001Good evening. My name is Shrida Chhatur and I'm president of the City School District of Albany Board of Education. On behalf of the board, I welcome you to our meeting today. We have our student board member uh Miss Cleana, board member Elmani, board members uh man, secretary s um cr vice president Tabitha Wilson, member Savage, uh superintendent and members of the board, members of the cabinet uh at our meeting. This meeting is being livereamed and the instructions to view the meeting as well as a link to the agenda including all the documents uh are available at albonychools.org/beie. It's a good time for me to note that if you're here tonight to speak in public comment, you should sign up with our board, Miss Demons, here to my right. And with that introduction, we invite those
002of you who choose to join us as we stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. [clears throat] standy for 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 and to engage every learner in a robust educational program designed to provide the knowledge and skills necessary for success. Um so first on our agenda we have our student board uh representative present the report. Go ahead. >> Good evening members of the board. As a student representative, I'd like to share updates on recent policies and how they're being received by the students across our school. Firstly, the yonder pouches. The action to assign personal yonder pouches has
003been more widely accepted by students. This is a positive development because it reduces the financial loss mainly associated with damaged or missing pouches. As a result, less funding is diverted to replacements, allowing for more of our budget to support other programs that directly benefit our students. Lines have been shorter, thus allowing students to enter the campus quicker. Secondly, the water bottle rule. The rule regarding metal water bottle bottles initially initially caused frustr my apologies frustration. Although water bottles have not been confiscated, only not permitted to be carried around in the hallways to promote safety, which has been wellreceived, students are directed to keep their metal water bottles in their bags and the reinforcement of their earphone and headphone policy. Similarly, while this has been frustrating at first with the students, it has further died down
004and we are working on solutions such as the falcon pass, the student government falcon pass, discussing the eligibility requirements and benefits of the falcon pass. Today we discussed this during student government and many members felt that requiring a student to maintain a good GPA and attendance record to obtain a Falcon Pass would be a good initiative for students to continue work hard as the year progresses. As a result of new electronic reinforcements, passholders would be able to use headphones during lunch or study hall as an example. And our next steps would be student government representatives from other schools to better understand student perspectives. We will be inviting representatives from each middle school preferably. The goal is to further gather feedback not only from our students but also from middle schools since we currently lack direct
005input from them. This committee will help us evaluate the effectiveness of policies, plan schoolwide events or initiatives, and ensure that student voices are heard in decision-making processes. In summary, we have realized serving in these seats in the past month, we would like to inform to form a committee and expand our feedback channels. We hope to provide the board with a clearer picture of student perspectives, voice, and opinions and work towards solutions that balance safety, practicality, and student well-being. I thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you. Super Hulk Rider, do you have a report for us? >> I do, and we will turn it over to Mr. Leco to get us started. Thank you. While our guests are getting situated, we are excited tonight to have one of the Capitol Region's most popular
006popular young artists with us. If if you went to the polls in Albany County on Tuesday night, you had the opportunity to go home with an I voted sticker designed by our very own Annie Morton. Annie is a fifth grader at Monasuri Magnet School and was the winner in Albany County's sticker design contest this fall. Annie's eye-catching red, white, and blue design featured a prominent image of Nipper and the city's skyline. It was a big hit with voters everywhere. We even had a renter county voter reach out yesterday trying to get one to tell us more and introduce us to Annie. Uh it is our pleasure to welcome monatory principal John Paul. >> N you turned it off. >> No, you turned it off again. >> You're good. You're good. >> The same button. >>
007You're good. Don't touch it. Thank you, Bobby. >> Okay. It's a whole comedy thing. Okay. Well, so thank you so much for having us here. And it's it's it's such a cool thing to be here. Um Annie, as as Mr. Leco said, is a fifth grader at Monasuri and Miss Bruce's class. And I I I knew the whole thing from the beginning as far as um there's a vote. Get out the vote. It's so easy to vote because it was an amazing submission. And I know there were like thousands of them submitted and it ran for a few months and I think you were like 99% of the votes all cast um for your your artwork which was perfectly appropriate. But really what um what kind of demonstrated the excitement around it was when it
008was election day and we went down to our own polling spot in the building and it was it was seriously like a celebrity had gone. Once the pole workers and the people there to vote realize what who was in their presence in the sticker, it was like they all instantly like transitioned into like photo shoot. They wanted like people deep taking photos at that same moment. So that was pretty pretty special and and welld deserved because um Annie's a great part of our school and her artwork was um absolutely a great choice for our city. So very very proud of Annie. Do you want to share anything, Annie? No, nothing. All right. [applause] >> Before we take a few photos, I just wanted to note that Annie was one of three district students who were
009among the 10 finalists uh in the county contest. And that was from, you know, at least hundreds of submissions from students at school districts all across the capital region from ages 5 to 18. Uh and uh just to kind of tie into what's next on the agenda, one of those finalists also was from ALB School of Humanities. So, uh, and, uh, our other finalist was from Roots Academy at West Hill. So, they all did a great job. >> Annie, however, was the best. [applause] Good job. >> Take a few pictures right here. >> Hey, John. Can you introduce me? Thank you. Congratulations. It had a dog. I love dogs. I love tulips. And it had amazing. I wanted so many things for >> her. Congratulations. This is really perfect. It's nice to meet you. I
010went to school with your mom. >> Hi. >> What? >> She's already >> I already told her back. >> I told her she have the whole thing by herself. >> I know there's a commission to look into a new city of Albany flag. So, >> I just feel like that was pretty close for a contender. All right, as advertised, it is now my pleasure to introduce Principal Marie Cullahan to tell us more about the great things happening this year at Alb School of Humanities. >> Good evening. We are so excited to present to you our school for Albany School of Humanities. As we start every presentation, we start with our district vision, mission, and goals. And then on our next slide, we have our school mission, which is that at Albany School of Humanities, we
011will educate, engage, and enrich everyone every day. We align our school goals with the district goals of increasing student achievement, safe and healthy environment, a standardsbased instruction, culturally responsive teaching, and uh homeschool partnership. Tonight, our presentation is by myself, which you've all met, and this is Susanna Doyle, and this is her first time presenting this evening as the assistant principal at Ash. I'm going to start by going over our demographics of Ash, which very much reflect the city um school district of Albany. We have 10% Asian, 38% black, 19% Hispanic, 11% multi-racial, 22% white. Um we have 429 students at Ash. We have 20 classrooms, and four self-contained rooms. 14% of our students are students with disabilities. 50% economically disadvantaged. and we have 10% ELLs. Our next slide, we highlighted our set focus for this
012school year and we have three main goals um which all encompass high leverage instructional practices. And so at Ash, we're focusing on reducing absenteeism through an equitydriven approach. We have weekly team meetings, daily meetings, um, and we make parent phone calls from an administrative lens just to see if we can make that connection, see what's going on, and if there's anything we can do to support from the building level. We're really focusing on strengthening our professional development that's focused on formative assessment, um, higher level questioning, and student engagement. And then another one that we thought came out of a lot of our survey data last year is students working on tracking their own progress and that them being accountable for what the goal is and being able to color it, match it, and make sure
013that they know what it's like to feel success and putting that ownership back on them. >> Like Miss Cullahan was saying, a lot of our focus has been on attendance. Um, we've been doing a kickoff challenge. In the month of October, we did a fall pumpkin challenge. Um, so every time the class had 100% attendance, they got to add a pumpkin to a wall that was outside. Um, and the class with the most pumpkins at the end got to have a pumpkin party. Um, we are starting now our turkey challenge um, for the month of November. Um, we also recognize perfect attendance both monthly um, and trimester. Monthly they get some $10 roar tickets and for trimester they get um, some a certificate of perfect attendance. Um our goal every day um is to get
01495%. Um we do announce all of our 100% winners over the announcements every day and the students look forward to hearing um their class get called. We have a lot going on with our arts and humanity um at Ash. This is kind of just to show the first two months of school. Um we've had some author visits both virtually and in person. Um we had a student talent show last week um where we had over 50 students um showcasing many different talents from baking to singing to dancing to acting, telling a story. Um we had a very huge turnout for our October conferences with 90% of parents attending. Um we had a harvest festival um with lots some trunking and over 300 students attended that even in the rain and the cold. Um, we've had
015Albany Symphony. They visited once. They're coming tomorrow for our second grade classrooms. Um, we had a clap-in at the beginning of the year, um, with many community partners to start our year strong. Um, and we do have 75 students, um, in our banded orchestra, which is our largest group ever. Um, and they have been doing an amazing job in getting ready for the winter concert. And that's just for the first two months of Ash. Um, so our next slide was just about a challenge. And so, um, I'm sure you've heard it before. Um, our challenge pretty much stays the same is just finding like the financial means to support all of our magnet themed activities that we want to do at Ash. Um, these experience are such an important part of what makes Ash special.
016So, to help this year, we've been um, applying for different grants. We've been working really closely with our PTA and they've been helping us organize schoolwide fundraisers. This weekend we had our first ever craft fair. We had over 400 people from the city of Albany come through our craft fair to support our magnet theme programming. So just trying to think a little outside the box on how we can continue to have weekly magnet events occur um with other source of um financial means. and academic success. We just got these this week. Um, so we haven't really had a time to like dive into it and really highlight some of it. Um, but when I stood up here or sat up here last year at this similar time, I said to you our goal at Ash
017is to just maintain. Um, because we have made phenomenal gains over the last four years. And so we want to just keep those gains going. And so just highlighting for you that our growth and mean in math and ELA for our fall um fall NWA data is within one point in all areas of exactly where we were fall of this of last year. So we are maintaining um and hopefully keep increasing but um we are continuing to maintain high academic um success rates at ASH which is highlighted more um prominently on our next slide which dives into um New York state test data and again I said we would stay within and try to keep growing and we grew 6% um last year from 64 to 70% in ELA and in math we were at
01874% last year and we continued to be at 74% again this year. Um, which is just something that we're celebrating and continuing to just focus on those high leverage instructional practices and really um, look at individual kid data and our tier one best practices. I'm like two slides ahead of you now. I apologize, Bobby. >> These are just a few examples of some of our classroom charters. So, every classroom at the beginning of the year um during their block came up with different um feeling words on how they would like to feel when they are at school. Um and these are an example of from our theater arts class to our art room um to some of our second and third grade classrooms. Um but they're displayed all throughout the school and in each classroom.
019and they really show how what the students came up with and how they want to feel um when they're in their classrooms at Ash. And with equity, we are carefully evaluating all of our decisions that we make through an equity lens. We believe that it is essential for every voice to be heard and valued in our ASH community. Um we have been working um last year and this year um providing month monthly PD sessions um centered around equitable instruction. Um we've been using many different medias using um books as well as podcasts and articles um and uh movies as well as um our student and staff equity team are really helping to lead the work. Our student equity team right now is currently working on leading a food drive. Um that was all uh designed
020by one of our fifth grade students brought the idea to us um came up with the flyer and we are starting that today. Um, so it's very exciting. And then just making sure that our equity work is inc integrated daily into all of our instruction. And then our last slide um for tonight is um we just asked our amazing media people, Jake, to put a movie together of just any pictures he's seen of the last six weeks so you could get just a quick 30-se secondond feel of the building. and we hope to continue all of this success for you throughout the school year. Thank [music] you. [music] >> [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat. [music] [music] and that concludes tonight's district highlights. Okay. And we'll transition to the district update. Uh handful of topics uh
021to talk about. We have some of our concerts rolling out over the next few months. Uh we'll have a staffing and hiring update, an opportunity to participate in a really important citywide initiative, Cash for Coats. I want to recognize some athletes and also uh remind folks of our schedule uh throughout the month of November. Uh but this weekend we are kicking off uh Albany High School's first uh drama production of the year directed by Rose Bigger Staff. This is Heroes Cabaret where um you will be able to pick the next superhero. I I caught a little bit of uh a few rehearsals over the last couple weeks uh and we'll certainly be there on Friday night. Um, two seniors are managing uh the production, Millie Kasanova and Freddy Lazaro. So, if you can make it
022to the high school auditorium Friday and Saturday at 6:30 p.m. and there's also a Sunday matinea at 2:00. Uh, students can purchase tickets for $5 and the rest of us are 15 and we hope to see you at any number of the performances this weekend. And speaking of performances, our musicians will take the stage throughout uh December and January. Uh make sure you check out our website so you can see uh see any number of concerts that uh students performing concerts throughout our school district. I'll turn it over to our HR director to uh give her monthly update on staffing and hiring. >> Thank you. Um I we're starting this month with a new format for the staffing and hiring update using our position control reports. Um and I just wanted to highlight a few
023um sort of standout numbers. We are still uh looking for teaching assistance with a vacancy uh number of 53 for our teaching assistants, 13 hall monitors. Uh but we're doing a little bit better with our teachers. 31.5% um I'm sorry 31.5 teacher vacancies and 12 non-classroom professionals. Those are the social workers, school psychologists, nurses, etc. Um we only have 12 vacancies there. Um which is only 4.19% um of the app. So, in total, all of the APSAPSA positions, we are only at 4.19% vacant. Um, for an overall vacancy rate of 7.75%, which is down a little bit from the last time I presented um and is about where we usually hover in that in that area. So, that's the update. >> Okay. Thank you. A reminder for those who would like to donate to make
024sure that uh students in Albany have warm coats and hats and gloves, uh you can donate uh a number of ways to support Cash for Coats. You can text cash for coats to 5355 and you can go to uh our website and also the um city of Albany website so you can donate as well. And I believe we're going to be um distributing some coats next week or over the next couple weeks. Um be on the lookout for that uh for that announcement. As we transition from one sports season to another, we want to make sure we celebrate our unified botchi team from Albany High School. They won the season ending tournament last week. They took first place after competing against Queensberry Shaker in South Glenn's Falls. Uh we have we will have members of
025our uh tournament winning botchi team with us uh at our November 20th board meeting. So we're excited about that. And also uh one of our cross country stars, Noah Baiser, uh has reached the state championship. He's our first uh student athlete since 2022 when he will compete in the section 2 championships. Uh he recently turned in an outstanding performance uh at the suburban council meets and uh suburban council meet. We look forward to uh seeing how Noah succeeds uh throughout November. A number of uh schedule updates. We want to remind everyone that all of our schools are closed next Tuesday in observance of Veterans Day. However, uh if you would like to march with uh our school district's JOTC and our marching band, that will take place uh at 11:00 heading down Washington Avenue. Also,
026on Wednesday the 19th, our middle schools will have a 12:30 p.m. early dismissal. And a reminder that it is time to get ready for Thanksgiving. And November 26th, 7th, and 8th, our schools uh will be closed. However, district office will be open on the 26th. And that concludes my report for tonight. Thank you, Superintendent. As is a usual practice, I ask you uh to prioritize your questions and ask your most important question first. We'll start with one question for each board member so that all members have the opportunity to be heard. And if you have additional questions, we can have a second round. We'll start with our student board member. >> [clears throat] >> No comments currently. >> Okay. And since uh Mr. Wolf gang isn't here, we go back to Mr. Elvini. >> Um
027no, I have no questions or comments. Thank you. >> Okay, Miss Matt. >> I have no questions or comments. >> Miss Savage, >> thank you very much for the presentation. Especially thank you to Miss the for the ever improving HR reports. It's exciting to see position control starting to feel live and real in all of your reporting. So, thank you. Um, superintendent, I feel like both board members and the students and the families have a fair number of questions about these new security um, processes, procedures, and equipment. And I'm wondering if we could plan some way to address those. I know time is very short with the plan as currently announced but of course the ideal would have been to do that would to would be to do that somehow before full implementation and I
028just wonder what might be possible at this point. >> Sure. So um we are planning for some um technology and and security systems upgrades at the high school. Those have uh been communicated internally uh and to families. And and what we've learned over the last number of days is um while there certainly appears to be support for improving our capacity and and improving our safety initiatives um that we could have um been a little more thoughtful in how we engage families and and uh have conversations with them around some of these changes. So, uh I know that uh in the next uh few days I'll be meeting with our safety and security team as as well as members of the high school administrative team um to slow that process down to make sure that we
029can engage families so that their questions can be asked that whatever concerns they have can um or or fears or concerns uh can be addressed and and people feel a little bit better about what we're trying to do. uh to make sure that that um our systems are as cutting edge as they can to make sure uh students are safe and feel safe. But uh what we do realize in uh reflection is um while we were trying to move swiftly perhaps um we missed some important steps of bringing some people along. And um I I thank you for raising that and our team will uh put out a a new schedule of events of when parents can can expect to uh learn a little bit more about this and have some conversations with our safety
030security team, our high school leaders. Uh certainly I believe we could um provide the board and the community with an update uh on those conversations and um any amended implementation timeline at a board meeting on the 20th. >> Miss Crazy. [clears throat] >> Oh, I was actually just going to say thank you for the update. Um excited about the caparade. there is an opportunity for perfor uh the public to interact and be on stage and play games. So, if you're interested in appearing on stage, I think there's also a costume contest at least one of the nights. And thank you very much for the information about uh the security. I had just been sort of musing to myself because I'd read uh one of the press releases about these this type of technology saying it's
031portable. might even be interesting if we could bring it to a whatever board meeting we're going to have a talk about it with so people can walk through it and see how it works live real time. Um that that would be really cool. I'm really glad that we're giving people a little bit more of a time a little more of a chance to get familiar with it. Thanks >> Miss Wilson. >> Thank you for um your presentation and I'm curious do we know the runtime for Heroes Cabaret? [laughter] I do not uh but I'm I'm sure I'll be able to find out early in the morning and I'll I'll report back to everybody. >> I have no questions because they've all been asked. >> Miss Savage, >> I'm just going to ask my perennial question
032about uh vaccination exclusions. I saw the SBU that it looks like we're make gaining on it. um we're down quite a bit since the end of September, but there's still a couple of hundred children who are not coming to school because they are not vaccinated. And I'm wondering if we have a sense of um how much the impact is language access um and whether there's something else we can do to help our non-English-speaking students access the vaccinations they need in order to come to school. >> Yeah. So, those are some [clears throat] some questions our team uh wrestled with today and and even in my my uh regular check-in with with our school board president. We're going to look to see um if our uh language software translation programs could be um a tool that
033families could use or how it may interface with uh some of the vaccination clinics that that families rely on. So, we'll um we'll conduct that homework assignment and uh we'll certainly report back and also uh potentially partnering with higher education, particularly the the um local uh pharmacy school to see if uh there'll be an opportunity for um those uh students in training or the school in general to be able to provide uh opportunities to vaccinate children. Um we have uh discussed in the past about whether or not the district could serve as as a site there. Um a lot of uh questions around that and and um uh department of health is not uh eager to allow that to happen. We've talked to our uh our district physician about the role she may be able
034to play uh having um basically having a a remote vaccination clinic. So, I know those discussions are ongoing, but we're we're trying to find creative ways to make sure students are eligible to return to school. >> I appreciate that. And having once been a little late on a vaccination, I do recognize that this this team tries very hard to reach parents to get them to get their kids to vaccinate. But I still really am concerned about, you know, a couple of hundred students who are not in school. It is November and we need to figure out what we can do um to help our help our kids gain access to the education they're entitled to. Any other question folks? Okay, thank you. Moving on to the next part of our agenda which is public comment.
035Uh the board always welcomes input from the community about the decisions we're making. Are there any uh written comments today? Um anybody sign up? Okay. uh we set aside uh up to 30 minutes of each meeting to hear from district residents, parents, students and other members of the community. If [snorts] there are more comments in that can be accommodated in 30 minutes which we do not anticipate today, we may choose to extend the length of the public common period or alternately establish a second common parent later in 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'll provide translation when necessary. All comments must include the commenters's name and place
036of 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 information at albonychools.org/buing. We ask all commenters to keep in mind that the information about individual students and specific district staff should cannot be shared. Not only is that a violation of privacy, but also every student and every staff member deserves to know that concerns about them will not be aired in public. For that reason, board members who read comments will pass over a substitute alternate words if individual names are mentioned. We will also eliminate those names and uh descriptions from the recorded voicemails. Uh also, please keep in mind that public comment is not the best place to first alert the district to a concern you have. We ask
037that you share your concerns first with the re relevant staff such as your teacher or principal. If you feel that concern is not addressed adequately, you may appeal to the person's supervisor up the chain of command if necessary to superintendent. Decisions made by the superintendent may be appealed to the board. Uh I believe we have someone online today. Uh we have a voicemail. Um so we'll play that now. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to present to the board. As per the instructions on the website, my name is Becky Zimmerman from Albany and I'm calling from 518-360-5692 on behalf of the Albany Special Education Parent Advisory Council, CPAC for short, of which I serve as co-chair. Last board meeting, I told you that we would like to begin to educate our community about
038the 11% of our school district population who are served by individual education plans, also known as IEPs, by explaining what an IEP is and how a student gets one. The process to access special education services is well delineated with multiple steps and begins with a request for evaluation. This is followed by parental consent and a comprehensive evaluation in all areas related to the suspected disability which is most often performed by the school psychologist along with any relevant related service providers. The committee on special education then meets as a team which includes school professionals as well as the parents to determine if the student qualifies for special education services based on the results of the evaluation. If the student qualifies, an individualized education plan is developed by the committee on special education team. This legal document
039is specific to each student and outlines the personalized educational goals, special education instruction, related services, and accommodation the student needs to access a free and appropriate public education as mandated into in the individuals with disabilities education act. All students who receive IEP services and supports qualify under one of 13 disability categories with the disability negatively impacting their educational performance to an extent requiring them to receive special education and related services. The 13 disability categories in order from most to least common are specific learning disability, speech or language impairment, other health impairment, autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, emotional disturbance, developmental delay, multiple disabilities, hearing impairment including deafness, orthopedic impairment, visual impairment including blindness, traumatic brain injury, and deaf blindness. Some students may qualify under more than one of these categories. So for the purposes of the
040IEP, the student would be classified under the category that most contributes to their learning challenges. Once a student has an IEP, the committee on special education team meets yearly at a minimum to review the document and the students progress, but can also meet more often at the parents request. In this way, the document changes and grows to best support the student as they progress through their education. CPAC looks forward to presenting at the next meeting about specific learning disabilities. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. We have one written comment and Miss Wilson will read that now. >> Um this comment is from Tristan Peterson. I originally heard about Tech Valley in 8th grade and I was originally not selected by the lottery, but when a student left in sophomore year, I was accepted.
041During my time at Tech Valley, I have seen myself grow both academically and socially with the help of the project-based learning system at Tech Valley. Since sophomore year, my grades have grown exponentially, and I now have much greater self-discipline. I have also been able to explore the field of law and politics doing a job shadowing experience at a law firm. I plan on going to college after high school and Tech Valley is preparing me for it with our senior seminary class which helps our trans which helps us transition into future after high school. I encourage this board to continue to support students from our district to attend TBHS. >> Thank you, Miss Wilson. We appreciate all public comments and we find hearing from community members very valuable. Once again, our contact information for both public
042comment and routine correspondence is albschools.org/po. We now move to the part of our meeting we call routine consent. During this portion of the meeting, we approve routine matters for the district. These include items like contracts, field trips, personnel matters, and the like. Each board member reviews each item carefully, but we vote on them together as a group with no discussion. This allows us to use a meeting time more efficiently. Nonetheless, each board member has the option to set aside any routine consent item in order to require a separate discussion and vote on that item. With that introduction, I now entertain a motion to adopt the routine consent agenda. Miss Wilson, second by Miss Man. Are there any set aides? Miss Savage, >> can I set aside number three, budget transfers over 10,000 and number nine,
043items for disposal trucks. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? Miss Grey, >> thank you. Um, I'd like to set aside F14, Dr. F-15 JRS collaborator F-16 KR improvements analytics um and F20 YMCA. >> Okay. Any other set aides? Okay. Hearing none. Uh all in favor of adop adopting the routine consent agenda list number three nine 14 15 16 and 20 guess that's all in favor. Okay. Uh let's move on. Miss Savage want to take both of them together or separately? It's your choice. >> Um I think we should probably do them separately. >> Okay. Number three. >> And so I'll make a motion to adopt number three. seconded by Miss Wilson. >> Um, in terms of discussion, first of all, I wanted to thank Mr. Caris for the improved reporting on budget transfers. We asked
044for that last time and immediately here it comes with the new reporting mechanism. So, I appreciate the separation from 10 of 10,000 and over which we have to approve and 10,000 and other, which we um are informational, but I'm wondering if you could convey um with a little bit more detail about the month-end budget transfers for negative codes. That seems like a very generic way to say we needed to move money from one place to another and I'm wondering if you could give us a little bit more context for those transfers. >> Sure. Um, so as you build a budget, uh, especially with like salary line items, as people move from one item or one area to another or another grade level or from a grant to the general fund, um, sometimes you have to
045make adjustments to what was allocated to those line items in the beginning. Um, so that was what primarily happened in those areas. >> Okay. And so is this something where you're essentially doing a reconciliation at the at each month and we should expect to see something like this each month throughout the school year or is it something that happens once in a while? >> It happens once in a while. So, as long as people aren't moving on, like as we have position control and we get tighter with our budget codes and where people are located and which items or line items are associated with, it should get uh easier to budget or easier to see where they're moving to. Um, but there is always going to be times to have some movement with from one
046account to another. >> I understand. Okay. Thank you very much. All in favor of adopting number three. That's unanimous. Let's move on to number nine. Items for disposal trucks. >> I'd like to make a motion to adopt number nine. >> Second by Miss Wilson. >> Discussion. >> In terms of discussion, I I love to learn new things and I have to say in all these years on the school board, I've never thought about how many trucks we own. And I'm just curious if you could give us some context for this. Like how many vehicles does the school district own thereabouts? And is this like kind of a normal turnover? Because I don't remember us disposing of vehicles very often before. So I'm just trying to understand what what's happening here and and why these trucks
047now and how are we fulfilling the need that they had before and what's the sense of scale? Anything you can share? >> Sure. So these are three box trucks that were used in food service. Um they're quite old. They are beyond repair. Um, and they were replaced over this past summer with three new box trucks. Uh, usually they're parked. Our main hub is at Arbor Hill. So, you'll see the three trucks there. Um, but these were actually sitting on our lots for a while now. It was due time because some of the frame was rotted in one. The other one is just the engine was not working. Um, so it it's we should have uh disposed of them a lot earlier. So as we do go through things uh and get our processes more on
048order, we will be showing more. But we do have I think five pickup trucks. We have the three vans that we will be using with students. We have I think there's five food service trucks since we we have satellite buildings that our food has to go to. Um we and we have a couple courier trucks that go back and forth as well. So I can get you a more detailed list, but >> that's fine. I mean I just I think that's a generic sense of like so we have in the neighborhood of something like 15 to 20 vehicles as opposed to like 200 vehicles. So okay, that's helpful for me to understand that context. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions on that? Okay. All in favor adopting number nine. That's unanimous. Okay. Miss Crerachche, do
049you want to take them separately or as a group? >> Uh, sure. Uh, separately might be easier because my questions about >> 14. >> Thank you. >> Dr. Laura SF seconded by me. And and first of all, I wanted to apologize for not submitting these questions in advance. I know we've been trying to be better at the board about identifying things that are missing from the contract forms, but I should have looked at this earlier. Um that for the Dr. Staff contract, I wondered why appendix C wasn't filled out because this is someone who's going to be doing direct to student services um and would need access to student data. I'll have to speak with our team and Oh, Jasmine. Oh, there you are. >> But you're >> um our sped team this evening to
050see if I can get a response for that because I am not positive. >> Oh, thank you so much. >> Okay. Should we table that one or >> if you can give me a moment, I may be able to get the answer for you. >> Sure, we'll table that and come back to it later. Okay. >> Um I'm just curious to know whether um Miss Brown is going to be responsible for any of the other ones. So maybe we could get through the rest and then >> I think the next one maybe. >> Okay. >> Number 15, GRS collaborator. My question on number 15 was motion and second Miss Wilson. >> Okay. >> My question on this one was that the box was checked saying um that instructional measurable results weren't applicable but um it
051says that for contracts involving professional development related to instructional practices uh this this would be uh required. And I was also thinking it was probably a renewal contract. Maybe it's not for ash specifically. Sometimes it's hard when I look, you know, when when you look for previous contracts to tell which school they were for. >> This is not a um renewal. It is for her, but not for Ash. Okay. >> Um this is a new collaboration with Ash. She works primarily with the staff. So she's working with the coaches. She's working in classrooms with the teacher and directly with our leadership team behind us. >> Thank you. So, so would we want to put because it is involving professional development related to instructional practice, would we want to put expected measurable results uh for the
052future? >> I could talk to my team about what that looks like um or what those measurable outcomes would be considering her work is directly with the the teachers. >> Okay. Yeah, we'll talk in ad hoc routine consent because if if it isn't appropriate to do it for professional development related to instructional practice, maybe we need to rethink that language on the form because it sounds like you're saying that might not be what you want for this kind of professional development contract. >> Um, >> that would be correct. >> Okay. Um, so I think uh Dr. Be ready to vote on this one. >> Okay. All in favor of adopting number 15 JS collaboration. Okay, that's unanimous. Moving on to 16, care improvement analytics. Second by Miss Wilson. >> My question on that one was
053again the appendix C for student privacy data because the services say that he's going to be provided student level data files and that he's going to be participating in building leadership team meetings. So, I figured he would probably have that access to student data. So he does and I do know that Dr. Preston Apino who is not with us this evening um has approved that because he does consult with her office around the data. Um so I do not know why that was not completed. >> Would it be possible to table this one until the next meeting so we could check with Dr. Prespadino about it? >> Yes. Okay. So, we'll table number 16 and move on to number 20. YMCA. >> Um, >> second, Miss Ma'am, >> I had two questions on this one.
054Um, the first one was just about why why the box saying fingerprinting was not required was checked because I know that these people are going to be providing service to students for more than 5 days. The second was about expected measurable results because there's some information provided about the expected measurable results, but it's just here's the things that we said we'd measure rather than what the actual expected results were. Um, and and and for the future expected measurable results rather than just saying an increase from last year, maybe it'd be helpful to give the full numbers. And then the number two just talks about a student survey, but it's sort of cut off. So, there were um results that we obtained from YMCA. I don't know why they're not attached here um or for the
055contract because we have been getting those based on the conversations that we've had um here previously. And then you had another the the fingerprinting. Um so, we have gone back and forth with um HR around that. They are required to have OCFS fingerprinting which is sufficient for us. Okay. So, it's just like not new not new fingerprinting done through the district. Okay. I understand. Thank you so much. >> Okay. Shall we vote on that one? Okay. All in favor of adopting number 20 YMCA. That's unanimous. Okay. And we'll come back to is that number 14? Right. Okay. Okay, let's move on to the next item and we'll come back to that one if we get an answer later on in the meeting. Uh the policy passing the mic to Miss Crree, chair of policy. >>
056Thank you. I have a very very minimal and uninteresting policy agenda to very uninteresting. Uh the first is action on 5152 admission on admission of non-resident students. As you may recall from last time, we updated the language about residents who move out of the district during the school year to include trimesters in additional in addition to semesters because the elementary school is graded on trimester. Um given that are there any questions before I ask for a vote to adopt the revised 5152? Then can I get a motion? And seeing Dr. Chau and Miss Wilson all in favor appears I can't see Miss Avisand. Okay. So that's okay. Thank you. Uh that is unanimous of all six board members present because uh Mr. Wolf Gang E is not with us tonight. Uh then I also have
057one revised policy for discussion. Policy 1120 school district records. We revise this policy to be genderneutral. Use genderneutral language in accordance with state law. Um, any discussion on that? Seeing none, I yield the floor. Oh, sorry, Miss Wilson. >> I'm okay. >> Oh, okay. So, I'm going to yield the floor back to you, President Jador. >> Thank you, Member Cr. Um I think we we're still waiting on the answer for uh the routine consent item. So we'll move on to the next discussion item discussion action item which is the external audit. Mr. Carris. >> Yes. Um I'm going to present uh Mr. Doug Zimmerman from the uh EFPR advisory group that conducts our external audit. Uh he'll give us a brief presentation on the audit. Uh good evening everyone again, excuse me. Uh good evening
058everyone again. I'm Doug Zimmerman, partner with the FPR group and uh as was mentioned here to uh go over a very high level overview of the results of the audit of the most recent uh fiscal year uh June 30th 2025 financial statements of the district. We did have an opportunity last week uh to meet with the audit committee to review those financials in detail and certainly answer any questions. And again, I'll just give a very high level overview of the audit process and the results. Uh again, we approach the audit by performing a detailed risk assessment of the district. Uh no different than any other uh school district that we audit or any other uh financial statement audit that we perform. Uh we identify the significant audit areas and obtain a detailed understanding of the
059internal controls uh within each of those areas. Uh then we perform tests of those internal controls to determine whether or not they are able to be relied upon and operating effectively and then based on the results of those tests uh audit work programs are designed uh for each of those significant areas of the district to allow us to issue uh the various opinions on the financial statements. I would like to say that uh as a result of the procedures we performed there was no requirement to change any of the procedures that we initially identified or any modifications to the audit program. Uh so that gave us comfort that everything was operating appropriately within the district as we performed all the various uh audit steps. Uh next slide please. Uh as far as the audit results
060uh we will be issuing unmodified or clean opinions on three different reports that we issue. Uh there is the basic financial statements uh which are really uh uh the financial statements that include all the various uh information with the revenues, expenses, uh assets, liabilities. Uh we also perform what's called a federal grant compliance audit or more commonly called a single audit. Uh the district receives some $28 million primarily passed through New York State. Uh and any organization receiving over $750,000 has to have an annual single audit performed. And so again that is a audit that we conducted and again that will be an unmodified opinion. And then we also examined the extra classroom activity funds and again that is a uh a clean bill of health or an unmodified opinion. Uh all the records information
061we requested was freely made available by the entire uh team in the business office. We had excellent cooperation. Um and so we certainly appreciate all that. The only way we're able to complete our engagement is if uh uh management has been maintaining the records not only throughout the year but certainly uh provides us with all the required information at audit time. Uh the results of our test disclosed no instances of non-compliance or other matters that are required to be reported either under government auditing standards or under the uniform guidance or the single audit. So there were no compliance issues that we noted. So again, a a clean bill of health with regards to the district's compliance with the various rules and regulations that you're required to comply with. The last slide, please. Um oh no,
062I'm sorry. We we we were on there, we skipped. There we go. Thank you. Uh as part of the single audit, again, we audit uh uh on a riskbased approach uh certain programs each year. This year, we examined the special education cluster, the child nutrition cluster, and the 21st century community learning centers. Uh so again, those those are the programs that were examined this year. And again, there were no issues with regards to any of the district's compliance with the federal rules and regulations that oversee those programs. Uh finally, we did identify uh one deficiency in internal control or financial reporting that we were required to report in accordance with government auditing standards and that was labeled 25 excuse me 202501 uh as a result of uh significant changes in the district staffing during the
063course of the year. There were certain delays in reconciling asset and liability accounts uh in multiple funds and therefore uh it required certain audit adjustments to provide the financial statements in accordance with jailing accounting principles. Uh this is a repeat finding from last year. We encountered uh similar item but it was a reduced volume this year. So we did see an improvement in that area and certainly uh without staffing changes I'm sure next year I'll be able to report back that that's been resolved. But um that was the only item that we detected as a course of all the various test work we performed. Uh again that's a very high level overview of the results of the audit and I'd certainly be happy to answer any questions anyone has >> no comment currently. >> Okay.
064>> It sounds like we did well. >> Yes. >> So I have no questions. Miss man, >> the I the part I'm a part of the audit committee, so we um had had met last week and I have no I have no comments. Thank you, >> Miss Savage. >> Uh no comments. Thank you very much for your audit. I did have one quick question for Mr. Carris. The one question that we wanted to address um before the final audit was released was a commentary on the reimburseability of our transportation aid. Did that get made? I haven't seen the updated audit yet. Yes, it was uh adjusted on the it was like the fifth page in about the transportation aid or as it went for our transportation expense has gone up which was one of the
065most sub substantial increases that there is a aable >> anticipated aid the following year to to cover that. Okay, thanks so much. >> Thanks Miss Cr. >> No comments. Thank you >> Miss Wilson. Thank you for your presentation and I want to say hats off to the audit committee for the favorable outcome. I've formerly served on this committee and I know the work is intensive. >> Um again once again great report always good to hear no significant uh findings. Um again having been on the audit committee just like Miss Wilson there's a lot of work that goes into those five slides. One question I did have was u I know there was a this was a repeat finding and staffing changes and this is not the only school district absolutely which happens. Um what do
066you suggest school districts especially what what do we do to make sure >> we can mitigate this from happening? >> It it's a very hard uh question. It's a it's a challenge for uh really uh most uh organizations and especially school districts to when there is turnover to find qualified individuals uh and uh to find them in a reasonable amount of time so that you don't lose the traction because once positions become vacant uh things fall behind and then if if you are lucky enough to find a qualified individual um you know not only they have to come into the district and get up to speed on how exactly you perform everything but then to catch up on stuff that's and you know uh missed because of those opens uh and vacancies. It's it's a
067challenge. So the best thing is to not have any turnover. But it certainly is outside of the control. >> But this is not just our problem. >> No. Uh we we we audit some 34 school districts and it is unfortunately becoming more and more common uh as people retire, as people quite frankly what's happening is people are being you lack of a better word poached from one district to the next. And so it's it's almost like a musical chairs in some instances and so that certainly does not help in maintaining uh the accounting records on a you know daily and monthly basis. Thank you and congratulations Mr. Caris. If any other questions on this if not uh may I have a motion to vote adopt the audit results. M Savage Machi all in favor that's
068unanimous. Thank you. >> Thank you everyone. Moving on to our next item, discussion on the K8 academic and assessment report. Let's hold a hand, Miss Brown. Good evening. We're pleased to Mrs. Brown and I are pleased to present you um with this report tonight and we thank Mr. Chaffy for his contributions and he is just not with us this evening. Next slide please. As we always do, we'll begin with our district vision, mission, and goals, highlighting um how what we're presenting tonight aligns to that work. We're very pleased to share that our 2425K8 assessment presentation. This evening provides opportunity to highlight some success in realizing our goal of increasing student achievement as we make progress in the areas that are articulated in our vision and mission. Though we certainly know um there remains great deal
069of work to do. Next slide, please. So, in preparation for this presentation, Mrs. Brown and I re-watched our presentation from last year to incorporate the feedback we received from the board in order to share the outcomes of our K8 assessments in the way that best supports all of you in your work. Um, to that end, you may have noticed some additions to our report, including longitudinal outcomes by building, um, as well as test refusal rates. And we've made sure to include a longitudinal comparison of our outcomes to the state as a whole over the past several years. Next slide, please. This slide details Oh, sorry, one more. Nope, the other way. Thank you. Uh, this slide details proficiency in ELA and math districtwide and also across New York State from the 2021 2021 2020 school
070year to 2024 2025 with the 2018 and 19 data included as a pre- pandemic reference point. Um, as you can see, we've reduced the gap between our proficiency and that of the state as a whole over time, increasing at approximately double the rate since before the pandemic. Um, at this time I will turn it over to Mrs. Brown for the next slide. Thank you. We'll begin with the outcomes of our 3 through 8 New York State assessment data. Next slide, please. What you'll see on this slide is our ELA performance for our district with the last four academic years. 2018 2019 data, as Miss Hulahan stated, is included as a preandemic reference point. Level one and level two have decreased steadily as level three and level four have increased steadily with an overall gain in
071New York State ELA proficiency from 11% in 2022 to 2025 and 15% since 2018 to 2019. It is important to note that the 2023 2024 assessment marked the shift to computer-based testing and from the common core learning standards to the nextgen learning standards. Though the shifts that occurred in ELA standards were minimal. Next slide please. So over the course of the next two slides, um you'll see the district-wide grade level performance over four four years. As noted on the bottom of this slide, the green highlight represents a gain over time of greater than 3% since 2021 to 2022. And in some of the other slides, you'll see that yellow represents statistically insignificant change over time during the same period. In grades three through five on this slide, there is a consistent upward trajectory in proficiency
072from 2021 2022 to 2024 2025. These gains are significant with a gain in overall proficiency over four years of 18% in grade 3, 16% in grade four, and 14% in grade 5. We've also included the proficiency across the state um as requested at each grade level. We have increasingly closed the gap between our proficiency and that of the state. Next slide. At the middle level, grade six proficiency increased 4% this year, uh but still remains 2% below proficiency in 21-22, though it is 5% greater than it was in 18/19. This year, grade seven proficiency decreased 5% reducing gains over time to 2% since 2022. But that said, it is double what it was in 1819. Grade 8 gained 3% this year after a decline in proficiency from 2022 to 2023, demonstrating a net gain of
0734% over time since 2022 and also 14% greater than it was in 1819. As Mrs. Brown described in the previous slide, we continue to close the gap between our proficiency and that of the state as a whole at all grade levels. Current proficiency is greater than it was pre- pandemic with double digit gains at every grade level except grade six. Next slide please. Uh this is um the following chart contains the district-wide performance by cohort from 2023 to 2025. So by way of example students who were in third grade across the district in 22 23 were 29% proficient. Then that same group of students over time in fifth grade during 2024 and 2025 were 46% proficient demonstrating a gain of 17%. So that's a student to student apple comparison. Next slide please. Thank you. Preliminary
074reports of statewide proficiency for math in 2025 was 55%. The following chart is our our hour math performance for the last four academic years. And like ELA includes 2018 2019 data as a preandemic reference point. Level one and level two have decreased steadily as level three and level four have increased steadily with an overall gain in New York State math profic proficiency of 15 percentage points from 2022 to 2025. Again, it is important to note that the tw the 2023 2024 assessment marked the shift from the common core learning standards to the nextG learning standards, which required small but significant curricular shifts. We also shifted fully to computer-based testing this past year. Next slide, please. So, the following chart contains the district-wide grade level performance over four years. Um the green highlight as stated before
075represents a gain over time of greater than 3% since 2021 to 2022. In all grades there is a consistent upward trajectory of proficiency from 2021 2022 to 2024 2025. These gains are significant with a gain in overall proficiency over four years of 16% in grade three 14% in grade four. As noted in ELA, we have also included the proficiency across the state and how that compares to our proficiency rate. Next slide, please. On this slide, you can see there was a gain in overall proficiency proficiency over four years of 22% in grade five and 11% in grade six. Next slide, please. So, grades seven and eight results also trend in a positive direction over time. When we're including the entire cohort, there has been a gain in overall proficiency of 15% in grade seven and
0766% in grade eight. Um, the reason you see grade seven in two separate spots and grade eight in two separate spots is because a handful of our grade seven students and some in grade eight take the algebra regions as opposed to the grade level math exam. So that is why you see the data for these two grades further disagregated at all grade levels. Current proficiency is greater than it was pre- pandemic with double digit gains at every grade level except grade 8. Next slide please. Similarly uh to ELA we've also included our proficiency rates by cohort for math. So by way of example students who were in third grade across the district in 2223 were 35% proficient. And then that same group of students a year later in fourth grade um during the 2425 school
077year were 40% proficient gaining demonstrating a gain of 3% over time but still 2% lower than the previous year. Um as our fourth and fifth graders transition to middle school uh we note a slight but still significant decrease in proficiency in math which we will attend to later in the presentation. Next slide please. Here you'll see our New York State 3 through8 data proficiency by race and ethnicity. Overall, the ELA and math proficiency rate for our black, African-American, Hispanic, Latino, and multi-racial students continues to fall behind our white students. In alignment with our equity goals, we remain deeply committed to raising achievement for all students and have done so. In both ELA and math, proficiency has increased across most of our racial and ethnic groups in the 2425 school year with the exception of our
078Hispanic Latino students with a 1% dip in ELA and our Asian students with a 2% dip in math. That said, the achievement gap persists among our white and non-white students and as such there remains to be work done. Next slide, please. >> Oh, sorry. This is me, too. Here we highlight some of the trends from the previous shared data. As noted, there has been an upward trajectory and proficiency from the 21-22 school year to the 2425 school year. Our gains over four years are shared with notable proficiency gains at grade 5 in both math and ELA. And we are above our prepandemic proficiency at all grade levels 3 through eight. The next two slides contain our elementary NWA trends. Next slide. Next slide, please. Thank you. Displayed are are our NWA map reading data for
079spring 2022 through spring 2025. The scale score percentage and the growth score or CGP or conditional growth percentile are shown for each grade level. The CGP provides information about response to instruction. When students achieve at the 50th percentile on average, that means students are making a year's growth for a year of instruction. From 2022 through 2025, our data consistently shows that students are growing at least one year for each year of instruction. This study growth may be attributed to the adoption of our Hegy Hegrity Bridge to reading program which provides a strong foundation in early literacy skills and knowledge building unit plans for wonders. Next slide, please. From 2022 to 2025, our NWA math data consistently shows that students are growing like ELA at least one year for each year of instruction. The data suggests
080that we are maintaining positive trends over this 4-year period despite full implementation of our new elementary math resource, Illustrative Math. Generally, there's a dip that follows the implementation. In this case, we have had solid growth in 2023 during pilot activity with the resource followed by a year of maintaining those gains during our full year of implementation. Next slide, please. All right. So, NWA at the middle level. So, for middle school, it's important to note that as students progress to the higher grade levels, CGP becomes a less informative measure of student growth. Um, for students who are proficient and above, the growth they are expected to make from fall to spring is negligible, which typically falls in the standard error. So, for example, in grade 8 ELA, um, the mean projected growth is 3.65. Um, when
081students who are in the upper quintiles do not meet projected growth, it does not typically translate into dramatically lower achievement. But in highlighting the mean CGP, uh, the actual growth of the students in the lower quintiles is under reppresented. The overall reading data scale score percentile is relatively unchanged from 22 to 25. The CGP has seen a modest improvement from the in the same time period and generally improvement in the CGP happens first followed by gains in percentile score. Next slide please. In math the overall scale score data has improved over time. The overall growth data um for 2025 is still greater than 2022 but has declined from 2023 levels. The CGP improved significantly in grade seven and grade 8 from 22 to 23. And while it has declined since, it is still significantly greater
082than the 2022 score. Grade six has fluctuated over time, but still represents an overall improvement. Next slide, please. These charts show the disproportionality in both scale percentile scores and growth scores. Although the gap is not as wide in the growth scores, as stated in the elementary analysis, we are attentive to disproportionality in achievement outcomes and design instruction and intervention. um in response to that data. As such, it is reasonable to conclude that our targeted efforts to grow such to grow students who are not yet proficient are working as evidenced by the less disparit gap in CGP. Next slide, please. We also included the middle school pass rates. Um this chart reflects end of the year pass rates for 22 from 2022 to 2025 in the four core subjects. North Albany has shown great improvement since
0832022 and Meyers and Hackett have shown little variability over those four years and is really indicative of I think stabilizing post pandemic. Uh next slide please. Next slide please. In terms of our next steps um our next steps are grounded in our school improvement plans. While they are nuanced in every building, the focus of each remains aligned to our vision, mission, and goals with emphasis on fostering cognitive engagement and amplifying student voice at the elementary level. >> That's okay. [laughter] Um, and a shift to focusing on differentiation at the secondary level in order to accelerate learning for all from those not yet proficient to those exceeding grade level proficiency by wide margins. analyzing student performance on formative and summitive assessments and planning in response to that performance continues to be a focus of our common
084planning time as as at as as grade level teams as does strengthening our mindsets and practices in the context of the MTSSI framework which stands for multi-tered system of supports that are integrated um which is grounded in taking a problem solving approach to better serve the whole child. We [snorts] know we must dig deeper into our students transition to middle school. Um, we've really strengthened systems to support um, uh, to ensure a better supported social transition um, by designing several opportunities for students and families to acclimate to middle school. And now we must really take a deeper dive into the academic transition um, to better support our students. Our DIP goal, which is our district comprehensive improve improvement plan this year include more specific, more explicitly articulating a systemwide instructional framework in order to strengthen
085a shared understanding and implementation of best practices K12. And with that, we are happy to take any questions and feedback. >> Thank you very much. Bless you. I really love this presentation. It's very helpful. That's new format. It's great. Um questions. >> None currently. Thank you. >> Mininovi. >> So I guess my one question would be we must did we tell you to give you a whole like did did we ask you guys to give us a whole bunch of numbers because that was a lot of numbers. >> You said that last year too. >> Oh did I? [laughter] So, I'm consistent. >> Um, >> well, I'm going to say what I said to the auditor. Um, it sounds like we're closing gaps. Um, maybe not necessarily as um well as we would like specifically
086with regards to the demographic divides. Um but if I saw correctly, it did seem like the percentages were um essentially the same across demographics. It's just that they started lower. one of one of them started lower or um yeah I just I think the the n like the percentage that we closed the gap but was equal but they're just at different levels right now. That's that's what I saw briefly >> loosely I would say yes. >> Okay. Um, do you either of you think these gains have anything to do with um the switch to computer-based testing or the new standards that you guys mentioned because it those came in, you know, two years ago essentially. Um, do you see any kind of correlation there? >> I would say no. Um, I attribute the growth to
087really um being very intentional about the professional development we're doing with staff um around particular instructional practices. At the elementary level, um we really credit Miss McGra and Miss Morphe with aligning across ELA and math in terms of best practices. They have a tier one guide for teachers and really reinforce a lot of professional de development through their coaches and then the coaches then um support that in the building. Um that's the first thing that comes to mind and I see Mrs. Brown nodding so I think we're in agreement there. Um I am we're really pleased that we didn't see an implementation dip with computer-based testing um because I think the adults were more worried about it than the children. um the children really acclimated to doing their work on computers after the pandemic and
088um and we did not uh we were a little nervous especially I think about math because of you know having white space to do calculations and such and and so we're really pleased to see that that wasn't ne a negative impact um but we don't attribute I think jumps in proficiency to that we would attribute it to the work that we've done um and and really focusing on our common planning time and action research and really trying to look at students as individuals and design interventions that are for individual students and their individual needs. And I'll see if Miss Brown wants to add anything. She's good. >> Sounds great. Thank you. >> Perfect. Thank you, >> Miss Man. >> Well, I want to thank you for a a a wonderful presentation. Um, and it's it's
089interesting because during the time I've been on the board, I've seen these increases over time and I appreciated your comment about being very intentional to kind of close the gap. Um, and so, um, and so that's really my comment and I think if we remain consistent on that, at some point the gap will be closed. But, um, but I do thank you, >> Miss Savage. So I wanted to really recognize you for the improvements in the quality of the report and the way the data was presented and in particular the clarity that you have listened to the board meeting from last year on this same subject and therefore it feels like a true cycle of continuous improvement on the reporting mechanism so that we don't have to ask the same questions every year. It's so
090great and I really love it and I would like Miss Timmons if you would to roll back to the first slide that has content on it. um not the mission and vision but the it's I think it's slide four the first um content slide which shows how Albany is doing versus New York State because this was not a topic that we highlighted um at the top of our materials before and I think it's something that's really meaningful to the community and really meaningful to the board because we think you all are magic. We really do like the work that you do with students is in fact magical to most people but we know that you cannot immediately jump in one year from where we are to where we need to be. But I'm sure the
091slide's going to pop up at some point. But to know Oh, there it is. Excellent. That was like magic. Look at that on Q. To be able to see that Albany increased by 15% in LA while the state only increased in 8%. The Albany increased by 13% in math and the state only increased by 6%. That is really significant achievement for our district. That doesn't mean it's good enough. It doesn't mean there's not plenty of work to do, but it does mean that there is real meaningful improvement happening at the at the district scale. And that is something to keep um our uh front and center that we're doing the work and we're having a result and we're getting better. Um, and so one thing I was wondering if we could add that was all
092in by way of commentary, but in the future I would be interested in seeing that state level at the subgroup level. Like I know that our students we we want our students to be performing where race is non-predictive of performance. That's what we want completely. That is clearly our goal. But are we closing the gap on the subgroup at the subgroup level at the same rate across subgroups or at different rates across subgroups? that would be really interesting information for us to have. Um, and then I wanted to ask a question as well, which is could you guys hypothesize a little bit about math? I appreciate that this number is going up, right? I get that that we're doing better than the state, but I'm still kind of alarmed by some of the math outcomes,
093right? I'm alarmed by the very low percentage um proficient in the middle school levels um and the low pass rates in some ways. Um, and sometimes, and I'm I've kind of lost the thread now because I'm not looking at all at the same time, but it seemed like in some cases the pass rate in the class wasn't predictive of the behavior on the state testing and and that it varied from school to school. And that just made me a little nervous. I'm like, if our if our class material is not properly preparing the students for success on the state testing, that's kind of on us. So I would expect the school pass rate and the NWA proficient rate to be I mean the state proficiency rate to kind of be moving in the same direction
094and I didn't necessarily see that. So anything you want to share about what's going on for us in math and why we're struggling so much I'd really appreciate. So a couple things um one is that um and Miss McGra could speak to this so well if she was sitting here right now. Um there are certain like math kind of tricks, shortcuts, right, that you can teach students um that help them perform at a particular grade level for those particular standards. And what she would say is that we are disservicing our students by leaning into those tricks at a particular grade level. They pay for it on the back end from a conceptual understanding standpoint later on um at the middle level. And so that is something that we have lifted and are dialing into. And
095she's really focused with her math coaches at the elementary level. And when she sees those sort of like quick tricks um that help with those grade level standards of broadening our teachers understanding of the vertical progression of the standard um over time. And so that's something that um folks are working on. I had a second thought, but it flew out of my brain. Do you want to add anything, Mrs. Brown? Yeah, >> on the elementary level, I would just second that. Um, our last two meetings with um our administrators, we've been doing work about some of that foundational um work that needs to happen at the primary levels. Um, and what Miss Hulahan said is absolutely correct. We really have been working with teachers around not teaching tricks. um and the understanding of how that
096harms students um in in future grades. I can't speak necessarily to the the secondary level um but we are trying to do our work on the the elementary side to make sure students um aren't feeling that once they they leave our buildings. >> I remember and I'll just do one followup and then I'll be done. But one of the pieces of research I remember maybe one of your colleagues reported on um or maybe I read someplace else I don't remember is that um a teacher's love of math is highly predictive of their students performance in math. Um, and I just wondered if we have put thought into our professional development that that that love of math, um, and y'all know I'm kind of a mathy person. Um, is something that can be, um, can be
097really cultivated in teachers, especially in elementary teachers who maybe weren't super mathy and didn't go into elementary education because they love math. Um, but that cultivating that love of math and that understanding of the beauty of math and the um, the way math can explain the world. if teachers believe and feel that their students feel that. I mean, that's what the research seemed to suggest. So, anything we're doing on the professional development because that feels to me like an authentic way to to say the tricks isn't it. It's understanding the magic that math brings to the world. So, um I'd love to hear when you do the professional development report whether that's some kind of a kind of professional development. It's really deep professional development, right? That's not like here's how to set up your
098classroom professional development. It's like deep. Um, so I'd I'd love to know that when when we come back to that. >> Miss Grey, >> thank you for the presentation. It was very easy to understand and there was so much good news in it. It really is exciting. Um, I loved seeing the growth overall both in the um percentages of students that are proficient in each subject and in the growth numbers. I loved seeing the racial gap closing. And one thing I really loved seeing is at the middle school level how we now have three middle schools that are roughly equal in academic performance. And we were able to do that by growing performance at one significantly without uh significantly decreasing the performance of the others. So what we aimed to do with the middle school
099reconfiguration it would appear is working. And you know, it's a fantastic job on the part of everyone and the staff that made that happen and the work we did to put that together. And yet, we still have pockets of certain elementary schools and and this is something that we've talked about um when we've talked about reallocating resources. We we have certain elementary schools that are struggling to produce very many high performing students. So, we've got to figure out how to reproduce the successes of some of our elementary schools throughout the district and I have confidence that you can do that. So, thank you so much, >> M. Wilson. >> Thank you, of course, for your um presentation. It is wonderful to see the gains um since co as a baseline. I do know that um
100when I was campaigning I was concurrent with that uh waiver of the standards and people were like oh well those percentages there were waivers and you know so seeing that in a national climate where literacy and fluency is seeing a dip or decline um all students have access to the internet and increased screen time and we have a new landscape of AI that we are indeed making these gains especially um pointing to the PD and how that's allowing us across the district to be in alignment in terms of our delivery, but every school is maintaining their unique school identities, whether um being community school, magnetic themes with their own mission, vision, and goals. Just hats off. Um I'm curious if there's two questions. First is are there just seeing the disparity um between our students
101who are black Hispanic and their performance are is there data or research from anywhere um statewide nationally concerning the cultural competence of the exams and why certain students see outcomes you know because I just found that the the distance between um the students to be interesting and you know race being a social construct I'm [laughter] just curious um if that has any impact and that was this one question and if I could ask my second question just to but double them is are there any data about students who had um prek early childhood exposure versus those who may be came to us in kindergarten and if there's any sort of um gains and being that we're on government relations can we advocate for wider expansion and access to those things and if they have impact
102on performance on um exams So currently we haven't necessarily looked at the um early childhood data in that way. Um I do think we could probably disagregate the data to look at it and get back to you in regards to that. >> Can you pull up SL page eight slide eight? So if one was to look at the grade seven right 20 23 24 versus 2425 we have that slight drop going from 33 to 28%. And you you see that reflected across all the tiers but we seem to be gaining a lot more in tier ones >> right so is it just because you know it's not the same students that we are tracking right it's like some people move from four to three four to two it's it's I understand it's hard to answer
103this question but I'm going to ask it anyway still that that 6% um gain in tier ones as compared to all the others which the difference is not that much. Um, you know, is it is it what's happening there? Do you see what I'm saying? >> No, I missed the first part of the question because I was focused on >> Mson's other question. [laughter] >> Okay. >> Sorry. Could you repeat it? >> So, if you go to groups uh grade seven, right, and you look at the 23 24 versus 2425, you see overall there's a small drop 33% to 28%. And you can track that in all the other tiers, but tier one which would be the most vulnerable population or the most targeted population if you may, they seem to be jumping up 6%.
104And and that is not a trend you typically see in any of the other grades. So what's happening there in grade seven? SELA, not math. So >> seventh grade is such a tough year, right? Like it's just it is such a tough year. We have always struggled in seventh grade. Um in ELA, we definitely had brand new staff in seventh grade last year. Um almost across the board, I think in almost every building. Um so I would attribute some of it to staff turnover. Um, but I'm recognizing certainly what you're saying here is that our level one students, which is our our least proficient students, that's where that loss happened. >> Um, and so I wish I had a better answer. Um, and I would love to talk to um, Miss Morphe and then for
105the two of us to sit and look at like disagregating that a little bit further um, to provide an update. Um, but I don't have anything that's coming immediately to mind. >> That's fine. That's fine. I mean, I just pointed because that looked odd. It's not consistent across like the the most vulnerable population is actually jumping up much more in >> slipped from twos to ones in that case. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> But but I once again this this this beautiful presentation. >> It's so much more clearer in understanding. I mean you put the deltas and for anybody who is not in the field of education if they read the thing and they follow through it maybe you have to read it twice but you'll still get it right. Um I mean
106it has to be numbers because that's what it's all about. Um but I love the way it's made for so kudos on that. >> Thank you. Could I please go back to Miss Wilson's question? Oh >> yeah. >> Okay. Wait. Yeah. Go ahead. >> Okay. So, Miss Wilson's first question um around the disparity and the any research around the cultural competency of the exams um I can't cite any specific research um but I can say anecdotally this is always a concern um and I would say it's particularly a concern from my lens in ELA um because background knowledge and um vocabulary are gatekeepers to comprehension um and so if the passage that you have to read is about turtles and you don't know anything about turtles, you don't have background information upon which you can
107rely um to read at a higher level. Um there's a study that goes a long way back. It's um called the baseball study and it was a really comprehensive study about looking at students at all four levels of kids who know a lot about baseball and are higher readers, kids who know nothing about baseball and are lower readers and then in the middle somebody who knows a lot about baseball um but is testing at a lower reading level and somebody who knows a lot about baseball. I think I said that backwards. But the main idea, the main idea is that the group that knows a lot about baseball, even though they read at a lower level, outperform those who don't know anything about baseball and are reading at a higher level. And that's a really
108well-sighted study. So when passages are selected, it is really critical um to be thinking about cultural competency. Um and and that's where I think I'm most excited about the changes coming with New York Inspires um and how there will be other ways for students and I don't know what it's going to look like at the middle level but at the high school level um certainly there are going to be multiple measures of uh multiple ways to uh assess success um you know portfolios, performance-based assessments, things of that nature. And clearly we will need to do a lot of work to backward map that um through the middle level in elementary for students to be prepared to what does it mean to develop a portfol writing portfolio? What does it mean to have a performance-based assessment?
109Um and that's really exciting work um that I think will at least mitigate on some level the bias that exists in standardized testing um for our students. >> You're welcome. Yes, firstly just to like comment on your presentation. It was wonderful. The data is so specific and is really fulfilling to see especially as a student to see how much care and attention is being paid to the students and the progress to know how fully to like support the students to make it easier for like tertiary my apologies turt education and like entering into high school. So it is very fulfilling to see. >> Thank you. Miss Savage. >> So, I am going to channel a question that I was secretly tested by our texted by our board member who is not here. Um, and so
110this is not my question, but I'm going to do my best to ask it. If we can slide forward to the NWA map slide, which is around like 18 or 19. It's towards the end. >> Additional results. >> Way towards the end. I think it's slide 19. >> Uh, that's reading. Next one. There we go. Um, so Mr. Wolf Gang was doing sort of like a mini cohort analysis here and noting that there's something sort of unique about second grade. And I looked at it and I actually wonder if maybe there's even possibly something fluky with second grade or a typo. But if you look at our second graders in the spring of 2023, that's our nice little happy green there. There's like one green that's not uh and then you do sort of a
111cohort model where you go down, you know, little step down, step down, 52, 44, 39. So it looks like that particular group of students really like was on flying high in second grade and something bad happened to them as they progressed. But that does not seem to be the pattern at every grade level. If I look, you know, at the first graders, they go 47 4740. The next um the third graders go 39 40 38. So, it doesn't seem like it's a pattern, but it does seem like something maybe unusual with that cohort. And I'm wondering if you guys had already identified that as a >> Can I just And I was also reading this a little different than um remember um Wolf Gang. Um so, I read it horizontally. So I assumed that first
112grade means they were in first grade in 2022 and then you moved on that they were in second grade in 2023. So you're not going down, you're going right. >> But you're going down and right. >> Are you going down and right, >> right? Because the students who were in first grade in 2022 were in second grade in 23. They were in third grade in 24. So you got to do >> So you're going down and right. Um, and and I always keep in mind with even with the cohort analysis that you did present, I think it's really important that we always keep in mind a lot of our students are coming and going. So, it's it's not necessarily truly the same students. There's a huge percentage of turnover, which I would love to see.
113I think it would be a really great informatic some someday to have. They have these like flow flowcharts now. And I don't mean like old school flowchart like my dad used to draw with the diagrams, right? I mean, the ones that look like children are coming from home school, coming from this charter school, coming from this private school, and they're coming into the district, and then they're going out of the district every year. Like, it would be really interesting to be able to visualize that, but we know that there's a certain percentage of our students who who come and go each year. But in any case, back to Mr. Wolf Gang's question. I don't know if you guys have noticed this or what you have any hypothesis about this. >> So, I don't have any
114information about that particular second grade cohort. What I can tell you is the exam shifts for students from second to third grade. So it goes from a listening exam to a reading exam. So normally on the building level, we may see a dip from second grade to third grade with a particular cohort just because the way they take the exam um is different from year to year. I can definitely dig into why that particular cohort might look that way. Um, but I don't have that level of analysis tonight for you. >> Sounds good. Yeah. I mean, interestingly, you don't see that if you do the like if you look at the second grade. Second grade in 22 goes 40. Third grade in 23 is 39. 4740. It's a little bit of a dip there. So,
115it's it's interesting. Okay. Well, it's a it's definitely an anomaly in the data. So, curious. Any other questions? If not, great job. Thanks again. Okay, we haven't heard anything about that uh contract, right, >> Miss Brown? We haven't heard anything about the contract, right? So the contract we tabled KR analytics >> no I think it was Laura >> there were two I think that I was getting some information on I'm sorry um so the KR analytics contract that was tabled um the last page of the contract may [clears throat] have had the information you guys were looking for so it was not added in the correct spot um and I'm I only got some information that may not be enough for you in regards to the Dr. ASAF contract. So that may need to be
116tabled until next >> ABS. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> We'll table number 14. That's the one that we we hadn't voted on. >> No, 14. Dr. Laura SF number 14. 14 and >> 16 was KR analy analytics. >> Yes. And >> where we didn't vote on it because we didn't have the information. >> Yes. YMCA passed. >> Everything else is unanimous. So 14 will go to the next board meeting. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, moving on to the budget calendar process and overview. All right. Good evening. Um, it's kind of hard to believe that we're just starting November and we're starting to talk about the 2627 budget. So, it's like we just started the school year and now we're starting to think about the next school year on the financial side. Um so
117with this calendar, it's the first draft to start the discussion, the transparency to make sure that uh our community and our um staff have the opportunity to see what we do, how we do, and to be involved while we start talking about the budget and how we're moving forward. Um just a couple things like the upcoming bigger events for me is that uh we will be asking our community members and and every year that we start doing this or I do this with the uh budget advisory committee, it gets better and better. Uh the conversations get better. Um, so coming into my third uh budget advisory committee season, I I'm hoping that it's a good robust learning experience for the community and myself. A lot of good perspectives um come out of it as well.
118So I I I enjoy that time. Um but again, so we will be advertising at the end of November to ask for our community to become involved with our budget advisory committee. Uh they will be hopefully board appointed. Um on the 1218 agenda, so that gives us about three weeks to four weeks for people to sign up and to become involved. Um but there's other things on this calendar. Again, this is the draft, so I'm I have to double check all my dates, how they correspond with the days of the week, and to make sure that I could backtrack my days to the budget calendar that we were required to follow through with our budget vote as well in May. Um, so I think last year we had maybe three renditions of the budget calendar.
119So I'm hoping that we will have two. Uh, this year it's just again small progress. I hope is good progress. Um, but either way, even while we're working through the draft, it's good to have that timeline out there in front of our community for the transparency and to uh help shape what we look at with our budget. So, um, in the upcoming, uh, agendas, you'll probably see this again as we do the revisions. Um, so I'm hoping that by the end of November, early December, you will adopt the budget calendar and, uh, we could have it not say draft anymore. That's about it. questions. Miss Priml, >> no comments currently. >> Okay, Miss Man, >> it's hard to believe we're at that time of the year again. Um, but I have no comments and I
120look forward to just continued updates throughout. Thank you, >> Miss Savage. >> I of course have comments. I love the budget calendar. It gives me an artificial sense of control that things will run according to plan. Of course, we're totally at the whim of the governor and the New York State Assembly, but I like the concept that I have some control over this. Um, so I do have a couple of comments that I picked out. Um, and I have I had less time than I expected to to review this, so I apologize. I'll probably have some more comments later, but um, on the December 18th date, it says board members will convey questions to staff regarding reports by January 3rd through a schoolboard update. Something needs to be corrected there because we don't communicate schoolboard
121updates flow from the cabinet to the board, not the other way around. So, something just needs to be rewarded there to make it clear how you want feedback. Do you want feedback or questions prior to January 3rd and you're going to give us responses by January 3rd or what? Something something is not quite right there. um February 5th, 2026, which is the date um changes required submissions to the Civil Rights Bureau. I'm 95% sure if I remember correctly, that is only to do with polling places and polling mechanisms, not about the budget itself, which was super fresh for us last year because this was just happening. But now I was like, what was that again? So maybe that could be clarified that this has to do just with the polling um processes um not with
122the budget itself. That's on February 5th. And then um I believe April 16th is the first time you have it identified as a potential date for us to adopt. um which is fine, but I would like there to be a note there that before we adopt, we want to see it as it's going to be displayed to the community in the final newsletter. And I think that belongs on that April 16th date. Um many of you will recall that we did have a miscommunication one year a few years back where the way we were looking at it was different than the way it was presided in the cal the communication to the community. the grand total was the same, but the categories were different and it led to some um confusion and surprises. So, I
123just want to see it the way we're going well the way it's going to display to the community before I vote to adopt it. And then last comment, um right now I know you're going to fix these dates. there's a little um backwardsness to April 30th and April 28th and whatever, but I do think it's always a good idea for us to have a date set aside that's like our emergency date. Um, and I would propose that we amend our board meeting calendar to put a meeting on April 23, which I think is is a Thursday. Um, April's April behaves nicely for us in terms of budget calendar this year because the break is quite early, but April 23rd would be the last possible Thursday that we could adopt the budget and still make the
124mailing dates and all of that. So, I'd like us all to put it on our personal calendars like right now that we might have to meet then and to put it on the public district calendar as a meeting. We can always cancel it if we adopt earlier and we don't need it, but I just I know scheduling is a nightmare, so I'd like to get it on the calendar now. So, I'd like it to be in the budget calendar and on the public calendar that an April 23rd meeting is anticipated and we can always cancel. And that is the end of my questions or comments. It's on our calendar already. >> Saying in the microphone so that people at home listening to the tape can hear. Miss Timonss, our amazing board clerk, is pointing out
125that we already did that. We must have had that conversation before, but it didn't make it onto the budget calendar. So, it just needs to be added here. Thank you, Miss Timonss. Miss Grey, >> I just wanted to thank you for the calendar and yeah, it's it's hard to believe that this is coming around for another year. And of course, for many of us, for [clears throat] many of us, we've done this before that the exciting thing is this is the first year we have a student board member participating. So I encourage our student board representatives as we go through this process to to do not be afraid to ask questions and you know confer with confer with your colleagues about any questions you may have and because if you don't understand it there's definitely
126people watching at home that or perhaps some of us as well that don't understand it and questions really help uh make the process more comprehensible to everyone. So thank you. Actually, I'm gonna, if you don't mind, I'll just chime in that the TOM on this process, the team operations manual component on the budget review explains some of the terminology like rollover budget and whatnot. And we tried to write that in a way that it would be um understandable by pretty much anyone. So, I would love feedback. If you look at that and it's not clear, we would love to change it and make it better. >> Miss Wilson, >> thank you for your presentation. I know that time and availability being a luxury that it's we get um people who are naturally interested or have
127the availability to be on the um board community budget committee. I'm curious, do we use a matrix of sort to make sure that we have representation whether it be for example um homeowners without children um former students alumni just in terms of representation and now that we have a student BOE rep will students or a student or students be included? >> So uh I know our communication allows anybody to try to join or do they do join. I don't think I've turned anybody away. Um I welcome students to join. I I think it's a great learning experience. I um in my previous districts, I used to do presentations for our student body just to show them where the numbers come from and what we do behind the scenes in a school district. So I would
128welcome that. Um but with our course communications, we try to reach out to everybody that is interested in um being involved. Yes. >> Can I suggest that we also um when we do that outreach because I've seen them come out um with the graphics and things. Can there also be a link to nominate someone >> to join like someone you think would be like almost like a referral or something of that nature? I'm already at that. >> And while we while we do that, can we also get a cliffnotes version of what are the categories in the budget? So that when when the information does go out in the newsletter, you know, there's a primer of sorts that people can go to the website, understand, okay, this is what these things mean, whoever is interested.
129I mean, right? So we're always looking for money. I mean, one one season ended, so it's a never- ending story. >> No, we are looking for money. So, and things cost things. I mean, there's always needs and wants and we got to prioritize stuff, >> you know. So, I'm not surprised that we're already there, but you know, at least I think uh we we've done this enough times that we sort of are primed to do it, right? No, I I think the harder part is the excitement and the gearing up for the current year and then all of a sudden it's like you have two months and you go right back into the budget season, which is it's that's bittersweet. It's just that we're looking this year is like behind me already. So, it's that's
130the odd part. >> That's why my favorite month is June when we're only celebrating everything. >> Yes, [snorts] 100%. Any other questions, folks? >> I just feel like a recurring theme um it was during the Ash presentation and it came up during our K8 assessment was gain and maintain and so thinking of you like getting an approval for a budget and then we go right back into maintaining what we did. So, it's just a reoccurring theme throughout this evening. >> Thank you. >> Board committee reports. facilities. So, um I honestly can't remember if facilities met before or after our last meeting, but we did meet with uh Mr. Caris and Superintendent uh and we discussed our priorities for the building uh survey and the five-year plan. Um we are still, you know, keeping an eye
131on any of the um issues relating to the high school uh building and finishing that project off. Uh on the 10th or 11th of this next week, uh the historic stained glass windows are going to be installed at the high school. Um, so that's very exciting. Um, yeah, I think that I think that about sums it up. >> Uh, unless uh one of uh my committee other committee members has additional points that they'd like to add. this man audit for you. I know we we discussed the >> Yeah, the audit committee met um last week and um and the results of that was today where um the uh audit was presented. Um and I don't it was it was a it was a great audit. It was it was clean. It was a fantastic discussion.
132Um and I really don't have anything else to add. I would yield to um to board member Savage if she had anything to add. No. Okay. >> And that's all we got. We'll meet again in a uh I think about six weeks. >> Yeah, about six weeks. So, >> okay. Crying policy. >> No, hasn't hasn't met. And won't we'll meet uh let me look. We will meet next Wednesday. Government relations ad hoc routine cons you can just >> I'll just do the thing. Uh government relations nothing new. I previously reported Mr. Leco is working away in our legislative priorities. We expect to have those shortly. Um I anticipate although I have not confirmed that with Mr. Leco maybe superintendent do you know is he aiming for that for two weeks from today? I would think
133so because that's about our normal timing >> for the uh board >> legislative priorities. >> I think it's uh slated for the 4th of December. >> Okay, great. So that so that's where we are on government relations. This is of course the sort of building up time because we are waiting for the state of the state which will yield the governor's executive budget um which really leads into everything. But we often do meet with our local delegation um before that happens. So we'll see what we're able to to put together. Um ad hoc routine consent. Miss Hulahan who was here earlier and Mr. Caris continue to work hard on trying to uh correlate our field trip field trip and conference request forms to the policy to the um regulations. So they're making good progress on
134that. Um, and we expect to meet again on the 17th of November. Um, so that's coming up and I know everybody's emails have been popping with organizing school visits and it seems like we're making good progress on getting our school visits um, lined up. So, thank you everyone for being attentive to your email and responsive to the to the requests. And thank you, Miss Timonss, because every email that you guys get, she is sending seven times that many emails because there's seven of us. So, there's a lot of email going. So, thank you very much for all of the work you do to make that happen. We appreciate you. >> Okay, other items hearing none. May I have a motion to reenter uh executive session? Miss man, Miss Cree, all in favor? Thank you. That'll
135be all tonight, guys. Uh we won't be coming back to public meeting. So, good night.