Board of Education Public Meeting | Live Stream | January 22nd, 2025

001are we good Jack? Okay. Good evening. My name is Shria Chhatur and I'm a 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 member Sona, member Elmenavi, member Pan, member Crree, member Wilson, member Savage, member Wolf Gang with us, and we have superintendent and members of the cabinet attending. Um, can you hear me now? Okay, sorry about that. uh joining us either virtually or in person. This meeting is being livereamed and the instructions to view the meeting as well as a link to the agenda including all the documents we will discuss are available at albonychools.org/bee. This is a good time for me to doubt that if you're here tonight to speak in public comment, you should sign up with

002Miss 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 United States of America and to the standice. In addition to the pledge of allegiance, we always focus our meeting by restating the mission of the city school district of Albany, which is to work in partnership with our diverse community to engage every learner in a robust educational program designed to provide the knowledge and skills necessary for success. Let's hear from student board report from Miss Sona. >> Good evening. I had the opportunity and pleasure to attend a few middle school visits earlier last week as students were presented their high school course offerings. Through this, I was not only able to give advice

003regarding their upcoming high school years, but also push out both our student voice survey and information regarding assistance from one middle school student per each school to expand our understanding of district-wide events. We're currently working on gathering these students now and we're hoping that we can find some faces that are just as passionate about elevating student voices as we are. We hope that to we hope to have these efforts finished as soon as possible as we want to gather insight into student experiences beyond our high school far more efficiently. Going forward, the student voice survey has been completed. We are hoping to be placing additional focus onto getting this out to students as we're hoping to get more feedback on what students would like to see in their school environment. We're going to do our

004best in spreading these around and we're hoping to be emailing this out and including it in our future lunch and learn presentation. Additionally, the Falcon Pass application and poster have been looked over and finalized by the student government. Once this once this is uh reviewed application has been finalized, we will be pushing this out so exemplary students within the high school will be able to be rewarded for their hard work and success. The process in obtaining a Falcon Pass, which the student government has agreed upon, will require students to get teacher signatures to ensure that students receiving this pass meet the Falcon Pass educational and behavioral requirements, which again entail at least an 80% grade average, 90% attendance, and overall good behavioral record. Lastly, the student government is in the process of finalizing the roster

005for an upcoming spirit week, which will be held on the week preceding our district's February break. We will soon be making a promotion promotional video to advertise the spirit week. Students can look forward to another week of fun themed days in which they can express their falcon spirit and pride. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Miss Sona. Super Hawker, do you have a report for us? >> I do. And we'll begin with Mr. Leco. Thank you. Tonight we are excited to celebrate a scientific dynasty at William S. Hackett Middle School. For the fifth year in a row, a team of Hackett 8th grade students has developed an experiment that will be performed on the International Space Station in the spring. Hackett's team once again was chosen as the top district entry in the annual

006student spaceflight experiment program. Here to tell us more and introduce us to this year's winning team of scientists is our secondary science and STEM supervisor, Amanda Powers. >> Good evening everyone. Uh tonight I'm excited to share a powerful example of what authentic student centered science can look like in our district. Through the student spaceflight experiment program, SSP, our students engage in the same proposal, review, and research process used by professional scientists, creating experiments that are designed to be conducted in true microgravity at the International Space Station. This year, our district's eighth grade students submitted nearly 70 student research proposals, each reflecting curiosity, rigor, and creativity. From that highly competitive pool, one proposal was again selected from Hackett to represent our district. A significant achievement. Our winning student team designed an investigation entitled the effect of

007microgravity on red maple tree germination. This project connects biology, environmental science, and space science while also highlighting how local contexts can inform global and even extraterrestrial research. Congratulations, Camila, Juliana, and Ruby. This accomplishment speaks not only to the dedication and brilliance of our students, but also to the educators and school leaders who support the ambitious learning experiences and to the district's commitment to providing opportunities that extend far beyond the classroom. We are incredibly proud of this student team and we are so grateful for the board's continued support of innovative science programming which allows our students to see themselves as true scientists, researchers, and contributors to the broader scientific community. Thank you. And I'm going to turn it over to Ruby who has a few words to say. >> I would just like to say thank

008you to all of our administrators and everyone who helped us get here. Thank you guys so much for this opportunity. Thank you. >> Correct me if if I'm wrong. This is the fourth year in a row that Hacket has gone to space. Right. >> And this is the fifth year that Hackett has gone to space and the fourth year out of five that Mr. Asher, who could not be with us tonight, has had a winning student team. So, congratulations, Mr. Asher. We're just going to have the board members and the superintendent come out and take a few pictures. So, come on back. We're going to make sure Mr. Pino doesn't wander too far off so he can come back up and tell us about the great things happening this year at Hackett Middle School. I

009pushing the button. >> Oh, now it's on. Perfect. Thank you. Uh, again, thank you on behalf of Hacket Middle School for us being here today. Um, as I was joking before we come in, we never make this easy, so I apologize. Um, but we'll try to be a little bit quicker. Um, obviously I killed the slide on successes already because I didn't know that was the fifth year in a row that we were going to win. So that's awesome. I know we have some really talented kids. Um, but I learned the other day that our board rep is a Hackett student. So I want to have a shout out there. I'm also happy to know that Austin was one of our students. So it's also great there and so there's success all around the room.

010Um, we'll try to do this as quickly as we can. I want to introduce our two assistant principles who will help me today. Uh, Miss Lisa House and Mr. Lawrence Mochi. Does this sound? Yes. >> Um, so we want to go over the district vision, mission, and goals. The city's school district of Albany will be a district of excellence with caring relationships and engaging learning experiences that provide equitable opportunities for all students to reach their their potential. Our the district's mission, we will work in partnership with our diverse community to engage every learner in a robust educational program of designed to provide the knowledge and skills necessary for success. And our district goals increase student achievement, enhance the delivery of quality instruction, build our leadership capacity, empower families partnering with our diverse community. And our

011school vision, mission, and goals are we celebrate the strength of our diversity and foster learning community based upon mutual respect and supportive relationships to achieve our full potential as leaders, learners, and citizens. Our school mission is to implement a proactive schoolwide discipline plan to foster a positive learning environment that promotes common expectations, accountability, and models rigorous academic achievement and behavioral expectations. Our school goals provide a safe and nurturing school environment for all students. Implement culturally responsive practices to establish a positive school climate and set high expect high academic standards for all students and utilize all human resources and student support committees to ensure the academic and so socio and emotional needs of our students and families are being met. >> All right, here's where I make it difficult and hopefully we're okay. Um the slide,

012what makes Hackett special? So, I think anybody who's had the opportunity to come to the building knows that it's obviously uh our students, our faculty, our staff, and that we have kind of coined the saying, the Hackett family. Um, again, going to try to keep it short tonight and stay there. The video we wanted to show you, I think speaks volumes for what makes Hackett special. Um, and we also want to always make sure we're recognizing all the unions that participate. This is a video of Mr. Rodney Parker. Uh, Rodney is a security monitor who's been in Hackett Middle School for over 20 plus years. and right before we went on vacation for Christmas, he retired. Um, the good news is is he unretired um and is now back as a sub uh monitor. Um,

013but what we're going to show you real quick, it's a two-minute clip. I'm going to keep it down to 30 seconds. This is him on his last day walking out of the building. And I think it speaks volumes for what he did in our building, what our security staff do in our building on his last day. So, we just want to show you this for like 20 seconds. And >> this is him getting clapped out by the kids on the last his last official day after 20 plus years in the district. And so the kids put this together and it just I think speaks volumes of obviously what goes on in our building and how much they appreciate um the work of every individual regardless of the title that they they may have. So we

014wanted to share that with you today. >> Good evening everybody. Uh, our school administration staff consists of Mr. Michael Pelino, uh, the building principal, uh, Miss House, assistant principal, Lawrence Moltry, myself, uh, the assistant principal, Mr. Lionel Harris, Miss Deb Walton are our home school coordinators, Miss Darien Lewis is our senior monitor, and Officer Re is our SRO. >> I just waiting for the slide. I wasn't sure the demographics for for Hacket Middle School this year. We have a total of 624 students for this current school year. We have 210 sixth graders, 188 7th graders, and 226 eighth graders. And as you can see, the current enrollment breakdown for our our building is on the left. as we look at our school comprehensive and education program focus and highlights, uh I'm sure by now the

015board's aware that the state kind of reduced a number of strategies or key strategies they have. So we have two. Um we made them really simple for this year. Um the first one is our evidence-based instructional method. Um our focus at the middle school level is differentiation of instruction teachers are receiving on a monthly basis either during the school day or during their PD sessions. uh high quality instruction as it relates to differentiation of instruction. And then our key strategy number two is our multi-tered systems of supports and integration. Um this is where we're looking at everything from academic, behavioral, and the social emotional needs of our students to ensure that they have the interventions they need to be successful in school. And so for the current year, we have those two key strategies in

016our set plan. I'm still up. Um what we want to show here and we'll get in our success later. Um the board already knows and I don't want to steal anybody's thunder but um Aki Middle School as I talked to you today is now a school in good standing again. Um and so we take a lot of pride in what we do in our building. This is our academic uh success. Just trying to compare the last couple years. Um this is one of my these two slides are the two difficult ones because I always try to be transparent. Um although we achieved uh school and good standing status when we compare our ELA scores from last year to this year in terms of the number of students proficient we saw a small decrease from 39%

017being proficient to 35%. Um that is something that is part of our challenges and our focus that we'll get to later. And as we do the same slide for math, we saw a 1% decrease uh in math. And again, that is our challenge and our focus even though um we achieved school and good standing status, our focus is still uh to try to increase the number of students who are proficient across grade levels. Um but as you know, I've been here a long time. I'm not one to really hide the data. Um and so we wanted to share that with you. Over the past three years, um, we've looked at our attendance. Our attendance has gone up for the past three years. Uh, the daily attendance rate has risen from 85% to 91.47% over the

018past three years. Um, in addition to that, our chronic absenteeism has decreased every year from 35.88% 88% down to 21 I'm sorry 28.1%. I can tell you that um it's due in part to our attendance team, Mrs. Chavez, Mr. Graham, Mr. Watts, Mr. Mr. Brown, Mrs. Watson. If it wasn't for those uh members of the attendance team, we would not be able to achieve the things that we have done over the course of the last three years. So for them, I do want to send them kudos because of all their hard work and dedication to the team. >> And before I let him go on to the next slide, the gentleman who facilitates that committee is also the one who just presented you the data. A lot of that uh credit also goes to Mr.

019Moltry. >> Thank you, Mr. Pino. um disproportionality um over the last three years we have decreased in all I'm sorry over this school year we have decreased our discipline referrals our student suspensions and chronic uh discipline incidents due to the implementation of uh yonder pouches professional professional development for our staff we have had a focus on tier one interventions over throughout the school year and trying to increase um our interventions for our students. We have done a variety of things um in our CPT times. >> Okay. Um, and I have the, uh, oh, sorry. Um, the privilege of talking about our successes. We've had a lot as, as we've heard. We've, our school in good standing. We have an amazing student equity team at Hackett that's been going strong for the last four or five

020years. Um, we have monthly equity professional development to provide it to our faculty and staff during their common planning time meetings. We have a successful implementation of yonder pouches. Thus far, we uh have a great ex after school extended day program that we provide our students Monday through Thursday. We have a uh we've created a master professional development calendar this year for our staff which has really supported the awareness and the the planning for meetings and and growth for um all stakeholders in our building. We um have realigned our common planning time to include a lot of professional development in real time during the school day and we are able to talk about it and practice it um throughout the school day um going from month to month of those meetings and um I think

021all of this has really lifted our culture and climate in our building um we've been working hard on that and that has um shown some success for us as well. We have had uh honor roll. We have 267 students participating in the first quarter honor roll which was a great number for us. As you can see 90 students for gold, 87 for bronze and we have 90 students or I'm sorry 87 for silver and 90 students for bronze. Yeah. And so we can definitely speak to we are a very tight-knit family. Um those successes speak and just coming into our building we were very proud to call ourselves a family. We do that when we meet together when we see each other. So uh we have room to grow as everyone does but we're proud

022of the work that we've done the last couple of years. >> As we finish up we just want to provide you with uh a few highlights. Um we've started a new program a couple years where we have a new family orientation. This is very different than the actual start of the school orientation where we are working closely with our feeder schools. um to help get uh parents more comfortable with the transition to middle school. Um our hack and opening day barbecue and clapping is always a big piece. As we mentioned, our honoral se uh celebrations, teen nights, ski club, modified sports, drama clubs, all the things that the board helps us to support. Um you'll see in a minute, spirit week and what uh the fun is that we have. We used to do spirit

023week uh just one week a year. Now we do it every Friday in the building. Um we have our fall winter musical celebrations. We did Hattistown um in the fall which which was uh tremendous. Um and then again to the support and I Joe and I talk a lot about this. Uh we continue to offer extended day program to our students where we roughly have about 200 of our kids participate on a daily basis. Um so just some of the highlights again that make Hackit special. Um the one picture that I want to do um we are blessed and Mr. Moltry brought it up. Um and I don't want to sound the wrong way here so I just want to say this the right way. We have the greatest school resource officer in the district.

024If anybody knows officer Nicole Riddics, um the best of the best. We nominated her for national school um resource officer of the year last year. And the picture you see in the middle is the Hacket Holiday gift exchange. She runs this by herself. Um it's about three days long in the building. Uh there are boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of donations that come through the support of the Aub Police Department. And it is one of the greatest uh events that we have for our kids to be able to they they turn in their tickets and they come shopping for Christmas presents uh for family members and uh and and friends and it's just uh tremendous and Nicole deserves all the credit uh for doing that. >> As Mr. Pino alluded to, we uh

025do a weekly SEB spirit week celebration. Uh the way we came up with this was to make sure that we had student voice within our uh building. So what we decided to do was uh survey our students. We surveyed our students and then as you can see up on the slide, they came up with a variety of different topics that they wanted to do. So what we did was we went with um weekly SEB spirit week. So every Friday there's always a thing going on in Hackit. It's one of those things that we do to try to make the students feel welcome, appreciated. Um, and it's from their student voice. >> As I as I alluded to earlier, challenges and next steps. Uh, the second one is the the funny one. Um, the first one

026that we talked about, we're always looking to improve ways to increase our instructional delivery uh, and to raise proficiency. As you saw in the disproportionality slide, we have shown a decrease in discipline across the board, whether it's the number of referrals, the number of suspensions, the number of unique suspensions, and that is attributed to the yonder pouches. Um, but the yonder pouches have brought a challenge to us. Um, and it's one that I don't think we anticipated, but we look forward to doing. Um, our students don't know how to socialize with each other anymore. And so while they have their phones in their pouches and their pouches are on the side um where we probably were chatty some of all of us people in the room like myself talking to our friends they are now

027learning how to resocialize and engage in conversation. Um so that's exciting. Um but it is something that we're going to have to think about and to help support our teachers because the yonder pouches and I want to thank the board for supporting that. I know that's a a cost piece. um it's had success in the building, but now we have to figure out how do we get our kids to re-engage and just have conversation because they were so used to just kind of turning to their phones and getting lost in the internet. And so those are our challenges. Uh last slide here and uh the last slide after questions, but student voice, we always try to come up with a unique way to show you student voice. And so I'm hoping this slide uh works.

028It's called the microphone and the messages and we cannot take credit for it. It's something that I saw on the news. Um, but a school in the United States put a microphone with a sheet of paper on it in the hallway and the message on it just said, "Tell us one good thing that's happened to you in school today." Um, watching that that video was amazing. So, we decided to duplicate it oursel. Um, I think you're going to enjoy watching what our students say was what is good one good thing that happened to them today while a student in Hacket Middle School. And this is our last slide. Go. I got greeted by Mr. Wear. >> I don't know. >> One good thing that happened at Hacket is um uh people share pencils and like

029utensils to do good in school. Uh one good thing that happened at Hacket today, I got a good grade on my test. >> I finished all my work I had to do with my last class. Um, one thing what good that happened today is I was able to have a great conversation with one of my friends and we got to reconnect because we haven't seen each other in a while. >> One good thing that happened to me in Hacket Middle School is when I got on a roll. >> One good thing that happened to me at Hacket today was the bus ride where my friends saved me a seat and I was happy about that. >> I got to say my friends and and we made mad jokes. >> Seventh period kids, I was out

030three days this week. They did all the work and they crushed it today. So, it was so good to see them back. >> I'm on a roll. >> I get my PSA finish on this. The last thing I get at 100 >> was when we had um outside pickout. >> So, uh we play soccer in the gym, which we usually don't, but we play soccer and we had a really great time. So, something that happened to me in Hackit that was great was like all the events that happen and all the support that the staff gives you when you're having a hard time or like if you're scared about something, they're really like supportive and makes you feel safe. And so, on behalf of the entire building, thank you again for the opportunity to present

031tonight. We appreciate all of your support uh and look forward to seeing you next year. Thank you. >> And that concludes tonight's district highlights. >> Okay, we'll transition to our district update. number of updates uh for our board and community and uh in including a weather update. I'm going to become a uh meteorologist here shortly. Uh we want to make sure that we recognize an individual who is not with us yet. Um on February 2nd, Lynn Rutnick will join our school district as assistant superintendent for secondary instruction. And the following day on February 3 um is a uh presentation because she is being awarded New York State Association for women in administration. Uh she has been identified as the 2026 Phenomenal Woman or receiving the phenomenal woman leadership award uh for her four plus years

032at Wayne Fingerlakes Boseies. Lynn is uh joining our team. She was uh appointed a couple board meetings ago and was able to uh to join us and she shared a little bit of of her uh passion and commitment but certainly her roots here in the capital region. So we're uh honored that Lynn is joining us and on February 3rd we're going to have a watch party right here in this room uh as Lynn is um receiving her awards. So we wanted to make sure we recognize her. Our partnership, family and community community partnership is live. It will run through the end of February. Just takes a a few minutes. I completed mine on my phone earlier this week. Uh it asks not only for parent feedback but also community member feedback. So, uh, if you

033are a business owner, if you are, uh, a resident without children, if you are, um, living and working in Albany, we certainly would like your impressions, not only your experience in our school district, but, uh, questions around your the impressions of our school district. So the the survey is uh getting a little wider and deeper so we can uh collect more information for uh some very significant action planning over the next couple of years around communications around classroom expectations opportunities for students and the like. So we remind folks that you have about uh five and a half weeks left uh for that to happen. Uh the ethmology nerd, this is this is a good one. Um, a former graduate from the class of 2019, Adam Lasik, is being recognized at University of Albany next Tuesday

034at 4:30. Uh, Adam, uh, to say he's an influencer would be an understatement. He has more than three million social media followers and he is known as the Ethmology nerd. So, he will be uh, kicking off the New York State Writers Institute spring season at University of Albany next Tuesday at 4:30. and he is a proud falcon from the class of 2019 and we're trying to uh work with Adam and and you Albany to make sure we have an opportunity to send some of our students there as well. So we uh would like to congratulate Adam and welcome him home next week. In early February we have uh our midyear parent teacher conferences that will be the afternoons of Thursday, February 5th and February 6th. Um this is our second opportunity for families to engage

035with school personnel uh and we'll mark just uh past the midyear point. So we hope that families are uh signing up uh to meet with their teachers and other staff members in their respective schools. We also have a blood drive next week uh Wednesday, January 28th. You can sign up uh remotely or digitally on our website. This is the second blood drive of the year and then the third one will close out our academic year later in June. And so we hope that uh folks that are able and willing can make their way to the high school on Wednesday the 28th. You can uh certain instances you you can drop in and donate blood, but they certainly appreciate you signing up in advance. As we move into February, we have our annual Valentine Valentine's Day

036spa day. You'll notice that it is on Saturday, February 7th, and not actually on Valentine's Day. Um, so we're going to pretty everyone up uh the week before. You can uh get your haircut, you can get your nails done. Uh all sorts of packages are available. You can contact uh one of our cosmetology teachers, Laquita Love, right there. Uh her email address, her phone number. Uh we're also trying to open up um other CTE programs on February 7th. We're uh in the final stages of trying to um work off the heels of spa day on the 7th and have a CTE open house. Um so uh we hope uh in the next couple days we'll be able to nail that down and communicate that with everyone. We know that uh the programs at the high

037school, particularly the commitment that the district has made uh bringing all of the CTE programs under one roof. We want to make sure those programs no longer remain our bestkept secret. We want to make sure that everyone knows about them. So, uh, we hope that, uh, CTE openhouse on the 7th, uh, will also, uh, provide an opportunity for increased foot traffic, folks to see the school, uh, and the renovations, but more importantly, engage with, um, CTE staff and students, but we will see you at spa day. Uh, winter weather, it is, it is happening. It's a matter of how much, not if. So, um, stay tuned for, uh, uh, decisions on school on Monday. We try not to make decisions the night before, but this decision might be made for us. Uh, so we'll be

038watching the weather closely and uh, we'll be in communication uh, with our friends uh, at the city and various uh, departments of transportation so we can understand uh, what their plowing uh, situation and schedule will be. Uh if we can open schools safely on Monday, we absolutely will. Uh but this storm looks like it's going to be very very impactful. So um we're going to continue to watch, but if we can make a decision on Sunday, uh we will do that. So stay tuned for a weather update over the weekend. And we'll wrap up my update with a number of uh student athletes we'd like to highlight, including two of our wrestlers, Kdiver Farmer and Alexander Dixon, who both recently took second place over in Skenctity at the Skenctity uh invitational. Uh their performance helped

039Albby finish in sixth place out of 24 teams. And Mr. Farmer also won his 285 85 pound weight class. Um, and Dixon placing second in the 215 pound weight class. Nova Baiser, that name is familiar. We talk about him a lot in the spring uh for our outdoor track season. We're going to uh recognize him uh for his first place finish at Nazareth outside of Rochester uh last weekend. He set a personal record uh and a meet record, outpacing competitors throughout the Northeast, not just New York State. So, congratulations to Noah. And we'd like to mention Akari Gaddy, who is uh one of our outstanding Lady Falcons on the basketball floor. She's averaging just shy of 30 points and just shy of 13 rebounds over the last four games. And that includes three games with

040at least 30 points. And that concludes my update for tonight. >> Thank you, Superintendent. Board members, as a usual practice, I ask you to prioritize your questions and ask your most important questions first. And if there's time, we'll go around for a second round. I'll start with Miss Sapona. >> I have no questions at this time. Thank you. >> Okay, Mr. Wolf Gang. >> Um, no questions at this time, but I would also like to shout out uh Adam Alex, a fellow 2019 Falcon. Um, for those who don't know, he actually started the etmology nerd page while in high school, might have even been middle school at Hackit. Um, it started as a small Instagram page, uh, very niche, and he has grown it, uh, since his time at Albany. So, uh, me as well

041as many of my classmates are so very proud of him, and we're excited to welcome him back to Albany as well. >> Mr. Manui. >> Uh, no questions. But I did want to give uh a shout out to Rodney also. Um, I worked with Rodney at the throughway for eight years and he was essentially the last person I saw. He was he went from Hackit to the Throughway and he was the last person as I saw coming here essentially. So, uh, congrats to him and I'm sorry you guys are somewhat losing him semi-retirement. So, >> Miss Matt, >> um I have no questions. Um just a a a comment. Um years ago, kids would put on their pajamas backwards the night before and pray for a snow day. So, I know that um a number

042of teachers and students are going to be putting on their pajamas backwards um on on on uh on on Sunday. So, just I I would like everyone to be safe during the snow. Thank you, >> Miss Savage. Miss Cr. >> No questions other than I'm really hoping to be able to see that uh show, sorry, the etmology nerd next Thursday. Really excited about that. Thanks, >> Miss Wilson. >> Thank you. Uh my question is about the survey. I've seen us doing outreach via email and social media. Are we also doing text and other modes of contact? >> I'll ask Mr. So let's go that our standard modality social media direct email website. I have no questions except that uh after the championship weekend AFC NFC Monday would be a good day to have a holiday.

043Yeah. Anybody else? Second round. Okay. Thank you. So now we're moving on. This is the time we set for to hear from members of the public. Um and I believe there's a virtual u presenter today and we also have somebody uh who sent us um by email. Uh we do invite members of the public to share uh thoughts on the decisions we are facing. We accept public comment in person by voicemail and through our web-based form. Information about public comment and contact information is on the district website at albonychools.org. We set aside 30 minutes for each meeting to hear from district residents, parents, students, and other members of the community. If there are more comments than that can be accommodated for 30 minutes, which we don't anticipate today, we may choose to extend the length

044of the public comment period or have a second period at the end of the meeting. 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 and in any other language. We will provide translation when necessary. All comments all comments must include the commenters's name and place of residence. We do not accept anonymous comments. All the information about these many ways to share your thoughts with us are available at addressing the board uh information at albony.bschools.org. We ask all 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 also every student and every stu staff member deserves to know that concerns about them

045will not be aired in public. So today I think will we have u mail that got in by email. Mr. Wgang will read it to us. >> Yes, we have a public comment submission from Kim Relle. Uh, good evening. My name is Kim Michelle and I am writing to relay my frustration and disappointment that another another decision appears to have been made unilaterally without input from students. For as long as I can remember, there has been a junior prom and a senior prom held annually. At the end of last year, the decision was made to hold one combined prom for both grades. Nothing has been communicated, shared, or posted online to indicate that senior prom listed in the calendar is actually a prom for juniors and seniors. I've heard that the likely reasons behind this

046is due to reduced attendance, lack of fundraising, and increased cost in recent years. All of which I understand and respect, but I don't appreciate that once again the stakeholders, the students were seemingly left out of the conversation and decision-making. If the student body for these two grades were notified and provided a chance to weigh in, I would have accepted that situation. If the students were given full context of the situation and presented with possibilities or given the chance to brainstorm alternatives, okay, because they would have they would have either found a solution or failed to act and that would be on their shoulders. This didn't happen and now there is no way to change course for this year. My daughter was unlikely to attend her junior prom whether it was combined or not. So, I'm

047not writing on her behalf. I'm writing because Albany claims to value student and parent voice/engagement, but this only seems to be true when those voices echo that of the district voice. While I understand why combining the two proms makes fiscal and logistical sense, and that this would have been the likely outcome regardless, it concerns me that once again, the district has failed to solicit and consider student and parent voices. These juniors are the same students who didn't have an actual elementary school graduation because they graduated in 2020 and had to be satisfied with drive-thru recognitions. Maybe these kids won't or don't care that they once again have to settle for an experience less than their peers have enjoyed. Maybe the parents will feel the loss more than them. It still doesn't change the fact that

048people should have should have been ideally consulted or at least notified in advance of this decision being made unilaterally. Thank you. That's the end. >> Thank you, Mr. Wolf Gang. Uh, I think the next person we have is online. Miss Nolan. >> Hello. I'm Mary Nolan speaking on behalf of the Albanese CPAC Special Education Parent Advisory Council. coming to you again to share information about the 11% of our school students who have individualized education plans. Today I want to talk about other health impairment or OHI which represents about 20% of students with IEPs. This is a really broad category with a wide range of conditions that can affect a student's strength, energy, or alertness. Many students who qualify for an IEP under this category have attention deficits like ADD or ADHD. But other students in

049this category have medical conditions like mitochondrial disease, diabetes, epilepsy, cickle cell anemia. Because this category is so broad, children eligible under OI may have very different profiles. Some may have frequent absences or episodic health crises like seizures and some may have fatigue or alertness issues. Others may have attention regulation problems like kids with ADD or ADHD. Some students with OI require specialized classrooms or programs and others may be served in general with minimal support. So, a student with ADHD may need classroom support around alertness, attention, executive functioning, and behavior, as well as classroom accommodations like preferential seating, breaks, chunking work, and possibly assistive technology. In addition to the special ed support of um for kids with OI, some students with OI also rely on school nurses for medical care. So, a student with epilepsy might

050need a health plan to monitor and address seizures and to allow for home or hospital instruction. Uh, they might need accommodations for fatigue, close communication with the medical team, and possibly modified scheduling during recovery days. Student with diabetes may need support for blood sugar monitoring, medication administration, scheduling around glucose checks, meal and insulin timing and accommodations if fatigue or alertness is impacted. student with a more complex medical issue like mitochondrial disease, cickle cell anemia or a heart condition may require a more intensive program including frequent monitoring, adaptive PE, special transportation and also home or hospital instruction. So in summary, um from instructional staff to school nurses, there are many many staff members involved in supporting students with OI and I want to thank you for the opportunity to shed light on the important work that

051these staff do. >> Thank you, Miss Nolan. I think we have one person signed up today. Uh correct me if I mispronounce this. Is it Ross? Um we try to pronounce everybody's name right and we appreciate if you're corrected. So please take a seat and um while I recognize you please state your name and city of residence. Statements are restricted to a minimum of 3 minutes and our board secretary miss will give you 1 minute notice and a 10-second notice. U if your time is expired it's a good idea to look up occasionally so that you won't be surprised at the end of 3 minutes. Please know that please note that the board's policy is not to respond during the public common parent and if you need a response please contact us by email, phone

052or personal mail and our contact information is available at albonychools.org and I'll I or one of the members of the team will respond on behalf of the board. Please go ahead. >> Good evening. Can everyone hear me? Uh my name is Gerene M. Ross and uh I am reintroducing myself to the Albany community. I lived here for 45 years. Um just returned a year ago. My daughter went to Albany schools after she left uh the private school program that I ran when I was in Albany. Um, she is now in Virginia and I, she and I have written a book which I brought with me that uh, people can take a look at. And this book is really all of the knowledge that I could put into a book for parents to use at home.

053because if we could make better parents, we will have better students to teach. Um, I ran a school program that involved uh having the parents work with their children at home on character development. And we in the school program worked with academics and I was able to get a convenience sample from some of those students uh who have excelled extremely well after leaving our program. We ended up closing the program because we had to transition the school the children back into the public school because of asbestos in the building that we could not contain and we're a private program that we were not government funded. Um the upshot of why I'm here today is to reintroduce myself and to say I'm here to help. Uh, as I listened to the principal, I think it was

054the principal of Hackett talking about the painful part, I had taken a look at ALB's uh, school report card and it gave me the impression that we have a lot of work that we can do here to improve proficiency for Albony students. This is the capital of the Empire State. But if you look at our school report card, you would not think that this would be the place. We can do better. And I have developed a training program. It's called learning without fear, a whole child education operating model that I think can be useful and I want to be able to present it to the board. Not tonight. Uh if you'll give me the opportunity to do it. uh present it to the board so that you can consider at least piloting it uh in

055the school system in Aubony. I think it will make a tremendous difference in terms of student performance across the district. I'm not looking at one particular school. I'm just saying when I looked at the report card, it was statewide data and Aubony did not farewell. And so if you're willing to work with me, I'm going to be willing to work with you. It's a nocost program. You don't have to hire new staff. You don't have to buy new equipment. Uh basically, it's implementing some things that need to be implemented in all schools across America. How many in here are familiar with Common Core? >> We're out of time. >> We all are, right, >> Miss Ross? We're out of time. >> My time is out. Yes. >> If you could if you could send us

056the material. uh board. >> Yes, I put together a proposal I will send to the school board and I hope that you will consider it and realize that I am serious about helping. >> Thank you. >> We appreciate all public comments and we find hearing from community members very valuable. Again, our contact information for both public comment and routine correspondence is albbanese.org/viewing. We now move to the part of our meeting we call routine consent. During this portion of the meeting, we approve routine matters to the district. And 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

057set aside any routine or consent item in order to require a se separate discussion and vote on that item. With that introduction, I now entertain a motion to adopt the routine consent agenda, Miss Wilson, seconded by Miss Dan, Dress Man. Um, any set aides hearing? None. All in favor of adopting routine consent. That's unanimous. And with that action uh by the board, one of the personnel items that was approved was our first ever director of recruitment and development. And we would like to bring up we'd like to bring up Rosins Herell. this uh this this was a position that was born out of many conversations that were happening in different places but not necessarily all at the same place at the same time. Uh the board of education for uh a long time has had

058a commitment to making sure that we had an aggressive forward-f facing recruitment effort that um we did everything we could to make sure our our staff reflect the community in which they serve. Um, recruiting and retention was one of the top three themes that came out of the superintendent search survey that uh and focus groups that took place three years ago. Uh, through my entry planning with um our our leadership uh our our school administrators, district leaders uh and union leaders as well, that also was a priority. And so working with the board uh about 18 months ago uh to make this a reality in terms of uh of making it a budgeted position and then working with our union leaders and a number of other key staff in the district um to go from

059dreaming to reality. Uh we landed with um posting the position in the fall and Raz was a absolute no-brainer for the position. So, we're very excited to have uh Raz join the team and play such a critical role in recruiting and helping retain um the next generation or a couple generations of uh employees throughout our district. So, Raz, thank you for stepping up and taking a a a risk on a position that we all know we we need. And um often times part of being a leader is doing things that sometimes feel uncomfortable but you know that need to you know they need to get done and this is one of those position. So welcome and I'd like to give you an opportunity to say some things. >> Well, good evening everyone. Good evening to

060our board members and cabinet members and all of my peeps in the back. Um it it is you know I wrote this down. I normally don't write, but I didn't want to forget anything. And um I'm just honored to stand before you as I enter my 33rd years of service in the district. And I can't believe I'm even saying that number. Um this district has afforded me so many opportunities to grow in my practice. And for those who have been here with me know that I have just love I love being here and I love the work that we do. Um by nature, I'm a problem solver. I'm a forward thinker and if I see a gap, I try to fill it. And one of my greatest passions has always been working with people and

061watching them grow, find out where they fit and helping them grow in their own practice. And that's the thing that I love. Um because I believe in making people reach heights that they've never seen imaginable. So, it's always been one of the things that I that I treasure. Um, I've always believed, as you know, in growing our own and, um, every time there was a critical problem in our district, we just worked in a little microcosm to try to figure it all out. So, you know, you said we are h we have a problem with um, um, you know, having staff staff shortage. So, we looked to the colleges and we just, you know, drafted them in, made them a part of our family. And right now we have in in our building in Arbor

062Hill, we have seven um seven staff, seven teachers who are um currently working at Arbor Hill who started in that in that place. And we have another one who um was board approved I believe tonight um and out of due to her um resignation. And when people leave the school, they usually leave to do something greater than themselves. And I encourage that. So, I'm just delighted with the opportunity to do those things. I look at um the fact that we are like the future right now. We're in like prime space. We have all of these things happening that you all have spoken about. We have the portrait of a graduate which I think is just such an amazing opportunity for us um to integrate AI the way the world is changing trying to figure out

063how we need to prepare our kids for these jobs that are waiting for us for our kids. We are like positioned so well because of all of the um the the things that are around us. We you know and and I'm not telling you anything you don't know. We have Sunni, Sage, Hutchin, Hudson Valley, Skynctity. This is just this like we're right we're we're right. We're right where we need to be. And then the Global Foundaries, IBM Regener, this this is like I don't know if everybody doesn't know this who's listening or not listening, but we are like we're like prime real estate right now. This is who we are. And I I wanted to um and and even our mayor, she's same thing. Our our you know, our governor, same thing. we are right

064where we're supposed to be. And I'm excited to be a part of all of this. And um I look I look I look forward to bringing new people in and make them making them as excited as I am. I look forward to working with staff who's already here who have these hidden talents that we can tap into and make our schools our schools and district even greater. Um, and I also just wanted to, um, you know, thank my husband. And my husband's actually in class right now, and my son just came out of class, so he came over. He's in the back to to be there with me. Um, because I have to put up with all all of the stuff I'm talking about. We all are nerds like that and we talk about it

065all the time. And I wanted to thank my um Ara Hill team who it's been almost 20 years I've been in that building and you know their courage that it took for me to say it and for them to believe in it and when I told them they actually clapped for me because they know how passionate I am about the work even though I won't be working with them. So, I really want to say something to them about that. And, you know, my Janet, you know, um it it's it's been an amazing career here. I can't say enough about it. And I also um wanted to thank my crazy family members who um dealt with me because I knew I wanted to be a teacher since the age of seven. and um everyone who's mentored

066me, everyone who I've mentored, anyone who has inspired me because that I've inspired because everything I experienced inspires me. Um and I can't wait to build what we already have um districtwide. And thank you for the opportunity. Appreciate it. >> I would say welcome, but you've been here 33 years, so It's a new chapter for you though. Um, so moving on, the next part of our meeting is uh policy and I pass on the mic to the policy chair, Miss Cree. >> Hello. So, I believe we have three policies for discussion. I think one of them's been marked as action, but I'm not sure that the changes to that one were actually ever discussed. So, the first one is uh 9,000 personnel goals. This policy has only had one minor grammatical correction made. No substantive

067changes here. Uh the second one is community relations goals. And this one we've revised to eliminate the word stakeholder uh with more descriptive terms that are not offensive. We wrote the reference to wraparound services to be more descriptive of all the things those types of services do both academic, behavioral um and um emotional and made again made a couple of grammatical corrections. Then finally uh 5110 enrollment policy. I think we had had this on the agenda before when there were changes to discuss to the enrollment regulations but at that time we hadn't made the changes to the policy. So, I think this is the first time these are up for discussion. And the changes here um involve amending the preference for community- based pre preK enrollment to be the same as enrollment for prek in

068a district elementary school, which is to say there'll be sibling preference and neighborhood preference for students living within a half mile. Um the next change is for four-year-olds attending preK at the neighborhood elementary school that their house is zoned for. uh they'll be notified of the option to continue at the same school for kindergarten rather than automatically enrolled there. Parents will be required to confirm their interest in staying for kindergarten. For four-year-olds attending preK at a neighborhood elementary school that's not the one they're zoned for, they'll still be designated for enrollment at their neighborhood school that is associated with their home, but enrollment there will no longer be automatic. For four-year-olds attending community-based preks, uh their families will be notified of the option to attend kindergarten at their neighborhood elementary school associated with their home

069address, but their parents will be required to confirm their attend their interest in enrolling there. Um based on that, are there any questions from my board colleagues on any of those three policies? >> I have no questions. Thank you. >> Thank you. I see a question. >> Um the it sounds like the basic gist of those changes is that there was automatic enrollment and now there's going to be notification and then parent action for enrollment. I feel like we made the exact opposite change a few years ago and I'm wondering if somebody can talk about why we're going back to the way it used to be or what exactly is happening. What's the underlying factor here? So, it's been a while since we met on this policy. Um, and we just made a practice change

070to go back to the automatic enrollment. Um, because the we noticed that um the parent requirement it was there were particular buildings that that was impacting the most. Um, so since we brought this to policy, we have since made a practice change around that. >> Okay. So, so I guess the I'm going to make a motion to table the this policy to send it back to the policy committee for further consideration. But then I do think it's important that we get this practice and policy thing in alignment. >> Um, because it is a board policy and we should really not be changing practice in violation of the policy without making sure that the policy is done first. Right? That's the the gist. Um, so, um, I think that's great because I do remember it being

071a problem when we had required the parents to participate because we did get less participation and that's why we went back to the automatic. So, I think it's great that we weren't going back to the way I remember it. Um, but for the purposes of the procedure, I'd like to make a motion to return this policy back to the policy committee for >> second. >> I was just going to ask the same question. >> We will we will take we will take it back and we weren't going to vote on it tonight anyway, but we'll take that back to policy. Thanks. Do you want to do you want to vote on that motion? >> Oh, yeah. Let's take a All in favor of tableabling it. >> That's unanimous. >> So, I'm going to turn the

072microphone back to you because that's all the policy we have tonight. >> Thank you. And and depending on whatever the changes are, let's make sure that the communication to the parents and the community goes ahead uh way in advance so people are informed. uh because I remember enrolling my kids. I I didn't even know what the procedure was uh since I didn't go through that process till I had my first child and and they were ready for school. So making sure that these things are are are publicized in the community and folks know but we have a lot of migrants uh who come in and so let's provide them the information ahead of time. Moving on, the next topic for discussion is equity and CRA update. See some familiar faces. Okay, as we cue up

073our report, good evening board members, cabinet members, members from the community that are present, and also online. Um, my name is Tom Gillio. I'm the director for ENL and refugee services. I am also a district facilitator for CRA. Alongside me is Amelia Gallagher. She's an assistant principal at Meyers Middle School. We also want to acknowledge our two other district facilitators, Lionel Harris, who's a home school coordinator at Hackett Middle School, and Candy Antinetti, who is a building administrator at Albany High School. This evening, Ameilia and I will be presenting our report for you all. So, as always, we like to um acknowledge the district vision, mission, and goals. I believe a prior presenter talked about that. We we do want to always make sure we're starting with this as we talk about CRA really being

074the plate for everything that is orchestrated throughout the district both in terms of social emotional supports as well as our academic programming. And this is always a place that we like to be grounded in as we start making sure that we are rooted in those vision, mission and goals. Good evening board members and everyone else here tonight. Thank you for having us. Um it is an honor to be here uh to be a district facilitator and uh to be a part of our policy subcommittee and um to be here speaking with you tonight talking about the amazing work that's being done across the district uh within the equity uh lens or the plate if you don't mind. Um, as actually Miss Miss uh Gaines just mentioned, um, we wanted to center this work in our

075presentation tonight around a portrait of a graduate. If you look right at the center of the visual, you will see cultural responsive and sustaining education in there. That is the center of our work. And I know it's not best practice to read, but I'm going to go ahead and read this paragraph here on this slide because we think it's so important. New York State High School graduate. A New York State High School graduate who is culturally responsive, builds strong, respectful relationships, valuing diverse perspectives as essential and rigorous inclusive learning. It is as essential to a rigorous inclusive learning community. New York State Am I spitting? Can is this okay? Can you guys hear me? Okay. Okay, gotcha. New York State students who embody cultural responsiveness and academic readiness demonstrate creative creativity, critical thinking, communication, reflection,

076and global awareness. Will be prepared to learn, grow, innovate, and contribute meaningfully to society. These graduates will be equipped with the interpersonal and intellectual skills needed to thrive in an interconnected ever evolving world. And as you can see, and I cannot see, so I'm going to look over here. The six the six traits uh really are foundational to a portrait of a graduate are one who is academically prepared, a creative innovator, a critical thinker, an effective communicator, a global citizen, and they are reflective and future focused. Europe So talking about what CRA in action really speaks to across our district, what it looks like um both in terms of that social emotional connection with students, staff, community members, but also uh moving more purposeful into that academic grade level standard for for all of our

077children in in our district. Part of that is our set plans having CRA building specific infused instructional moves that are measurable for each of our learning buildings. Um what that looks like as we move forward. We've also worked with integrating building equity teams into the building leadership teams. So you might hear another acronym in our world, BELT, and that's just a fusion of those two uh specific building teams working together. We felt that um by purposefully building our equity teams with the building leadership teams, it really gives agency and authority to the equity work envisioned at each building to actually operationalize that, make it measurable goals for that specific learning community, what it looks like, how do the leaders of that school measure it, and then at the end we get to hold ourselves accountable

078in a healthy authentic way in terms of what we said we were going to do from an equity lens for instruction as well as that social emotional programming to what the actual results look for as we move forward. Uh there are several other opportunities happening with professional learning for the adults in the building one school one book that is districtwide for all of our different levels on what that looks like specific to equity and adult professional learning moving forward. Another big thing that you've heard hopefully over the years is building student voice through our equity teams. And I think again that's something that organically I heard just in some of the other presentations tonight about what student voice and the power of it really looks like as we continue to harness that across the district.

079And when our children tell us their thoughts and beliefs, we have to be prepared to listen and believe them for that and take a look at how we can operationalize that and really make intomeasurable goals that the adults are going to be setting the kids up for success. This next one I'm really excited about in terms of curriculum and instruction. And that could mean something um as basic as whenever a district leader is in the process of adopting some new curricular um resources that we're always looking at it through questioning, but is this culturally relevant to our students? Did the designers of this program or curriculum really have in mind what truly culturally responsive programming looks like from that particular content lens as we move forward? And there's now rigorous questionings with those teams being

080deployed to say, well, we really have to ask ourselves how how would this how would this land for us our student is it relevant for us? And that's something that's happening now across all of our academic materials that we're that we're moving forward. things that are going well that we're going to continue to build is opportunity at um the Albany International Academy and in particular growing seats and availability for that long-term plan that we about growing uh seat capability for the dual language program both in terms of what what you all approved several years ago with that prek through five model um but also talking about okay how are we going to extend that possibly into the secondary realm for that opportunity for our children as they move forward. And of course, what is central

081registration look like, right? So, the point of accepting and welcoming all of our families, what does that experience actually look like? Both in terms of the literal sense of language of preference that all of our families have with about over 45 languages that are spoken in our district. So, that we actually have real people there. and we've hired three district translators based on the language needs um as well as giving every staff member every staff member in our district the ability to use language line solutions which is a uh a global um company that really everyone is able to access that language line as we kind of move forward. So those are just some examples in particular of what it looks like um as as we grow this uh CRA in action. If we move

082on to the next slide um the one right after this we can talk about you know building partnerships as we kind of move forward. So, you know, what does it look like moving forward? And we've been focusing on the CRA cohort model for several years now. But we also have to make sure that we're really differentiating that professional learning for all the folks that have been around since its inception as well of as well as new administrators to their role and what does it look like and we're in the process of always revamping that what it looks like so we're not giving the same professional learning to the same folks that have been around but different people need different supports as you move on. What does it look like for your practice as a building

083or district leader for being explicit around equity both in terms of measurement in terms of academic outcomes for children, not just disproportionate suspension rates and things along those lines? Of course, that's important and we want to eradicate the gaps there, but we also want to talk about but are we really giving our kids that academic exposure on that grade level that they really need? that is true um be truly being um culturally responsive in terms of academics. As we move forward and a big part of that is activating, you know, student agency with those student voices in the student led groups. As we move forward, we're going to continue to do our co-f facilitation with individuals. We're talking about designing a more robust onboarding program for that summertime new teacher orientation, new staff, new support

084staff orientation, office staff. what does it look like when you choose to work here in Albany? Letting folks know that of course during the interview process with HR, but also if you're lucky enough to to land a job here. These are our core beliefs leading back to that first slide about our values, but also this is what it looks like for us as we move here and we're going to support you along the way and also building up those equity teams to make sure that we're making very purposeful decisions and accountability for the adults for what it looks like. And that's in a supportive, non-judgmental way as we grow our adult capacity to make sure we're being very explicit in all the realms that we really touch in education. >> Okay. Thank you. And so

085this year, our shift with NYU, as you know, has changed from a three-prong approach to a four-prong approach. And to accent what uh Tom was speaking about, uh we do have a piece of our approach this year uh involves support with our building equity teams from NYU um to really help build coherence with our SEP, with our instruction, and with our um our building wide plans. So uh what we're doing this year is we have uh similar to last year three-hour sessions with our admin team um throughout the course of the year. We have co-f facilitation and support with that as well. Uh we are getting coaching uh from NYU the folks who built who built this work which is really quite uh quite an honor and a really amazing opportunity for our district. And

086uh Nikaya would you hit the to the next one? Thanks. And then um we are providing CRA uh trainings our six cohort sessions uh throughout the year. And this year the the other piece to make it the fourpronged is having NYU support virtually while we support in person two members and smaller groups of our building leadership teams to help build coherence within the SEP within the cohort training and within the work that's being done in the building. So, we're really trying to tie all of the pieces together to make us more uh in alignment. You can hop to the next slide. Thank you. So, uh we are uh we all have student equity teams in our building. Uh these are some examples of some of the uh student equity team work that we do. There's

087a wide range. uh from building to building of uh the work that's being done within the systems within our buildings within the practices within uh teaching our teaching strategies and skills and within the lenses of the adults who serve the children uh in our community. And all three of those pieces are um really um being worked on, worked in and worked through in each of our different buildings. In the next few slides, you will just see some examples from from our um my goodness, I just drew a blank on our summit. That's the word I'm looking for. Thank you. our summit that we have annually and um this year you'll see their examples from an elementary and middle and high school in the next few slides. But I did also want to point out I

088know last year uh there was some question about how do we integrate student voice into all of the spaces in uh in our work and in our district. And one of those ways is through our student equity teams accessing, uplifting, listening, asking questions, using their feedback and input to build our SEPs. So, I know in middle school and in our building in particular, we have uh and I know that other buildings do this as well, uh uh student um student cohorts where we sit down with the kids and we ask them uh student focus groups, ask them questions about our schools in areas where we are falling down and ask them for their input and um suggestions about how we can improve those in our buildings. We listen to those uh feedback pieces from kids

089and then we have used that to drive and design some of our SEP work within our building this year. So those are just two examples, our student equity teams and um using those uh student focus groups to help lift student voices and to restructure the way that uh we work as an educational system. Next slide. So these next three slides you can we we I won't go into detail. You can just look at them at your leisure. But there is an example of um uh folks who do work. This is Delaware Community School. They are doing the um the sustainability work with instruction, the sustainability work with adult lens and the sustainability work in building in systems. And you will see in the next two slides the same is true for Hacket Middle School using

090their student equity teams and the high school with high expectations lifting student voice and rigorous curriculum and instructions. >> Okay. And as Amelia mentioned and hopefully you're going to be see more of a theme of purposeful integration in the academics when we're talking about CR. I think when our partnership first came about what does it mean to be culturally responsive here in Albany, uh the work really started, I want to say close to 12 to 15 years ago because of some of our disproportionality rates uh in particular with some of our black boys being overly identified um with um over overall great suspension rates as we move forward. And while we continue to address that, start to eliminate that gap so that um you know racial um identity are are not um outcomes determined for

091what it looks like when you're done with our schooling. We're working on that and we're also working on delivering outstanding grade level academic rigor for all of our children and making sure that all of the big people in our organization understand that that's what it truly means to be culturally responsive in terms of delivering that potent real time grade level curriculum and instruction for our children. So, as you take a look at what does it look like in our ELA department about having meaningful texts that actually represent the children that are consuming them with our uh teachers, what do our curriculum adoptions look like? We talked about that, being super purposeful with making sure we have the right stakeholders on those committees to make the judgment. Are we going to adopt this curriculum resource for

092our children and does it check off all of our CRA boxes? And again, that's what we talk about where Siri has really become the plate now. It's not another thing to do. Sometimes you might hear that in education about, well, it's another initiative and yep, we have a yep, we have another school board. We have another superintendent with another vision that we're going to do this and we're not sure how long it'll last. And I'm really proud to say that we've really purposefully infused and built systems that outlast all of us as individuals in terms of alignment with the board policy that was enacted several years ago around equity and education for us here in Albany, but that we're going to have systems that are stronger than any individuals as we move forward. And that

093when you come here and you choose to work here in Albany, these are the things that you're buying in. And here's how we do it. We're always going to learn and do better, but now that we're really making that explicit connection to outstanding instruction that all of our children really deserve to have from all the different contents that are listed here in this slide, authentic social studies history that what that really truly looks like for all of us uh as we move forward and as Amelia mentioned earlier about what does it really mean um to have our graduates prepared for the world both in terms of you know, securing careers that they want to have moving forward, but also from that social emotional standpoint that they are poised and ready to go as we move

094forward. If we can move on to our next slides and then again carrying on into secondary and I think what you'll see also is that developmental appropriateness where we talk about student voice developmentally now we get to have more independence even from our children that are now in that secondary realm with making sure that they are active participants on equity teams and ultimately the building leadership teams with some decisions that are being made. I think you've even heard some of it in some earlier presentations tonight about what that actually looks like from a powerful realm when you're really trying to harness that from our children. Um you saw what hands-on science really does look like with some of the great things that our children are doing in that content. What does it look like for

095um authentic focused uh grade level math standards as we move forward? And it opens up really students being able to talk about their learning in multiple pathways with each other. And some of that could be something as basic as, hey adults, are we really thinking about asking the right open-ended questions in our instruction? And that transcends no matter what content you're responsible for delivering. And part of the CRA work that we have here is getting the adults to have that metacognition about their own practice. And ultimately what we want to have from both the social emotional lens as well as the academic lens is as adults are we conditioning ourselves to have authentic real conversations with real meaning feedback to each other not in a way to judge people's practice but in a way to

096really grow and get better. What does that look like for you? And that's been a that's been a long process for here in Albany, but I feel like we are developing that professional muscle, so to speak. And ultimately, you know, that really permeates into what the children are thinking is the right cues to ask even when they're doing that group work in that academic setting. So, we're really excited to see that take off in both the elementary and secondary worlds for us. >> Great. Thank you. So this is just another great visual representation and summary of our uh the scope of our work that we have been building up to as a district over the course of uh o over the last 15 years. Uh we do have policies and procedures in place foundationally with

097the belief of uh CRA being the plate and driving this work with the CRA lens. and we want to continue to pull all of the four pieces of the work that we're doing together uh and and bring it tighter and tighter into alignment. One way that we uh continue to do that this year is by continuing to use our professional development uh cohorts where we we do facilitation and the expectation is that those are people who are on the precipice of bringing this work back and pushing and moving the work within their buildings. So they then take what they learn from us, go back into the buildings, bring it into their uh building leadership teams into their equity teams and begin to implement that adult lens and uh systems and practice work within their buildings.

098And then um the next step of course which we also have which I've already accentuated uh tonight is the work that we have been doing uh with our building leadership team members with support from NYU to kind of really help tighten and align all of that work. So we have our SEP, we have our practices and procedures, we have our policies, we have our training, then we have people who are infused with the with the desire to go back and push the work within their buildings and then aligning that with our belt. and then ultimately bringing that to fruition and having securing an accountability standard or a rubric or some form of alignment so that we can make sure that we're pulling all of these pieces together throughout time and bringing it closer and closer

099together for coherence. In summary, I won't reiterate the the four pieces again, but we have the cohort, our building equity teams, administrative training in our s building sustainable systems throughout our district in our buildings. Ultimately, our goal is to build district and educator capacity and maintaining and keeping current with culturally responsive best practices through time. And and finally, as we continue to look ahead for 2627, you know, what what does it look like in terms of making sure that we are holding ourselves accountable from measurable goals that we have both at the district and building level both in terms of social emotional as well as academic supports as they live in our building plans as well as well as district plans. continue to focus on what it looks like. Um, engaging our children for having

100meaningful, purposeful interactions with each other with the curriculum as they move forward throughout whatever uh particular realm they're in, whether it's elementary, middle, and high school with the 17 different schools that we that we look to. And I I also want to say that, you know, one of the biggest assets that the district has are the people that actually work here. And one of the things that we got as a team feedback specifically from the different equity teams is how much they enjoyed learning from each other during that uh CRA summit that we have in terms of, oh wow, we have 17 different schools here in our organization and oh wow, I really love that idea that that one middle school was doing. I think we might try something like that at our middle school

101or or what have you. or hey, we're faced with this particular issue. Are you guys facing that? What are some possible solutions you have with that CR lens that you're using to address that? We've got a lot of great feedback that there's some great practices that are taking place here. And part of our goal as CRA facilitators to make sure that we aren't working in isolation in silos as we move forward, but making sure that we're sharing that best practice as we all continue to grow and move forward. questions. Thank you. >> Thank you board members. As usual, ask your most important question first. Mr. Sona, >> um comment and then a question. First, I would just like to acknowledge that it's always very nice to see um the efforts that are being carried out

102in terms of building a student body that is culturally responsive and academically prepared. My question was about halfway through your presentation, you mentioned that you had been pulling aside some sort of like student focus group and I'm wondering what the processes for that like how frequently you're doing that sort of thing and how the points that these students are bringing forward are being addressed. Thank you. >> Yep. Well, thank you very much. What a great question. And um so student focus groups are something that um we are were asked essentially to do in order to elicit student feedback in I'd say the springtime while we are starting to write our our plans for our school for the following year. So what we what we did is we took our our ditzy data which is our

103district level. We ask um teachers, students, parents, community what their impression and experiences are in our district and we took student responses from our building. the areas where we did not do well. We I I met with a group of students from our three grade levels and asked some questions specifically about those things and I had someone scripting and writing what students were saying and we took that feedback, summarized it and I brought it into our SEPR writing session and um we utilized that, we dissected it with the group of folks who were writing our SEAP and really used it um to help identify areas of need and how to increase student sense of belonging, safety, um in our building and then how we do it regularly I would say is student equity teams. >>

104Mr. Wolf. >> Yes. Yes. Thank you. Uh great to see you guys again. Um obviously I see you pretty regularly but um going to follow up on uh my colleague. Um you know I love the uh focus on the student equity teams and bringing the student voices in. Um, you know, I I wish we had these when I was in school because I was definitely a very opinionated kid who would have liked to make some changes. Um, so I guess my question to you guys is can you talk a little bit about what has come out of the student equity teams and what they've been able to kind of contribute to a change in their learning environment? >> Okay. Sure. Yes. Um, I also wanted to just quick point out that there are two buildings

105in the district that are doing a pilot with state ed this year. One is Roots Academy and one is Myers Middle School. Uh they're they are trying out something called reimagining schools and state is really guiding our student equity team representatives through a cycle and process of inquiry where they are um learning about um uh essentially agency, belonging and connected connectedness and how they can enhance uh those words uh and make them actualized with kids in our building. So, our students in our building are um we are following that process and protocol. I can be happy to tell you more about that outside of this meeting, but um we definitely are um interviewing students are interviewing other students, figuring out where there's a need, designing a plan to address the need, and then beginning to

106implement the need. So, that's just one thing. student equity teams across the district. If you uh come to our summit, uh you would see and actually we could definitely share all of the powerpoints from last year's summit will give you a really clear idea of what folks are doing in every building uh throughout the district um in all three of those areas. So with um teacher practice with systems that we're addressing with a with an anti-racist and CRA lens and working on the lenses of the adults um who you know may not look like the children in the community that they serve and we want to make sure that we are maximizing student experience and learning. >> Absolutely. I'm glad to hear that we are truly taking in what the students are saying and trying

107to do something with it. Um, I feel like, you know, they're our biggest customer. They're our next generation. They're going to be teaching our kids, kids, kids, kids kids, what, you know, down the line. Um, so I'm just really glad to hear that we formalized how we think about bringing them in. Um, so thank you guys. >> Mr. Almani, >> thank you for the presentation. It's good to see you. I haven't seen you in forever. Um, so I'm trying to dig back into the memory banks here and I know that there was some type of professional training for our teachers or professional development for our teachers. Um, CRA training and it was kind of optional. Are we still doing that? Is it some >> maybe I'm thinking >> that would possibly be our cohort training.

108>> So se several years ago we were taking maybe two to four may maybe two or three cohorts of may anywhere from 30 to 60 people through the sixth um the six sessions which takes about six months uh throughout the course of each year. Uh we are down we are actually that was one of the things that I was presenting on we do currently still do that uh this year we are doing one cohort of 30 >> and I think we're also making connections so the >> the folks that we're selecting for those cohorts are going to be having seats on the equity team or the belt teams that they have so that they understand that part of the work that they're doing now is of course their own growth you know moving forward but

109also and be thinking about tools and strategies that they will be championing at when they get back to their building equity team as they as they move forward. So I think that's been a shift. >> So that's what's meant by the cohort level when you're when you guys talk about the cohort level. Okay. >> And ultimately like building oh sorry building capacity within all of the folks. Uh so just really continuing to to um leverage that that good work and um have as many people you know go through courts as possible and those who have really we are asking to step up and to lead the work in the building. >> So um just a quick followup. So you said there is four c cohorts so far. >> So we were planning on doing two

110this year but we timing wise were only able to do one group. We have about 30. We have contracted for about 30 folks to come through. We're in the process right now. We're about We're coming up on our third or fourth fourth. Yeah, we meet six times a day or six times a year, six months. And um we have about 30 folks. >> Gotcha. Um do we have an idea of how many folks have gone through it so far? We don't have the exact number right now, but um we definitely have that information on a spreadsheet and all the folks who have gone through over the last 15 years in the district. Some are still here, some are not. >> Great. Thank you, >> Miss Man. >> I have no questions. It was wonder. It's

111wonderful to see you. Um and uh and it was a wonderful presentation. So, thank you very much, >> Miss Savage. I don't really have a great question. I really appreciate your presentation always and really value this work. I think that it is critical for our district to keep the focus on this. Um I do think that the portrait of graduate is really going to change a lot of outcomes for our students. Um I am interested in in getting some guidance about how to talk about that with folks who are not really engaged in education because I do feel like it's a little bit of a lot. Um, and so I think people used to see it as a very straightforward like, so you take these tests and you graduate from high school. And I'm like,

112but wait, >> when we were in high school, you still could graduate from high school even if you didn't pass five regions. You just got a non-regent diploma. So it's just really different than what you think it is now. And but I'm really having a hard time conveying to people in the outside world like >> what is the goal of portrait in a of a graduate and how is that going to change things? So I would love it if you know you all develop any kind of message mapping around that. That would help me a lot. >> If you don't mind me saying I think the state has developed a a number of one pagers for parents, for board members, for students. Um be happy to share that with you. That would be great if

113you guys could send those around or just point us in the right direction and we will try and internalize those because I do find it a little difficult to talk about. Yeah. >> Um, and then my my common concern that I raise every time, which is the brought on by this conversation over here of like how many people have we trained, >> right? I don't really care honestly, how many people have trained? I want to know how many people who work here have been trained. That's the question I would like to know the answer to all the time. And I think that's the >> right I we appreciate that. And I think we're we're trying to address that with two ways. first of all um presenting with a as we mentioned before like a more

114detailed robust on boarding no matter when you know sometimes we have staff that start in January but most folks come are coming to that session in August and continuing that focus for what does CR mean for us here in Albany as we move forward and and making that explicit connection with when you are on one of your our cohorts that we have throughout the year your charge now is you are on the building equity team that you represent and you will be infusing this into your building set plans moving forward we felt that that was a more potent way because we just don't have the bandwidth to train however many employees we have. I don't know off top of my head but we would never catch up. I I believe you know I agree with

115you in that sense like we'll just be spinning our wheels training more and more people as more people retire and more people come. So we felt that this new pedagogy that we have in terms of activating people in the cohort to have those leadership roles in the building making decisions whether it's through professional learning at that building but also making those strategic academic measurable goals. We feel like that would be more a more potent use for us moving forward. >> And and I would just say our partnership with NYU this year has been very very helpful with the technical assistance piece around how do we do this with our belt. I think that's been really really uh really helpful. And um if you spoke to any of the folks who've been in our smaller groups

116uh that have been doing that work with Dr. Brown um I I would say that they've all been they're asking for more of it. I found it really really beneficial to have that time to figure out where to where, who, what, where, when, why, and how. >> Miss Gr, >> thank you so much. It's so great to see your presentation and it's really really a joy to see how completely embedded equity has become in the work over the years to the point where you just couldn't take it. You can't separate it anymore. It's really integral to what we do. And I think one thing that's been really useful over the years is having that equity team representation at at our policy committee meetings because they bring a whole new voice and sometimes it's really eye

117opening where they'll they'll identify something like we didn't even think of that as a potential equity issue >> and and what my qu this is leading to my question because one thing that came up that h hadn't come up to my head an inequity issue is how do you handle handle the issues of being culturally responsive when a parent's approach to life is different than the child's approach to the well than the students approach. So the parents like I'm not comfortable having my kid do this thing, but it's something that as a district we're okay having our kids do. So, I know it came up in the civic engagement context, but it could be in a lot of contexts, whether it's the name a child wants to use, the food they eat, the clothing they

118wear, what books their parents do or don't want them to read. So, I wonder generally how we address that in our training, if we do. I I I think one thing that comes to mind that's somewhat connected I think to the question is where are we at with cultivating um adults in the organization with talking about and articulating their journey on their own racial identity in that sense because when things are not said that's a message that the kids pick up in the classroom like oh well Mr. Jillio never really talked about his own racial implications or his own journey. So that must mean that's something we don't talk about here in his class. And so I think starting with that being the core for how can we evoke and cultivate that of all of

119our big people that interact with our children many different ways gives them uh that ability to talk. Hey, this is something that we are going to be talking about and we all are kind of on different journeys as we're coming to terms with our own racial identity as we move forward. And I think kind of coming coming back to that student voice Amelia talked about with, you know, what does it look like when you guys are in this class? How does that experience for you? And then extrapolating that to communicating it with parents and caregivers around, hey, this is something that's being normed in our district. And it's not a bad thing to be talking about. We actually are encouraging our adults and our children to be able to to talk about it as we

120move forward. >> Thank you so much, >> Miss Wilson. Thank you for your presentation. Um, a part that jumped out to me was when you were speak about um, equity being another thing and I appreciate that. Um, really it's it's not so much a person, place or thing. It really is who you are or who we all are. And um, something else about it in this like you know it's not only strictly for our students, it's for our entire community and staff. And just hearkening back to my day job uh at public health, I was encountering um the surgeon general's framework for workplace mental health and well-being, which is comprised of protection from harm, safety and security, mattering at work, >> work life harmony, connection and community, social support, opportunity for growth, which we now

121have Miss Rosalyn Gain with that, but also worker voice and equity. So I feel like and then we also spoke a lot about student voice today. So I think we're covering those components in so many ways as we all are, you know, co-creating our experience and trying to navigate a postcolonial society. >> Yes. >> So I appreciate it so much. I have um questions about as far as Oh, I thought I saw like a flashlight. I have questions about so much um kind of to Ellen's question but the reverse is the um appetite our community has to sort of unpack other things like I know I've always brought it forth about attendance and things of that nature that's a whole other fight but you know just other words like I I understand the word rigor

122came up and I know that's like an industry term but there is a lot of um discussions about decolonizing the language we use like academic rigor and its roots and things of that nature. So, I'm just curious as far as like um as we evolve, are we approaching that? I know we are also doing excellent work with confronting our historical inequities with the um seal of for civic engagement, which I think is allowing our students to sort of confront history and grapple with it in in the modern history and the present. So, I'm just curious if there's any work in that arena. I think as I was listening to the question, I feel like, you know, kids really vote with their feet in a sense in terms of their attendance. And so I think if

123kids don't have that sense of belonging or or belief um that that we that we have with them, then then kids are communicating in that sense for us. So I think it's it's really important again with what does it look like? How are we creating the environments in the instructional setting for kids to be able to explain their thinking about things and not just have that antiquated industrial model that um really kind of originated in that colonization realm that I that I really hear you speak of, but to be more in in in terms of this is how I just experienced that and here's here's my thinking on it and would you agree with that, disagree? And why do you think that? And then having kids being able to have the agency to say, "Well,

124I disagree with you because of this or because of that." And I think it does talk about some of the new expectations that we're going to have for our new graduates moving forward, but then also providing a venue for kids to tell us about their experiences and to have families tell us about what the kids are telling them about their experiences moving forward. And we have to be poised and prepared to listen to what they have to say and to not be defensive around it, but to keep keep developing it. And I I have to say again how excited I truly am in in my my years of service in the district to really have that continued academic focus on CRA. It's not just about disproportionality, which of course is something that we're still going

125to work through, but it's about, hey big people, what are you doing to empower the academic prowess for all of our children as we move forward? That's culturally relevant programming. And I believe that message has been getting through loud and clear to the equity teams. And hopefully you would see it if you were to pull the individual building set plans about, hey, this is what we said we're going to do. We actually did some surveys with our children and this is what it looks like as an instructional move. And here's how we're going to not judge but empower all of our instructors on how to deliver that and to give them authentic feedback in a non-judgmental way to continue to grow their practice. >> Thank you so much. I I appreciate that holistically. Um, I'm

126a forever student, so I'm reading a book right now from Deborah Stone, The Policy Paradox. And it's why I reference what Ellen brought up is that, um, she talks about, you know, naturally our policies are, we do want students to sit still, be quiet in class, you know, everybody walk in a straight line, but then there's students who are having different experiences and reasons why they won't ever do that. And then how do we address that as the collective? So, I appreciate that so much. You know, I'm just happy. I'm I'm happy because I've been able to witness a lot of the work that you did. We've come a long way from explaining the difference between equity and equality >> and in talking about CR as the plate. um having you know been a part

127of a board that has actually participated in in workshops where you facilitated our education um being part of the policy committee that actually has an equity team that looks >> at every policy at a C through the C lens not because it was mandated by anybody but because we wanted to do it and now it's become part of our practice. U so so this is all you know it's it's good to see the the steps that we have made all through all these years uh and you know Hassan asked the question that an usually asks in terms of how many and you know and and I so I have a few comments with respect to that in terms of like when we track them are we tracking them not just as because we have different

128levels of training right and so are we tracking them as okay this person we have x number of people who are white belts and there's a brown belt and here's a black belt who's, you know, gone through four levels of it and is a master trainer, things like that. So, you don't have to answer that, but um it'll be good to keep track of it that way. And from the board perspective, we were lucky enough to go through these workshops with you. It's been a while since we've done one. >> Um and now the board is changing, right? We have new people on the board. So, it'd be good to have some at the very least cliffnotes, materials that we can use in in our onboarding uh handbooks to provide to the incoming board members,

129student board members uh um or elected board members too to at least get up to that speed. you know eventually because our students have gone through it you know everybody is on you know would have sort of gone through it at some level throughout their um journey to here but at least for the interim it'd be good to have some cliff notes version of of all of those things that we did over the years. It's a lot of work uh and it's it's a steep curve learning curve for those people but you know some useful things or useful reading materials that we can put together in our packets to for our board members. Now, that was all my comments. The question was, I've heard a lot of these terms and understood many of them over

130the over over time. What's a character cohort? That was a new one for me. A character cohort. Can you explain what that >> from elementary? >> Yeah. So, um I it is a I I believe it is a PBIS. Um we focus on one character trait for the month for instance and then teach lessons into that within each of uh the grade levels and then help support kids to display uh those behaviors, support those, reward those and then move move through that. So it it essentially is teaching the teaching a a trait and then uh building upon it and then having rewarding kids for displaying that. >> Thank you. Any other questions? >> Okay. Thank you again. >> Thank you so much. Okay, moving on to the next part of our agenda. Uh, ENL update.

131Mr. Jio again. Okay. All right. Hello again. Thanks for bearing with me in my technical deficiencies here. So, um, uh, great to be sharing with you again our annual update on ENL programming as as we move forward. Again, I I know that we've talked about this uh several iterations this evening about always it's so important that we do start with the district vision, mission, and goals as we move forward as we're infusing our ENL specific programming uh throughout my presentation this evening. uh this first part and again I believe you all have the narrative version as well or you you have seen it earlier and this is really just synthesizing some of that information for what it looks like for us moving forward and um it talks about you know who we are as a

132department what we look like moving forward um uh not only in all of our buildings but also in the Albany International Academy as we move forward as you guys have all championed part of that with the ALB international program is growing that dual language program so that we're actually two sections deep moving up all the way through fifth grade. What it looks like things that I'm really particularly really uh proud of that we've done over the past few years is really onboarding three district translators and um and all the different languages that they have. They are multilingual learners themselves. Obviously, if you were to take a look at our uh our data set later on, we have over 45 languages spoken. So of course those three folks can't do it and of course we do

133have an efficiency model thinking about how we can fiscally be responsible moving forward with language line solutions that that's a really amazing efficient ondemand um service that we have. But sometimes when you are dealing with a sensitive issue you don't want to be talking to a stranger on the on the phone across the world. You want to actually be talking about um in person with someone to talk about something that might be sensitive. So that's why another reason why we have those three folks and they're all housed right here um in the um registration department here where we have the ENL office so that when families come in we have a rotating uh schedule so that we have at least one to three of those translators right here to meet and greet our parents and

134on board them with whatever it is for paperwork as they have moving forward. We also I did want to point out um community engagement leaison that are all again grant-f funded at that we have um to better meet the needs of the kids. They are mostly based at the Albany International Academy. They do deploy and they do home visits as well as supporting our families as we as we move forward. >> You enjoyed here? You guys good? I keep going. Okay. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> All right. This is um our typical slide about uh new enrollment. And one thing I wanted to talk about in in particular here as we're moving forward is yes, obviously there's a lot going on nationally for us in terms of um a a real slowdown in terms of

135newly arriving folks from out of country into the country. However, here in Albany, we've always had a very robust secondary migration, I would call it. And and when I say secondary migration, it's really about families that are actually already here in the United States, but they're in a different region or state, and they migrate and and move here to Albany, I think, for many different reasons. We've talked about this over the years, but we are very proudly a welcoming city here. And we've been that from, you know, the governor and mayor's office to the school board to our building leaderships to our teachers, our community uh resources that we have here. And people know that word gets out that that we are a welcoming city with great education and people want to keep doing that.

136So even though we're not necessarily getting a wave of newly arrived Americans coming, we are getting an awful lot of transfer students so to speak, which which is really like a secondary migration folks coming to us from another state. And part of those data sets that we have here are we are still getting uh new students as we move forward. And as you take a look at those numbers, we still are getting um you know hundreds of students already this school year as we move forward. And as a point of reference for you, we are having um about one out of five children in our district K through 12 is a multilingual learner. And you know, I'm I don't have 33 years of service like Miss Gaines Herell, but I've been around for 26 or

137so years. And I can remember when cumulatively we've had maybe 300 multilingual learners throughout the whole city. And now we're we're basically at right around 2,000 as we move forward. And I think that's something that in Albany we're really proud of. and we're really proud to be a welcoming city for those folks and to deliver some really outstanding program for them as we move forward. I believe this next slide talks about specific building data as we move forward. And one thing I believe Miss Savage usually likes to make sure I'm on my game with Okay, Tom. So, you know, different departments have different data sets for like how do you how do you quantify your children? So, one thing we've tried to do a better job this year is making sure that, you know, people

138understand that there are five levels of um nice data that we that we get every spring when we do the assessment from entering all the way to commanding. There's a lot of different departments that kind of conceptualize that data in different ways, but we always have to include our commanding students for our total number of multilingual learners because even those those commanding students, yes, they did an awesome job. they basically testing out of formal ENL programming instruction with units of study. However, by law, we're still to give we're still mandated to give them an extra two years of related services as we move forward. So, that is part of our charge in our department. So, I've really been talking with my colleagues about, hey, let's make sure that we're not talking about apples and oranges,

139but we're really talking about what it looks like in total. And as you can see, that district total of 1,842 multilingual learners, that includes all of our children, that includes the commanding students. If you hit commanding on the NISLAT test, that means awesome, you've just tested out of formal um ENL programming. However, you still are entitled to two years of services as we move forward. So hopefully that's becoming more of a universal number as we move forward. again. So roughly that I believe the number is like um 18.5 to 19.5. I've I've rounded that up to about 20% including year 1 and year two commanding those students that I just talked about. So when you see district current of 1,623, those are students that are still receiving ENL instruction because they haven't hit that benchmark

140of commanding on that state test yet. So we have basically an extra 200 kids. I guess you could take a look at. Oh, okay. But totally we have these extra 200 kids that are commanding year one or two that have tested out of they don't get services instruction definitely from an ENL teacher because they've hit commanding. However, by law we're supposed to give them some additional services for year 1 and year two. And technically the state wants us to make sure that we're capturing them as multilingual learners that we serve in our district. Uh again, this this next slide talks about increased enrollment impact as we move forward. And you guys have heard me talk about units of study, and that's just really a way that the state calculates minutes of ENL instruction based on

141whatever level you are moving forward. And then it talks about standalone and integrated. And I wanted to talk about that because you might have heard teachers talk about push in and pull out. And that's almost like that special education model push in and pull out. However, that's really antiquated terminology and you really have to talk about integrated. So when you have integrated ENL programming, that's when the ENL teacher is moving into that core setting, whether it's a home room in an elementary building or if it's a content area class where you have two teachers co-eing, a content science teacher and an ENL teacher both co-eing. What that looks like, that's called the integrated model. The standalone model is when students that are more at the um entering and emerging levels and transitioning as they're climbing

142up that continuum, they need to be getting some some standalone or isolated ENL instruction as they move forward. And they have to have their own separate um curriculum as they move forward. So we have we have a wide spectrum of services that we deliver for those children that are at those initial five levels moving forward. again commanding year one and two don't require any specific ENL programming they need to get some other um services as we move forward so again even though from that national standpoint we have had a big reduction on um you know new newly arrived Americans we like to call them as they're coming into our country um we are still getting that secondary migration as we move forward and so one thing that we are continuing to try and do a

143better job at is really meet the needs we are in great shape in terms of 6 through 12 programming with secondary in particular because it's so departmentalized when you get up into those levels. However, when you're getting to the elementary model with the sheer numbers of kids and we tend to get a lot of elementary aaged um newcomers to our city and what happens is, you know, back in the day when our numbers were smaller, if you were a elementary school building and you had three sections deep across your grade levels, you would put your multilingual learners typically in one home room, right? for efficiency of services and also that they could flex their multilingual muscles with each other, right, as they're moving forward. But now our numbers are so accelerated in a sense even

144with everything that's happening um across the nation, we have had to have our principles put our multilingual learners in two or three sections across first grade. And part of the units of study mandate that ELA is the critical content area that you need to be servicing in that co-taught model with two teachers for the entering and emerging children. But if you don't have enough ENL teachers to be pushing in, you're going to have multiple ELA blocks that you're supposed to be doing this mandated units of study. It's something that I'm working on um with um uh Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Zulan about how can we do an even more efficient way of scheduling and we're even working on next year's schedule right now about we're going to have to spread out our ELA blocks even more

145so that they're not all happening at the same time so we can have our ENL teachers getting in there at different times but even with that we are in in many cases not quite meeting that mandate of the units of study as we move forward again this is a slide that we typically do for you guys every every year as we move forward uh as I mentioned earlier, we have over 45 language languages spoken districtwide. One trend that I think you guys have seen, especially while I was out last year, is a real uptick in the number of Spanish-sp speakaking students and families that are settling. It was kind of like half and half with like poshu or Arabic, but now really our Spanish um newly arrived students really is we see that increasing as

146we move forward. uh just a trend that we have and I'm I'm really pleased and excited that you know we kind of had that strategic thought a few years ago moving forward with expanding the dual language program with that um English Spanish model as we move forward because we are actually really getting so many native Spanish speakers in that program as well. It's really been really awesome to be able to say oh we actually have two classrooms for that grade level for dual language program and we don't have to turn kids away for that really amazing um instructional move as we as we move forward. And then on the on the next um part there you can see the countries of origin as you move forward and if you go back several years you'd see

147Myanmar or Karen folks and that's really slowed down quite a bit. Then you saw a lot of folks from Middle Eastern regions countries coming that's slowing down also somewhat and now we're seeing a lot of folks from Central and South America that are settling with us um as as we continue to move forward from a geographical standpoint. really excited. We feel like this has always been a real powerful venue for us summer programming and just to kind of refresh our collective memories. This is where we do a lot of testing, not so much in terms of academic testing, but in hey let's try this program and see how it goes. And that's actually how we started to birth the idea of creating that Albany International Academy, right? We started talking about, oh, maybe we could

148differentiate our instruction based on the language acquisition needs of these newly arrived kids because we're getting so many of them. We have to think about a different way to on board them into that American air quotes way of of schooling as we move forward. We continue to get some great outcomes um as we move forward. One of the things we always do is u that parent survey that we have about, hey, how was your experience with this? And overwhelmingly the parents are really excited that we have basically that continuum of academic programming throughout the whole school year. And we also focus on I think we talked a little bit about it earlier in the CR lens about it's not just about X's and O's with academics. Yes, of course that's very important. But how do

149you get along with other kids? How do you interact in our community? What does it look like? All the rich experiences that are right only a walking field trip away here in Albany. and and there's a lot of great opportunities for us moving forward. So, right there we talk about number of students served um the programs impact in particular. I'm also really excited to say and I don't think I have the data right here for you, but I can certainly provide it for you later. But typically, we do a great job with regions prep for a lot of our newcomers and how they're doing um with specific regions programming at that summer standalone program. As we move as we move forward, we always examine it as we move forward. Um and we're going to continue

150again to have that um rich program again this summer. Some instructional highlights. We're really excited the science of reading. Um and I also really want to give a shout out to our ELA um partners as well. BA basically whether it's you know our secondary ELA leadership our elementary um leadership really partnering with okay but what's best practice really look like for you moving forward both in terms of curriculum adoption and also uh specified u dual language curriculum adoption because that might look and be a little bit different than some of what our typical students have and also I think talking about how do we build capacity I think that's a common theme I've heard from the board this evening about okay these are great things in isolation but how are we building capacity capacity in

151a smart economically responsible way, capacity way as we move forward. And we really feel like empowering our current coaches, right? Even though, you know, we do have one ENL coach that helps support our district, but we have many other ELA, math coaches supporting our kids. and how are we doing a better job supporting their pedigogy and ENL programming lens so that when they go into that content area teacher whether it's an elementary home room or a secondary how can you guys as coaches speak to what's the best ENL lens or instructional framework you can provide to that science teacher even though you're not trained coach as an ENL teacher we're going to help build your game and your um uh cache of skills so that you can impart that with our content area teachers. And

152you guys have heard me say this over the years, but if it's a trick question I'm asking you, hey, how many ENL teachers do we have in the district? The right answer isn't 60. It's well, everybody. Everybody's an ENL teacher because we have so many multilingual learners in so many different educational settings. We all really have to look at it differently. And it can't be, well, I'm the math teacher, so I'm going to wait for the ENL teacher to come in and help this multilingual learner. It's like, no, that's part of my my my when I when I came here, this is part of my responsibility is to I have to differentiate my instruction to meet the needs of these multil- language learner students because one out of five of them in our city are

153multilingual learners. As we move forward, we've also talked about collaborative professional learning so that conversely, my ENL teachers are gaining better curricular demand on those content area classes and courses so that they're not like, well, I'm the ENL teacher. I know how to scaffold up to the grade level expectation, but I'm not necessarily a math expert or I'm not necessarily a science expert. Those days hopefully are gone because again all of our ENL teachers need to build their confidence in that content area as we move forward. So it's really happening hopefully on both ways. And one big thing that hopefully you're seeing in the set plans and hearing when you guys are visiting the schools is you're hearing kids talking. You're hearing them talking in English. You're hearing them talking in their L1 or language

154of origin that they go into. And hopefully it happens very organically. And hopefully the kids have multiple pathways to express their learning in that lesson. And you're gone are the days when some of us older folks were in school and it was, "Nope, you had to sit in a row. You weren't allowed to talk." And it was the teacher lecturing to you and your job was to absorb it. Those days are really passing us by here in Albany. I'm really excited to hear that because you're going to hear loud, messy classrooms. And I love that. That's really a great thing because the kids are getting different at bats, so to speak, to express their thinking. Well, why did you come up with that answer? Tell me more about that, Tom. Do you agree or disagree

155with what Janet just said and tell us why you agree or disagree? And providing multiple pathways for kids to express their learning. And of course, it's also very beneficial for our monilingual students as well to have those different modalities to express their learning. Now, the SEP results is the um the yearly report that gets submitted every year on our department. So, the New York State Office of Bilingual Education asks each school district with 30 or more multilingual learners to come up with a comprehensive education L program report. That's basically what the that acronym stands for for what it looks like about different metrics that you're doing. One of the big things is the compliance for CR 154, which I think you guys have heard me talking about for many years now. And we've been one

156of those districts that's way out ahead of the curve in terms of trying to meet the needs both in terms of providing explicit professional learning for the adults but also about those units of study. There's a K8 units of study chart. If you were to Google it, it pops up right away. Um I can't remember if I put it in the longer program review. And also there's the 912 one and it talks about how many minutes based on the language ability level for each student based on the NISLAT should kids be getting that integrated co-e model and that or that standalone model as we move forward and what it looks like for us moving forward. One of the bits of feedback that we got and I also want to give I should have started this

157with a huge shout out to Rachel Steed really for just leading the department in a really magnificent way while I was out on my medical leave. She really just is amazing in addition to being a building principal. But one of the bits of feedback that we got from our friends from the state ed is, "Hey, that's great that you guys have a robust Spanish do language program. Hey, that's great that you guys have, you know, this optional credit bearing program um K through 21 called the Albony International Center, but what happens when your kiddos leave that dual language program at the end of fifth grade? and what are some other bilingual opportunities, especially since you guys have such a robust and blooming Spanish um population settling in your city? So, one of the things we're

158charged with and I'm currently working again with um with Miss Hulahan and Miss Brown uh and Mr. Trophy about, okay, so like what are some possible instructional options for us for a pathway for kids with that bilingual and by, you know, by the letter of the law with CR 154? We really have to be providing that in addition then the separate from the newcomer program but that bilingual explicit SLA ELA language dual language program. What is what happens when they get out of elementary school? You guys should be creating a vertical opportunity for kids to continue that bilingual programming you know that you need to have. So, we're currently right in the middle of examining some different options that we have to to try and meet that need based on the feedback that we got

159from the state. And I'll give you guys more of an update as we continue that work. One other thing that I'm really excited for is our continued partnership with Arburn, which is basically like our our regional um I forget what the acronym stands for, but it's basically our regional language acquisition Bosey's component. They're located physically right across the river, I believe. But they're also charged with supporting our whole region with anything that's language related in terms of instruction. And I'm really excited that we're partnering with them to to do building and comprehensive program reviews to give us some more feedback on what it looks like. And also they can provide inbuilding coaching for our teachers. And so I was just working on that this morning about meeting with our core four secondary supervisors, our principal

160at Albany High School. Hey, we can actually through our um our our our CPTs, we can build um coaching not only with like we'd have to I I'd have to ask you know cabinet, hey guys, do you guys have any more money for me to hire more coach? Nope. They have their own coaches at Arburn by contract. They're supposed to be serving us and coaching our teachers and that's a service that they should be giving us. And we've partnered with them again to figure out, hey, this is great. How are we going to make this work? What's going to look like? How many days a month can you support the science department, the social studies department, and on and on with language acquisition needs as we move forward. We're still working out what their capacity

161is at Arburn. We certainly have a great need with over 500 multilingual learners located at Albany High's main campus. There's plenty of opportunity to do that. And it's not just supporting the ENL teachers with delivering that mandated unit of study. It's about how are we empowering that social studies teacher when the ENL teacher isn't pushing in that section, but they still have multilingual learners in that US history class that they really have to scaffold up as we move forward. Really excited about that moving forward. Basically, that's this slide kind of talks talks to that a little bit as we move forward with how can we provide more bilingual education vertically articulated in the secondary realm. some priorities for us moving forward. Uh I've already talked about, you know, some possible avenues for us based on

162the feedback from the state with having that uh optional bilingual program for secondary students. Um we are creating that standalone ENL curriculum and we've already adopted resources and I'm providing professional development for my ENL teachers for when they're pulling those kids out, giving them that mandated standalone. It's not a continuation of, oh, Tommy didn't finish this ELA, you know, uh, assignment. ENL teacher, when your standalone time is with Tommy, can you have him finish this assignment? Nope. That's not how it should be. It should be its own clearly articulated curriculum that is delivered bake on the based on the language acquisition acquisition needs with those four modalities of listening, reading, um, speaking and writing. as as we move forward. Targeted instructional support for classroom and content teachers. I think you guys have heard me talk

163about that, but it's that mantra of I'm going to keep saying it. We're all ENL teachers. Even if you're that science teacher, you know, at Albany High School and you have that section of kids and you don't have that integrated setting with a co-e ENL teacher, your your responsibility is still scaffold up for all those multilingual learners to get that authentic instruction on that grade level. And and I gotta say huge shout out for how we're adopting curriculum across um Miss Morphe who's our elementary ELA supervisor did a really magnificent job in terms of adopting curriculum and she had it not only did she have you serendipity timing here. She talked about that CRA lens for is this is this resource really speaking to who our children are and she's also um looking at it

164from an MLL or multilingual learner lens of but is this really going to be scaffolded up for our multi-ingual learners as they are being exposed to this core. So I think that's a that's a great marriage of the two big district drives that we have moving forward. And then of course I think you can't talk about um the ENL department without making sure that we are being culturally responsive in our practice. Not only in how we are communicating with the parents and caregivers, but how we're giving all of our children agency to express their thinking and have those opportunities um you know social emotionally as well as academically moving forward.