Board of Education Public Meeting | Live Stream | October 9th, 2025

001Thank you. Good evening. My name is Tabitha Wilson and I'm the vice president of City School District of Albany Board of Education. On behalf of the board, I welcome you to our meeting. Unfortunately, our president, Dr. Chatau, is unable to join us tonight. However, the rest of the board is here tonight in person. I'm joined tonight by board member Elmani, board member man, secretary creerchie, board member Savage, and board member Wolf Gang. Also by members of the cabinet who are always here in person or virtually. I would like to welcome Miss McClky um joining us this evening. Thank you all for your availability and assistance. This meeting is being livereamed and the instructions to view the meeting as well as a link to the agenda is including all the documents we will discuss are available

002at albonychools.org/bee. This is a good time for me to note that if you're here tonight and speaking in public comment, you should sign up with uh Miss Timonss here to our right. With that introduction, we invite those of you who choose to join us as we stand for the pledge of allegiance. In addition to the pledge of allegiance, we always focus our meeting by restating the mission of the city school district of Albany, which is to work in partnership with our diverse community to engage every learner in a robust educational program designed to provide the knowledge and skills necessary for success. Superintendent, do you have a report for us? >> Uh, I do. And, um, before I give the report, I'd like to welcome Miss Kifford up. Um, tonight is a very special evening here,

003uh, in the City School District of Albany and, uh, probably many school districts across the the state uh, as we welcome two uh, new board representative school board members. And uh I'll let Miss Kumifford talk a little bit about the process and how we landed with these young ladies, but I had an opportunity to meet with them earlier in the week. And um we'll continue to meet with them throughout the school year. And I know that uh President Shatur and the officers may want to meet with them uh frequently outside of uh our regularly scheduled schoolboard meetings. But I'll turn it over to Principal Commer to uh talk a little bit about the process and introduce our new board reps. Thank you, Superintendent. Good evening, Board of Education and our cabinet. Um, thank you for

004allowing me the opportunity to introduce our first ever City School District of Albany Student Board of Education members. I'm honored to present two outstanding seniors. We have Cleana Brel and Carmen Sampona. Both students went through an application and interview process to be selected for these important roles. Um really this process started last school year. Um we had um former board member um Vicky Smith and Miss Wilson um come to the high school and they did some um power lunches with students. they pushed into our student government and um really educating students on what the um roles would be at the um for the um high school students and how they would represent um students in the school district. Um so we pushed into student government um this school year and then um we had students

005apply so we had over 15 students apply to the positions and um our two young women here rose to the occasion. Um, Cleana has been chosen as our primary student representative and Carmen will serve as our alternate. Um, both young women have committed to attending our board meetings twice a month and to representing the voices and perspectives of our student body with dedication and integrity. Um, Cleana immigrated from Guyana a little over two years ago where she served as a school captain of her her former school. She has ambitious goals to attend Sunni. Um she has a few other options in the queue and to pursue a career in law and ultimately become a judge and then a politician. She is running for student government vice president this year and has previously served as the

006historian for student government. She's also excited to participate in our mock trial team. Carmen has attended Albany High School for all four four years and is also a dedicated member of our student government. She served as vice president last year and she is currently acting president until um elections and she is running for president this year. Carmen has also contributed to our student help desk and plans to pursue nursing in college um possibly at Sunning Bingmpington or Syracuse University. Both Cleana and Carmen are passionate advocates for elevating student voice and are eager to serve in these important roles. Uh at this time, I would like to invite Cleanna and Carmen to share a few words about themselves. Hello, my name is Clean Romel and I am honored to serve as the new student representative on

007the board of education. I am currently a senior at Alb High School and I am 17 years old. I came to this country from Guyana when I was 15 and I lived in Brooklyn for a couple months before I moved to Albany. Albany has truly been my home. I've had the privilege of learning, growing, and being a part of a community that values education, opportunity, and student voice. I am also recently elected vice president of student government and I wanted this position not only to be a voice for my peers but to amplifies their voices so together we can make changes that benefit everyone. I also wanted this opportunity because being a part of the board gives me real experience in the field I want to pursue a future career in politics and public service.

008I know this role will teach me a lot about leadership, decision-making, and the importance of listening to the people that you represent. I'm excit Oh, sorry, my bad. Through this role, I hope to improve student voice and communication by creating more ways for students to share feedback and ideas directly with school leadership. I hope to expand educational supports by putting stronger systems in place for students who need extra academic help or personal guidance, increasing career opportunities and exposure by offering more programs and experiences for careers that aren't always represented in schools. I hope to enhance mental health wellness and support by ensuring that there are proper and efficient systems in place to give students the best mental health access that we can. I hope to build school spirit and unity by supporting more student led

009events, clubs, and community projects that bring us together across different backgrounds and grade levels. I look forward to working with and learning from all of you, contributing to positive changes. Thank you for welcoming me and my partner for giving us the opportunity to serve. This opportunity means so much to me, not just as a student, but as someone who, as I said before, has a future has a want for a future career in politics, who treasures the experience that this one is going to provide for me. I'm grateful to represent the voices of my fellow students and to learn from all of you as we work together for the success of every student in our district. I thank you again for trusting me and Carmen with this responsibility. I'm looking forward to a wonderful year

010ahead. Thank you very much. Hello, my name is Carmen Sampona. Um, I grew up between New Jersey and Delaware and ever since about sixth grade, I moved into Albany. Um, I attended All Saints before I ended up in 8th grade at Hacket Middle School. And ever since then, I've been at Albany High School, which I am now a senior at. Um, I've been involved in a variety of extracurriculars such as student health desk, the CNA health science program at the school, and uh, student government where today I was elected as the president. Um, um, I am absolutely thrilled and honored to be able to serve my district as an exopicio member of the the Albony Board of Education. It's a really big honor for me. Um, my ultimate goal within this position is to foster

011a far more representative and equitable culture across the many different schools within the district. As a student myself and as a person who has long been affected by the decisions and changes initiated by the school board, I personally witnessed the variety of opinions and hopes of my peers. Um, with my own experiences in mind as well as those of my peers, I wish to work towards an environment in which all parties from students to board members feel that justice is doing its job. Um I've been tossing around and formulating plenty of ideas in which I can ensure ensure this goal of mine. For starters, I wish to work along with Cleanna to provide various surveys, questionnaires, and uh for students of all demographics to express their own opinions and hopes for future district decisions. Additionally,

012Cle and I have been composing a sort of plan in which we may create an additional committee to involve a variety of schools and students at a far more efficient rate to get um word out much more quickly. Uh, we also hope to be able to keep students properly informed about the changes that are constantly being made by schoolboard decisions. Um, and as more and more ideas continue to come to me and Cleana, I promise to serve my student body as the at the to the absolute best of my ability. Once again, I would like to thank the Alb City School District Board of Education for allowing me and Cleana to be able to represent our peers to ensure proper representative culture within our district and schools, bridging the gap between students and board members

013that help to establish the environment in which US students live on a day-to-day basis. Thank you. >> And I think you can agree we made a really good choice. So, thank you both ladies. Great job. I'll turn it over to Mr. Leco to get us started on our uh report. >> Well, before we do that, I think we'd love to have all of you and our two new board members come out to take a few pictures. Don't get too comfortable. A few weeks ago, the New York State Public High School Athletic Association recognized our athletic program with the sportsmanship promotion award for the school year. This is terrific recognition for our entire athletic program. And we are glad tonight to have director of health, physical education, and athletics Kim Pillah and guests here to tell

014us more. >> Good evening everyone. It's great to be here tonight. Like to introduce um Rachel Swan who is the um administrative assistant in the athletic office and of course I think everybody knows Miss Commer um Jod who is our high school principal. um they're joining me today for the presentation. Our goal is to try to have um coaches and kids, but right now everybody's playing and practicing. So um so I wanted to share a little bit um on the front end of of what this award before I share about what the award is and why we were given the award from New York State Public High School. I wanted to share a little bit of a a starting point and kind of peel it back a little bit. When I when I came into

015Albany, one of the things that that I know to be true after 31 years in in education and working with kids, um coaches and families and board members and administration, and there's a saying, and I'm sure you all know it, um from Peter Ducker, I think it was back in 2006, um from the Ducker Institute, um that culture eats strategy for breakfast. And I'm sure you've heard that. And so when I came into Albany last year, that's the first thing that we started to talk about was the culture and what is it and where do we want to be and where are the gaps and where do we need improvement? And one of the things that we we all agreed upon was that the sportsmanship piece, our attitude, the positivity around the way we behave

016and the way we hold our heads in wins or losses really mattered. the way in which we treat other teams. Um h how we present ourselves, whether it's coaches, families, sports supervisors, our athletic staff, the administration in the building, what we look like, what we sound like, and and how we treat people. And so we started to talk about that early on and we started to implement some things um that were very evident and and noticeable and and folks were on board with that. kids soon followed talking with our students um when when they weren't doing the right thing and addressing it. Um I think those are the little things that brings us here today. And so New York State Public High School has a couple of sportsmanship awards. One of them is the promotion

017survey. And what that is is that each school district in the state of New York has the opportunity to submit the works that they're doing around sportsmanship. And sportsman that that word is pretty pretty broad. We we started to put the things in that we are doing that are making a difference. When opposing teams come to our school and it's raining, we offer them a tent. We provide water for our opposing teams. We make sure that whether we win or we lose, we act with integrity and we treat others with integrity. Things with our coaching staff, philosophies around sportsmanship, anti-hazing programs, CRA work that I know is is in board policy that we've implemented last year and we continue to grow in that work talking about how to be a winner even when the score

018doesn't indicate that we're winning. And so we put those things in a survey and then what happens on the other side is New York State Public High School has a committee that chooses the top schools that they believe are are implementing these programs proficiently or or even higher than that. And so we were we were chosen, Albony High School was chosen in our section, one of I think five of five other schools that were awarded the plaque. And then from that submission, New York State Public High School will pick four to five teams in the state of New York, which I think there's about 700 school districts that that receive the promotion banner. So that's our goal. There were five schools that were chosen last year, Arlington High School, Penrook, and then from all different

019sections, and there were only five in 700 schools. So that's the goal that we are trying to aspire. And in the works that we're doing every single day, those little things matter because it is true that the culture does eat the strategy. You can have all the strategy in the world, but if that culture doesn't support that work, then then we we really truly can't move the needle. So, I am very proud of our coaches. I'm proud of our student athletes who have been incredibly receptive to the work that we're doing. um to our staff, to the administration, to our sports supervisors, and to our families who have been really open and receptive to the work that we're doing. And we are making changes and everybody here, I think, knows that change is a three

020to five year process. And so, we're we're I think we're moving a little faster than that, but it it seems like the barometer is on our side. So, we we continue to do that work, and I'm really proud of of all of our um the whole team. So, thank you so much, [Applause] pictures. Take a few more pictures. And while while Mr. Leco gets ready, I just want to echo um what what Kim said. There was a a football game at Guilderland a couple Fridays ago. Um and and the game did not go our way. it was their homecoming and um Gilderland played very well and and it wasn't our best effort and um that was on a on a Friday night. That same weekend on Sunday I had dinner with friends whose son plays

021on the Guilderland football team and is the youngest of three who have played um for Guilderland different uh athletic teams for Guilderland for many years and the two oldest are finishing high school so or finishing college. So, six, eight years of competing against Albany. Um, and without prompting, without even talking about the game, um, their 17-year-old son and the parents wanted to make sure I extended to Kim and the football staff, um, about the change in culture and about the the marketked change um, in the students demeanor and um, that Albany has come a long way and that's important, not just uh, the plaque and the recognition um, but when opponents are talking about and and high school kids are seeing a change in either attitude um or as Kim said sort of the janicequa

022the how we present ourselves um and and the tone. All of those things uh have everything to do with culture. And I wanted to make sure I said that out loud and on the record. Um because when high school kids notice it, they feel it. And uh not many uh have either the audacity or have the um environment to say some things. But it was it was 48 hours after that game. I had a really interesting conversation with a 17-year-old. And I wanted to make sure I I got that to Kim and Jod and make sure you relay that to your staff. Thank you. >> All right. Congratulations are in order tonight for Albany High School senior Kalias Boucher, who has been named a semi-finalist in the prestigious National Merit Scholarship Program. Kalas's score on

023last year's PSAT exam placed him in the top 1% of 1.3 million juniors who took the exam nationwide. That is exceptionally rare air academically. Uh Kalas now moves on to uh in the National Merit Scholarship Program. Students will be notified in the spring if they have been named scholarship recipients. Congratulations to Kalas once again and we will keep you updated on his progress. We are excited to partner with Mayor Shien. You can clip. We hope to have give you the opportunity to clap for him in person one of these meetings coming up. We are excited to partner with Mayor Sheen and the entire Albany community once again this fall in the annual cash for codes campaign. Superintendent Hawkriter joined the mayor and several of the program's key sponsors earlier this week for a kickoff news

024conference at city hall. This is the 18th year of this outstanding effort to provide warm winter clothing for our students. Since its inception, the Cash for Coats program has collected more than 18,000 new coats and tens of thousands of new hats, gloves, mittens, and scarves. Donations will be accepted through November 7th. You can make a donation by texting cash for coats, that's all caps, cas555, or visit albschools.org for more ways to give. We have several program notes for our families regarding upcoming school schedules. All of our schools will dismiss 15 minutes early tomorrow to participate in the annual go home early emergency preparedness drill. The state requires this for all schools every year. We ask our parents and guardians to plan for their students early arrival at home or at after school programs tomorrow. On

025Monday, all of our schools and offices will be closed in observance of Columbus and Indigenous People's Day. Next Wednesday, all of our middle schools will dismiss at 12:30 p.m. to allow time for our faculty and staff to participate in professional development. This applies to all three middle schools as well as Tony Clement Center for Education and the the uh secondary grades at Albany International Academy. And a reminder that the following week we will have our first parent teacher conferences of the school year. Conferences will be held after school on Thursday, October 23rd and in the afternoon on Friday, October 24th. All of our schools will be closed on Friday, October 24th to provide time for parent teacher conferences as well as professional development for employees that morning. And it is now my pleasure to introduce

026principal Jared Fox and home school coordinator Kenny Griffin to tell us more about the great things happening this school year at Eagle Point Elementary School. >> All right. Thank you so much. So um we'll start off with the district vision mission goals which um I know we had already uh discussed but everything that we do at Eagle Point we also try to align with the district. So at Eaglepoint, um I'm going to first discuss our uh mission and then our vision and goals hopefully uh is represented by the slides that follow. Uh so at Eagle Point Elementary School is committed in providing a safe, inclusive and nurturing environment that fosters a diverse community of um lifelong learners basically. Right? So we are looking for students who are building work and focusing on STEM and real

027world applications that empowers the students to take ownership of their learning and prepare them uh for the rapidly evolving world. And so with STEM basically everything that we have done so far at Eagle Point has had STEM at our thought process. So, like I said, we'll we'll review our vision and goals throughout the slides. Thanks. I'm Jared Fox. This is >> and I'm Ken Griffith. >> All right. So, our demographic, so we have 312 students currently at Eagle Point. Um, in addition to our um 312 students, we have kind of gone up and down a little bit this year. So we have had a lot of uh fluctuation um especially in our MLL learners. Um but for right now our demographics uh we have our white students with 32%. Um and then right behind them

028we have our black students with 29% of our demographics followed by our Hispanic students at 16%. Um Asians are 12%. Um and so with our demographics, I believe that we our diversity has um definitely have has grown um throughout the years. We right now have 45% of our students that are economically disadvantaged. Um and as I had mentioned earlier, our population of MLS has um right now it's it's kind of the largest that it's been um since at least I have started Eagle Point. um and we have been able to kind of use that as a strength of ours in developing different um strategies and techniques which we'll talk about next. So part of our set focus uh we highlighted two main um focuses this year right. So we have our high impact teaching methods

029which eagle point will implement chalk talk socratic seminar and uh clarify critique and correct to boost student engagement and curriculum relevance through structured discourse. Um what we did was we developed these SEP uh strategies based on what our student responses were from the surveys from the dity survey last year. So we took our um parents, we took our staff and we took our student surveys and we used that as our background. So for the most part um some of our lowest questions that we had received was that students had said that they didn't work in partnership enough. Um and so we used that as well as the second mo uh second lowest percentage for um the questions that were asked was also about curriculum relevance. A lot of our students I believe it was 66%

030of our students um only 66% of our students had said that they believe that the curriculum was relevant to them. So using the two pieces of information that they want to work together more they want to be able to have a curriculum that's more aligned to them. We decided to use these types of um teaching methods to be able to allow them to have student discourse. So all year long so far all we have talked about is student discourse. How are the students going to start discussions? How are they going to um communicate to one another? And allowing them to start the discussions will actually imply that the curriculum relevance will be to them, right? Because they're the ones who are creating the questions. They're the ones who are um continuing the questions in into

031the discussion. Um the second focus has been on MTSSI for tiered instruction. Um this has always been an ongoing uh you know uh focus of ours but this year we're really trying to push forward on both sides of the uh tiered instruction not only for academic but also for behavioral data as well. Um so that is our two focuses for this year. And then for the next one attendance I'll let Mr. Griffin speak. >> Yes, attendance. Um attendance is a big piece. We all know that um if kids are in school um they're learning and they're advancing. Um so the big piece that we do at Eagle Point is that um I usually go year by year. We go usually go year by year to see where we're at and um we're just proud to

032say that um you know we at 93% I'm always striving to get 100%. Um but we just know that um our kids are in school um that it's important um you know that we're we're giving them the best that we can give. So um basically at Eagle Eagle Point um you know my my job is really just to find the barriers. Um like I said I want to push that 93% up to 95. Um but finding the barriers um and then you know then we see our numbers go up. So my plan is for them numbers to go up this year from 93 to 95 at least. >> And we talked about that and so when we developed our SAP um one of the thing that we do is we always set our goals. Um

033so with chronic absenteeism which was at 31.6% in 2022 we have decreased to 22.8% um as last year and our new goal is to cut below our 20%. Right. the more students that are in attendance obviously the better the school will be and just want to throw out there uh because Mr. Griffin is uh very humble, right? So the amount of work and the amount of effort that he puts into the attendance shows dramatically since he has come to our school as you can see in the chronic absenteeism. Um but not only that to start the school year, we do have a home room with 99% right now attendance which we uh what we do is pop up popcorn parties for attendance. So perfect attendance gets popup popcorn parties. And so with that, um, it's

034just kind of making it fun and telling students that the more that you come to school, the more that you're going to have fun and enjoy. And so 99% I don't think I've ever seen that before for an entire month. It was amazing. And so hopefully we can keep that up for the whole school year. >> It just lets us know that kids want to be there. So that's important. >> Absolutely. So, with us um giving our presentation in early October, uh what I did was I just put some school highlights from last year up on there. Uh since, you know, we're literally just just getting started this year. Um so, uh we didn't have a petting zoo, but basically what the petting zoo um slide is up there is, uh our new science lab.

035So we did move towards um we uh converted a classroom into a science lab which would allow K through five to actually go into it whether it's the teacher whether it's with support but being able to use handson um we also have a uh a uh aquatic plant life which is uh the coolest thing. It is like a symbiotic relationship between the plant and the fish that is in there. So basically, you know, they help each other. Um, and so we're using that as part of our way to be able to have the students come in, be excited, be engaged, um, be loud because that's what science is about. Um, they have their jackets, so they're all scientists when they perform in the classroom. Um, and so that's got been one of our highlights so

036far this year. Also in addition to uh we also have our STEM day which we changed. So we used to have a STEM night. Uh we had decided that we would take it's our most popular day that we have. Um and so what we had decided is that we would use the lowest attending day and have it a STEM day instead of a STEM night to encourage all the students and families to attend. Um last year was the first year we did try that. Um it was extremely successful. Um it was the week of Thanksgiving break which everyone I'm sure knows that is usually the week of the lowest attendance. Um so you know it's just great working with a bunch of professionals that we get together talk about using the data and actually change

037making changes that hopefully improve the data and improve the student you know engagement in our school. So we also had again there's some more highlights that you can see up here. We have our just run program um which is a huge um a huge uh engagement activity for our students for our families. Uh we have I think I want to say 49 students participate in the uh just run track meet last year. It was fantastic. uh the kids. We have our spring and our fall um which should be starting soon. Um in addition to that, we have our field day. Um one piece that is on the next slide for student voice has to do with the field day. So, we actually had a contest as well to allow the students to create a field

038day t-shirt and then we had the students vote on it. And so, basically, the students created their own t-shirt to represent our school last year, which was also a fun way to engage the students in, you know, representing us. All right. Also, so I I'll I'll touch real quick on uh so first off for Eagle Point basketball, we did go undefeated last year. We won the PAL under 10, right? That was awesome. But not only about just the winning uh we had started the basketball program two years ago and they started 0 and4 and so after being 0 and4 they then won the rest of the games, the rest of that season and then continued that on this year. And it was just great to see how much that really can and it's it's nice

039to follow up with the athletics that just went about how that really did create a great relationship with the community. It got them involved. They were coming our PTA meetings were a lot busier during the season. Um people were more involved in what we were doing. It was fantastic. Um, and then we also have our student equity team uh that had uh Governor Hawkell's um visit last year. Uh, so we had her come in for the um everyone for all free and reduced lunches, right? Actually, not reduced anymore, right? So, all free lunches. So, her promotion for that they did at Eagle Point and basically we had all the ambassadors, well, we were calling them student ambassadors. Yep. which um Mr. Griffin runs the student equity team with Mrs. Iicorn. Um and so both of

040them had chosen um select students from each grade level that would participate as the ambassadors. They greeted the governor. They then walked the governor around. Uh I did basically nothing. I just sat in the background. Um it was great to see the students, you know, introduce her and be with her throughout her entire time there. student voice. One of my favorites because we know students voice is so important. I like to thank you young ladies. Um it's a pleasure to see to have you guys here. Um every day Eagle Point um we just want to make sure that the students are being heard. Um what we do every year we have a survey. Um and the students just they give their honest opinions on what they how we can move forward, how what they want

041in the building and what school should look like for them. Um in the survey um that we did um this past year, uh many of the students um they said, you know, they said we want book clubs, um more chances to read and work on cool projects together. Um they want more field trips um as a group. Um, some students said they want uh more calm down spaces um from whenever they need to calm down and some space to get back down to baseline. Um, they wanted better gym activities. Um, so we're going to speak with the coaches in the gym and the gym teachers to see how we can um incorporate some of those things. Um, always in the years I've been doing this, they want better food. Um um they you know tasty

042healthy meals in the cafeteria. Um you know and just from them looking at the building they you know you know they they they said they want the library um to be updated and things of that nature. Um so we just look at it as a whole. Um but once again um we just want the students to know that their voice matters and that's the direction that we're moving and making sure that um they're being heard. All right. Thank you guys so much. We appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> And that concludes tonight's district highlights. >> Okay, I'll give a brief update as Miss Timmons gets us ready. I did want to mention the uh some of the pictures. um that were shown from the governor's visit uh to Eagle Point. The governor the governor and

043her communications team still uses them for other education and student related um PR that that uh that she does. So I I follow her on a few social media channels and I I remember those pictures very well. So, a couple uh couple updates as we uh enter our second month of school. Uh one is a continued uh work with our friends at University of Albany and uh building uh incredible opportunities for our students. Earlier this week, it was on Tuesday, I was invited to GE's aerospace um facility headquarters out in in the Niskiuna Skenctity border. And uh the GE Aerospace Foundation announced uh a significant investment of um time, energy, and resources of their engineers as did University of Albany uh announce a significant investment in their resources to work with five area high schools

044and Albany was selected one of them. It will be Albany, Skenctity, Boston Spa, Troy, and Cahose. Uh and uh those leaders will come together over the next number of months uh to kick off um pathway opportunities starting with exploratory opportunities for middle school middle schoolers in in engineering not just aerospace but engineering and that would continue um with University of Albany endorsed courses uh in those five high schools that very very well could lead to automatic admission uh to any number of programs at University of Albany and ultimately the pipeline would end with employment in any one of GE's uh sectors. And so um an incredible opportunity uh for our students uh starting at a very very young age and of course one of my first questions uh to them uh that wasn't answered yet

045so it's not a no uh was opportunities to work with our elementary students particularly at Toast uh our STEM school. So, uh we may have additional uh partnership announcements with that. But, um this is a a very exciting opportunity for our students and not just our students but our staff to be able to collaborate um with engineers at GE and the uh academic folks at University of Albany. In a similar vein, uh our entire most of our our leadership team uh convened uh this morning for a monthly meeting on the campus of University of Albany at their EET Tech building uh which is one of their newest state-of-the-art um facilities uh that host a number of um academic new academic fields including emergency preparedness, their weather and climate departments, AI and cyber security. Uh we

046had uh presentations from their college of emergency preparedness. Uh the vice president of enrollment and the dean of community engagement enrollment presented as well. Uh and we took a field trip. We took a field trip throughout EET tech looking at their maker space um facilities, their weather tracking technology, and as this picture shows, their observation rooms. We also uh played around with their drones and robotics and uh heard a little bit about uh some of the pathways there. And in fact, one of the one of the professors in the robotics department um that actually presented today began his education career as a teaching assistant right here in the city school district of Albany. So, uh, a really, uh, a really neat pipeline, uh, indeed. So, we're excited, um, to really partner with the University of

047Albany and and more than just, you know, sharing courses and and, uh, providing, um, baseline opportunities, but but really to um to network with those folks. Uh, members of their AI team are meeting with our technology team to talk about what AI looks like in in classrooms and in schools today. uh and they are hosting an international AI conference and in on the impact in education in early March and they have already agreed uh to let April and and her team attend for free and uh I'm going to connect them with uh some of the state associations I'm familiar with to try to make sure we have a robust um uh participation from uh public education in New York State. Speaking uh about uh our partnerships and excellence, um we want to congratulate a number

048uh of our staff that were recognized recently by the New York State English Council. This includes Hannah Kringle and Tammy Schlinger uh that uh teach at the newcomer program at AIA uh as well as our high school. They received the 2025 educator of excellence a award as well as the New York State Tissel Teacher of the Month Award. And at the top right is Amy Shermack, a high school English teacher at Albany High School. She received the 2025 Educator of Excellence Award, and they will be recognized at their statewide conventions later this fall. and if uh their schedules work out, we'd like to certainly recognize them here um at a school board meeting. Switching gears, we've been talking uh each of our last number of meetings around stop arm bus cameras. Uh just a reminder

049that while our cameras are on our buses with our uh yellow school bus providers first student uh the fines will begin on Monday, October 20th and your first offense is $250. Second is $275 and third offense $300. And a reminder that uh the school district does not receive any revenue. The revenue um and fines are paid to the city of Albany this weekend. In fact, starting tomorrow with pep rallies and all sorts of activities at the high school. But this weekend, um, we will have our hall of fame and homecoming weekend, we have a number of folks that will be inducted into our hall of fame with a ceremony in the high school auditorium at 9 in the morning. And we hope that um certainly our our schoolboard members and any members of the community

050will attend. It is open to the public. Uh at 10 o'clock in the morning, we have a number of um number of contests. Our girls soccer team will host a park and the girls swimming and diving team will also host Saratoga Springs. We have brought back the homecoming parade. It will be a brief but mighty parade. Uh and we have a number of uh folks that are attending including our marching band in our drum line. Uh we'll have a tailgate party uh with some pregame festivities that will kick off at 1:00 and then we will host Colony for our football game at 2:30. And speaking of athletics, uh we've we've spoken each of the last number of meetings about the hot start to a number of our athletic teams. We want to congratulate one of

051our seniors, Noah Baiser, uh who is a member of our cross country team. Not only was he athlete of the week in the time un times union last month uh but since then he's also had a number of um fantastic accolades. He was first place at the division one invitational in Skenctity earlier this month and again first place in the suburban council home meet uh with Shannendo and Avalor Park which also was Tuesday's senior night. And as uh Kim Pill said earlier, it's hard to get some of our athletes and coaches here when they're uh when they're performing uh at this time of year. And lastly, certainly um not not least in our hearts, but next week is schoolboard recognition week. And this is a great time to remind everyone uh on the duties and

052roles and responsibilities that our school board plays. Not only are they a steward of uh financial accountability and responsibility, but they also make sure that we're aligning our resources, that we're paying attention to um important outcomes for children, including attendance and achievement, which we heard today, just as one small example from uh Eagle Point. But um the pay isn't great but the outcome uh and uh um certainly value that they bring to our organization uh goes without saying and and when I joined uh this team just about two and a half years ago I was amazed at the at the stability that this board has had and stability matters. Uh what we do know whether it's in public education or um in the private sector that when you have uh instability whether it's a board

053of education or board of directors uh instability sometimes trickles down throughout an organization. But um this board has been stable. They have been steadfast. They have been uh their eyes have been on uh making sure that we provide opportunities both academically and social emotionally for students. Uh, and I said this earlier to a small group of folks. Um, and I know the data is embargoed, but I I want to share with everyone that um, our attendance, daily attendance is up, our chronic absenteeism is down, and when it becomes public, we'll be excited to share that the Albany High School graduation rate is the highest it's been in more than 11 years. Um, so more on that later, but those uh, accolades and those achievements um, don't happen by mistake. they happen because of a a

054committed school board um that uh stands firm and steadfast uh sometimes when the weather is stormy. Uh and I know that um this school district and many have had some storms over the last uh number of years and decades and I know uh I'm very privileged to work with with all of you and um thank you for your commitment and Mr. for Wolf Gang. You you uh you will be one of these veteran board members, we hope uh in no time and um and we hope that the next generation of board members are is equally as committed. So on behalf of our cabinet and our administrative team and uh more than 1,800 staff, I'd like to thank all of you for your service. And that concludes my report for tonight. >> Thank you so much

055for your report. As is our usual practice. I ask you to pri prioritize your questions. We can go through the slides and ask your most important question first. We will start with one question for each board member so that all members have the opportunity to be heard. If you have additional questions or comments, if there's time remaining, we'll go around again and we will begin with board member Elma Yelli. Oh, actually, should I start? Yes, >> let's start actually in chronological order. Um, we'll start with our student board representatives. Um, welcome again and thank you so much. Do you have any questions as we progress through the slides? Can we put up the title slide with the breakdown? And we'll go first to And I'm sorry I can't see your name. Even my glass last

056name is Sampona. >> Yes. Thank you so much, Carmen. And you can go first and then we'll go move on to Cleana. >> Uh, pass for now. I will also pass. Thank you. >> Thank you. And we got that one out of our system. We will include you moving forward. Thank you. Board member Elman Yawi. Do you have a question on any topic? >> No, I just wanted to thank uh the principal of Eagle Point and the homeschool coordinator for coming in and kind of giving some really great insight into their school. um super happy to hear positive news about attendance um across the board across um the district and um I'm also excited to hear about the new engineering pathways. Um I've have multiple uh relatives that have worked for GE and it's definitely

057a great company to work for. So, um hopefully those materialize and our students make use of them. Thank you. >> Not not so much of a question, just a comment. Um I'm very much looking forward to homecoming weekend. So, that's going to be um pretty exciting. And um it's just this time of year is quite nice to um see the pep rallies and the um student spirit that's happening um throughout the high school. So, thank you. >> Thank you. and board member Wolfman. >> I'll pass. >> Thank you, board member Savage. >> Um, so I just wanted to acknowledge the GE connection. That is wonderful and exciting. I am actually a product of General Electric. I'm here because my grandfather was a General Electric um employee. That is why I exist really. There's a fun

058story there. I will tell you guys all later. Um, but I do I did want to acknowledge that and thank you for making that opportunity available to our students. And I wanted to ask you um a follow-up question about the question I asked last week that's not on the slides around immunizations. I recognize that it's a big challenge for us with our num large number of newcomers. Um, and I appreciate the information that's been provided since the last meeting, but I'm wondering um what heroic efforts we are making to ensure that our students who would like to come to school have the opportunity to come to school. Do we have opportunities for clinics? Do we have on-site vaccination options? Like what are we doing to help our kids get into school? >> Yeah, we began

059um going down a having that conversation um with a number of the uh agencies we work with. Uh we were trying to receive approval uh for our medical director, Dr. Staff, to be able to um offer immunizations on campus. and and we just fast forward we weren't uh allowed to. She is able to offer them uh through her private practice. Unfortunately, her private practice I believe is out of the city limits and we we're struggling with um providing transportation. Um there is a conversation, I believe it's with Whitney Young on whether or not they can set up sort of a a camp uh in different locations of our district um to allow students to be vaccinated outside of of the school day. So, let me report back on on where we are with that. >>

060Thank you very much. And when you do that, if you could um help identify what the regulatory infrastructure problems are that are preventing us from getting our kids vaccinated, I would like to bring that up as part of our legislative conversations because if it's bureaucracy that's preventing our kids from getting vaccinated so they can get into school, then our legislators need to understand that and we need to convey to them what they can do to help us help our kids. >> Thank you. And board member Criti, >> thank you. I also wanted to commend the superintendent in the district on the partnership with the GE. I have actually my grandfather and my grandmother on both on both sides of the on one on each side of the family uh spent their careers at GE. So,

061it's nice to see uh a partnership that will bring people into these high-tech highpaying jobs. But other than that and yes, looking forward to homecoming and a great game and some great school spirit. Thanks. >> Thank you. And before we double check for second rounds, I'll add that this has been um as per usual a very um a lot of synchronicity in this um opening segment of our board member uh board meeting. Indeed, it is school board recognition week. It's also um the first day that we have BOE student reps. And I gave an aside to Cleana that ironically it is indeed Hall of Fame weekend and one of our former board members and Hall of Famer Tena Frost indeed became a judge. So there are so much to um so many connections there and

062it's I feel like it's just a harbinger of all the positive things to come for our district include including the athletic promotion, the merit scholarship, the recognition in the newspaper, indeed our homecoming weekend, all the positive things and STEM activities at Eagle Point and the opportunities that are presenting itself with the synergy of GE and U Albany just points to um positive directions forward progress for us and a lot of opportunities for our students. Does anybody have >> Can I just add on I'm 95% sure that Sue Kushner also was a an Albony school board member before she was a family court judge. So it's it's not an untraveled path. Mr. Leco confirms. >> A yes. And anyone have a second comment before we proceed? >> Okay. >> Board member Yawi. So, uh, thanks to

063member Savage for bringing up the vaccination topic. I don't want to go too far into it, but do we have figures on the number of students who need >> it was in the SBU? >> It was last week. >> I'll take a look. >> Um, and I also wanted to welcome our new reps. Um, very exciting time to have you guys actually. And um I know both of you are going to learn so much from being here if um you just keep your eyes open, keep your um you know ears peeled and or your eyes peeled your ears open I guess. I'm not sure what the saying is but and then like around school too. So you come back to us with the things that can help your school and our district. So I think

064it's great that you're here. Welcome. >> And uh that's all I've got. >> Thank you. Okay, board member B >> to our new um board members or student reps. Um I don't I think you're old enough to drink coffee, so do so uh prior to a board meeting. I I don't I don't want your parents down my throat, but um um but thank you for stepping forward with this service and um it uh it does mean something and you're helping your school community. So, thank you. >> Yes, >> board member pref. Um yes, just uh very very warm welcome to both of our new student board members and to say uh we look forward to working with you more in the future to kind of do the broad view of board docs where we have

065all the agenda materials um and walk through our policies. And we also in addition to the regular just like district policies, we also have a teams team operations manual that talks about uh how we do some of the things that we do and how we meet in committees and a lot of other stuff that I think we I think many we sort of invented as a group. Well, not invented but after a great deal of trial and error, we found the best way to work together um in a transparent and effective manner. So, we're eager to share that with you so that some of what we do becomes um easier to understand. So, welcome. >> Yes, Miss Burmel. >> Yes. Um me and Carmen would both like to thank you all so much for the

066warm welcome. We really do appreciate this opportunity again. And just to let you know, the excitement is definitely not one-sided. We are both really eager to serve our role here and we guarantee you we will be back with useful data that will really help our community and our schools. We thank you so much again for this. This is the portion of our meeting and being that that segment is done. Thank you. We this is the portion of the meeting we have set aside for public comment. If there are any written or virtual, we're just going to check briefly Rebecca Zimmerman, please join us at the front. And while um you're approaching and getting ready, we will um read the rules to you. The board always welcomes input from the community about the decisions we are

067making. We set aside up to 30 minutes of each meeting to hear from district residents, parents, students, and other members of our community. If there are more comments that can be accommodated in those 30 minutes, which we don't anticipate today, we may choose to extend the length of the public comment period or alternatively establish a second public comment period. We also accept comments virtually on the same basis those in person and we accept comments in writing and by voicemail. We welcome all comments in English or any other language and we will provide translation when necessary. All comments must include the commentaries name and place of residence. We do not accept anonymous comments. All the information about these many ways to share your thoughts or with us are available at the addressing the board information section

068of albonychools.org. We ask all commenters to keep in mind that information about individual students and specific district staff cannot be shared. Not only is that a violation of privacy, but every student and every staff members deserve to know that concerns about them will not be aired in public. Also, please keep in mind that public comment is not the best place to first alert the district to a concern you may have. We ask that you share concerns with relevant staff such as teacher or principal. If you feel the concern is not addressed adequately, you may appeal to that person's supervisor up through the chain of command if necessary to the superintendent. Decisions made by the superintendent may be appealed by the board. Thank you. Oh, I want to also state that we have um board member

069creri keeping time. There's up to three minutes and she'll give you momentarily notices as the time elapses. >> Thank you. Um, good evening and thank you for the opportunity to present to the school board tonight. U, my name is Becky Zimmerman. I live in Albany. Um, and I'm here on behalf of our district special education parent advisory council, also known as CPAC. Um, but I wanted to tell you a little about myself first because although I know some of you, some of you I don't. Um, I have twins who are seniors at Albany High School. They went through Pine Hills Elementary and Meyers Middle School. Um, I also have a 19-year-old son who has level three autism and is non-verbal. He also has gone through our district schools, but when he was in 8th grade,

070he was moved out of district to Wildwood School, where he is still today. uh my son's journey was the inspiration for me to join with a few others to form Albany CPAC with the permission of the director of special education and the board of education. So I thank you for that. Um so and what started with a few like-minded parents in the beginning we were small uh in 2021 is now an organization with nine officers and 170 parents, guardians, staff, retired staff and community partners who are either members or on our email list. We work in partnership with the special education department to support and advocate for families of children with special needs as well as the special education staff who work with these students. Our regular work includes in-person meetings and virtual program meetings,

071regular communication with the special education department, maintenance of a website and Facebook page, support for families with questions about the special education process, and help and support for parents to prepare for and attend meetings regarding special education services. We also run the annual CPAC Heroes Awards which recognize faculty and staff members who go above and beyond to support our special education students and families. This past summer, we provided each of you with a copy of our annual report which outlined our work from last year and our objectives for the current year. One of our new objectives is to expand our advocacy efforts to include you, the members of the school board. Over the course of the year, it is our plan to present some information about the students in our district who have individualized education

072plans or IEPs. Our goal is to expand understanding of and support for the roughly 11% of our student population who are served by IEPs. In the coming months, we will present some information on IEPs and the types of students who benefit from them. We look forward to sharing this information with you and to a great school year. Thank you for your time. Thank you. we appreciate all public comments and we find healing um hearing from community members so valuable. Again, our contact information for both public comment and return correspondent is at almanschools.org. 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

073item carefully, but we vote on them 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 se separate discussion and vote on that item. With that introduction, I will now entertain a motion to adopt the routine consent agenda. I have a motion from board member man. Second from board member Savage. Are there any set aides? Board member Creeche. >> Uh, thank you. I'd like to set aside number 24. ESURF. >> Thank you. Any others? >> To serve. >> Yes. Um, board member Savage. >> I want to set aside number 11, budget transfers. >> Thank you. And board member Wolf Gang. Uh, can we also set aside 9 and 10? >>

0749, 10, 11, and 24. >> Thank you. Any others? Okay. With the exception of those that have been set aside, can we vote for all the other items? That's everyone. Oh, wait. No. I'm so sorry. We are not supposed to do that. We have to discussion first on the others. We can vote on the first. >> You did. You did. Perfect. >> Okay, >> you're perfect. >> Item 11. >> Yes. So, I would like to uh motion to discuss item 11. >> Thank you. And that's board member Wolf Gang. Any discussion? >> 11 was me. You want me? >> Oh, so sorry. Yes. >> No problem. This is honestly the trickiest part. The reason there is a script is that I didn't I like the third by the third time I was like, I need

075to write this down otherwise I'm never going to do it right. So, it's the hardest part. Um, so I had a question about budget transfer in this is a new system that you've developed obviously for how we're doing these budget transfers. It's a new um process. Looks like it's coming out of WCAP which is the bomb. Super happy to see a new process for that. The one thing I was a little confused about is that in the past we always had budget transfers under $10,000 which wereformational budget transfers which were over 10,000 which were for board action. And I don't see that distinction. And normally um when there's especially a relatively significant budget transfer and some of these are relatively significant there's a little bit more explanation um and so I wasn't sure I wanted

076to ask you sort of the process question what your intention is around the process without bogging us down into like okay there's like a lot of budget transfers here and I would like to understand sort of what's happening and why there's so many but I'm not sure if this is the time or place to do that. So there that is my question ish. >> Yep. So, uh, we're trying to do it through Winkap, trying to do it through one report, but unfortunately there's not a way to differentiate the 10,000 under or over. Um, so this is a work in progress, but we will clarify it more and give more detail about why the transfers happened um, going forward. So, in terms of that, if we could guess just get maybe a onepage SBU that explains

077this. Um, I'm not going to hold up voting on these this time, but I do think maybe um I'm 90% sure, that's apparently my theme of the day. I'm 90% sure there's a board policy that defines that it's 10,000. That's the cuto off. And if um if we're going to change the process, maybe we need to change the policy to align with the process or maybe we need to change the process to align with the policy. I don't know. But um one way or the other, it's it's just awkward because what we have here is a mix of things that are or maybe we just need a cover letter that says the things that are over 10,000 we're doing for approval and the things that are under 10,000 we're doing for information, whatever works. But

078I think right now it's just very confusing because it's not clear to the public what we're actually doing. Are we just being informed of these things or are we approving them and could stop them? Um and so that's the question >> or the proposal that something happened to that. >> Okay. Any other discussion? >> Okay. Seeing none, we can vote on the adoption of item 11 budget transfers. And that is unanimous. Thank you. >> Yes. Okay. Board member Savage Mo. Wait, we >> need >> So, we need a second. >> Okay. >> A motion to adopt item 11, budget transfers. >> I made that motion to do budget 11, budget item 11. I thought I intended to. Whether I did or not, I don't know, but I intended to. >> And the second is board

079member Kerichi. Thank you. And thank you. And we have a unanimous vote for that one. And the second item was uh 13 >> three >> 9 10 We can take them together. >> Okay. Motion to adopt nine and 10 together. >> Yes. Okay. Discussion. >> Yes. So >> motion for board member creche second board member man and with that being adopted we can discuss um yeah just I guess a similar kind of process question of why we're um like have monthly updates broken out but we're getting them in October in like a three-month batch. Um just trying to understand that So, uh, we're trying to do a business report part of the agenda like it should be anyways. We're trying to catch back up to the point where the normal procedure should be there. So,

080that's why I took a little bit of time. I now have the staff that can help me get these on and get on a good rotation. So, you you'll see it usually every other board agenda going forward. >> No, perfect. I had the uh after our last meeting, I had the NISBA trainings. So, I've been looking out for them and I was going to ask you about it and then we got them on the agenda tonight. So, it was perfect, but I wanted to ask about the timelines. Awesome. Thank you. That's my only question. >> Thank you. More discussion on this item. Board member Savage. >> Um I wanted to renew my request that you consider a cover letter for these um as we're bu building back up the staff in the business office. Um,

081I know I've said this before, but I'll say it in this context for those who weren't part of that meeting or those prior meetings. These reports are almost unintelligible to someone who doesn't have the knowledge of the seasonality of expenditures, right? If you don't know, oh, this always happens in September or it never happens until June, you really can't interpret whether these reports are a good sign, a bad sign, or something else. So I think it would be extremely helpful when you present them to just have a very brief cover memo even if it says simply all systems normal everything is cool or um please pay attention to this particular line and be aware of this particular thing otherwise um I really like numbers and even though I really like numbers I still can't make

082heads or tails of these because I don't have that context for the seasonality of the decision- making. >> Thank you board member. >> Thank you. I just want to say thank you. Um it's nice to see these reports again. Even though yes, it's true. I don't completely understand them, but I love seeing things broken down like this because sometimes it does lead you to things where you can ask questions and see uh where things are changing or where things are not as anticipated. So, it's good to have these back. It's good to have these back as part of the public routine routine consent agenda. >> Thank you. Any more discussion? >> Can I say one more quick thing? I just wanted to mention that as part of the ad hoc routine consent committee, it is

083our intention to have a more clear understanding of what should be happening at each board um at the first meeting of the month, the second meeting of the month, so that we have more of a checklist because it has happened more than once where um board members are great at reviewing what's present, but we're not always great at recognizing what's absent um because we're busy and you know, you just don't get realize that what you're used to seeing is not there or it may take a bit for you be like, "Wait, we haven't seen that in a while." So, we're we're planning to come up with sort of a checklist so that um with the assistance of Miss Timmons, we can identify the gaps as well as the information. >> Thank you. And we can

084now present this for adoption. Can I have a motion to adopt? All in >> Oh, all in favor? Any opposed? Seeing none, it's adopted. We have one more 24 east to serve. May I have a motion to adopt item 24? Board member Savage second. Board member man. And any discussion? >> Sure. Um I'm singling this particular contract out uh somewhat arbitrarily, but I just wanted to draw draw to the attention of the rest of the board. Um, so these are all on the new contract submitt form that the um, ad hoc routine consent committee really worked very hard on over the past two years putting together to make sure that it contains all the information that board members need at a glance about a contract before we vote on it. And to and to some

085extent it's been enormously successful. We're not and we're also not getting scanned, handwritten, and hard to read uh, contracts anymore. However, um we noticed on some of maybe a handful of the contracts tonight that some of the check boxes indicating for example whether it's a new contract or a renewal uh whether it's whether it's funded from general fund, a grant or something else have not been checked. So it sort of is operates against the purpose of developing these forms to not check the boxes and then have everybody in the cabinet check the boxes to say hey this is okay to go to the board when the things haven't been checked especially for this one and one of the reasons I singled this one out is I'm pretty sure it's a renewal even though the renewal

086box has not been checked and yet when you go to the um previous previous results, which is something that I really haven't brought up in a while as we've been going through the ad hoc routine consent process, but the not describing this very well. The previous results are where when we when we first see a contract um the cabinet anticipates say once we put when we after we've worked with this company this company will do something that will increase attendance at this school for 10% in the next year or increase ELA scores by 5%. And then the theory is the next year when they renew the contract they're supposed to look back and say we said attendance would go up 10%. Okay, what happened? Did it go up 2% or 12%. Because in theory, you

087want to get that ROI, the return on investment, and make sure the money we're spending is having the results we think it will. And yet, a lot of times in the past, and once again, sometimes the people that are filling this out will put forth some expected results, but then they don't go but that doesn't really do much unless on the renew at the renewal process that also happens. So, I just wanted to bring that to to to the district's attention that some of those boxes and some of that material is missing. Um, and we would like to see it, you know, in the future on more of these. I know this is an important contract because it deals with rural rural um, which is really critical for the so socio emotional um, training in

088the district. But just going forward, that would be good to see. Thanks. >> Thank you. Any further discussion? Seeing none, may um so we're going to vote. All in favor? That is unanimous. Any opposed? Any abstained? So that passes. So we made it. Um as is our normal practice, we have arranged our agenda with all the action items, meaning the items that we vote on in the beginning. So, unless something unexpected happens, we do not anticipate. Yes, please. Is there Oh, wait a minute. Okay, we're not done. Um, moving on to item G, we have the NISPA delegate proposed resolutions. Is that me doing that for >> you want me to do it? >> Yes. >> Um, so, uh, I'm going to just briefly state, especially for our our new colleagues, um, what this resolution

089is all about. So the uh there is an organization called the New York State School Boards Association and school boards around the state belong to the New York State School Boards Association. Each school board gets one vote in that. So the 700 school districts that were mentioned earlier, each district gets one vote as they try and decide what they're going to lobby for in the state legislature. And the um voting happens at the annual meeting and they don't they vote on a series of resolutions. Um each school district can put in resolutions, things that they think are important. So we for example have a resolution this year about improving the New York State standards around financial literacy for students, right? So that we would like to see better financial literacy standards for students. And so

090if it gets adopted by the schoolboards association membership, then that becomes a position of the schoolboards association and they go out and lobby on our behalf for that action. And so this resolution that we're about to vote on assigns someone to go be our delegate to vote at that annual business meeting. And it says to them, here's how we want you to vote on the resolutions that are going to be before you. Um and so if it's with the permission of the chair, I'd like to entertain a motion to adopt the de delegate resolution and uh delegate and resolutions resolution. That sounds very funny. That is before you on item G. Can I get a motion? Motion by President Vice President Wilson. Can I get a second by board member Wolf Gang? And all in

091favor? And that is unanimous. Thank you all so much. Any discussion? We're okay. >> Yeah, I'm sorry. I should have said any discussion. So, we're going to go out of order. Any discussion? >> I was just going to ask um can we all go to the because it's like a whole convention, right? >> Uh there's two things. There's the annual business meeting and there's the convention. If you would like to go to the convention, you absolutely can go to the convention and you should coordinate with Miss Timonss and she will hook you up with what you need to get there. So ticket and transportation and where place to stay and all that. Um the business meeting is now done virtually. That's a change. They used to do it at the convention but now they do

092it virtually. And yes there is a mechanism for attending that virtually. It's not at the same time as the convention though. I think it's next Thursday night if I recall correctly and it is um it is a rather lengthy meeting so you might want to just pop in and out as opposed to committing to the whole thing. Um but it would be great to have you see what it's all about. It is an extended conversation on each of 30 some odd resolutions typically. So it does take a bit but it's a great exposure to have. We have been very lucky in Albany to been the New York State Schools Association is divided into regions just like sports are divided into regions and everything and we have been the regional representative on the resolutions committee for

093NISBA for the last six years. Dr. Chur has done it for three years. I did it for three years before that and it is a really great way for us to have influence on the activities of the New York State School Boards Association. So if you have interest in watching that happen and maybe find seeing if we can get you appointed to the resolutions committee because it's a one three-year term and it's term limited. You can only do it once for three years. So it swe up so maybe we can get three more years out of the deal. >> Appreciate that. Thank you. >> Wonderful. Thank you so much. And that was a wonderful crash course in Robert rules and I'm sure we made I'm sure we made our high school correspondents with the civic

094seal of by um civic readiness quite proud. So as is our normal practice we have arranged our agenda with all of our action items at the beginning unless something unexpected happens in which we do not anticipate the board will take any further actions tonight. So the balance of the meeting will be items up for discussion, basically presentations, some of which will lead to an action either at our next board meeting or some other future meeting. That being said, that brings us to policy and board member cr. Uh tonight we have tonight we have three policies and one regulation. They're up for discussion because this is the first time we're talking about them. Um, no major changes. The first one is policy 8332, the use of district-owned cells cell phones. We added the policy name to

095change use of. Um, we changed the person employees are required to report loss or damage of their phone to from the business office to their immediate supervisor and the technology department. And we added to the provisions that say teachers can request a field trip cell phone for field trips to say they really have to provide advanced notice if they want that. Next policy, school sponsored student expression 5220. No changes to the policy. However, when we were reviewing, we noted that in the policy we added on to the NISBA sample. The New York State School Board Associations puts out puts out a model policies for districts and we often adopt them a whole or in part, but we also because we we're very hands-on with our policies deviate from them as we see fit. And we

096chose to deviate a little bit from the sample policy in that the sample policy says if someone object if basically if someone um if a student is objecting saying that their speech is being suppressed they can appeal to the superintendent and that's it. But we said there should be a board level of review as well. We have it in the policy but we did not have a procedure for that in the regulations. So, we suggested to cabinet that they amend the regulations um to allow students to appeal the superintendent's decision within five school days and then the board would issue a written decision within 10 school days. Um the board the board votes on policy which is basically the bigger picture uh the ideals uh the more the more abstract um ways we do things

097whereas uh procedures and regulations are more the nitty-gritty and that's something that cabinet and staff develop. So, we won't be voting on this one because it's a regulation, but because it relates to a policy, uh, we just talk about it as part of the meeting. Next 5225, student personal expression in accordance with the recently re revised NISBA sample policy, uh, the language about constitutionally protected rights now says the principle will give due consideration instead of shall give consideration to rights. It also adds a reference to freedom of religion as well as freedom of expression as a right. Um, also in accordance with our own district specific newly adopted advertising policy, we have added language stating that students will only be permitted to distribute written materials if the materials are non-commercial in nature because we do

098not allow uh people to come in and try to sell things um in our schools. >> Yes. Um, the section we're operating from is H, which is it won't always be H, but it's the discussion policy. There's no action. And there's a policy memo there, item one, that summarizes everything she's saying. And, um, if you're we're not memorizing these, there's a revised version that shows red lines and what we've changed. So, if we only change the word, it shows we struck the word and put something new just for you to be able to follow on that we're not super humanly memorizing this. Um, it's all in front of us. So, I just wanted to share that so you guys could follow along. >> I'm sorry. Yes, I'm I'm I'm read I am I am reading

099this out loud and as part of our orientation, we'll show you where these documents are because yeah, I couldn't remember. Finally, discussion admission of non-resident students. We changed a little bit of the language about residents who move outside of the district during the school year. Um, it used to say just if you move during a semester, you can stay for the end of the till the end of the semester. And we added trimester in there because recently we switched elementary schools from the semester system to trimester systems. Uh, that is all of our policy meeting items. Does anyone have any comments or questions on any of those policies? Starting with Miss Sampona? >> No comment. >> Thank you, Mi. Miss Burmel, >> no comment. >> Thank you, Mr. Elmani. >> No. >> Thank you. M

100Miss Man, >> I have no comment. >> Thank you. Oh, I forgot. I forgot Mr. Wolf Gang first. I'm sorry, Mr. Wolfg. >> Uh, no comment. >> Thank you, Miss Savage. Uh, I have two um two very um sort of u administrative things and then I have one question I would like to ask. the administrative thing. 5225, very excellent to add the attendance policy. I think we just need to add the reference at the bottom because I don't think that got added. At least I didn't see it in the red line. Um, and then 5152 looks to me like the red line might be a red line against the NISB sample instead of the red line against our adopted policy. I'm not 100% sure that's the case, but I really appreciate the red lines. Now

101that I'm not on policy committee, I really really appreciate the the red lines. So if before we act we can get the definite exact red line between the currently adopted and um proposed version or if you can clarify what's going on there for me. >> Absolutely. So this was a mistake on the part of some staff that were were in a certain cabinet area that were new and didn't understand that you have to redline uh the currently adopted policy to the proposed policy rather than the sample policy. As a result rather than have we did want to bring this to the board. So rather than delay it, I believe the one new word trimester has been highlighted in yellow. >> Oh, okay. >> Um rather than go through and do the compare and the redlinining.

102Um I see we have got it. Got it. >> We have some more policies in this 51 I believe 5100 series or approximately that normally travel with these policies. However, uh they had more substantive changes and required corrected red lines. So we will see them again. >> Okay. So if I mean I think it should be relatively quick to do the compare thing so we can get the true red line before we act in two weeks. Is that is that an option? >> Yes, that would that would that would work. >> And then I just had a question about um 5220R which I know we don't act on and and I appreciated your um recognition and explanation especially for our new colleagues about the distinction between board policy and board regulation. And my my shorthand

103way of thinking about it is the policy is the thing that the board has to change. So regulations are things that the staff can change. They don't have to come to us and say, "Do you want to change this?" They can change that as as they will. And so it it just struck me as a little bit interesting to have the regulation tell the board our our timeline rather than having that in the policy because normally the board sets our own timeline. So it's a little bit of a weird situation because you're absolutely right. Normally, we put timelines in the regulation, but in this case, the regulation is dictating the board's behavior. So, it doesn't seem to me like that's something staff should be able to do without board action. So, I just feel like

104philosophically maybe that um that 10day uh constraint should should actually be a change to the policy so that the board is controlling the expectations on the board. And then more um sub substantively um my question is is 10 days enough? If we ever got an appeal under this circumstances, would we be is it plausible to think the board could turn that around that quickly? >> That was the subject. That was yeah, that was that was the subject of of some debate um as to whether we a whether we could, but also b whether if we sat on it um especially if somebody's um you know expression is being stifled that that Mr. Wolf Gang suggested that that could create more problems and potentially litig litigation. And I think we came up with 10 days because

105at the wor in a worst case scenario we could we could that would give us enough time for an emergency meeting to declare um like an emergency ad hoc meeting. As for the second thing you know it seemed to make more sense to have all the dates and deadlines in the regulation and not the policy itself. But for the reasons you state it makes more sense to separate them, doesn't it? >> Or it could be in both places, right? It could be policy and then the regulation could just echo the policy. Um, and the the regulation could say as stated in the policy, blah blah blah blah blah or something. So, it's clear that the board is who's deciding what the board's time frame is. >> That makes sense. So, I guess we can put

106that on the agenda for the next policy meeting 5220 itself to talk about doing that and bringing it back for next meeting. >> You can you can also just bring it back. I mean, you can >> I guess we can just bring it back if it's just that we can bring it we can bring 5220. that we can ask for the 5220 change to be made and bring it back um as on the action agenda for next time. Do I have to get a vote on that or is that just something that we can >> Oh yes, sorry. Um is there is there other comments on this? >> Does anybody feel strongly about the timeline that we proposed? We it was volied back and forth considerably for all the reasons that you mentioned. >> I

107think Mr. Wolf gang. >> M. >> Yeah, I was just going to second that that we we did a lot of back and forth on the timeline trying to figure out how comfortable we are with it. We gave every other step of the uh of the appeals that students can go through five days. Um and we felt that 5 days was obviously too short for the board to act, but we didn't want to extend it to a full month. um both that's a long time during a school year and also some concerns that that level of prior restraint and then having that long of a timeline could get us into some legal issues. So we ultimately resolved that we would call an emergency meeting if ever necessary. So are there any comments or objections to

108that to that to bringing that back that 10 days on the policy then I guess >> um my only comment which I'll take it back because I'm on policy as well is to see if we're consistent. I just don't want to say 10 here and we say something else anywhere else as far as board timelines. So, I just want to investigate that. But otherwise, I'm okay with that. >> I noticed that the actually the 5225 Oh, sorry. Yes. The 5225, which is about student personal expression in terms of written materials are that are distributed, doesn't have a board level of review. It just has up to the superintendent's level of review. I don't see that necessarily as a discrepancy. I think maybe you want more protection for speech itself rather than um like publication distribution,

109but we could definitely check to see what other I know there are at least a few other things that can be appealed to the board. So, we could check into that. >> And if I remember correctly, we the board added the board level appeal for the uh student speech section. That's not something that's in the NISB sample policy. So, that could also be why it's not reflected in both. is just it got added to one. >> Yes, definitely. They're not neither is in the NISSBA sample, but somebody a previous board a previous policy committee and then a previous board decided to add it to the speech one, but not the writing one. >> I'm going to give the floor back to acting president Wilson. >> Thank you so much. Um, we will come back with

110either action items or more discussion for policy. Thank you so much. And that brings us to section I, human resource update. Good evening. Thank you. Uh thank you board members and cabinet colleagues for the opportunity to present tonight. Um to get started uh I have our district vision, mission, and goals. And rather than reading them, I like to tie what it is we do every day back to the district's mission and vision. Um, we have our own guiding principles in HR. We are striving to recruit and hire and retain the best qualified candidates um and employees for our district. Uh, we want to promote positive labor relations. We want to ensure a safe and professional work environment um that emphasizes mutual respect and maximizes employee effectiveness. And we also want to provide employment uh related

111resources and information to employees with an emphasis on a on timely responsiveness and customer service. And so that is part of how we um contribute to the district's mission, vision, and goals. Um I always like to give you an overview of what our staff demograph demographics look like. They haven't really changed that much. I will uh get to a slide where I we do see a slight change, but overall we continue to have uh predominantly white staff members. Um and our staff population does not um accurately mirror uh our student population. Um, I also just want to do I I want to point out that obviously there are more um races and ethnicities um in our district, but I tried to highlight the uh four largest or yeah, four largest groups. Um, and then there

112are some smaller groups within the district such as Native American and Pacific Islander and also some folks who selected more than one um ethnicity. Uh, but that is the the smallest wedge of this pie. Um, I've also broken it down for you by bargaining unit because you can see pretty clearly when you see that when these three pies are next to each other, you can see that it's the ABSU staff that has um predominantly black and African-American members, whereas the management and teaching staff are predominantly white. Um, and that is a a piece of the demographics that we are trying to change through our recruitment efforts. Um, and I'll get into that a little bit more when I talk about some of the challenges that we're facing. This is the the trend lines where you

113can see that um over the past five years where I've got the data um that I can look at for this, we've been relatively flat. You do see that there's been a slight dip in the number of black and African-American employees in the district and a slight increase in white and uh non-Hispanic employees. And honestly, that is due to um resignations. Um it's not so much about our hiring practices as it is our retention efforts and the folks who are choosing to lose leave the district. And I can think of a few people off the top of my head who uh chose not to be in our district. Um that contributed to that number going down uh particularly for the um black and African-American employees. So, we still have some more work to do there.

114Um, as far as our vacancies, we seem to hold pretty steady in the like 8 to 10% of our total budgeted FTEES are vacant at any given time. Um, that's going to fluctuate throughout the year depending on what what part of the year we're in. Right now, um, in October, we are still filling vacancies through uh, the beginning of the year attrition. So, we definitely have some folks who sign up to work for the district and within the first month on the job um decide that this is not where they want to be. Um and so you'll see an increase in our vacancies over September and October and then November and December. We typically fill most of those vacancies and so you'll see the number of vacancies drop again hopefully. Um back to employee demographics.

115My slides appear to be a little bit out of order. Um, I'm not sure why, but I'll do my best to address them as they come up. But, um, I also wanted to look at employee demographics in terms of age. And I think I've brought this up in every presentation I've done since I started with the district because the numbers give me pause when we look at the number of employees in our district who are over the age of 50. Um, particularly when you're looking at um, in this case, our teachers. 30% of our teachers roughly um are over the age of 50. Um I also looked at our retirement data over the last couple of years and only somewhere in the ballpark of 3% of our teachers retire every year. But I think as

116as you see these numbers are pretty large. The folks who are over the age of 50. I anticipate that that 3% number is going to go up every year um as people approach 55 and older. We're talking about people who are in tier four of the retirement system, which means that they can retire with full benefits at the age of 55. Um, assuming they have the uh 30 years of service, but they can retire without 30 years of service if they choose to. Um, so I think the reason that the HR challenges uh slide is immediately after that is because this just they they go together. My concerns about our um staff who are going to retire um is one of our challenges. We're dealing with staffing turnover um within the HR office uh which

117is not immune from the challenges that every other area of the district is facing. So we've got a combination of HR turnover and also districtwide staff turnover. We are still dealing with a difficult labor labor market. Everyone in the um in the country for the most part is dealing with this. Um we are no exception. Um and that is contributing to um our difficulty to fill some of our positions. We are also still dealing with a teacher shortage. Um we have not seen any improvement in this area and we are also seeing um less enrollment in teacher prep programs which is also contributing to some of the challenges with filling our vacancies and particularly filling our vacancies um with more people of color to represent our student body. That's difficult too. If we don't have

118folks going into those teacher prep programs, then we're not going to be able to hire them out of those programs. Um I again I'm sorry that these slides are out of order, but this is a this slide is intended to represent um not just the number of vacancies we have in each of these categories, but also the percentage of the total uh budgeted FTEES for those categories. You can see, and the reason it's red is because it's the most concerning one. Um we have about 50 teaching assistant vacancies. That's 40 specialed TAs and 10 gen ed TAs and that is 25% of all of the budgeted FTEEs for teaching assistance. So that's the area that we are struggling the most with. Um but we also have a number of uh teacher vacancies um higher than

119our nonclassroom professionals. So the NCP number that you see there, those are also our uh ABSA members, but they are non-classroom teachers. They are the school psychologists, the guidance counselors, the social workers, etc. Um we also still need security monitors and um another high number there would be the um facilities and maintenance. Um I do think we've made some some progress in some of those areas. I think 16 security monitor vacancies is actually down from when I first started here. it was um over the over 20. Um I added another slide just to kind of show you uh that the vacancies although the numbers seem pretty high when you look at them in comparison to the number of filled vacancies, the percentage of vacant versus filled, you can see by the green lines that um

120again we're really only at 9% vacancy, which means 91% of our positions are filled. um the some of the work that HR is doing. Um I wanted to show these trends over five years. Uh because I think it's important to know that even when we're not hiring so many people um off the street, people who don't already work for the district, uh we're still doing the work of appointing internally. And so if you look at 2526 for example compared to 2425 um that yellow bar represents the new employees that we've hired um I'm sorry the new appointments that we've made whereas the blue bar are the new people we've onboarded and it went down this year but the number of new appointments went up and that can be attributed to the number of internal transfers

121we made within the district. Um, a lot of that is internal candidates applying for openings in the district and then getting that job. And so we basically transfer them into that new appointment. Um, overall you can see from the green bar that the work of HR is continuing to trend upward. So even if we're not hiring off the street, we're still making those appointments. Um, and the total number of new hires and appointments that we've made this year is higher than it was last year and higher than the year before. Um, we have also seen, as I presented last year, we saw an uptick in FMLA cases. Um, that was approaching COVID numbers. I'm happy to report that that appears to be down this year. Um, it's still not down where it was in 2223,

122but I I'm hoping to see that continue to go down. Um, we are also still seeing um some increases in our uh attendance or rather our sick leave that folks are taking. I'm happy to see that it went down for our teachers and administrators, but it's continuing to go up with our support staff. And I think that's something that we need to look at um to try to address why folks are are missing work. And if it's legitimate illness, that's fine. But if there are other reasons, um I'm interested in looking into what those reasons are. Um for some more positive stuff, here are some of the accomplishments for my office. Um the data that I was able to give you today on vacancies came directly from our position control reports. Um now that position

123control is up and running, it's going to be much easier to pull that data. It'll be easier to pull the data more frequently so I can give you um more updates throughout the year. Um, also last year when we moved the board agenda into WindCap, we were also able to then turn that data into the letters that we generate for all of our employees whenever they have a change in status or when we onboard them. That was a manual process that is now the click of a few buttons out of Wincap. Um, and I have somebody in my office who manages that now. Um we also recently brought on one of our uh long-term uh teaching assistants, somebody a very seasoned teaching assistant in the district has come on board as a mentorcoach for our

124teaching assistants and other ABSU members. This is something that has existed for the teaching staff um for a very long time but has not existed for the support staff and now we have somebody taking the reigns on that. Um this person is helping it's Bridget Dolan for those of you who don't know. Um she is helping us get teaching assistants trained, onboarded, certified. Um she has already in the very short time she's been doing this role, she has already um met with a number of teaching assistant substitutes and has them on track to get certified. Um so I'm very excited for that position. Um we also got a grant. Um, it took us a while to figure out how to get that money um, from the grant into fingerprint coupon codes. We figured it out

125and we have started giving out coupon codes on an asneeded basis. Um, depending on how well that works and how many people actually come forward and use the coupons. Um, we have some opportunities to get additional funding to help with fingerprinting and possibly even extend that into helping with some of the expenses of getting certified. Um I have also been working with Colombia University Center for Public Research and Leadership. Um this is a group that works with um boards of education and educational institutions across the country and also with state education departments to improve um to basically to improve education and to focus on the challenges that educators face. and they are focusing currently on how do we fill um our teachers our teacher vacancies how do we solve the uh teacher shortage problem and

126so I'm a part of another of a larger group of people who are informing Columbia University so that they can turn around and take this to um the New York State uh to New York State Education Department. Um, so those are the focus that's the focus right now of that group is the barriers to getting teacher certification and hopefully I'll have a final report that I can present to the board um in about six months or so when the group is is finished with the work. Um, our priorities moving forward, we want to continue to leverage technology to streamline HR operations. That has been a goal of mine since the day I stepped foot in the office. Um, we are still entering the 21st century as far as technology goes in my office. We've made

127quite a bit of progress, but there's still more to do. Um, one of the big projects that I've started working on with the IT department is using incident IQ. It's working for facilities. It's working for um, uh, obviously it's working for IT and then facil facilities adopted it and now we're looking into adopting it for HR. We'll be able to track employee complaints, requests. Um, we'll be able to track our investigations. And we're really at the point right now where we're just exploring all the different ways we could possibly use it. Um, and then I also want to continue to explore financial assistance options for things like fingerprints and certification. Um, and then the big priority, I guess I saved the the best for last here, is we still need to re hire our um,

128recruiting and retention position. Um, I've been uh batting around a job description with the superintendent um all week. We're hoping to get that posted early next week so that we could have somebody in that role um hopefully before the first of the year. Um I'm actually shooting for early December. Um and this is a person who's going to help us establish relationships with colleges and universities to build those teacher pipelines to help us decide what job fairs will give us the most bang for the buck. um to look at our advertising campaigns and also I mean that's just on the recruiting side and then on the retention side though there will be a lot of work there um more to come on that um but hopefully that position gets posted next week and then because

129you asked um the last time I was here I dove into um SchoolFront which we've been using for a couple years now for our uh job postings I dove into the sourcing data that was out there I I pulled a very large sample set from there. Um, something like 3,000 plus applications. And unfortunately, I didn't get any data on how well our our external advertising is working like anything with the CDTA buses or shelters. I wasn't able to capture that. But what I was pleased to capture is that since we went to SchoolFront and one of the things that Schoolfront does for us is they automatically post all of our vacancies on Indeed. And you can see from this pie chart that over 50% of our applicants came to us through Indeed. So I think

130we are getting a return on our investment there um using SchoolFront for the job postings. But I was also really interested to see that the other huge sources of uh of people finding out about these jobs, friends, family, and the community um is a big chunk of that pie. So I really appreciate that. Um, I think people realize that we're all recruiters for the district. Um, and that is something that I tell people when I can. Um, particularly our our administrators and our staff. We we are all recruiting for the district. If you're out there saying bad things about the district, you're not helping us recruit. But if you're out there saying great things about the district and then happen to drop something in there about a job posting, um, it's clear from that pie

131chart there that that's how people are finding out about our jobs. Um, speaking of, we do have a job fair next week. This is not a full-blown job fair. This is going to be one focused on getting some more substitutes and teaching assistants in the district and also hall monitors. Those are the three areas that we are really hoping um to to bridge those gaps. And then we have a few coming up um in the spring and then we will continue to plan for spring job fairs. I'm hoping um that's why we will have the recruiting person on board before the first of the year so that that person will help us decide which of the spring job fairs we really should be attending and that was it. >> Excellent. Thank you. And we're going

132to begin our questions. May I begin with board member Wolf Gang? Oh no, actually so sorry. Let's start with our student representatives. Any questions or comments? No comment. >> Okay. Thank you. And board member Wolf Gang. >> Thank you. Um for the TA vacancies, um I know we've talked about, you know, setting up an educational pathway through the CTE program. Is that But is that what we're really looking for? Is the TAs? that almost feels more like a teacher pipeline. Is there a way to be setting up our students to be able to come in and fill these positions? I >> I think that the the goal there is both. Um, a lot of people will start as a teaching assistant and then work their way up to becoming a teacher. Um, and that's a

133really that's a coste effective way to approach that particular pathway. Um, if you become a teaching assistant here, you will get tuition reimbursement to pursue your teacher education. Um, so that I think that's a valuable way to move that needle. Yep. >> Oh, and then second real quick question because I was just looking up like what are the actual state requirements to be a TA? I didn't know that. Um, and there's, you know, a test uh, which has a fee associated with it as well as a number of workshops. Are we, you had mentioned the mentorship and trying to get TA certified. Is that something we're able to help those prospective TAs with covering and getting to and you know help trying to help them get there? >> Um we've been talking about that a

134lot. I think I've had th those conversations with the board a few times now. Um so we are exploring I'm exploring different potential grants that we could get. We're also having conversations about how we can get somebody inside the district um to be an approved provider of some of those workshops so that the so that they we can offer the workshops for free. Um it's not as simple as just finding somebody who's willing to teach it. We actually have state we have to have state ed come in and say that they will accept that as a as an approved workshop. Um so those are some things that we we have been discussing. I don't have any um definitive you know answers on that yet. Um, but I also have had conversations with um, Mari Shops

135at AF about potentially um, she might have a pot of money to help us with that as well. While we're while we're figuring out the workshop piece, we might be able to come up with some funds to help some people um, with the workshops that are out there right now. Um, the last time I checked, I think the total cost is somewhere in the neighborhood of like $350 to do everything. >> Oh, >> thank you. Um, I will have another question, but >> thank you board member Elmanawi. >> Thank you, Miss The Um, so first I do want to commend you on the coupon codes for getting prices on fingerprints down for applicants. Um, I want to make sure that we don't just have that program, but we're notifying all of the applicants that they

136could be eligible for that. Um, and I love this recruitment sources pie chart at the end because it was it was literally where I was going to go before you showed it about the family f uh family, friends, and colleagues. Um, I know that we have to do what we can to be kind of divergent thinkers on this because everyone else is looking for these people too. And um, essentially we already have a really good resource in the people that already work for us. Um, so I'd like to see some thought put behind maybe a referral bonus for employees who have the ability to get more people into our employment. Um, I don't know what that looks like, but I think it could be it could be useful, especially considering already 15% are coming from

137people that work within our district. Um, switching gears just slightly on the facilities aspect. It's, and I know we're doing what we can, but it is troubling to me to see the vacancy rate at almost 19%. So, when I see this, it's for facilities and maintenance. I think either one of two things. we the people that are there are picking up that slack for the 20% that are not or we are not doing 20% of our job in terms of what needs to be done in and around our schools. So, this is definitely top priority for me. Um, being on the facilities committee and chairing it and having a brand new $200 million high school that must be maintained properly. It's not even a question of should it be or can it be. It has

138to be. Um, so again going backwards, I'd like to encourage the district to start considering referral bonuses for very hard to fill positions specifically in mainten maintenance and facilities and the TAs. Um, it seems like we're working on the TA side. Um, which is good. I want to see something on the facility side and um, yeah, go Indeed and go our families. So, I don't know what we're what Indeed is doing, right? But thank you. >> Thank you. And I would like to move next to board member Mint. >> Thank you. I want to um just piggyback on what uh my colleague, board member Elmani just shared. I'm really glad to hear about the coupons um for fingerprinting because that can be quite expensive. Um, >> I should clarify the coupon codes are cover the

139full cost. >> That's fantastic. That's fantastic. And that's something we've been Thank you for that because it's something and thank um, assistant superintendent Jasmine Brown for actually securing the money. >> Thank you, assistant superintendent. Appreciate that. Um it it it feels like when when you've given when you give updates throughout the year, job bears are I mean we have indeed but job bears really are um quite successful. Um and so um would you have an update? Well, and I'm I'm not putting you on the spot, but would you have an update? I think at our last board meeting, maybe two board meetings ago, a job fair was completed. Um, you walked out, I think, with maybe 12 solid people, a number of solid people. Are you able to give a brief update or is it

140too soon? um not specific to that job fair, but I was looking at this the other day because I think um I think Ron actually asked me and so I went back and looked and we average between 15 and 20% of the people who attend the job fair >> end up coming and working for the district. >> So we had something like a 100 people and hired 20 something in that ballpark. Maybe it was 15, but um so it is I mean it seems like that's a low number for the amount of people who attended but but if we're doing them every couple of months, >> you know, that's a that's a fair number of people. >> Great. Thank you. >> Board member Savage, please. >> So, thank you very much for the presentation. Um,

141I feel like a lot of the items that you mentioned are starting to actualize some of the vision things that the board has been looking for for quite some time in terms of the commitment to recruitment and retention, the commitment to um, reducing the cost of fingerprints um, and eliminating wherever possible the cost of fingerprints and focusing on barriers and figuring out what the barriers are and um, and trying to get them addressed in order to move our workforce to look a lot more like our student body. So, we really appreciate at least I really appreciate seeing some of those things become very practical and very real. Um, and one of the things I just I two quick things and I they're not really questions, they're more like comments, so I'll do them both if

142it's okay. Um, regarding um, barriers to New York State teacher certification, I have still never fully understood, even though the superintendent has attempted to describe this to me, the issue with um, allowing our TAs who are seeking to become teachers to get their hours as necessary without yielding up their APSU job. Um, and I don't understand it. I don't understand the limitations. I don't understand what we can and cannot do about it. Um but I I absolutely understand it to be a barrier to some folks. Um and so I would like to understand it better and I'd like to make sure that as the um reporting is being done, that investigation is being done that we understand that in a way that it can be explained to me and maybe other people who care because

143I would like to see every TA who wants to become a teacher in our district have that opportunity without putting their um livelihood at risk. Um, and if there are state ramifications or state regulations that prevent us from doing what would come naturally, I would like to creatively think about workarounds that we can work around andor legislative advocacy to get the rules changed. Um, so I really want to get it. That is the exact topic that I'm working with Columbia University on. Um because I I as we were having our conversations, I brought that up as a barrier and now I've got like four emails I have to get back to following up with the person who's who I'm collaborating with to try to answer that question. I do know that there is a pathway.

144We have a few people in the district right now as part of the teacher opportunity corps, which is another effort of ours. Um we have some folks who came in on what they call a transb certification. They can be the teacher of record and get paid. I don't know why we can't do that with our other teaching assistants other than the fact that student teaching has always been an unpaid internship in short. Um but I do think that the people are starting to push back on that. So maybe with this group and some other advocacy we can change it figure it out. Yeah. Okay. Great. I will not ask my other question because that took a little longer than I thought but maybe I'll wait on the next round. >> Okay. Thank you. And to

145conclude the first round I appreciate so much your presentation. I love >> Sorry. I'm sorry. Oh, >> second. >> Secretary for you. That's okay. Thank I wanted to thank you so much for the presentation. Echoing what my colleague said. Fantastic news to get the coupon waiver for the fingerprinting cost because it's something we've been working on for years. I just had the question specifically about the special education uh teaching assistant vacancies. Is that something where we fill that immediate we're able to fill the immediate need with substitutes during the day or something? >> Yeah. So that >> so when I say that we're you know going out to job fairs to recruit teaching assistants really we're recruiting substitutes and then we're trying to convert them into certified teaching assistants using you know like having Bridget

146Dolan in her current role trying to help them get certified. Um but yes, as every time we get somebody through the door who's interested in subbing, we put them in a special ed um teaching assistant spot. >> Uh thank you so much and and yes, I'm very excited to see that we now have an ABSU person there for mentorship and training. I think that's going to be very effective in the long run. Thank you. No other questions. >> Thank you so much, Secretary Kerichi. So, um thank you for your presentation. I appreciate it so much when you talked about saying great things about the district because I feel like there's a whole like campaign about great places to work and that more or less sells itself for um people often seek out a job because

147of you know its standing or reputation the lore as the young people call it. Um I appreciate also hearing about the Colombia program um for the research the quantitative data and you know in terms of rec recruitment and retention position. It's very um nice to hear about as well as far as relationships, colleges and things of that nature and also about the mentor coach. Fantastic news. It kind of um all of these things feed into um fixing uh what what we're dealing with I call what I will call like the relational dynamics as you mentioned between um retirees which there can be what do you call signals of distress. if the economy starts looking like it's going to take a downturn, people may take that as a harbinger of things to come and things of

148that nature. And then we want to also pull people in at the early career naturally. So there's that natural tension there. And so I I think of enticing them in terms of like transferable skills from other industries, uh training and promotional opportunities which seems will be addressed by the mentor courage and any perks of working here which I know a large selling point can be the summer time. So, thank you so much. >> Unless you work in HR. >> Yes. >> Or other areas. Yes. But, you know, there's that. And so, we appreciate that so much. And I know that was the first round. Does anybody have a second question? >> Okay. Board member Savage, >> I just had a very silly question. I think it's a silly question. The pie chart you showed about

149where people came into the district did not say job fairs on it, even though you've just said that you get a lot of people through job fairs. Yeah, just trying to understand that >> because people don't always answer the question and so um I this pie chart was just meant to represent the largest pieces of the pie. If I put all of the sources in there, there would be a whole wedge of tiny wedges. Um so job fairs was one of the answers. Advertising was also one of the answers, but the the slice of the pie was so tiny. Um, I I just focused on the biggest ones particularly because I wanted to call out district employees and friends, family, and colleagues as being a huge source. And again, this is only the people who

150answered the question. >> Yes, Mr. Wilkin. Um, so I know we've talked about it quite a bit. Um, but how I guess in the application, are we ever asking if people are like were Albany students at some point? >> We ask them if they were ever an Albany employee, but we do not ask them if they were an Albany student. >> We We can I'll have to find out if we can add that. >> I'm going to just come back on that. I'm really, really, really surprised to hear that because it has been board policy for at least five years that when two candidates are of similar caliber that is that the benefit goes to a person who was educated in the Albany public schools. So, if that is not on the form, >> let

151me double check. >> That's disturbing. >> Okay, I'm sorry. I will have to double check it. It might be on there and I'm just not in the weeds on the application. Yeah, if we can just um if it's not on there, can we get it on there because I know that's something the superintendent has talked about to me um because I've asked about it and then obviously our other board members were a part of that. um you know and then if we can just try to collect that information from the applications and get some idea um because I think especially you talked about making our district staff look more like our students and one of the best ways we can do that is to turn our students into district staff >> and so I should

152clarify that I'm not sure that the question is on there but we do have a spot where people tell us where they graduated from high school so we do have a mechanism to choose people based on where they went to high school. But the question isn't just there isn't just a question that says, "Did you go to Albany High?" >> So, we ask I'm just going to and it's fine to say I don't know and I I'll tell you later. I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but do we ask that question of people who attended a uh who have a bachelor's degree? >> So, do we ask not just Okay, so we ask where did you go to high school even if you have a bachelor's degree. Okay. So, that's the same.

153It's just not a yes no concept. Um Okay. And you know to be I just want to build on what uh Mr. Wolf was saying. We know that there is a commitment all up and down this district to build this ultimate cycle of turning our students into teachers. That has been something that has been trying we've and TAS we have been working towards for a very long time and we do look forward to part of that being that sort of barriers question like what is preventing that from happening. There's the easiest lift like the small steps student to sub or student to TA or TA to school to teacher. Those are the steps that tend to be easier to to make. If we can figure out what's preventing people from making the small steps, we

154could create a step a pathway that's a series of small steps um for students. But it's and this is why we've been talking about a CTE pathway for our our students so that they get the exposure and come out maybe with a TA certification right off the bat. Um so we that has definitely been a longstanding um objective for the exact reasons that you mentioned because the thing that looks the most like our student body is you know our student body right so >> um the final questions I know we talked about pulling people in as substitute are we also sourcing or trying to recruit not that we want to siphon from another area but are we trying to recruit also people with early childhood experience? Yeah. So, the way that Schoolfront works is we

155can go in and pull um applications from all over the place. Um we can filter by people who indicated an interest in Albany even if they didn't apply to a specific job. We can pull from people who didn't apply to the district but have certification that we're interested in. And we can do, you know, kind of like some cold calling if we if we want to. I do know that um Christina Lere in special ed combs through that list regularly. I know that Bridget Dolan is now combing through that list regularly. So, um yeah, so we are I mean we're trying to get people who didn't even apply. >> Yep. >> Yes, please. Um board member Savage, >> I just wanted to ask one more follow-up question around recruitment and I would love to go

156back and talk about retention because you you you highlighted that at the beginning that maybe the issue isn't always recruitment, it's retention. So, I would love to go back and talk about that. But one more um recruitment question which is I know there's been a fair amount of talk about broadening our job fairs. We have tried you know H.B.CU CU recruitment over the years and that the interest right now had been in like let's try some downstate recruitment, those kinds of things. But I noticed on your slide it said local job fairs. And I was wondering if that was just like a a mechanism for talking about it or if you're planning to do this sort of like in a three-hour circumference but maybe in a more diverse community kind of job fair. >> So

157we have um we have Linda Jackson Chomemers who used to work for the district. um she's working in my office right now to try to lay some frame some some foundation for planning those recruitment plans I should say um around like whether we should be down in the city out west wherever it is. So she's looking into that right now and the goal is to turn that over to the recruiting person um I'm hoping that I have I'm able to build in some overlap between the two of them. >> Wonderful. Anyone else? Okay. And the last thing I want to state is um I do see our actual emissaries from our district as so many community events touching you know interacting with the people which helps with in terms of maybe you're not looking for

158a job or perhaps your grandson or your nephew you know and and I also see um I'm not too certain about how we've gotten on these channels but I see us in other channels like maybe neighborhood association just as a permanent link. So our our message is being carried forth and we appreciate you so much. >> Thank you. Our next section is BO BOE committee reports. Do we have anything to report out for audit and finance? >> Yes, board member Van. >> Yes. So, our next audit committee meeting, it was going to be on, I believe, the 14th, but we're moving it out to the 21st um to um hear uh to to hear back and then we can provide you an update after that. >> Fantastic. So it was the 14th. It will now

159be the 21st. Any report out from facilities? >> Yep. Uh facilities met on Tuesday of this week. Uh we met with uh SEI, our uh building condition survey uh contractor and uh responsible for our five-year plan. They they gave us a highlevel overview of their intentions. We requested a few things of them. Uh then we spoke um uh later on we spoke at length about some of the deficiencies on the high school project and trying to wrap them up. Um and we are going to continue following up with uh the director of faces Don and um as well as Joe Carris on these things. >> Thank you very much. Any report out from government relations? >> Um mostly government relations we talked about because the next phase step there is the New York State School

160Boards Association meeting. We are also beginning the work of our developing our legislative priorities. Um, we've met on that twice now and Mr. Leco has some good marching orders um about things to um investigate. The superintendent is assisting by gathering information to bulk up our legislative asks spec specifically around additional resources to support our students um and in particular our justice involved students. Um so that's one area that we intend to enhance a little bit in this year's efforts. Um so we expect to have those before you in the sort of normal course of events which would normally be like in November we would provide a draft for your review of the legislative the recently made beautiful legislative um priorities document which um which will be essentially an update. Do you want me to go

161ahead with the other committee? Yes. >> Okay. So school visits I got held up this year. Appreciate everybody who sent me their school visit information. Um, I will be sending that out to Miss Timonss hopefully tomorrow because I have almost everybody's information and I have a good outline. Um, and so that will be going to Miss Timonss tomorrow and she'll be beginning the effort of coordinating the meetings. Um, and ad hoc routine consent meets again on the 27th um, of this month. and I had a good preliminary meeting with Miss Hulahan who is taking on a bunch of stuff um that is new to her um having to do with the way we organize field trips and um conferences um which end up on the routine consent agenda. So we had a great foundational meeting

162earlier this week and she'll be coming back to us with drafts of some of those which will ultimately re require some policy changes. So they'll be they'll be heading at you guys too. Um I think that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Um, anything for policy at this time? >> Yes, policy. We'll meet next Wednesday at 5:30 at the high school. And mo I should say here that policy in general, but all of our meetings, all of our committee meetings are generally open to the public. Sometimes they go into executive session for reasons such as appointment of particular corporations or people, uh, matters that may affect litigation or sale or lease of real property. So it happens more often for some meet some committees like facilities than others. But policy generally unless there's a safety issue

163or or something like that typically most policies are public so usually open to public if anyone wants to come. Thanks so much. >> Thank you as well. And do we at this time continue to report out on team operations manual or stained glass? >> Those two committees no longer exist. They were ad hoc committees that have ceased to be in force to my knowledge. Fantastic. Also, um some board members serve as liaison between the board and certain committees. Um such committee that's taking place this weekend is Hall of Fame and that would be our report out is to ask you to join us. Um at this time, does any board member have any other items of business they'd like to raise tonight? Okay, I do. I would like to share, of course, in addition to

164our homecoming weekend and all of our festivities, there will be a street dedication for um Sheri Archie, a member of our community who has passed away, they are naming the intersection that he infamously stood up against racial injustice um after him. And so it's taking place at noon and if I could be in many places at once, I would be there too. So I hope I can be there, but if not, I did want to uh highlight that for the community. And with that, I would like to say thank you so much to our newest additions, our school board representative from the high school. You did outstanding and we'll continue to learn and grow together. And with that, may we have a motion to adjurnn. Board member Cerchie, second by board member Almy. All in

165favor? Unanimous. Thank you. We're adjourned.