer. A participant takes one class. Concentrators focus on a CTE pathway with two classes. And completers are ready for college and careers by passing both their technical assessment and the pathway coursework. In accounting and business administration, students gain real world experience using industry software and
126participated in a job shadowing trip to Global Foundaries. Future activities include leadership lessons and participation in the stock market challenge. The automotive technology pathway focuses on postsecary pathways, industry certification via the ASSE test and real world paid experience. This program offers significant district value through free services to district employees. Barbering students in level 3 assists students on picture day and operate their own shop, NextGen Barbers, which is open to the community weekly. They are also preparing for Skills USA competitions. Construction technology students participate in community projects like building picnic tables and garden beds. They also engage in construction design projects and had job shadow visits with industry partners like CS Arch and National Grid. Cosmetology highlights include offering free services to Albany senior citizens and an annual spa day. The program also partners with John
127Paul Salon and hosted a workshop led by an industry professional and Albany High graduate. Culinary arts provides catering services to the school district and community, including participation in Albany Wine and Dine for the Arts. Students regularly compete in events such as the Chili Cookoff and Skills USA. Health Science seniors achieved 100% CPR certification and over 50% were inducted into the National Technical Honor Society. Students gain clinical experience at the Daughters of Sarah community for seniors with many preparing for the NYSCNA exam. Pre-engineering students engage in the GE engineering discovery program and the GE engineering academy. Completers are eligible for a $15,000 scholarship towards an engineering degree at any college. Now that you have seen some program highlights, let's see what our enrollment has been over the last three years. >> Thank you. So, there's so
128many opportunities to brag about the students, whether it's a current students, our alumni that continue to come back to us. The student you saw in cosmetology um works at John Paul Salon. She comes back and does a free clinic for the cosmetology students. Um I recently went and worked the wine and dine for the arts with the culinary program. The next day, my inbox was just blowing up with alumni from that had just gone to the event. They were so pleased that we were the only educational institution. Our students were there with 677 Prime, Noah's of Saratoga. They were competing with the top restaurants in the area. And just to know that we got that praise from from those events really, it is such an honor. So, you know, that that is our goal to
129make sure that when our students leave our programs that they're prepared for industry or they're prepared for a post-secary experience. when I was um watching the board meeting from March of 2024, I I wanted to as Zulea mentioned, it's the first six months in a role and I think there's some clarity, but also if if I'm unclear, how can I bring information to the board, to the teachers, right, to people who ask me questions. Um so I I decided to share two pieces of data that I think are really telling. Um enrollment by program and the two that I really want to point out tonight are barbering and health sciences. uh you can see that it's been a steady growth over the last handful of years which is absolutely amazing right um you know we
130want to make sure that we can scale to sustain so we want to keep growing our programs but we want to make sure that we're growing them safely a lot of our prescribed programs are leveled programs so if you look at culinary culinary has three levels they're very easy to understand culinary one two and three same with barbering if you look at the numbers on um on the enrollment sheet it's easy to see that it's steadily growing and our prescribed pathways are really the model that we're trying to develop as we move forward. Um the next piece of data that I had wanted to share with you is enrollment by status and this is where it gets a little bit trickier. Um but I think it's really important to understand this. So school units are
131based in Carnegi units one one class. So a participant would be anyone who takes one CTE class which is great. We love that students want to come, they want to explore. You know, our plan is to backwards design and get that, you know, cleaned up at the middle school and make sure the elementary also has those opportunities. Um, what's happening then is they should go on to become a concentrator in a prescribed CTE pathway. And once you're in a CTE lane, you should not be getting off. You should be in that lane and you should be a completer. Uh where it gets a little bit tricky is concentrators can encompass juniors and seniors because that's when they hit the two uh class mark and sometimes it can even encompass sophomores. So when you're looking at
132the completer number, it's not necessarily indicative of the total of the concentrators because those can be three different grade levels for the non-prescribed pathways. So the model that we're going forward and you know I hope to come back year after year with this data you know and I'm excited to share year after year how this looks when you are in a prescribed pathway you should be a participant a concentrator and then you will end up being a completer and so the model that we're trying to gear all of our CTE pathways towards are those leveled programs. Um I know that if you're looking at this one of the things that jumped out at me was the uh foods and nutrition. you see that there's 203 students that are enrolled and then you say well I
133don't understand why there's two completers and so you can look at that and say that's not good but the way I'm looking at it is I think it's great we have so many students who are really interested in exploring and so that's what we're we're using as our foundation to deep dive into how do we create an exploratory program not only in nth grade but both in the middle school as well and also that you know just exposure in elementary school. So, we want students to be able to go and explore and find things that they love. Um, you know, that's something that we're currently working on, whether it's by cluster or it's by program. Um, you know, that's really important for a student. Um, some of the best things about CTE programs are sometimes
134a student doesn't end up loving, you know, what they thought they loved and that's okay, too, because they don't end up going to college and wasting the money. Um, you know, I was hearing Zoo Lake talk and I was like jumping out of my seat because I'm thinking, oh, we can open a pre-K in our new education program or, you know, at some point our TA pathway and I don't want to give too much about what's ahead, but we have all of these opportunities to cross collaborate and I think that's really exciting. So when you look at this data, you know, keep in mind that it does get a little bit messy with the concentrators and completers, but those models of leveled um and prescriptive pathways are really the direction that our vision is to
135head so that we can have more completers that of students that get on the CTE pathway and then when they leave us, they are ready for post-secary and they are ready for the workforce whichever they choose. our guiding uh factors between our two streams of funding. We have the gen ed fund and then we have our Perkins. So Perkins 5 um has to be completed every year. It's a grant. It um it's overarching blueprint is the comprehensive local needs assessment. So what that is, it's a deep dive into all of our programs. We look at our math scores, our ELA scores, our science scores. We look at all of our subpopuls um just to see how the students are doing and performing in each of those classes. So, it aligns with the workforce needs. Um,
136we have a group that comes in, I'm going to talk about in a minute, that actually looks at all of our equipment. Are our students using the most up-to-date industry standard equipment? Um, you know, in cosmetology, if we have outdated blow dryers or, you know, whatever the case may be, we want to make sure that we are on par with what is in industry so that the students are getting the best of the best and when they leave, we can match up. If the students in construction are using a certain kind of technology or automotive uses Snap-On because that's what the industry recommends, we want to make sure that we're in alignment with that. We want to promote equitable service. We want to strategically allocate resources, coordinate and streamline processes, and then facilitate regular stakeholder
137engagement. That's the piece that we've been working on lately. This local advisory council, which comes from the comprehensive local needs assessment, meets by-early. So currently we're in a CLNA or a comprehensive local needs assessment year where we're doing that deep dive and that's what's going to guide our work going forward not only programmatically but also for our funding. So the CLNA has these six indicators that we follow. Student performance, labor market alignment, size, scope and quality, program of study, recruitment retention, and then access and equity. So it looks at all of the programs in a deep dive and it tells us where we're doing really well and it tells us where there's some gaps and that those gaps again are not necessarily a bad thing. What that does is that says okay we have some
138Perkins funding. The auto shop we just invested $190 million but we might need this equipment in there and that's how that Perkins fund would be allocated or we're noticing that our multilingual learners in cosmetology are struggling with something else and that's how we would determine where we allocate our funds. So this year for the Perkins grant, um, as I mentioned, it was a a year where, um, Karen Beal had, you know, worked to complete this. So it was it was an off cycle, but she still had to get the grant done. I wanted to just give you an idea of where the funding has gone. Perkins is meant to supplement, not supplant. It should be about an 8020 um, measurement. So Perkins funding should be about 20% of what comes in for CTE funding. Um,
139the Perkins grant, as you can see, went largely to professional salaries. Um, and then it continues to go to employee benefits, purchase services, supplies, and materials, and then travel and indirect costs for a total a little shy of $170,000. And then the general fund this year was a little shy of $95,000. Um, as you can see, it was allocated into programs specifically. Um, CTE is a very heavy consumable program. Um it also when you're thinking about contracts, we have specialized soap that we have to use. Um you know the tire removal. So it has a lot of working parts to it that you know sometimes you don't think about. Um I never even thought before I before I entered cosmetology about left and right-handed stations, right? Being equitable to our learners and making sure that
140when we do get our left-handed students in the classrooms that they have every opportunity and those stations, you know, add cost additional money. So this is what our general fund has looked like for this year. So, when I was diving into the 2024 uh board meeting, there was four priorities that were identified. And so, I'd like to just go through them with you um about what the priority was in 2024, where we are currently, and what the vision is for the future. So, in 2024, it was decided that there needed to be a needs assessment. Um that does kind of pair well with our comprehensive local needs assessment. Um there was a SWAT analysis done with Karen Bedall and Trish um Cordova Wolf. Um that is going to be our guiding principles into moving forward
141into deciding what our programs and our future is going to look like. So we're really working hard to make sure that we are aligning every single pathway with specific capital region economic needs. um meeting with the gentleman from the civil service and really making sure that our business pathway aligns with that is really important. We live in the Capitol region. There's all these jobs. I just recently learned that they sunsetted the um the civil service test until June. So, our students who are even in the high school and are 16, they don't have to take the test to go become lifeguards. The families and the parents don't have to take the test right now. And that's a great opportunity to be able to share out with our community members, our our families and our parents.
142Um so this will really guide our work with the capital region labor um market demands. The next priority was branding and communication. Um you really making sure that families and students um have the opportunity and the access to the information. So what are we doing to make sure that people know that we're here? We're rebranding even the students having the opportunity to be able to be in-house and not attend a Boseies. Every time I speak with a student, I make it very clear that they are extremely lucky that they do not have to ride a bus to Boseies and home and that we have these programs in house and when I stop in middle schools and I visit people and I pop in classrooms, I always make sure that I root that in my conversation.
143Um, so how do we get that message out? The superintendent and I have gone to meet with the president of the Chamber of Commerce, workforce development. Um, you know, there's a lot of government initiatives right now. We've been working with New York State Ed trying to figure out how to partner JOTC to embed them in some of our CTE. Um, and then samplings of people that we have relationships with that we're trying to grow. There's a what's so cool about manufacturing initiative at the middle schools. Um, I didn't know until I started this position that there was 900 manufacturing companies in the Capitol region. Um, so that's something that as we look to grow that we can start small now and go slow to go fast and eventually if we decide that we would like
144to open a manufacturing program, you know, that that could be in the works. And that's something that I plan on touring with our our technology teachers to see if that's a possibility. And then in the future, um, we would love to have a career center with workforce development that would support both our students and our families. The third priority was initial conversations about expansion of the education pathway. So this is where the conversation gets really good because um it was just board approved this year the foundations of education course and we are really excited to go into the 2627 school year and offer the teaching assistant pathway. It's deemed education and training. Um our hope is to start small and have the teaching assistant exam be our technical assessment. If you know about CTE, you
145know that you need to take a technical assessment at the end. We are hoping to grow it so that it encompasses everything across education, whether you want to be a social worker, a psychologist. Um, and I I know Zulica, I had mentioned having student teachers. I know the people who have been in Albany long enough recall a time where our students in high school actually went to elementary schools and worked in the classrooms. And if I'm being honest, what teacher couldn't use the extra set of hands? Right? So while we're in the process of growing our own to come back home, we can also make sure that it benefits our students that are currently with us today. Um so we are interested in you know we have this partnership with U Albany possibly launching a
146video game design manufacturing pathways and then we've been strengthening our engineering pipeline. We have just um started this partnership with uh the GE model. It's with New York creates also. So part of it is an academy and part of it is a discovery. The discovery is where the engineers from um General Electric come in and just work with every CTE class. And the academy is a Saturday commitment for our students. There's only 30 slots in the Capitol region. And I'm really hopeful that all 30 slots are from Albany students. I would love our Falcons to take all 30 seats. Um and when they leave this program, all of them get a $15,000 scholarship to any college they choose as long as they go for engineering. So that's a really great expansion on a partnership and
147we look forward to expanding that more. Priority four is work-based learning. This is probably one that is my favorite especially coming from AOSES is you know the idea that you know we've started to do the work previous to me coming on uh we started with school links. It's a system. Well, it's it does a lot of things, but for CTE, it helps our students document their 54 hours of work-based learning that they need, right? And so, we have a lot of different models of what work-based learning looks like in technology. They build adorandic chairs and culinary they're serving, but nothing is as robust and more real life than students actually going out into industry and working. We have several students who are actually working at CDTA auto garages that as soon as they leave our
148doors, they already have a job lined up for for leaving. And I know it would be the same as soon as our our teaching pathway um you know gets established. So that's you know one of the things that we're looking forward to is being able to leverage more of this work-based learning and taking existing partnerships and really building on them and then utilizing school links. Um you know like I said about the rearview mirror, I I really want to make sure that we're tracking alumni data. Um, you know, when people ask where are the students now, I have a report and I have to wait six months after they graduate and call every single student or send out a survey and find out all of the information. What are they doing? And this will be
149a really great way so that in five years, 10 years, we'll have a snapshot of what all of our CTE or all of our graduates are doing in the field. Are they going to postsecary? Are they going into the workforce? Are they doing both? And we'll be able to look at the trends that are related with that. So, um, looking at all of this, right, we we keep hearing building a pipeline. So, really expanding our student access and partnerships by, you know, whether it's just starting out small and deciding how how much we want to expand. Um, I think, you know, um, Mr. Wolf Gang has given a shout out to the superintendent and I will say that the district has really become so engaged that I said to the CTE teachers, they are like
150the most popular right now. Everybody wants them to come and visit the schools and talk to the students and give the haircuts, right? And it's I tell them it's really hard to be popular. Um, one of the things that we're doing is we're focusing on a power lunch series with uh toast where the teachers, the instructors will go over, they'll meet with all of the students and then at the end they will be busted to tour the facilities at Albany High School and it will have a culmination of lunch prepared by culinary. And so by starting some of these um events, we're looking forward to kind of building on. Um the CTE teachers are also partnering with North Albany and Meyers for their career and college weeks. So as we get rolling and things get
151moving, we're looking forward to more partnerships. Um I always say K to 12, but somebody at the um last meeting reminded me that prek also was involved and I said I do have a pre a daughter who's prek age and so it does go back like Zula mentioned to prek. We want to make sure our pipeline goes as far back as possible. Um, our open house is on Saturday as I mentioned and we're looking forward to hosting those more frequently and making them better each time. And then part two of our local advisory committee um that we hosted. We hosted all of our business partners and all of our post-secary. We had representation representation from Hudson Valley. They came together to look at our programs and our numbers and tell us how we were doing,
152what they thought we needed. Um, so the next phase is them going to be walking all of our spaces and providing us feedback on what they liked, what they thought that we could incorporate. Um, because a lot of our students really do leave our doors. Auto is a great example. Auto and construction. They will leave and go to Hudson Valley. A lot of them will work in industry and also go to school simultaneously. And so the next steps in building a pipeline um are really standardizing those middle school offerings. We have an a science program at one middle school. You know, I always think about that equity piece. If I had children at multiple schools, I would want to make sure they're getting the same experience. So, that's something that's important to me is making
153sure we ensure equitable student access to programming. Um, that ninth grade exploratory is going to be a really important piece to getting those prescriptive pathways in line so that we're seeing our students as completers in a pathway that they're getting on the on-ramp and we're seeing it all the way through. And um eventually, you know, we hope to develop summer camps and really increase the frequency of our open houses and our career fairs. Um so looking at all of this together, our opportunities for growth really come with work-based learning. So taking a lot of the partnerships that we already have, expanding them, and especially paid. CDTA is one of our only paid work-based learning internships. Our students go there and get paid for the time that they work. Um, you know, a lot of our
154students discuss the reasons they can't make it, you know, to a work-based learning experience, whether it be transportation or paid. So, if we can help overcome some of those barriers and make that transition smoother, we know that we're we're doing the right work. Um, the programmatic hours, a lot of our programs, most of the prescribed pathways do have a number of hours that you have to complete. Cosmetology is a thousand hours. So, when you think about a student trying to do all of their coursework, right? Eventually, we might get to the point where we embed ELA or whatever, you know, whatever way we choose to go, but really making it easy so that these students can get the hours and get that technical certification and endorsement so they don't have to worry about it when
155they leave our doors. So, identifying flexible delivery models. Um, and our our teachers are doing this now, but it's really making sure that we're we're very prescriptive about it. The teachers in health sciences take students over break to Daughters of Sarah. They try to get their hours in that way. Um, so we're just trying to be creative. And then I I've mentioned this a few times because I think this is such a key is just really that pathway realignment aligning that ninth grade exploratory. We don't want to punish anybody for going into CTE and not liking it, right? We don't want it to be a punishment. We want you to be able to explore so that when you are ready in in 10th grade or whatever grade we choose that you can get on the
156on-ramp and your prescriptive program and you can see it um all the way through. So again, I'm going to do the shameless plug for our CT open house. Um, please come and join us on Saturday. Come get some snacks. Bring bring your friends and family. We would love to see you. And um, you know, I know the students are really excited and the instructors for our first our first open house and we look forward to hosting um many more. So I appreciate you um t letting me take the time tonight. And does anybody have any questions? Thank you, Miss Pomeiri. Uh, Prome um, Miss Braill, >> just a quick comment. This is a great presentation. Oh my god, this is a really great presentation. You went so into depth. But yeah, just to give my
157first comment, this this is a really great program. I personally am not in, but I have a lot of friends as well as my co- member Carmen Sampona. She's in the health science CT and she was actually right in one of your PowerPoints. And this is really great for like our Falcons. They get this experience. They get to have their license. They get a headline straight into work. So, this is a really great program. And the fact that you guys give scholarships, too. This is amazing. Yeah. And I wanted to ask um what other programs do you guys think you're going to implement in the future? Because I know you were thinking about um teaching and um video game design. Is there any like headline for any other programs you guys may do in the
158far future? You have a lot of great questions. Okay, let me let me start with one of the things that I remembered that you reminded me about. So, the scholarships come from GE. Um, but we actually do offer college credits. We have articulation agreements and we have college in the high school for CTE. I didn't mention that in this presentation. They're two kind of different things. College and the high school, they actually can get the credits. The articulation agreement is like they might bypass auto if they took auto when they go to Hudson Valley. So, that's like I mean, I do girl math, but that's like kind of free money, right? So that is a good experience for our students. Um we are definitely opening the the education and training pathway this coming year and
159we are interested in opening manufacturing and a video gaming um like an emergency preparedness homeland security theme but like also like a video game as um the generation coming up is very interested in being influencers and gamers and we want to make sure that we support that. Um, a lot of the work that we do through our CLNA isn't just, you know, what we want the pathways to be. We want to align with what the workforce labor needs are. So, when all of those people come in and say that there's shortages in teaching or there shortages in electricians, right, that's our opportunity to determine what programs will open to serve the community. >> Thank you so much. And one small other question um for our transfer students, right? Because I know this is pro this
160is promoted to students who go to middle school and so on. But let's say someone transferred in later. Are they told about the CTA programs through their guidance counselor through some other source so they know that how they can like join these things or is it too late at that point? >> So that's a great question. I would say that they should be especially through their guidance counselors but it would depend on what program. So a lot of the programs have seat time and so if you enter in 11th or 12th grade that's why you can't really complete all of the hours. So, it's ideal to enter at this current phase in 10th grade. If you transferred from another school and came in with health science credits, we would certainly look at that. We would
161just want to make sure that you are it's it the test that they take is called the Prometric. You legally have to be Prometric bound or we can't have you in the class. So, if they have the credits, we would absolutely honor that. >> All right. Thank you so much. Great presentation again, by the way. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Mr. Wolf Gang. >> Yes. Uh, wow, that really took me back. Um, I think last time I got a presentation from you. I think we were filling out Subway applications to teach eighth graders how to >> remember something. >> Oh, absolutely. Um, no, and I'm so happy that you have come back to our district. Um, you know, we're on that same we're six months in now. Um, I just got a check in from
162our board president today about my six months. So, >> congratulations. >> Um, I'm glad it's going well for you and all the work you're doing here. Um, it's very exciting. Uh, one thing I did want to ask about particularly was, uh, you mentioned the, you know, kind of tracking our kids after they left and you also had some partnerships in in your presentation with our alumni. Have you thought about kind of building out like, you know, an alumni network and getting more of our alumni back into it? Um, I think another one of your former students was just at U, Albany, Adam Alexa. >> I saw him. Yes. >> Yes. Uh, you know, big influencer there. So that'd be a great for influencing. I'm just curious if we started. >> So I love that and
163you know formally no, right? The teachers are really the best. When you think about the workforce development, the people who always get tapped are teachers and coaches. That's who the students typically stay in contact with, right? So formally we have not we we make the calls, we kind of know, but that's where we're really looking to utilize our school links um you know and have them come back in and offer be guest speakers, right? give back to the place that they came from. And so that's definitely something that we're rooting our work in because they wouldn't be where they were without the City School District of Albany, right? And I think they always value that opportunity to give back. So that's something that we're is is in our line of sight right now. >> Absolutely.
164And grow your own, all of that. I love it. You know, everyone at this table, I'm sure, was like, "Oh, he's going to say something because I've annoyed many of people about growing our own." Um, where was I going with that? I'm so sorry. lost my uh but you know I just think that if you as the director could kind of take a organizing role over that you know when we when our teachers retire or they move to different districts we kind of lose that connection to our previous alumni and I think it would be good now that we have you know districtwide structure in place that we're >> building it into a little more formal of a process. >> I agree absolutely >> thank you >> Mr. Salman. >> So, uh, thank you. Uh,
165you gave a really energized presentation. >> I was like really low-key tonight. >> I really I took it down a couple notches. >> Well, I don't know. I think we would all be like up and like shouting and like being like, "Yeah, like if you did it any higher than that." So, good job. Um there's a lot of clearly a lot of thought put into that. Um there's a lot of visionary elements in it. Uh so I come at this from remembering my time in high school and I was in essentially the tech wing and the art wing all the time. We didn't really have a CTE program like we do here which is phenomenal and it's really welldeveloped. Um, but I always like to remind people that as technology advances and we're moving into
166a world of AI where you can ask AI to look at a spreadsheet and say, "Show me the patterns in this." The positions that used to do that are going to go away. Yet the positions that um are created with programs like that we like that we have here um are not going anywhere. I have three friends in particular who didn't go to a four-year school. They went to Hudson Valley. One of them is developing a multi-million dollar like suburban development. Never went to college. Just amazing builder. One of them was working on HVAC units the size of this room and getting paid like double what everybody else was getting paid like even you know the master's degree students within a year of him leaving Hudson Valley and um another one's an electrician and does
167work for the school did work for um uh the middle school uh North Albany Middle School and he's got he's got so many things on the side that he's asked to do and like it's really amazing because I have friends who also went to four-year schools and I'm not dissuading anybody from doing that but they make half as much and are not in demand. So these programs really are the future. Now I have a few questions. Um and I always try to look at things from artistic perspectives and I know that there are a lot of programs already in the CTE program. So, I'm curious, is there room for other things like jewelry making or, you know, stained glass repair? I mean, we spent this the district spent something like $60,000 uh renovating three stained
168glass windows, you know, so >> expensive. >> Yeah. Um these are things that I do know are needed and we didn't have anybody like there was one company that put their name in for that. So you know fabrication whether that's welding I know we spoke about welding before and welding is both um you know structural and uh artistic. So, there's a lot of uh I guess careers that don't necessarily fall under the CTE, but could and I think um getting our students excited about them would be great. Um obviously, you've got a lot um of ideas and I wouldn't want to, you know, bifurcate them. So, just just food for thought. Now, um, in terms of like just assistant questions, like is there a CT assistant, CTE assistant director? Um, how many people essentially fall
169into your program? Like, uh, not just enrollment, but how many staff members are in your program? >> Okay. So, you you said a lot of things. So, I'm going to go back to the beginning about the the career in college. Um, I would never tell anyone not to go to college, right? But that antiquated mindset of CTE is what we talked about when I embedded communications in there. It's really that idea that when I have friends that say my brother or sister want to go into culinary or HVAC, my parent thinks that that's not a good idea, right? having people recognize that these are more than viable careers and some people prefer tactile hands-on projects and that this isn't an eitheror and it's not one is better or one is worse that they're both wonderful
170opportunities and you can do both together or you can choose either pathway. So I love that you said that because it really reinforces um the other thing that you mentioned was you know jewelry making or something. I know Mr. Carris loves welding. We talk about this quite a bit. Um the there's different schools of thoughts on how broad or narrow you want to go. Welding can be industrial or it can be artistic, right? And so when I was thinking about being very specific about my vision for Albany and I called the state and I said, you know, do we go broad or narrow, right? Um you know, and then CTE, we we think we're taking over the world. I mean, you like housing and fashion design, right? That does live in both places because it
171can, right? a job lives in e every place. So that's where I would work with my counterparts. Kate Wright is in, you know, the the fine arts. And so, you know, the housing or something like you're thinking about jewelry, it could be more of a a broad pathway instead of narrow. Um, you know, the computer science pathway, you know, does have some video game design. So the question is, do we make a video game pathway or do we keep it a little bit more but but also going back to being deeply rooted in prescriptive pathways, right? We don't want to get so broad that when a student leaves here, they've taken 12 classes that don't give them a job that will pay them well and will sustain them, right? So it's that balance between sustainability
172and making sure that when they leave here, you know, and that's why you saw some of the num the numbers up there, the food and nutrition. A lot of students are really excited about cooking, but when you look at the courses in the pathways, what jobs are they coming out of? If it's a food and nutrition, they're more gearing towards culinary, right? Um, and then your your follow-up question, is there an assistant director? It's myself and my office manager. Um, and then the teachers. So, it's I I I'm based in the high school. I have an office in the high school and I am a a K12, I guess I should say pre-K. Zoo Lake is still here. prek12 um director. So my my job encompasses kind of all of the things um CTE and
173so I have I have myself in the office manager Yasmin. >> Okay. Thanks Miss Madden. >> That was a wonderful presentation. >> Um and I don't have any questions. So thank you >> Miss Savage. >> I'm switching to my long list of questions. >> I knew you'd have them for me, Miss Savage. I was ready. >> I know I have a reputation for always having questions. Hopefully, they're interesting questions that make you think and explore as opposed to just annoying because I know sometimes that can be annoying, too. But I really want to echo what my colleagues have said about the energy and vision of your presentation. It's a really exciting time for us because we particularly as terms of our and I loved your phrase grow your own to come back home. We have
174not been using that catchphrase. We've just been using grow your own, but we really do mean grow your own to come back home. that is our objective. Um, and we've been talking about that since I've been on the board and we've done little bits and pieces. Um, you know, we developed long time ago, and everybody um, who's been around has heard me say this, but since you're new, I get to say it again. A long time ago, we put in place a board policy that says if you uh are with our HR department and they're considering two comparable candidates, they must preference somebody who went to our school district over somebody who did not. Um, and that is part of our effort to grow your own to bring them back home, right? Also, people who
175live in the city of Albany should get a preference over um, folks who don't because we want to keep our folks um, keep our folks close. Um, so I'm super excited to have you doing this part, which we've been dreaming about for a really, really long time, and to see the connections through Albany, and then wrapping them right back around to come home. So, thank you very much for the vision, and I can't wait to see the implementation on that. Um, I did want to ask you to talk a little bit more about the um, uh, pros and cons of the exploration versus concentration. And you talked a lot when you were going over the data about completion being the goal. And one of the things that I know that we're starting to see is
176a lot more exploration. And my understanding at least in many of our programs and you can tell me if this is all of the programs is that if you want to go do that third year, so the first year is one class, the second year is two classes, the third year is three class periods frequently. I don't know if that's every program, but that makes it increasingly difficult to get it to fit in your schedule if you are also interested in sort of the like selective collegebound approach, right? So, it's just there's just only so many periods in the day. And so, um, I'm really interested in your vision for that exploration versus completion because I think we're creating a new model here where we're gonna have a lot more explorers because they're like, like
177I know I, you know, we try not to use our own children too much as more than anecdotes, but like I know half the soccer team is in barbering right now and a bunch of them are absolutely planning um, you know, planning selective four-year colleges and they probably aren't going to complete because when it comes senior year, they're going to be like, I can't take science and math and also ELA and everything else and still do three sections of barbering and so I'm just wondering if you can talk a little bit more about the I just see it feels like there's tension there and I'd like to understand more. >> Yeah, absolutely. So um one of the slides and I don't know they got a little bit mixed up but um I I referenced portrait
178of a graduate in our career and f financial management course. So under CTE um is this the traditional CTE teachers right the auto the barbering also family and consumer sciences technology and the business department. So we encompass all of that and with the new regulations coming out right with the the financial management piece we're looking at how we can shift that to incorporate some kind of exploratory and we're still kind of in the initial phases right but we know that students really want to explore and we need to do our due diligence of letting them explore so that when they do choose a pathway they can complete. You are correct that not all programs are equal which is something also I would like to work on. Culinary three is only two periods. Barbering three is
179only two periods right some of that is okay but when you look at like a cosmetology cosmetology is a thousand hours right so when you think about a boseis model which is you know where I came from they would embed their they have integrated academics so they're actually getting their science credits in that programming um and you know it's it's it's real life I would walk in and they would be cutting up makeup brushes and growing bacteria on them and the kids were just eating it up so you know taking those real life relevant experiences. Now there there it's a little more oversimplified. I think I'm saying it right. We have to make sure that the the everything is in a row with the certifications and whatnot, but that really is my long-term plan is
180to figure out like at Boseies, we would integrate math in one year and then science and ELA in another year. And I don't know what that looks like yet for the city school district of Albany. Um but I do know that our time constraints, right, we we don't have to bust our students and they don't lose that time. But when you're going to clinicals or you're preparing a meal for 75 people for you Albany, right, two class periods as is not enough. And if we're thinking about what our kids in industry would be doing when they leave, they wouldn't have just that amount of time. So these are great questions and these are really the seeds that have been planted since I've been here over the last six months is just you know doing some
181noticing and some wondering about exactly what you're saying and figuring out some solutions to these so that we can make sure that they have that exploratory and they have the pathways and those two things can live in unison but not given our current infrastructure. So, I think that that's kind of the model that we're working towards is they should be able to explore, they should have prescribed pathways and they should be able to do both of them in unison. And I think that those are some of the questions that we're, you know, coming up with. >> Can can I also just jump in briefly? I I I think we're playing a little bit of catch-up, too. Um, and what I mean by that is even even this being my third sort of cycle, um, I've
182been going with many of you ac I say across the street to the state capital and we've been pounding our fist for uh, reimbursement for CTE in 9th grade. I would believe that therefore for me there was an assumption nth graders in Alb High School were taking CTE and that just isn't always the case or very seldom very very seldom the case. Um, so one thing we also need to do is we need to go find high schools like us throughout the state that are offering CTE in their house or within their district and and see what it looks like so our folks can see it because we have had a model and a a behavior I guess and I'm not saying it's wrong but here's your somewhat prescribed schedule coming out of 8th grade
183to 9th grade. Um, and I don't think we have done enough work to allow our eighth graders, seventh graders, or all the way down Lake as little little people to know what to expect. And so we've got to build it while we're flying it at the high school. And then we need to build it from scratch at the middle level and at the elementary level so there's there's much more awareness so some choices can be made and and it can be a safe place to play. I look at it as um Ann and I had a conversation about a different topic, but when you go to med school, you learn all of the different um parts of being a doctor in in that case. Um we need that sort of of ability or opportunity for
184our kids somewhere somewhere starting in I'd say seventh grade and definitely by the end of nth grade. I had the opportunity to partner with the woman from Syracuse to learn about what they do because they do something similar and you know that awareness piece in elementary school and the ex, you know, the the the exposure and awareness and then going into to middle school and having that exploratory, you know, I was a fax teacher in the district and I love the fax curriculum. What, you know, the programs have shifted to since I've been gone are CTE exploratory? Are they explor exploring all of the pathways, right? And so that's kind of are we going towards a cluster model. Are they going to be able to choose three and sample them? You know, these are all
185just things that we're thinking about because we want to make sure that when when a student does go into a pathway that they do complete it, right? Like that's what you would send a student to Boseies and you would expect that from them from that program and we should expect nothing less for our students in the city school district of Albany. >> So that's interesting. I have two two things that that really inspired for me. One is a connection to what we talked about before about the 8th to 9th grade transition and the need to rebuild and and energize that. And it is sort of a dry experience to go from 8th grade to 9th grade in this district. There isn't as much sort of like choice as you would think. It's sort of like
186you're gonna do your four cores, you're going to do your um science, you got gym, you got your gym, you got your lab, and there's like maybe one elective maybe on a good day, especially if you're involved in music because then that that starts to eat things up. So, the idea of having some more choices for kids as they enter to nth grade will generate some more excitement and that ties into the the what they were talking about before about needing to energize that. So, that's a really exciting point. Then I just want to I just want to say I I hear what you're saying about the goal when somebody enrolls in Boseies is to finish and that we should want nothing less for our students. But I also think that our students are unique
187because they don't have to go to Boseies. It doesn't have to be this huge commitment. They can just be like, I want to learn a little bit about culinary. I'm going to take culinary one. Next year I'm going to take auto mechanics one. And I'm not sure we should see that as a failure. Um, I think that that's just a different approach that we're providing an opportunity for our students to explore a little bit more. So, I don't know. Um, I guess I want to hear more about that. Like, >> yeah. No, I agree. I agree with the exploration piece, but in New York State when you're in a CTE pathway that is, you know, the certification and the hours and I think we're trying to figure out a model for our unique students that
188they get to do both of those things. >> Yeah. And that's a question I know I've asked the superintendent a couple of times and I hope um you can either educate me or tell me that that I need to know more about whether there's any statebased evaluation of our system that's going to that's going to um give us demerits for last lack of a better word for having kids start but not finish. um because I do think we're going to have a lot more kids who explore because it's such a low barrier to entry that they can and if that's going to make the state think we're not being successful, um I think we need to educate our partners at the state and I just don't know if that's a criteria in terms of how
189when you do your comprehensive evaluation, whether that's seen as a negative about the program that you have a large volume of kids who just do whatever the program is one and don't continue. So yeah, so when um if a program doesn't have eight concentrators, they don't qualify for Perkins funding. And when you get to that level three, that's where you get the workbased learning opportunities that we're talking about, those don't typically happen in like a culinary one experience. That would be really the three. So a lot of our funding is tied to those concentrators and completers. And um you know, it's seeing that through and making sure that they get that robust opportunity for work-based learning. you know, because senior year they're out at clinicals, right? And they've completed a lot of coursework. They might
190still be struggling to to fit some things in, but they have that time senior year right now allegedly, right? Like it's like that year where they can go out and they can spend two and a half, three hours at the Daughters of Sarah or they can go to CDTA and do their internship. They wouldn't be able to fit those in. So yes, that's your thinking is exactly like what we've our discussions have been is we want if it's freshman year and you know if you're interested in cosmetology you're probably not interested in auto but you could be right choosing maybe a cluster and you get to experience each of the things in your cluster that you would be interested in. And so you still get maybe x amount of weeks for auto and x amount
191of weeks, you know, and these are just ideas that we've been floating because you're right, our our students are unique and they have this unique opportunity and and it's very much trying to figure out how to give that exploratory piece and allow students who want to complete the pathways in in our in the infrastructure that we can envision. >> Miss Grey, >> uh, thank you for a really fascinating presentation. I think I learned a lot. It really did bring up some questions because I had also some similar questions to Miss Savage about that. You know, I can see I can sense the tension between exploration on the one hand and then focus on the other. And I think one of my things that confused me was I had thought that we did have students who
192would like let's say take cosmetology one year and then take auto mechanics the next. But you're saying you're not allowed to enroll in a CTE course unless you're able to finish the three-year sequence. And you right now you can't enroll at all until 10th grade. So that's not true. You can't have students do one course one year and one the next. >> So to complete a pathway, they shouldn't be just and and that's where the confusion is, right? Is the CTE pathways have been historically from the data that I look at seen as exploratory. a CTE pathway in New York State is a prescribed pathway you know for the sequencing for all intensive purposes. What we have been trying to figure out and I think that's kind of what you're asking is have kids done
193culinary one and auto one they have that doesn't produce concentrators and completers. So what we're trying to do is make sure that we have students that are enrolled prescribed pathways and also have that opportunity to explore. So it it has happened. >> Okay. Thank you. because I thought you said the state doesn't allow students to enroll in let's say auto one their senior year it doesn't allow students to enroll in the courses if they can't complete the >> so certain classes so if you're in health sciences and you're not protric bound if you're not going to complete your hours and sit for your test New York state doesn't allow you to sit in health sciences so you know if you go on to health sciences 2 and something happens you wouldn't it would be recommended
194that you don't be in that course that's a New York state law now if it was cosmetology Like somebody had asked about transfer students, that's a thousand hours, right? So you get those thousand hours over each of the leveling they get added together. So if you just took cosmetology one, that's more of like an exploratory program and you wouldn't be able to build up to get the hours for the technical endorsement. Um, and in New York State, every CTE graduate counts as as like two graduates on a report card. It's it's like a like a double almost. So, so when we have our our graduates who are CTE completers, it it's good for our metrics. >> So, what I'm So, okay. So, I think I'm understanding a little more. So, there's some programs like health
195sciences where by state law, a student can't enroll if they're not going to complete the pathway. Yes. >> But then there's others for which we currently allow it, but we're looking to change the policy or we're currently allowing it, but we would like to discou at least discourage it. Is what's the story? So I don't want to say discouraged. We want to encourage exploration. I just think it it has to be in a a different model. Right? If the programs that we have now, auto one, two, and three are should be completed. We want to create an exploratory program so that students can take an auto sampling or they can take a construction sampling and if they decide they don't like it, they got the opportunity to take it. >> Okay. I do understand. But
196I want to I just want to encourage that idea of flexibility and you know the Renaissance student as it were. I know as we've been looking at art classes we've really been looking at for example bringing in more opportunities for a student to pick up an instrument in high school even if they hadn't been playing it in elementary and middle or to switch. We don't say hey you're a violinist stay a violinist we want you to complete tisma level six don't take up drumming now you know we want to make sure that students can explore or explore various pathways and continue but I can see that it's also important to have people complete and become as successful as they can one of my questions also was about I do know that there are a lot
197of people that that double and triple period scheduling Well, it's obviously essential based on the nature of the tasks. You know, you can't bake a cake in 40 minutes, you can't perm somebody's hair in 40 minutes, etc. Um, what level of flexibility do we have in terms of things like either after school? Um, after school academic hours or summers or block scheduling in other ways or even what kind of creative ways can we work around that scheduleuler? Yeah, that's a great question and that's something that we're looking into right now is currently the health sciences teachers utilize vacations. They've utilized Saturdays. Um, you know, cosmetology was like, you know, inquiring if they could go into the summer for maybe 10 days. You know, the hours are so intense. Um, so each program is a little
198bit unique in the number of hours and what it would look like, but that's definitely something that we're looking towards as we figure out how to make sure that our students have the capability to complete the programs. And and just to circle back to your question, if everybody could take all of the CTE classes, I would let everybody, right? But, you know, if somebody wants knows that they want to work in an auto shop and we have these numbers of classes, you know, and that's a question, right? Do I put somebody in auto one who definitely wants to go into that pathway and or do I put somebody in auto one who wants to, you know, explore? And we want to do all those things, right? We're just trying to figure out how how that
199looks for us, >> right? And I could definitely see like if there's more people who want auto one then you have slots of course you would give priority and enrollment to people who could finish the pathway. Definitely I can see that but other I just want to make sure that it's still an option when we have seats. Um the other question I had actually was to change the topic a little bit. you're talking about a possible manufacturing pathway and I was really curious how that might work and what that would look like just because manufacturing can be so varied depending you know are you manufacturing safety pins or are you manufacturing shoes are you manufacturing I don't know like surgical tools or something that how would how would that potentially work we actually be making
200widgets or something >> so um I this is something that we're just looking into I'm actually taking the technology teacher we're going on a visit to look at um the manufacturing ing program at Cap Region Boseies to see if it's something that might fit into our model at the high school. Um, you know, they have a new program, some kind of machining, and every day they're getting new machines and learning how to work them. So, you know, it might be that our kids are learning the fundamentals here and then they're doing the workbased learning out of manufacturing. Um, you know, that's another program that's very antiquated. People have this idea that manufacturing is dark and dirty and a lot of the new companies, you know, are just are not. So, it's things that I'm learning
201as I go along the journey also. So, I can't say for certain what it will look like. Um, but I look forward to learning more and seeing if it would be a good fit for our students. >> Great. Thank you so much for all the information. >> Thank you, >> Miss Wilson. >> Thank you for your presentation. It was so comprehensive that as I was um thinking of some questions as the presentation went on, you proceeded to answer them. And I just appreciate um everything you laid out this evening. Um it's great to have a this overview because I was going to miss the open house. So um also the trades especially the resurgence is very like highly lucrative. Um you know it versus perhaps you know accumulating debt and going to school and the
202census indicates that as a city we tend to average out around 60,000 as far as the average income. And I know the principal told me that someone who did the construction trades was hired um either with the union on the spot or like received a gig to be at 80,000. So right there out of high school surpassing um what's the average income for the city I think is phenomenal especially uh the cosmetology which is like a billion dollar industry and the capacity to be so resistant to economic downturns and things of that nature. Um, also the collaboration with CDTA, mobility is a huge factor in terms of social mobility and the ability to get around and things of that nature. Um, much of the concentrator pathway questions I had, you went over, I'll just listen
203to everybody's question. I was thinking about it in terms of skill stacking and whether the exploratory factor are there ways we can um expose people either like during summer breaks or winter breaks and opportunities like that. >> So we would love to get there to the to to the break pieces. Um I had mentioned that I had met with the director of Syracuse City School District, the CTE director and I I love their model, right? But again our our students are unique. They have 40 pathways and in each of their weeks of their CTE exploration, every week is a pathway that they learn about. And so, you know, taking that information and I I I brought their materials, you know, I went I visited, I brought all the materials back, their flyers, their booklets. Um,
204as a parent, I can open the brochure and I can say, "My son is in barbering, but he doesn't get to play the flute." And I say, "Wait, yes, he does. This is a sample schedule of 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, and 12th grade." So, um, you know, I think the superintendent said it best that as we, you know, the more we learn, the better we know. Um, I look forward to taking samplings of other districts and figuring out how it can work for our students. Um, you know, that exploratory piece in ninth grade isn't going to be their only piece. It really should stem from that middle school, seventh or eighth grade where they get that information, right? like if it's an overarching business entrepreneur with a little bit of a dive into
205each of our pathways to learn about them. Um and then they go to their freshman year and they get to see it and touch it and visit the spaces. Um and you know eventually get to the point where maybe that transition to nth grade doesn't feel so dull because you get to attend CTE camps. Um you know when I when I started in the district I brought some of my friends with me and one of them was the teamsters and um if you're a teamster you get to um go for your free CDL training. you can work at Pepsi, UPS. So, I brought the the simulator over and the kids got to play on the simulator. Um, I wasn't allowed to play because I broke a nail last time I drove it, but the kids
206were better drivers than me, but they loved it, right? And just learning about some of these opportunities and I I had those at some of the camps that I had run. So, really getting them involved in these camps, whether they decide to go into a CTE pathway or not. But we would love to utilize, you know, breaks um for whether it's our program or just robust opportunities for our students to learn more. >> When when you're last in the line, most of the questions get asked. Amazing presentation. >> Thank you. >> I plan to be there on on Saturday because I think I need a haircut. >> They're they're really doing a good job. >> And and so while I'm there, I I we'll talk more. Um but in terms of comments that came up
207as as I'm hearing different uh topics that came up I mean the ninth year the superintendent already brought that up hopefully that will get fixed in a year or so um the in in terms of Hassan's question about new programming I believe we used to have masonry back in the day that that might be something of interest as well um because that's another you know people build houses in construction you need masons and >> we do have a construction but That's like one of those, you know, how narrow or how broad do you get? Right. >> Right. So, you know, because I remember a few years ago I was looking for a mason to fix something and and I couldn't find one in Albany and so so there's that the automotive shop used to do
208and some things that you didn't mention. I just want to put it on record that they used to offer the uh oil changes. >> Oh, they do. >> And so, so that is something that's great. And it's a great way for the community >> and starting in March they offer inspections >> to to see the output and then you know funds from that can go back to help the program. >> Um something similar that I would like to see is repair clinics. You know there's the free repair clinic that is done in Albany where where kids >> can fix things right and again that helps upycling and and recycling of things rather than ending up in the Alman trash which is filling up. Uh but it also teaches people how to fix things, right? So
209it doesn't have to be everything under the sun, but they could start small. And >> our kids are talented. I mean, if they can make robots, they can build robots, they can fix certain things. Um the alumni database is something that's always been my dream to have an alumni database because it's important to be able to reach out to your past students and find out how they're doing, right? So if somebody asks you so you had 500 students graduate where they are >> you should be able to tell them that hey we had 10% who are this we 10% these are the fields that look those people that you heard about yeah they were all graduates it's nice to be able to it's important for us to tell that story so so putting that together
210is good and we can we can involve the students to help make those connections contacts and fill up the database because that's hard work >> right and that is work that somebody has put all that data in and that could be some course credits or or you know a car for your uh graduation that volunteer hours that that students can participate in to build that database. The um question that I had was I know that we were talking about UHS and CHS and there was a discussion a while back where we were working with Hudson Valley to see how we could get our students more CHS credits and there was the question about aligning the curriculum with what they had over there. So our instructors would work with the people in the at Hudson Valley
211for example and either get a certification or build up the curriculum so that it's like seamless. >> Are we still you know >> in CTE? Yes. So that as soon as I came on that was something that um you know Miss Hulahan and I because it's obviously a bigger part of the high school but for CTE the instructors do teach the college curriculum. Um it has to be re-evaluated to make sure that the textbooks are the same. talking about reevaluating it has to be done. >> Yeah. So, um progress just a couple things. Uh programs in CTE have to be reapproved every 5 years. When you get reapproved, that has to be that's one of the checklist items to make sure that the articulation agreements, the teachers have their certification. So, that gets done every
212five years, but more than that, probably for even the high school, usually yearly, just to make sure that the textbooks are the same. Um the other thing I wanted to mention, I loved the idea you said like fixing things. uh if if you were to attend a Boseis they have their pathway programs and they also have something called new visions. New visions are not you know it's not that I don't want to say it's not rigorous because it can be either it can be an education program or a new vision. It doesn't have to follow all the same certifications that a CTE a New York state at CTE pathway would have to follow. So some of the things that the superintendent and I have just you know talked about and visit visited other places is
213opening new visions like programs that would especially help our students in all populations. Um we have students in special ed Dr. Jenny Evans and I have been working to partner to figure out something for our special ed students to come in and do counter service how we can offer them some robust opportunities to be involved in CTE and you know do something like that. So that's another avenue aside from the exploratory and the prescribed pathways is these new visions that are, you know, a little a little less I don't want to call them less serious, but they're not as leveled, right? It could be like a one or a two-year program and it could be a maintenance or I'm sure I'm sure Mr. Caris would love that program, right? They would come back and they
214would they would come back home. So >> there was also lab research, I believe, because I had students from New Visions come and uh you know intern some of our labs in the past. >> Yeah, it's they're great programs. I mean they go on, you know, they have at Boseies they have medical ones, teaching ones. So that's something that we could definitely look into for our district. And >> so we'll we'll talk more on Saturday. I plan to be there. I haven't made my appointment yet. >> Oh, you better. They're filling up fast. >> Um, thank you so much. >> Thank you. You're welcome. All right, the last but not the least discussion. Mr. Caris, budget update. We need money for all of these things that we're talking about. So you'll notice that we've uh
215embrace some different uh tools in our toolkit thanks to Dr. Preipino and and her team um to take what has been standard board presentations and live liven them up a little bit. So, um, what, uh, Joe and I agreed to do is really at the official onset of our of our budget deliberations is sort of hit pause and take a look back and and have the opportunity to to tell our story. So, we imported some of our uh, most impressive data to uh, any number of um, infographic uh, designs. And I think it's really important um, as we talk about return on investment uh, more than a well north of a $300 million budget. What our community um is getting for their investment. Uh whether you have children or not, uh whether you ever had
216children in this district or not, um our 3 through8 exam proficiency is trending upward. Um we continue to close the gap. Uh although it's not not officially official, we can we'll we'll let you know that we uh have reason to believe that uh last year's assessment data will yield the fewest number of schools in status in the history of school accountability. Um that number will be all the way down to two. Uh so in terms of return on investment and and curriculum and coaching and and um class sizes that are advantageous especially uh for some of our higher need populations and uh and neighborhoods, we are closing the gap. We are trying to make the greatest return on that investment. Uh 50% growth in AP proficiency. Uh we have more students taking AP courses. we
217have more students um testing and scoring at a three or higher. So more kids are eligible for um for credit and that credit is theirs forever. It's not a a credit through you name it college or university that might be transferable certain places. This this is theirs forever. Uh we have the most co we're offering the most courses than we ever had. uh and our course catalog in terms of advanced placement um rivals if not uh is more significant than any other high school in the capital region. Uh it was only about 3 hours ago we heard officially that our graduation rate is officially at 76%. That is the highest that we could go back. Uh we went all the way back to 2010. Um apples to apples. Uh during the pandemic, the four years
218that uh stated relax graduation requirements uh was the graduating classes of 2020 to 2023. Um we we saw an increase because the the standards um were different because we weren't going to penalize students who didn't have access. um it just didn't have access. Um but this graduation rate stands um at the highest ever and and going back to 2010 um graduation rate was at 54%. So uh significant increase in the number of students that are um that are completing their their coursework here in our school district. uh I mentioned AP um 15% increase in number of students participating and usually what you have is you have uh if you open the doors wider sometimes your achievement isn't as great right what we're seeing is more students are taking courses more students are challenging themselves they
219have a wider breath and depth in terms of what's offered to them or what's available to them and they are achieving and that is a really important message to underscore some other data um includes includes our academic and career engagement. Uh we're seeing higher average daily attendance rates districtwide. We are seeing lower chronic absenteeism rate districtwide. Uh we just had Maggie present tonight some of our um growth in CTE programs. That's a testament to to this board and and some other members who are no longer with us that it's a testament that if you will build it, they will come. Um they are coming. they are registering uh and they continue to uh students continue to be interested um in CTE and you'll see that of the students that uh participate in CTE last year
220had a 98% graduation rate. We're seeing discipline rates uh dip back uh below prepandemic levels. Um we provide uh these statistics for the board annually and you've heard uh schools present on them occasionally that suspension rates have stabilized. So, uh, we want to make sure that as we kick off our our budget season that, um, we're talking about a lot of the successes here. We still have work to do. You you have heard that from every school, uh, that is presented and division um, in terms of updates and and highlights. We're not where we want to be, but my goodness, we are. Um, we're a lot better than where we were, and we're on the on the right trajectory. So, uh, for those listening at home or or will, uh, you know, watch on YouTube
221later, um, we wanted to underscore that, uh, the investment that this organization has made and that the investments that this organization wishes to make will, um, hopefully result continuing to close those gaps and continuing to give more kids more opportunities than they've ever had. So, with that, I'll turn it over to our spreadsheet genius, who will go over um the first run from uh the governor's uh executive budget a couple weeks ago uh and share with you some of our um some of our thinking as we enter the budget season. >> Thank you, superintendent. Um so as I proceed uh the districtwide initiatives within the next budget is the high school reopening and community awareness focus on climate culture retention RCTE growth and business development uh enhancements as well. Uh just a brief look at
222the budget calendar but if you want to see the whole calendar you can see it at the link below at one of the of our previous uh board meetings. Uh the key terms and information for this presentation is the rollover budget where we keep all programs and staffing current and see what the amount of our expenditures are. The fiscal year which is our July 1st through June 30th as a school year and the state aid is the amount of revenue that the the uh school receives from New York State. Um it is funding for operating expenses, transportation, special educational services, early childhood and other specific expenses. Um the budgetary notes for the 2627 budget as we work to work on it is a continuation of the existing programs and services. Uh the continuation of our
223contractual obligations, continuation of our operations, our staffing and benefits and as always we want to monitor our overtime related work. Uh this slide here is a snapshot of our staffing ratio from 201920 to the current year. Uh the estimate for the upcoming school year will be in the next presentation as we work on it with as a cabinet. Uh our legislative priorities. So, a lot of these are actually um I I want to say they were addressed by the hard work of the legislative uh committee and they were addressed in this state aid run by the governor that she did provide a lot of great opportunities for the school district like the equitable prek uh funding. You'll see in the next slide. uh you saw the presentation earlier as well, but uh we also have
224the support for ENL refugee students and charter school oversaturation which was addressed somewhat last year as well with additional aid there as a school that has more than 20% of our population in charter schools. We do get additional aid for that. Um as I said the executive budget, there's some great highlights for us as a school district. You can see that the a lotment for prek has gone up to about 12,022 even though we are working on some more details of that. That was based on the enrollment from the 2425 school year of our four-year-olds. So, as we have more students in the seats, we would get more aid as well. Um the $18.5 million in foundation aid is one of the largest increases for the district. So, that's something that we are very proud
225of and happy for. Um the charter school transitional aid formula was changed. That was last year. Again, that was for any school district that has 20% or more uh students that are attending the charter school. So the variables are the final state aid that is typically in April after the uh New York State passes its budget. We have our collective agreement increases, our contractual service increases. It's an average of 8 to 10, but there's some that were lower and higher. So that's why that that number is there. Our health insurance uh increase is about 12%. That's the estimate for next year. The charter school payment there's uh so for the last uh three years it was an increase on the tuition cost of 456. So the way I was budgeting was I took a 5%
226increase on the tuition and I added students because there is next grade level in the high school in the charter school. So that increased my estimate enrollment and thank you Ron for the help here uh to 2425 um or 2425. Sorry when I said that I was like wow that's the school year but um and then the abandoned bond payments uh as we finished the capital project for $190 million for the high school we have to start paying on the loan. So that makes our expenses higher. um our tax cap which will be finalized late in February. The tax levy that we will work on with the board is uh set in early April and our impact on retirements. So the general fund expenditure rollover budget uh you can see that the budget has the
227current budget is 342,360,598 and with the costs that you saw in the previous slide or the increases it has uh moved to 374,458756. So a increase of $32 million. Now this is just part of the revenue. This is a state aid part of the revenue. You can see that uh with the increase the foundation aid and the other aids that are primarily expense based aids um the increase in revenue on the state aid set is about $21 million. So there's still a little bit of a deficit that we will work on as a cabinet, as a board. Um, and there's still some expenses that we have to still talk about as well because that's just a rollover budget. There are things that we still want to talk about what may be included in there as
228well. So, next steps, we are reviewing the building requests that was early in late December that that went out um the district priorities to make sure that make recommendations to the uh board of education. We always want to incorporate our new information every board meeting. So, I'll be doing budget presentations here through May. Uh we will respond to board questions, feedback and uh we continue to legis for advocacy for our legislators. That's the first presentation. >> Miss Primman, >> no comment. >> Thank you, Miss Wolf. Uh, no comment. >> Mr. Stepped away, Miss Man. >> I have no comments. >> Miss Savage, >> I know we're all tired and I promise not to make my questions or comments long. I just wanted to draw attention to two things which Mr. Carris and I had the
229opportunity to speak earlier. Um, so I don't um particularly have questions, but I did just want to draw my board colleagues um attention to some of the uh lines in particular. And in particular, I just want you to look at the charter school tuition line. We are projecting $48 million, 48.875, which I call $49 million to go directly to charter schools um next year. They uh increase comes primarily from a tuition increase. So it's over 5% more per student this year than it was last year. Um so even if we show saw no change in the charter enrollment, we would see almost a 6% increase in that line alone. So it's a pretty pretty substantial increase. Plus as you all read in Mr. Leco's um report that he does on charters that we are um
230experiencing some change in charters. Lots of lots of moving parts in charter world in Albany right now. Um, and this is um something that we've w talked about with our legislators very frequently about the complexity in having such a high charter enrollment. If we had one charter school in Albany, it would be not a problem because that number would be $2 million or something, but it's the very high um oversaturation that we experience, which is nothing to do with the children and the families making the best choice they possibly can for their child, right? It has to do with the way that the state funding is structured. That's really problematic. And so I do want to highlight also something Mr. Caris had said on an earlier slide to thank and appreciate the legislature for last
231year adding a new tier of charter aid just for the oversaturated districts who are 20% or more. So that is impacting the amount of aid we get. We get about a million half a million to a million dollars more aid than we would have if they had not done that. So that's that's meaningful and it helps. It's not $50 million, but it doesn't hurt. Um so so there is some some some assistance there. And then I also wanted to um raise up that Mr. Carris has promised me the balance of the revenue projections for the next board meeting because right now we're looking at the state aid revenue. We control the property tax revenue which is the most significant other aspect but there is roughly $20 million of revenue from federal and local sources that's
232not shown here and then the other big component we'll have to address is the use of uh reserves um to to balance the budget. So those are coming next week which will allow us to really have the whole picture. So, it's um it it seems like it should be so easy because we did get a significant foundation aid bump, but some of these expenses are eating into that very very quickly. Um and it's not going to be as straightforward as you would think given that big tuition increase or foundation aid increase. So, that's it. >> Machi, >> thank you so much, Mr. Carris. seems like it's not it's going to be a relatively sunny year despite despite the challenges of always having to make make some compromises and choices. And I just wanted to also
233really express a lot of pleasure about the first couple slides, both the presentation and just the data that's in them. I think this is helpful and I think I'd love to see some version of these two slides maybe in in the news the magazine. Is it magazine format now that goes out in May? Not the not the broad sheet newsletter, >> newsletter. Yeah, >> newsletter because this is really >> information everyone in the city needs to know. So, it's great. Thanks. >> Thank you, Miss Wilson. >> Thank you for your presentation. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate the update. >> Great presentation. I just wanted to in one of your slides you talked about charter school tuition as 5%. That actually is more like 13.3% right? >> No, no. So what I did is I increased
234the tuition cost by 5% because the last three years it was four five6% of an increase each year just on tuition. So right now we're paying 19,195 per student. So that increased that by 5% and then that add 75 students because uh talking to Mr. Leco with the new grade uh opening up in the high school, we have to try to account for that additional cost. >> Okay. >> It's both an increase in enrollment and an increase in tuition for every student. So it is more like 13%. The 5% is just the tuition increase and the the balance comes from the increased enrollment >> because I was looking at the other table where the the corresponding it's more like 43 or something that we paying. I I will clarify that line next in the next
235one just to make sure that people are aware of how I'm trying to build the the uh the budget. >> That's something that is it's a big challenge and and when you look at our budget, Alby's budget is 340 million. Well, a lot of that money is not is going somewhere else, you know, and so we end up collecting for other parties, but we get the full blame for it. But you know on the other hand when you see what we have invested in and the fruits of what we have invested in in these presentations it's just you know I'm I'm happy I'm happy that >> we we're bold enough to take take some steps early on and and the fruits of that labor is slowly coming to fruition. >> So thank you. >> Thank
236you. >> Any other questions folks? If not thank you Mr. Caris. >> Thank you. All right. Any other board committee reports? Okay. Mr. Almanovi, facilities. So, the facilities committee met last Monday and um we discussed a lot of different things with uh our five-year um building um condition survey and plan um with uh our contractor SEI, the superintendent, uh Mr. Carris, and uh the director of facilities, Don. Um we covered um really high level budgetary matters and um we looked into uh all of the projects and um we explored ways that we could potentially fund all of the projects. and we're waiting for um some additional um resolutions on questions that we had and um some principal um priorities and seeing if we can overlap them with the SEI priorities and um see if we
237can get everything done. So that's where we are. We are going to be meeting again I believe next Tuesday. Uh it's getting down to crunch time and I definitely invite either of my committee members, my fellow committee members to comment additionally because um there's a lot and um I know both of them were there and paying very close attention. So >> Mr. >> uh thank you. I just wanted to let people know uh policy committee will be meeting next Wednesday at 5:30 the 11th. Thanks. Yes, ma'am. >> So, on Monday, we met, the audit committee met um and we met with our um claims auditor and we reviewed the last several months of um just the process it takes to uh take care of um um some of our um internal bills. Um and it
238was productive and our next meeting is in I think three months. Three or four months. >> Might be sooner. Two. The next meeting is soon to be announced. >> Anything for government relations? >> Um government relations. Our job here is done. We have prek funding. No, just kidding. Um hopefully hopefully we are going to see the prek funding come through the budget. that is a significant benefit to our community. As I've already said, um we will continue to be active in the legislative initiatives over the next couple of months as we drive to the budget. And then I assume Mr. Leco has already reached out to our friends at the common council to try and get on the caucus agenda for a uh early May um conversation. One of the things we've tried to do
239as we relate to other governments is help our common council members understand our budget um so they can help explain to community um between you know after we adopt it but before the um the May budget vote. So that is sort of the next next phase coming up once we survive the initial budget pass here. School visits we're making great progress. I think there's only two left to schedule and maybe three left to complete if I've got it right in my head. Pretty close on that. And we are also um slowly but surely driving to success on the various forms we're trying to improve on ad hoc routine consent. Oh, and I will just add speaking that crossover point um I the main topic as board member man said at audit was looking at the
240claims auditor reports. Those should be coming pretty much every month on routine consent and we did establish for sure the process. So, I encourage the officers as you're meeting to say like, "Hey, do we have a claims auditor report this month? Where is it?" Because they should be on routine consent for the board to accept. And so there's there we're several months behind and they will be added um to the next board meeting. Um and that goes to one of the outlying things that we want to do for ad hoc routine consent, which is to establish a little grid of like you should have these reports these months. um so that we as a board don't forget because every once in a while we lose track of something and then we don't get it for
241a few months and we're like oh yeah what happened to that so we're working on that I'm losing my voice that doesn't sound great at agenda setting you really don't have all the items in routine consent already populated so but it's something for all of us to keep an eye on to make sure that we do have those um any other question u comments I just want to remind people that tomorrow NESBA has got their uh webinar in the learning about the uh legislative priorities and the budget. So if you are interested 9 to 12 it's there's a webinar log in u plan to be having that on the side as I'm doing my work. So all right motion to adjurnn Mr. Austin Wolf Gang Mr. All in favor? >> Okay.