001Good evening. My name is Sha 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 members, uh, Carmen and Ka. Um, good to see you. I missed you at the last meeting. Um, member Almanavi, member man, uh, Secretary Kachchi, member Savage, member Austin, uh, and superintendent and some of the board members here. Um, Vice President, uh, Wilson is not is unable to join us today. This meeting is being livereamed and the instructions to view the meeting as well as a link to the agenda, including all the documents we will discuss, are available at albschools.org. This is a good time for me to note that if you're here tonight to speak in public comment, you
002should sign up with Miss Timmons, our board clerk here to my right. And with that introduction, I invite those of you who choose to join us as we stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the standy. In addition to the pledge of allegiance, we always focus our meaning 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. Uh, Super Hawkright, do you have a report for us? >> I do. >> And u before you give us your update, maybe the student board members, I believe they had something to say. uh some issues that you want to raise to the board. You
003get three minutes and then um you know, Secretary Kichi will time you. So go ahead. >> Thank you very much. So we've been spending a lot of time recently asking around our school and working with our peers to learn of some concerns that have been seen around um specifically Albany High School. And one of the main concerns we've has been hearing so far, one of the forefront issues that many students have had grievances towards has been certain behaviors from home monitors. Um, home monitors aren't many students feel that hall monitors aren't properly informed of their specific duties and aren't fulfilling their duties. Um, many students are suffering to where they aren't stationed anywhere near restrooms. So many students are being forced to search around the school and it takes up a very big portion of
004class time. Um many students have also expressed that they feel that they are behaving um rather inappropriately with students. For example, some have said they've been asking for personal social medias from students. Um many other many of other students feel as if they're specifically uh picking favor favoritism um being cordial towards towards certain students whereas they're being more strict and more enforcing towards others. We've gathered some um personal anonymous statements from students. Um and I will read that really quickly. Um, multiple times I've seen students get through security with some home monitors permitting students to get through the with their phones, whereas they actually enforce phone policy rules onto many other students. Um, it makes me feel as if there's favoritism going on. Another student says that home monitors aren't allowing students into bathrooms during
005passing periods despite the fact that signage on bathrooms only enforces locked bathrooms during the first and last 10 minutes of a class period. Um, another student has said that hall monitors have been said to ask students to pull down their belts. Um, and some students feel as if they're being as during being searched, they feel as if it they've been touched inappropriately. Um, and overall, many students have feel as if they're they've they feel very uncomfortable. So what many students feel as if we want from home monitors is stricter regulations um understanding what their specific roles are rather than just befriending certain students um and just reinforcing that their um need to be more on a an appropriate behavior with other students. That's what we would like to push forward. Thank you very much. >>
006Thank you. >> Okay. Oh, the other Oh, I'm >> uh there was a second one we did want to bring up or should we wait for the Do we go ahead? >> Just go ahead. >> Okay. Our second issue that we would like to bring up is the passes for the elevators aren't working. Students are always students are struggling to get working passes for elevators within Albany High School. This is a serious issue seeing as there are many students who must have access to elevators due to physical disabilities. Many of these students with faulty passes are forced to seek down hall monitors who frequently aren't near any elevators. Students are stressed be to be arriving late to classes on time. Yet this issue slows down many students ability to do so. Multiple students are facing
007this frequently occurring disadvantage feel that this is a violation of their 504 plan with some of them even considering legal action. We have gathered a few personal statements from students with one of them saying that how last week he was on crotches due to a knee injury. He got a work he got a pass from the innovation academy nurse's office which was not working. When he went back to the nurse's office, he got in contact with another student who said that how herd stopped working a years ago and said that how it was demagnetized and whenever he wants to go in the elevator during that passing week, he had to call over a home monitor. Another statement comes from a girl who has arthritis who has to use a mobility wheelchair. Whenever she wants to
008go on the elevator, she has to call over a hall monometer. Her father has expressed his frustration and has even talked about pursuing legal action against the school. And only when this was mentioned to her um sorry to her social worker did she get working pass the next day. We do want to emphasize how this is a serious issue for students and this is a direct violation of their 504 plan. We want it fixed by giving out well-working passes for immobile students or just making it less difficult to get one and being consistent in preventing this issue from happening at all. Thank you for listening to us. >> Thank you. Now, just like we mentioned in public comment, of course, you didn't mention any names, so that's good. We want to make sure that uh
009everybody is treated with dignity and so we don't we don't name names of people here. The other thing that we'd mentioned at public comment to all the people who address the board is that have you first gone through your chain of command? So in the high school, have you talked to your uh building principal? Have you talked to your academic principal, building principal? And if those issues have not been addressed, then bring it up the chain to the assistant superintendent to the superintendent and then the board. Right? because the the board is not in the buildings but the the staff are and so they may be able to fix things quickly. We need some time to look at it, investigate and then of course we will definitely look into this but thank you for bringing
010uh that information to the board. Okay, Mr. Sen, >> I know Miss Timonss is working on the uh PowerPoint. Okay, so a few updates uh as we close our second month of school already. Uh as folks know, tomorrow um school is closed for a little bit of professional development and teacher conferences, continuing teacher conferences. And tomorrow we're having a professional development uh session at Albany High School uh with some elementary and middle school staff members, our CTE department, some of our homeschool coordinators um and others to talk about what a future ready Albany looks like. Uh we have some friends from the Department of Labor that are going to come and share uh some regional and Albany city specific statistics on job markets and um employment sector needs, what is here presently and what is
011uh on the horizon. Uh we will have our new CTE director um excuse me uh new CTE director will be presenting her vision for what CTE looks like not just in the high school but K12. And then uh these individuals will also experience uh a tour of the brand new high school. Uh also uh we have invited the president of NISET Melinda Pson to join us and make some comments. Um one of the many initiatives that NISET has statewide uh is to make CTE more available uh to students and to increase funding for CTE. She is uh uh has been a great champion of CTE statewide and certainly is impressed with uh not only the rebuild at Albany High School but uh our collective efforts uh to network with not only higher education but our
012business community um to bridge those gaps. Uh she'll be participating tomorrow and she's going to lead a small roundt with CTE teachers at the high school to talk about uh some of their needs and some of their dreams uh and some of the government relations or policy asks. um in order for us to not only improve our programming but uh make it easier for someone to leave the private industry and work for a school system whether that's um through tuition assistance or certainly through certification processes um that is one of the fears statewide that as uh schools begin to build more robust CTE programs certainly as we adopt uh different tenants of portrait of a graduate and look at uh changing graduation requirements um we want to be sure that we don't um inadvertently create
013a job market issue for CTE teachers. So, uh Melinda will be uh having those conversations with our staff as well. And so it's a really exciting day tomorrow uh to continue the uh conversation and and the excitement and urgency around the high school and and uh I believe uh that that this board and and other board members and the community um had a vision of if you build it, they will come. And um certainly the students are are attending and uh as we get into uh early 2026 with um student enrollment interests, we know that CTE will continue to be uh very popular opportunity for students. With that said, uh it is uh teacher conference day tomorrow. Uh our next opportunity for conferences will take place uh in February, early February on the 5th and
0146th. So, we hope that folks were able to make their appointments. Uh, and if they weren't able to, we know that um many of our staff uh make themselves available to parents um at many different times during the school day or before and after school to meet their needs. Earlier this evening and the board had a little taste of it. Uh Albany High School's chili cookoff in their brand new culinary center. I had the opportunity uh to spend about a half hour uh with Chef Valentine and our uh chili makers. Um and so there were more than a dozen um individual or a dozen uh student teams that were uh testing out their chili making repertoire and uh it was a great event. It was certainly well intend well attended uh and it was um
015uh provided by our students in our culinary 2 and culinary 3 program. So, these are students who began their educational experience at a Brooklyn and are now over at the high school. So, I had an opportunity to talk to them a little bit about um about the difference of being under one roof and uh all of the the new equipment and and opportunity and certainly they're very thankful and are are really enjoying their time in their new learning space. Just a reminder about our stop arm cameras on school buses that fines do begin on Monday. The grace period is ending uh and fines began on Monday. The first offense $250, the second $275, and third offense 300. Uh a reminder that fines are paid to the city of Albany and the school district does not
016receive any of that revenue. So, the grace period is over and and please uh make sure you're stopping for stopped school buses throughout the city and wherever you travel. It is time to begin thinking about winter athletics. Uh families can register by way of final forms um and make sure that they're uh students are ready to go to participate in any number of of our winter sports. Um the winter teams begin at the high school on November 14th and modified registration opens for grades seven and 7 through 8 and runs through November 21st. We got to make sure that our students uh are up to date with their physical and everything else, but uh we can find that information or families can find that information on final forms. And also, and uh lastly for my
017update is as we move into winter sports season, it's time to start thinking about winter apparel. Uh I learned early this morning that New York State saw its first snowfall in the uh high peaks of the aderandex. And so a good reminder um for folks to consider donating to the Cash for Coats campaign which uh runs through November 7th. It's an opportunity uh to donate money to make sure that students in Albany um are warm this winter with new jackets, hats, and gloves. Uh we're partnering with the city and with uh lodges right on Pearl Street as well as the Palace Theater. And so uh you can donate in any number of ways. You can go to our website uh and donate there or you can text cash for coats to 53555 as we gear
018up for a long cold winter here in the capital region. And that concludes my report. >> Thank you, Superintendent. Board colleagues, as is our usual practice, I ask you to prioritize your questions and ask your most important question first. We'll start with one question for each board member so that everybody has the opportunity to be heard. Uh and if you have additional questions, we'll go on a second round uh if there's time. So since we have new people on the board, uh we will start with the student board members. Uh Carmen, >> no comment at the time. >> Okay, Cleanna, >> no comment currently. >> Okay, Mr. Wolf Gang. Uh, no questions, but I do just want to shout out uh, Chef Valentine and of course all the work that those students are doing in
019culinary uh, both for the chili cookoff, but also some of the other tasty treats that we've uh, enjoyed this year like the old Mihi ribbon cutting. Um, they're doing great work in that new and putting that new kitchen to work. So, I just want to shout out all the work she's doing. >> Miss Jamie, >> no questions. Thanks, Miss Man. I don't have any questions this evening. >> Savage. >> Hi. I wanted to um ask two sort of update questions. One, I know that we are still aiming for an HR update relatively soon. So, I assume we'll see that next time. Thank you very much. And secondly, we haven't had an update um on the number of students who are still being excluded from school because of vaccinations. And I'm wondering if we can make
020that a recurring part of the superintendent's update. I'm always very concerned about those students because they want to come to school and can't come to school. Um, and I'd like to figure out what we can do to reduce that barrier to education for our students. >> Mr. Grey, >> no questions. Thanks. >> Have no questions either. So, thank you very much. We move on to the next part of our agenda, which is the public comment. This is the time we set aside to hear from members of the public. Uh while there's no other public comments today, we do invite members of the public to share thoughts on the decisions we are facing. We accept public comments in person, by voicemail, and through our web-based form. Uh information about public comment and contact information is on
021the district's website at achools.org/bo. 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 like. Each board member reviews each item carefully, but we vote on them together as a group with no discussion. That allows us to use our meeting time more efficiently. Nonetheless, each board member has the option to set aside any routine consent item in order to require a separate discussion and vote on that item. With that introduction, I now entertain a motion to adopt the routine consent agenda. Miss Crree, any second, Miss Man? Uh, are there any set aides? I would like to set aside number seven and number 13. Seven is the um contractual updates
022expectations uh and 13 is the community maternity service for hacket. All in favor of adopting routine consent agenda minus 7 and 13. That's unanimous. Okay. May I have a motion to adopt I'll just take seven and 13 together. May I have a Motion to adopt both seven and 13. Okay, Miss Man, Miss Mr. Almanavi. Um, so I just wanted to point out that um number seven, which is the um contract renewal expected outcomes. That's a new file that was added on boards. And that just is um in response to some questions that the board has had over the last few uh meetings especially we're looking for metrics on all our grants. Uh and so these are the metrics or the expectations that were pointed out when the contracts were awarded and what has happened since.
023Um there is a typo in one of the lines where um I think uh the column is 38% for attendance. It actually means to say 38 sessions just for young futures. That's just a typo. Um um but this is the kind of thing that that um the board really wants to make sure that uh we're holding people true to their word as we awarding these contracts. If we say that XYZ number of students are being impacted, are we actually serving them? Right? So at the end of the year when when these contracts come up for renewals, we want to make sure that that contract did what it promised to do and if it didn't, what is it that stopped it from doing so we can address those barriers for the next next year. Um it
024is also important. I mean regardless of whether it's a, you know, $5,000 contract or a million half dollar contract, everybody's accountable, right? And these are taxpayer dollars. These are dollars that we're spending to make sure our students are are impacted and supported and enabled in whichever way that contract is supposed to act. Um it is also an expectation that we want to engage more community members. So if there are small businesses that are that are getting into uh writing contracts for the department for the for the school district, we want to make sure that they understand what what and why are we asking these things and we can help them you know draft their contracts properly and enable them to point out what is the you know what is it that that contract expects to
025deliver to the district. So this would be a win-win for everybody in the long run. And with respect to number 13, which was the community maternity services hacket, I just want to point out that the the top boxes are not filled in where it says whether it's a new contract or a renewal. Based on the contract, I'm guessing it's a renewal and it's going to be paid through the general fund. Is that right? >> 100%. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> So, all in favor adopting uh seven and unanimous. Thank you. All right. We want that was quick. We are moving on to the next part of her agenda which is I believe policy and I'll pass on the baton to chair of policy miss. >> Sure. Thank you so much. We have
026two policies on tonight's agenda as action items because they were discussed last time and then one new policy as a discussion item. Um the first action is use of district owned cell phones. Um just to recap the policy name has been changed to add use of at the beginning employees will be required to report phone loss or damage to their immediate supervisor and the technology department instead of the business office and the provisions for field trip phones have been revised to indicate that staff must provide advanced notice for these requests. Uh for the next policy, action 5225, student personal expression, in accordance with a recently revised NISBA sample, there's been revised language about constitutionally protected rights to say the principal will instead of shall give due consideration to students rights and it also has added
027again in NISB's suggestion a reference to freedom of religion as one of those rights. In addition, in accordance with our newly adopted advertising policy, we've added language here stating that students will only be permitted to distribute materials if the materialists are non-commercial in nature because our advertising policy prohibits solicitation in the building. Finally, 5152, uh, we were able to get a corrected red line. So, this is up for its first discussion. It's a very simple change. The language about residents who move out of the district during the school year has been revised to include trimesters in addition to semesters because students in elementary school are on the trimester system. Um, and that's it. Do I have any questions from my fellow any of my fellow board members on any of the policies up for action
028or discussion? No. So, could I get a motion to adopt policies 8332? All right, Miss Man. Uh, seconded by Dr. Chau. All in favor? And that is unanimous minus Miss Wilson who is not here not with us. So six out of six. Thank you so much. I'm going to yield the floor back to President Chur. Thank you. >> Thank you Miss Kichi. As is our normal practice. We have arranged an agenda with all action items in the beginning unless something unexpected happens. We do not anticipate the board will take any further actions tonight. The balance of the meeting will be items up for discussion. Some of them might which might lead to an action at our next meeting or a future meeting. And the next topic up for discussion is the transport transportation division update.
029Welcome. Uh my name is Darrett Miles. I'm the director of transportation for the city school district of Albany. Um whenever I have the opportunity, I always want to take a couple minutes just to uh just to thank my team. Um I get a lot of credit for uh transportation successes. Um but it's certainly not a one-man show. Um it's a thankless job and um from the time they get in to the time they leave. Um they are um putting out fires and just dealing with dealing with a lot. You know um we transport the most precious cargo and students and children. And so when things don't go as planned, um we do expect to have an elevated parent. And um I tell my team all the time, you know, just to work through, you know,
030whatever a upset parent may have to say and kind of um just push through. Um and very rarely do I get any complaints from my team. So whenever I get the platform, definitely want to make sure I take the time to highlight them. Um Tamika Powell, the assistant director of transportation. Um Tyler Taylor, she is the transportation analyst and essentially our field trip ZAR. uh I don't want to pigeon hole her and say that that's all she does, but um she certainly helps us out in that uh in that area. So any field trip related questions, she is definitely our go-to. Uh Rhonda Crook, who is our um clerk typist um and our stability uh our source of stability when things are going crazy. She is certainly the one that we turn to just to
031kind of calm everyone down. And then certainly last but not least is Eileen Leno who is a retiree but has been with the district and has worked in transportation through several different um administrations if you will and I definitely appreciate her uh knowhow and uh experience that she brings to the table. Similar to our internal team, I definitely want to take a quick second just to highlight our vendors. Um, I didn't put them on the slide here, but um, the dispatchers at all three of our vendors, uh, specifically First Student in Durham, uh, Ashley, Tarnishia, America, and Missy. Um, those are my go-to ladies. Whenever I have a question, whenever something is going wrong on the road, um, those are the people I turn to. And, um, again, just a thankless job. They're the ones
032that's taking all the fire in the trenches. And um just want to make sure that they are highlighted and uh get some praise here. Um the data is pretty straightforward. I'm going to try not to just uh data dump on you folks. I do have a couple visual aids um to highlight some of the key stats here. Um but I do want to provide some context. Um and I do want to note we are a little earlier um in the year this year compared to other years. So, um, if we can kind of just keep that in mind as we go through some of the things, we are still in the process of adding and removing a lot of students to our routes. Um, as I mentioned, we typically are in December. Um, and that's
033when we tend to see writership data um, kind of stabilize. Um, so at this point, I still anticipate a high volume of applications to come in as the winter season approaches. And additionally, over the next two months, as drivers have more time to build that rapport with our families, with their building staff, I definitely anticipate uh to see uh better performance. A key takeaway here is the total number of uh home to school routes. We're at 105 currently. That's the most we've had since I've uh since I've been here. This is my fifth year here. Um every Durham and RAH route have an assigned monitor including their GenEd routes. Uh first student has a monitor assigned to all of our sped routes. Uh but for the first time this year, um we plan to include
034monitors on all of our gen routes. Um we haven't um quite gotten there yet with first student on genin routes. Um but we are working um to fill those gaps, but I would probably say about 80% at this point of uh of our gen routes do have a monitor on board and do have that additional supervision. Um, since our RFP going into the 24-25 school year, we've been able to significantly significantly increase the number of drivers and vehicles uh dedicated to our students. Um, this year we've budgeted for a couple more routes and hoping to bring down ride duration as well as the number of passengers per route. Um, our goal with that is the less passengers we have, the less that that driver's on the road is the less opportunities for behavioral incidents to
035happen on board. Um, we still are seeing those behaviors and we'll get into that in a little bit, but that is certainly our goal is just to try to eliminate as much as we possibly can. Um, and I also like to shout out our Mckin Vento team as well as our sped department. Uh, last year the number of McKini Vento students and the number of out of district sped placements was a real burden and a real challenge to our operation. Um, I doubt they had transportation in mind when they were um, you know, planning for this year, but whatever they've done, I certainly do appreciate um, everything that they they've put together. They've allowed me to focus um, on our home routes and our Albany routes. Um, Victoria has been great um, with ensuring that
036families are placed in their best interest. Um, like I said, same thing with Elaine and her team. U, they just did a really good job of making sure that we can kind of keep our buses as close to Albany as we can. U pretty straightforward. Um as displayed in my uh previous slide here, we do have a larger portion of our fleet dedicated to sped routes. Again, just simply we're trying to keep those numbers down as best as we can, try to keep those rides as short as we possibly can. Um and that's why we dedicate more routes to our to our special ed students. Uh with this graph, I just want to highlight the significant jump in routes once we were able to onboard additional vendors. Um it seems like a long time ago.
037Um but in addition to the lack of drivers, I also didn't have the same staff that I have um that I have currently. Um I didn't have an assistant director and a lot of those uh those times back in, you know, 2122. Um it was just long nights, long days just trying to put out constant fires. And um uh we've joked in previous years about um me having to keep my haircut low to kind of hide my uh hide my grays here. Um but those years they definitely uh though they age me. But uh you know in all seriousness um just being a new hireer in the district at the time, being a new transportation director, they just forced me to get into the deep end and um figure things out. And I think that
038I'm a more valuable asset to the district because of those difficult uh those difficult early years. Um, as I mentioned before, um, just with the sped out of district placements over time, um, they just did a really good job of keeping, um, keeping our our student numbers down, um, not having us go all different places. I mean, we do have some routes that have to go out of state, um, and go to some of from farther away placements. Um, but overall, as you can see, um, we've clearly made a huge, huge effort into keeping our out of district students down, uh, coming into this year. Um, as I mentioned before, we're still a little early in the year and that's why I think our numbers are a little bit down from last year. Um, we
039haven't hit our winter season just yet. So, I anticipate as we get closer to that Christmas, New Year's break um to be right at or possibly even above uh last year's numbers. Um, I think just work worth noting again um Being that we're having this meeting um a little bit earlier, um we haven't had a chance for our stats to kind of get through that initial startup. Um start up to every school year is going to come with a lot of chaos, a lot of um what we call dead stops. Parents sign up for uh for transportation. Don't necessarily need it just yet. We have a lot of parents who want to bring their kindergarters to school, want to bring, you know, take pictures. There's a lot going on to start the year. We have
040still have a lot of student transfers that we're processing. So, um, overall we're at 87% on-time performance, but I do think as we get closer to that December where we would normally have this, uh, have this, uh, transportation update, uh, we would see a better performance uh, overall. And also uh just to note here um you know when you once you factor in our initial startup along with our second wave of applications uh from a bird's eye view you know we typically don't see routes tend to stabilize until late September early October and just by the time this report was due a lot of that data hasn't been captured yet. So, um, one thing I also do want to point out is if you notice on our, um, you know, our green bars are bars
041that we would find satisfactory that are right at that 90% mark, which is our goal. Um, it's going to be a lot of our first tier routes. Um, unfortunately, our second tiers aren't quite hitting that 90% mark and they're just at the mercy of our first tiers. you know, if there's any behavioral problems, undeliverable students, students that missed the bus at dismissal and we have to circle back and come and get them, that's all naturally that's going to spill over to a delay in our second tier. Um, certainly not a justification or an excuse. Uh, but just some of the reasons why second tiers aren't quite hitting the mark like our first tier schools. Um, also you have to consider that some of our larger schools like Albony High, for example, are going to have
042a lot more routes um going to the building, a lot more arrivals or uh captured arrivals than some of our some of our smaller schools. And I much as much as I wish it wasn't the case, um delays are a part of the transportation business regardless of the industry, regardless of the sector. Um, that's unfortunately a part of the a part of the deal with transportation. In our district, we come across a lot of unique situations that require careful and sensitive handling. And every day we're faced with a new or a different type of challenge that we work through. I ask that both parents and school staff give drivers some grace as they navigate through these daily challenges. Um, another challenge that we uh find ourselves up against is um there are times that I
043have to say no and deny certain requests to families. Um there's an inside joke in my office called the DM exception. Um and it's just because I try to accommodate as many uh students as I possibly can or as many families as I possibly can. Uh all within reason. Um but just unfortunately there are times that we do have to deny a family um uh transportation. Albany will be getting colder um these next couple months. So I do ask parents to please be prepared. Um I cannot provide door-to-door service because of the colder weather. Um, you may need to add layers, you may need to bundle up. Um, but unfortunately, we do need operations to proceed as normal just to keep everything running on time as we possibly can. Um, we're still seeing roughly 50
044changes per week. Uh, between new applications, student transfers, newly enrolled students, and change of addresses, we experience constant change in our routes, which can lead to inconsistent timing. Uh student behavior uh remains a difficult task to get a grasp on. I can appreciate our hesitation to suspend students. Um but uh student behaviors is one of my biggest source of delays, especially in the afternoons. Um a lot of times we do need the driver to pull over to deescalate situations. Um sometimes we have to circle back to the school as some students just aren't able to be safely transported um in the state that they're in. Um and again, that all just leads to second tier delays. um to uh to our building um especially our primary building principles um to their credit um they've been
045much more willing to engage um in in dealing with some of these behaviors um especially compared to some of my previous years and um I definitely want to highlight Jasmine Brown who's in the back of the room um you know just her continued support and uh anytime that you talk with Jasmine she's just always very encouraging at least to me um through um through no matter what the situation is we deal with a lot of fires and um she's just a calm, stable voice and I definitely appreciate all that she's uh helped me out with. And then moving on to CDTA, um I don't have nearly as much control over routing or bus assignments as I do with my yellow bus vendors. Um a lot of our trip routes are designed based on the driver's
046duties prior to and after um their tripper assignments. Um this was part of what makes it difficult to adjust CDTA routes as drivers just aren't dedicated to the district. They also have their city lines to attend to. Um in previous years I was not able to provide actual writership data. Um as CDTA was just very lax with their enforcement of the rules of making students swipe onto the bus. um their new CA their new CEO um has been focused on fair evasion um and has implemented new strategies to ensure students are eligible prior to boarding. Um this has led to some issues and I we'll definitely get into it in a little bit. Um but along with that u we now have a much more accurate depiction of writership stats. Um I was a little
047surprised by uh by Alb High's numbers. I was expecting to see higher levels of uh of ridership. Um you do have to account for students being older and able to find different ways outside of CDTA to get to and from school. I am I am interested to see what uh what their October numbers look like though. Um and I do also want to highlight CDTA is only able to capture successful swipes, meaning if a student's ID is not functioning properly, we're not able to capture that data. Albany High did have the uh highest reported uh number of ID related issues. And I would imagine that also plays a part in why um why I'm a little confused by their um by their numbers here. Um as you may suspect uh given their location at the
048far ends of the city, both uh North Albany and Meyers have uh higher levels of ridership. The brown line for Meyers and both the red and blue lines for North Albany stand out as far as capacity related issues. Uh we do supply North Albany with a traditional yellow bus to handle any overflow they may have for that day. They don't run into it a lot. At least I haven't gotten too many um too many calls on it. Um but if a driver is uh if a driver is needed, we do have a dedicated driver set aside specifically to tend to North Albany in case they are seeing a uh an overflow there. Uh middle school discipline has been a uh difficult and sensitive subject to navigate. Um it's led to some differences of opinion with
049our CDTA partner. Uh but we continue to collaborate and think through different strategies to resolve the issues of the unsafe behavior. Uh my secondary principles with the guidance of Ken um have been very supportive this year in removing privileges and when incidents do occur they are quick to respond to fights to fights on board. I definitely want to uh highlight that more than ever this year, I've noticed that they've just been really quick to respond, react, and um re revoke privileges as needed. Um as we saw on the previous slide, some of the buses are nearing maximum capacity. And when a group of students misbehave, it can lead to some serious safety hazards. Um in addition to the safety concerns, we're also seeing a uh a dip in driver morale in uh in the CDTA
050organization as drivers are just really hesitant to take on um our middle school routes. and a lot of times they are uh they're being forced to do so. Um, another challenge with CTA has just been our hardware issues with student ID cards. Um, as we're able to set aside some time, I do plan on meeting with our IT department to talk through what we can do to mitigate um, our ID issues. U, potentially finding a new card or printer vendor u, might be necessary. U similar to like a hotel key card. Um, ID cards can become demagnetized if they're near a phone, if you're in your wallet, whatever the case may be. And we do seem to experience that a lot. Um, unfortunately, we do also get a lot of false reports of a card
051not working. Um, and when we go back on the back end to see when the last time it was swiped, we do notice that it was used the previous day. Um, however, it is being reported as not working. Um, and that is something that we're working through with our academy principles as well. Um and just as CDT, you know, as CDTA as they implement a stricter swiper policy and as we notice issues with the ID card, um we're just running into that um just a little bit of confrontation that we just need to um I I think get a better grip on. And um I certainly hope to have a have all that resolved um sooner rather than later. Um CDTA is still experiencing driver shortages. Um it's one of the reasons they can't just
052simply add another triple route to some of our um near capacity routes. Um that's also why we haven't been able to dedicate any triple lines to AIA in an effort to accommodate our AIA secondary students. Uh we've provided two yellow buses for both AM and PM trips. They seem to be working out pretty well in my conversation with both Tasha and Rachel. Um I haven't got any complaints so far. Um, so we'll see how that continues to go and we'll monitor that over the course of the year. But, um, so far so good on that front for AIA. Um, given the driver shortage, um, they just have less flexibility than my yellow bus fenders. Um, this can make it challenging as we do see, um, for example, uh, lines like the Myers Brown line. Um,
053we're just unfortunately not just able to throw an additional driver or additional tripper at it. Um, and it's, um, it can be it can be challenging for sure. Um, and as I mentioned before, um, just reallocating resources can be difficult as there are assignments both prior to and after our tripper assignments that can make it less than ideal to sit switch around some of our, uh, currently assigned tripper routes. Uh, child safety zones. I know this is a topic that, uh, many of us are excited about. Uh, we are, this this slide is a little outdated. Um we we have partnered with on the bus transportation planning service. Um they are going to provide us with uh with data compliance guidance and advise essentially on all things related to the child safety zones. Um they
054have experience working with other districts and have veteran transportation experience on their staff including Paul Overball who was the previous New York State director of pupil transportation. um outside of just child safety zones, um they're going to be a great resource for essentially all things um related to transportation and my day-to-day duties. Um we have not yet confirmed a start date um for the child safety zones uh child safety zone study. Um how however in our initial talks we were looking at either late fall or early winter um to begin that study so that way we can be prepped for next year and uh with the goal of getting that ball rolling for the 26 27 school year. Um communication tools. I think this is very important for any parents that are listening. Um please
055make sure that you're signed up for school messenger. Um, this is how we communicate any and all delays um, for our routes. Um, I do want to highlight this would only be for our Albony City School District families. Um, this does not include our charters or anyone outside of CSDA. Um, same thing with First View. Um, for all of our first student riders, that's going to be everyone who is attending um, a city school district uh, public school. Uh, please make sure you are signed up. that is a software or parent app that was designed and developed directly by first student. Um they oversee um every part of that. So I would highly recommend that you can even set alerts um timed alerts. So if you want an alert when the driver is 10 minutes
056away um they have geo fencing built in and I would highly recommend um making sure you're signed up for that. You will need to know your students um ID number as well as the district code. We did not want to make that public. Um, if you do have any uh any questions, by all means, please reach out to our transportation department and we can provide those for you. For our nonCSDA students, uh, please make sure you are signed up for my ride K through 12. Very similar, um, uh, capabilities. Um, again, you will need your student ID. Um, and by all means, if you have questions regarding, uh, how to set up any tracking or how to set up, um, anything at all, please make sure that you reach out to us. And then as
057uh superintendent uh has already uh mentioned earlier um we do have uh we have implemented um bus patrol on all of our first student um vehicles. Um they have over a 100 cameras on their fleet. Um we did issue a 30-day warning period um back in September and effective uh this Monday we will be uh the city will be implementing fines. Um the first offense is 250, second offense is 275 with that third offense ending at 300. And then that scale is going to reset every 18 months. So please make sure that you are being safe and stopping for our yellow buses. Thank you, Mr. Miles. Um questions. Let's start with our student members. No questions at this time. Thank you, >> Clea. >> No questions at this time. Thank you, >> Mr. Hulk. >>
058Yeah, thank you. So, um, well, let me first say, uh, shout out to you on this bar graph of the ontime percentage. When I saw the amount of green, I assumed that we were using a much lower threshold. So, when you said 90% was the threshold and I look back at that, I was very impressed with what's going on. Just want to shout that out. Um, now question for you on what you brought up about the IDs and CDTI. Um, >> is there any reason besides the ridership numbers that we are pushing CDTA to require the to make sure that the students are actively swiping on the buses in the morning? Like is there a financial component in our contract of that? >> Not at all. Not at all. Um I think what uh what
059we've experienced is a lot of students were um just causing disruptions on buses that weren't necessarily eligible for transportation. Um and that's why um not just uh CDTA, but our buildings have also been pushing for CDTA to have a stricter protocol when it comes to swiping. So that way we are ensuring that only students who are eligible are boarding the bus. And we were noticing um in previous years students were kind of you know grouping up with their friends and were kind of orchestrating certain um certain fights and just other other things that were causing disruptions and a lot of those students we we realized weren't even eligible for for transportation >> but they were still like our students. They just >> they were still our they were still our students. Yes. >> Okay. >>
060Can I just ask a point of clarification because I just want to make sure I understood something. I think you said that the push to be more restrictive on the swipers is primarily coming from CDTA and some concerns from their executive leadership. It's not the district pushing for that. It's CDTA pushing for that. Is that right? Okay. That's what I thought I understood. >> All right. If you notice the CD bus lately, they have the fair required >> on all their buses. >> Yeah. They've made a real effort to um to kind of hone in on fair evasion. And and if I may, we were part of a meeting with CDTA over the summer and this is not a a Albany City School District of Albany specific initiative. This is throughout their um correct writership.
061>> No, I absolutely get that. Sorry. Um I absolutely get that. I just are do we have like I would assume that that's also causing a drop off in the number of students who are taking the bus. Do we have like I don't know some backup method for these students? I mean, obviously, I know we have weird transportation rules about who gets it. But even like if students are forgetting their IDs, are they going back home in the morning to get them and they're not allowed on the bus? Are students not showing up because they're not able to get on the buses? Like we did this with yonder pouches as well. That was a concern. >> Yeah. So, I I haven't heard too many uh it's been very it's been very limited in the uh
062the reports that I get of a student not being allowed to board um in the in their morning in their morning run. I'm hearing more about it in the afternoon as as they're trying to board. A lot of times we can provide like a two-ride pass or we can, you know, um push for certain exceptions to be made if a student does, for example, lose their card at lunch or whatever the case may be, um forgets it at home. Um but we are trying to um ensure that students are um responsible with their ID cards and are able to bring it to school so that way they can swipe onto the bus so we can capture the writership data and again just to make sure that we aren't allowing students who are not eligible to
063board. >> Gotcha. Savage, you had a followup. >> Um yeah, I just want to ask a follow-up about this. Um CDTA allows you to pay off of your digital device off your phone. Um, have we explored the possibility of getting rid of the Swiper card and allowing students to use their phones to pay because they very rarely forget their phones? >> Correct. We haven't um we haven't had the discussion specifically around the phones. We have had conversations in regards to uh removing the um encoded swiper, the ID card, uh because of some of the issues that we've been experiencing. It hasn't been just this year. Um, but we just haven't found a solution in regards to what is a satisfactory way to replace the student ID card. >> It just seems like since they have
064a mechanism to pay with your phone and since 99% of our students carry a phone, perhaps there's a technology solution there where they we provide them phone swipe instead of card swipe. So something to explore for >> sure. So, thank you. Um, I do remember the 2021 school year where we were short on buses and short on drivers and >> uh short on everything um including patients. So, uh thank you um for the work you've done. Um I'm happy to hear that we've got multiple vendors. It was definitely the right way to go. >> Yeah. >> To get the three vendors together. Um, I was curious. I I think I asked this before, but uh the CDTA routes, we don't have bus monitors on them. >> Correct. >> That was something that we were looking
065into doing and uh I know CDA I think pulled out of >> correct interest in that, right? Yeah, we still have >> what their stipulation was is um in order it was the ambassador program um and they would hire a third party to come in and essentially be uh be monitors on their buses um but they required um every bus to have a um a district staff member on board to partner with that ambassador. Um unfortunately we weren't able to um uh make that accommodation and at that point they decided to scrap the um scrap the ambassador program altogether. That um is unfortunate, but do we still have the capacity to put one of our monitors on the bus? >> Can I just interrupt for a second? And I just I want to redirect the
066question to the superintendent because I feel like this is this is a challenge for the that's beyond the scope of the transportation department. I don't want Mr. Miles to feel um put on the spot to answer a question outside his purview. But I do want to emphasize what board member Elwin Yawi is asking about. This has been a perennial problem. This is not a new issue and we are the adults. We need creative, active solutions to this problem. And um I realize it's not an easy challenge, but I also realize there's a lot of smart, capable people in our district. And I would love to hear um solutions that are moving forward rather than the same issue every year. um because it feels often that the only solution presented is excluding students from transportation, which
067is a very um it's just not the solution that gets our kids in school. So, I guess I'm asking for an answer now. And I'm actually wondering if we want to kind of keep this on the front burner as part of an update every quarter or something on what we're doing because it's just not okay that we're not solving this problem that we just hear about it every single year. >> Yeah. Um, and I spoke with with Ron Leco a little bit about this and unfortunately he couldn't join us. Our and Mr. Miles will know for sure, but I believe our contract with CDTA expires this year and um, we're going to begin those conversations about the opportunity to either weave into a future contract um, not just an ambassador program but bonafide aids on
068fixed number of buses or all of them. um and whether that will be a conversation that that will be born out of the contract and they'll be responsible and employees of CDTA, maybe they're part-time employees of of our folks who work in cafeterias, start their day in the bus, work for us, end their day, or will they be our employees? So, I'll cycle back with Ron on that. We'll make sure we we keep that on the front burner. Thank you for bringing that up because I was just going to say that in the past we've talked about, you know, asking our hall monitors or our food for food service workers >> to act as, you know, get more hours and therefore qualify for better benefits at the same time fixing the issue of >> some
069supervision on the buses. >> And I'll just chime in one more time because obviously this is an issue that I feel very passionately about. I don't really want to wait till next year. >> Yeah. and the CDA tech CDTA contract to be renewed to solve this problem. There's real kids on these buses every single day and we really need a pro a solution now, not next year. >> Agre Agreed. Um I I have a middle schooler and I was made aware of a situation. there's a fight on the bus or whatever. But, >> um, I also am concerned about CDTA's protocol when these kinds of things happen. >> Um, in this situation, the driver asked all the students to get off the bus. >> Um, which I don't think was the right, you know, path.
070Um, so I just want to make sure that our partners also have a game plan when these things happen so that um there's minimal disruption and parents aren't picking up students from random parts of the city. Um, >> and just real quick to touch on that, I I I do think we can do a better job of communicating what the protocol is. A lot of times when there is an incident on board, the driver is forced to pull over and as he pulls over, he does open the doors which allow students who are in harm's way to exit. And I think a lot of time it gets mis um misunderstood as a as a uh verbal command for all students to exit. It's not mandatory that they all leave the bus. Um but the doors
071do open to allow for any students who are not comfortable or who do not want to be a part of that situation to exit. Um, and then once the driver is up and rolling after, you know, if emergency services are needed or APD is needed and their supervisor arrives on the scene, students are allowed to come back on. But a lot of times they don't want to wait for that situation or they're just confused about what is going on. And that's where we get that scramble where students feel that they are not allowed back on and that they've been kicked off. >> Thank you for that clarification. >> No problem. >> That communication should be shared with those student reps so that they can pass it down to uh their different buildings. Yeah, chime in.
072Go ahead. >> And just to before I get to my point, I would like to thank you for the distribution with the buses because I do take the bus every morning to school, specifically the blue one. But I am on the buses every day and I do see what happens on the buses. There are fights. There are students refusing to enter in their ID. There are also CDTA employees who are just like letting them on or there may be confrontation with like them saying, "Oh, please put in your ID." And then students getting like immediately aggressive. I've seen younger students like playing on the bus and it balls hitting other students and then there's nothing that the drivers can do because they're busy driving. So like I would maybe like for something to be put
073in place. Maybe like as you said before a monitor on the bus if that could be installed because maybe students would feel safer and like wouldn't stray away from being on the bus in the morning because I have had a few friends like stray away from coming to the bus because there's so much disruption in the morning. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um, last thing I just wanted to say, thanks for updating us on the child safety zones. I know it's been kind of a long time coming, but it seems like you guys have a good, you know, plan going forward and you're collecting all the data needed. So, um, thank you so much. >> No problem, >> Miss Man. >> Mr. Miles, thank you as always. >> Thank you. >> I'll never forget two years
074ago, I was looking for my niece and you helped. Thank you. Um, and I guess I I guess I want to piggyback on board member Savage and um board member Elman Yawi about um keeping this as kind of on on the front burner um to resolving or or trying to see what we can do to problem solve um and I'm also looking at the superintendent sooner than later. Um, and and I'm not going to put you on the spot and ask for um details, but have have the police been going to CDTA buses during bus routes? Is that something that has occur just in a very generic way? Yeah. And and we they certainly have provided support uh when we when we are aware of community situations um and we are able to alert them
075to um you know just provide a little bit of assistance, a little bit more superv uh supervision. They've been really uh really helpful in sending a uh patrol a patrol unit over. Um I don't think it's something that they're doing every day. Um it's usually more so when we can give them a heads up. Hey, this is what's going on in the community. This is what we're anticipating. this may have happened at school and we're expecting it to carry over onto the bus. That's when uh when when we're able to give them a heads up. I don't think it's an everyday thing where APD is just uh just around for for CDTA route. >> Okay. Well, just the idea what everyone said um you know having some kind of monitor on on the um vehicles
076um to support the students and also the driver I think is pretty uh pretty um helpful. So >> absolutely. Mr. Grey, >> thank you. Uh, I don't have any specific questions, but I will echo uh my college, my colleagues in that yes, it would be very helpful to have monitors on at least the most problematic routes to help not make the driver have to supervise and drive. Thanks. >> Do you have any other questions? >> I do have a second question. I know I kind of chimed in a couple of times. Thank you for your flexibility, letting me follow on rather than have to restart. So, first of all, I wanted to just say thank you um for the great news in the presentation and all the great work. Um, in particular, I wanted to
077highlight it is amazing to have CSDA ridership information. That is something we've been looking for for a long time. So, it's terrific to actually know how many kids are on the bus. That just seems like something we always wanted to know and now we know. So, that's amazing. >> Um, I wanted to thank you for the progress on child safety zones. Um, we worked so hard to get that law passed and it's been such a long haul with the slowdown from the regulations coming in and then the driver shortage and COVID and it just has felt like molasses trying to get this done. So, I'm so thrilled to see it making progress. Thank you so much. Um, I also really appreciated your um sharing some context around how challenging it is for CDTA to integrate
078with our system given the fact that we're really kind of a bit of a square peg and a round hole for them. So, that was really appreciated. Um, and I wanted to acknowledge with delight your 87% um, start uh, of ontime arrivals. So, I think that's actually pretty amazing. I pulled it up just out of curiosity and I guess the metric that public transit ridership uses is 85 to 95% on time is great. So, I think 87% during the challenging start of the school year when things are still in flux is a terrific way to start. And it's almost where we were last year, right? We were at 90% last year, >> 71% the year before that. So like we're in really good shape compared to what I think of as the bad old days
079when we were nowhere close. I wanted to just ask one question. Um as well as just sort of really thank you for all of the incredible work that you do. Um you said that you have a yellow bus at North Albany when it's needed for um you know alleviating overcrowding essentially is what I understood. And I guess I'm wondering how you're defining needed. If we've got 77 kids on that bus on average, that means some days we've got more than 77 kids on that bus, but when I look at other schools, we have like, you know, 30 kids on a bus. So, I'm kind of wondering whether we ought to just throw a yellow bus at that as a commitment or maybe redefine needed in a a different way. It shouldn't just be every seat
080is full. like I'm just I just feels like that 77 number just troubles me. And the same thing with the Brown Line at Meyers like >> for sure. And that's what can we do? >> I I I think I could have uh articulated that point a little bit better. The driver is dedicated to North Albany. Um what happens um at least to start the year what we've noticed is um he would go to North Albany and these students would ride their CDTA and it wouldn't necessarily be a uh a capacity issue. I know they they would crowd up, they want to ride with their friends. there is a certain stigma especially for our secondary level students riding the yellow bus. Um there's just a a narrative around it that um you know a lot of
081students don't want to take that yellow bus and I and I think that certainly plays a plays a role in that. But that driver is available. It's uh he's assigned to the route and he is dedicated within that time slot at dismissal um for North Albany. Um >> I understand what you said and I do know teenagers and I can totally see how that's playing out. I still wonder if that's a teenager decision or whether it's an adult decision. How many what the maximum capacity of the bus is, right? Like if we just establish 40 kids on this bus, that's it. After that, we're you got to get on the yellow bus. Yeah. >> Um, you know, it sounded like, and tell me if I'm wrong, that some of the behavior issues are happening on
082that bus, which has the most kids on it. Correct. So, it feels like an adult proactive solution that we could consider since we have the bus and the driver there. is to not allow 77 kids on that bus and just say, "Sorry, we're done here." Um, which I realize would require a whole monitor stationed at the bus and clicking kids on or something, but it just feels like like that is something that's within our control and we have the resource. So, >> yeah. And I and I do want to highlight um North Abby did a great job last year um just kind of managing um their just their entire process. They've had principles, admin, um hall monitors, everyone um just all kind of collaborate together to ride the buses. They were one of the schools
083that did provide um a consistent um staff member on board for um some of those more active routes, if you will. Um and that is what sparked us dedicating that yellow bus to North Albany was because of that capacity issue. Um we haven't seen quite the number of incidents. Um it's still early in the year though. um we have seen the most incidents um coming out of that um out of that particular triple line. But that's something I can definitely work with uh North Albby with um and just setting a um you know a certain standard where once we cross this threshold um it's not it's not really a choice for the students. They have to now board the elevator >> only for your consideration. Obviously you're doing the work every day, the building principal
084is doing the work every day. They know the kids. I don't. So I'm not trying to establish that's a requirement. But I do think it just looks off, right? When I look at the numbers and say the most crowded bus has the most incidents and we have a yellow bus there, >> I don't know. Seems like something worthy of consideration. Thanks so much. And thanks again. Really, >> I've been um you know, I don't have any kids on the bus anymore right now. Um I have a child who rides home from the high, but I remember the bad bad bad days when people would just avoid the bus because it was so unreliable. That was even before your time. and this district has come a long way in providing reliable bus transportation for our students.
085So, um that is in large part due to you. >> I definitely appreciate it. And just to um not to certainly throw any other districts um you know under the bus, if you will, um but a lot of my peers are still sending out alerts that they have to cancel routes, they have to uh greatly delay um a lot of their routes um because of the driver shortage. So, um I am proud of what we've been able to kind of overcome and some of the obstacles that we've worked through here where um you know, even despite some of our challenges, um we have yet to flat out cancel the route. Um we have yet to work on any type of major major delays. Um there certainly are delays every day, don't get me wrong, but
086um um when I hear the stories of you know um some of our suburban neighbors that are flat out just cancelling routes and sending telling their parents that they have to um you know provide their own transportation um is just an eye openener. >> Go ahead, >> Kiana. >> Uh yeah, just one last comment specifically with the data with the buses in the afternoon. I've taken the buses in the afternoon and the data being received, maybe the students are aware, aren't aware, or maybe the employee on the bus isn't aware, but I have never seen a student swipe their ID. I don't even swipe my ID because I don't see other students doing it. So, I don't see that see it as a requirement. And maybe the employee isn't aware of it as well because
087how it is is there's usually a big group of children and they're like storming onto the bus in a rush. I've never seen a student swipe their ID. >> Maybe like one or two of them will. So maybe this has an effect in the ID because I've t in the data. I mean because I've taken the blue there's way more than 48 children on the bus in the afternoon. >> That was surprising to me to see all the high numbers as well. >> Yeah. Because I've seen way more children like seven people on the purple. I've seen maybe a good well over 30 approach that bus in the afternoon. So like just like inform me like maybe the data isn't that accurate because of the swiping because definitely in the afternoon I don't think the
088children are aware because I myself I take the bus I am not aware that we are supposed to swipe them in the afternoon. And that is um something that we can definitely work with CDTA on. >> And one of the other things we talked about as a possibility is a offboard swipe system, right? So you don't have to swipe on the bus, but you swipe a machine that's on the sidewalk before you get on the bus, which would allow the um management of that to be by the district staff rather than the CDTA driver. Yeah. Um because it's my understanding that CDTA maybe they've changed that recently but that their general policy is that they don't encourage their doc their drivers to confront >> exactly >> directly confront a uh fair evader because they don't
089want their drivers to be put in that position. But that is something that if we had offboard swiping which many bus systems use offboard swiping that is a totally normal thing to do. Um, and if we could offer that, um, we might need a few more hall monitors out there making sure that it happens, but it could change the culture because I've also heard that, um, from teenagers I know that nobody nobody swipes. We're supposed to swipe, right? >> Who knew that? So, it's something I'm aware of as well. >> Okay. I mean, five years of presentations, um, it is really heartwarming to see the progress we've made. Uh we still have challenges but not the same kind that we did exactly >> we were pulling our hair out of our heads and didn't know
090where to start fixing the situation. Um I mean in fact didn't Colony uh have a driving uh thing in a couple last couple of weeks where they were inviting >> several districts have been very creative in their uh recruitment process. >> We're trying to get people to jump onto this whole bus and and drive it around the parking lot and see if they were interested. Y >> is it something that we could be doing with our partners in advertising those kind of >> Yeah, I I think any and all recruitment strategies are more than welcome. Um I I don't know if we necessarily have a ton of hours for um for additional drivers, but again any I'm more than >> it could it could be even hall monitor training or or bus monitor training or
091any of those things. >> Yeah, for for sure. you know, it's a few hours in the day that they could, you know, ride back and forth or two rides back and forth, which is not a whole lot of money maybe, but it's still >> Yeah. >> You know, more than what they >> keep them on the books. Yeah, for sure. >> Um, >> I mean, most of my colleagues have already asked the questions that I would want to ask and I think we have some work to do and I'll make sure that this presentation is in December next year so we'll have data that is more compatible. Um, Other than that, I mean, kudos kudos to what you do. And I really like the fact that you give credit to all the people. >> Oh,
092for sure. >> In your office, outside your office, you name names because a lot of these people who work behind the scenes >> aren't recognized. So, thank you for doing that and thank you for everything that you do. >> Thank you very much for having me. >> Right. Moving along board committee reports the facilities. So, the facilities committee met um on October 7th and we met with the um uh SEI group who was taking care of their five-year plan and uh building uh condition survey. Uh we expressed some of our desires and we're expecting to have another meeting with them in the coming month. Um, we have another meeting on uh it was the 20 uh the 28th at 6 um to discuss the building condition survey and the five-year plan in more depth um
093with the superintendent and um yeah, so that's where we are with the uh facilities committee. I just wanted to quick note um side note on the stained glass. We got uh the historic stained glass windows are totally uh restored and the plan is to have them installed in the display cases um first or second week of November. So we're in really good shape with that. right in time for uh the um music season where people will be coming to the auditorium and they can actually see these. >> Yeah, we're hoping to have uh a little celebration. It's yet to be planned, but um we definitely would like to do that. >> And I noticed the contractor was uh digging up the stairs going from the top parking lot. Um I could hear them chiseling away.
094So I I guess that deficiency is being fixed. There were multiple deficiencies and they are being tracked by Don um our director of facilities and um there there is a tracking mechanism for each one of the deficiencies and uh we've been we've been assured that they're not going anywhere until they're they've been dealt with. So we're going to hold them to their word. >> Thank you. audit, Miss Man. >> Yes. So, the audit committee was scheduled to meet on Monday. However, um Joe Harris and I spoke. Um the audit was actually ready this week and so we will meet um as a committee on the 28th and um have an update at our uh next board meeting. >> Okay. Policy >> uh policy Matt, yesterday we went over a few business related policies. Uh no
095no major changes to them. We will be uh we do plan to change the date of our next meeting from November 12th to November 19th due to a conflict. Um but pending hearing back from cabinet members to confirm that that date is all right. Uh that's the plan to move to move that out to the 19th. Thanks. Government relations. The next step there is that Mr. Leco is working on a draft of the legislative um priorities with consultation with superintendent and the committee. Um, we do not have another meeting scheduled, but we will need to schedule one. We had some scheduling glitches, but we will schedule another meeting. Um, I wanted to mention ad hoc routine consent while I have the microphone and welcome Miss Hulahan to our joyful tribe of ad hoc routine consent
096folks. She is taking the lead on some of the alignment between the forms, the policies, and the regulations for field trips and for um conferences. So, thank you very much for your work on that. and uh school visits. Um, Miss Tibbons has the ball. It is in her court. Thank you very much. And I'm sure you will all start seeing your emails shortly flooded with um scheduling materials between you and the other uh and the building leaders. Thanks so much. Yeah, with regards to government relations, uh all three of the uh resolutions that we had with the NESBA meeting uh passed with greater than 85% vote. Um so that was almost a six-hour long meeting and and and apparently it was shorter than other times. So uh but it's done now and this conference is
097going on this week. Um so the you know at least our resolutions are are something that Nesba will be advocating on. Um lot of different things and for the benefit of the student members I'll I'll if you know we had discussed some of these at our previous meetings. Uh every board in New York State allow is allowed to submit a resolution based on what they would like DISBA to advocate for. Um so we had submitted one this year for related to u u financial literacy being part of the K through 12 curriculum so that kids are learning right from you know early u early childhood through high school because the blue ribbon only talks about the high school where you're going to have a financial literacy component but we want this to be you know
098sprinkled through your all all your school years so that when you graduate you know how to take care of finances All right. Uh so that was something that we Miss Wilson had proposed and and we we that got that passed. So now Nesba will advocate on our behalf because all the other school boards get good to vote on should it be a NSBA issue or not and they agreed and so that's going to be taken up. A couple of other things uh with related to testing and uh what was the other one? Uh the first one would be the sunsetting >> testing financial >> the third one I'm forgetting the third one there were two other resolutions that that >> charter school >> yes the cap on charter schools uh because the state law says
099if if the students are more than 5% of the students in your district are in charter schools then the school district the public school district must be consulted before a new one opens up or is expanded or what have you and we are 27%. >> And and no one's consulted us and and things just keep changing which puts us in a in a dire situation and this is a situation not just for AL but for some of the other uh urban school districts as well. Um so we want to better keep advocating on our behalf and knocking on the doors of uh the state legislature making sure that they they have something in in in law but someone needs to be following the law. Um parents should have choice but at the same time the
100playing field should be even right. Um so those were the things that we discussed in and and the way the structure works is the school district submits a resolution, resolutions go to a DEI committee and go to another resolutions committee. They decide whether it's worth forwarding for the general vote uh or or adopting as a NSBA resolution. So that happened and then at this annual meeting all of the other resolutions came came to the table where every one of the school districts from New York State voted on it and the ones that the committees did not forward were also given the option of presenting so that if if if uh other districts still wanted to for Nisbar to follow it they had the option to do it. So it was a long meeting but this
101is how the process works. Um, yep. That's what I had for government relations. Um, any other matters? Oh, yeah. This week was Diwali, uh, festival of lights. And if you notice, Gilderland School District had the day as a holiday. It's a holiday in New York City, uh, holiday in other parts of New York State. And so I'm hoping that when the calendar committee looks into the schedule for next year, they do consider we have a large population of students who are Hindus and follow Diwali, Bengali, students from Bangladesh, India, Nepal. Um so you know they they we should consider giving them that one day as well. We've been adding holidays. I know. And the other thing that we are talking with New York State is to open those bookends because we're only allowed to open
102after Labor Day and before regions uh exams and got to fit 180 days in there which it becomes challenging but that's a math problem for the calendar committee to figure out any other matters if not motion to adjurnn. Mr. Um just community note, there's going to be um an event with uh Senator Fehey, Assemblyman McDonald, and Assemblywoman um oh Gabriella um Romero um at the um Hidea Community Center in Laam. It's just speaking about uh anti-Muslim hate and it's uh essentially open to everyone. Um I'm going to be moderating it and uh I would encourage everyone to come >> this this Sunday. >> Yes, Miss M. >> I I do want to um just say welcome again to our uh student board representatives. Um it just it is a It's nice to have uh that
103mix and to um uh receive and and hear the feedback that you have and so so thank you. Thank you very much. So that's the comments I would like to make. >> Motion to journ. Okay. Well, all hands went up. You're adjourned. Thank you. Good night.