Board of Education Public Meeting | Live Stream | August 7th, 2025

001Good evening. My name is Shrida Chhatur and I'm president of the City School District of Albany Board of Education. On behalf of the board, I welcome you to our meeting today. With me uh we have member Almanavi, member Damis Man, uh Secretary Alen Crerache, Vice President Tabitha Wilson, and member Austin Wolf Gang. Um member Savage couldn't be with us today. Uh we have Super Hawkriter and a few of the cabinet attendees as well. Uh this meeting is being livereamed and the instructions to view this meeting as well as a link to the agenda including all the documents we'll discuss are available at almannschools.org/bee. This is a good time for me to note that if you're here tonight to speak in public comment, you should sign up with Miss Stemens here to my right. Uh with

002that introduction, we invite those of you who choose to join us as we stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. 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. Super Hawk Rider, do you have a report for us? I do this evening and I will turn it over to Mr. Leco to get us started. Thank you very much. We have some familiar faces back with us tonight to celebrate their

003continued successes and achievements. After shining in the state competition in March, four Albony High School students finished in the medals again last month at the National Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America Leadership Conference in Orlando, Florida. We have three of those high achievers, high achiever achievers here with us this evening. Um, Matilda Gish, Sarah Nira Sangabo, not quite here. She's not quite here yet. And Olivia Stoyer earned the National Silver Medal Award and Devanni Haladine earned a National Bronze Medal Award. We are excited to have them with us this evening to hear more about this awesome experience. and it is our pleasure to introduce their adviser Chris Foot to tell us more. All right. Well, to say that I'm proud of this group of kids is an understatement. They really represented Alb High School

004at the national level and um they were they exhibited all the characters that we like to see in our students and our Falcons. Um and so I'm going to immediately just turn it over to each one of them. um Sarah may be joining us shortly, but um to uh talk a little bit about their experience. They had some of the they had a lot of firsts uh as we went down to Orlando. So um I'm going to turn it over to Devanni first. Hello board. I want to start by introducing myself. My name is Diovani Haldine at Albany High School and I am a rising senior at Albany High School. I did very great at the state conference and I also want to thank the entire board for approving of this trip because Orlando, Florida

005was an absolutely amazing experience. Like I've never been at a state and I could sit here and say Orlando was very, very fun. The national conference was absolutely amazing. I got to explore even more about what interpersonal communication really is for my future career because at the state conference I did interpersonal communication and then at the nationals I then did it again. So I just want to thank you guys again for absolutely approving that board and thank you again. Hi. Oh. Oh yeah. Can you hear me? Okay. Hi. I'm I'm Matilda Gish. Some of you, some of you may already know me and I want to say like just like Giovani said, thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to to do this experience because this experience was a lot of firsts for

006me. One of them was it being my very first plane ride and I was really nervous at first, but then I got the hang I got I got the hang of it and it's the furthest out of it's the furthest out of state I've ever been. So, it was it was it was amazing. There was a lot there are a lot of firsts and from start to finish with this whole FCCLA conference and everything. It was a really great learning experience. I learned some time management skills and some preparation for the future and also like some social some social skills too because you know as an autistic person I've dealt I've dealt with some like social social issues and like and like over stimulation everything but my everybody was here to support me and it

007was truly amazing. Thank you so much. Um, as said before, my name is Olivia Stoyer. I am a rising senior at Albany High School. I want to thank the board for this opportunity to go to FC uh to go to Florida and uh go to the FCCLA conference. Uh, it truly brought me out of my comfort zone and I was able to go to many different uh events and pin trading was one of my highlights of the event. Um, I still have that uh Tennessee pin that I beat Giovani in. Um, uh, I would like to thank the board. Without you guys, this opportunity wouldn't have not have happened. So, I would like to thank you. It really means a lot. Um, this experience was amazing and I would like to thank you again. So

008Sarah uh uh isn't hasn't arrived yet and she was always our uh last person. So I did tell her to get here 15 minutes early hoping she'd be on time. Uh but uh um she had an amazing experience too. She earned a um silver medal and um I just want to uh thank the board for again giving us opportunity. you can see uh how this has really uh changed these um students um and even given them direction into where they want to go in the future. Um I also want to just uh just quickly share with the board that we do have some exciting things that are going to be happening next year in the CTE area as we just got approved for additional programming in facts um and uh and so there's going to

009be many more opportunities for students to be able to explore their career interests. So very excited about all that too. So again, thank you for your support. So we are going to take a few photos, but before we do, I believe Dr. Chatur has some special recognition for the students. Yeah. And and for the photos, can we wait so that see if Sarah can join us and then we can take everybody. Absolutely. In the meantime, um there's a we have a few plaques here for you guys um to recognize your achievements. Joanie Haldin, Matilda Gish. and Olivia Stoyer. We'll wait for Sarah and then we'll have some, you know, Ron take some good pictures if if there are other things to Don't want her to miss out. No, we understand she's on the way. So,

010yeah, we'll just wait a few minutes and uh wait for her to arrive. Mia, we'll um we'll begin with my update and then we'll take a pause when it's picture time. Okay. So, a couple uh updates as we reach halfway of or halftime of uh our summer vacation. I want to brief the board and community on our cell phone um cell phone policy updates and implementation. Uh we had a job fair uh recently that uh is helping close the gap uh in uh vacant positions in the district and a couple back to school reminders around um physical requirements as well as uh students who are interested in participating in fall sports. And then lastly, a a two-day climate and culture retreat that we just wrapped up. Uh so as our community knows um and certainly

011our board because they were instrumental in in drafting our cell phone policy uh to comply with uh the governor's uh mandate that all schools are device free this school year. Uh we had a pilot uh in our uh secondary summer programs, our middle schools and high school programs. Um, so we could test our own systems so we could uh identify uh opportunities for improvement, receive feedback. Uh, and we did receive feedback. We received feedback from 150 students and staff members. Uh, and we'll talk a little bit about some of the, uh, adaptations and changes we're making based on that. So, at the secondary level, uh, upon entering, students will receive a yonder pouch, um, when they arrive to school each day. This was based on feedback from uh Albany High School uh students because we

012were sending yonder pouches home with them. And what we didn't want to do is we didn't want to create uh any more hurdles or anxious moments as students were returning to school the next day and forgot their yonder pouch that maybe they would have to uh turn around and go back to school or or just be um be really worried about something that we could eliminate. So, uh, students will pick up a yonder pouch as they enter the school building, uh, and they will return it at the end of the day. They will keep the pouch with them, um, their phone in the locked pouch, uh, throughout the school day. And it's important to understand that, uh, students will have access to their phones for essential communication, um, and that pouches will uh, differentiate based

013on uh, individual uh, and approved student needs. At the elementary level, uh it's a little simpler. Uh we just want to make sure that phones are often away during the school day and out of sight. Uh the elementary schools are are building their own guidelines um to meet this. This has been the practice in in the elementary schools uh since cell phones have uh been more accessible and arriving our our elementary schools over the last number of years. Uh it's important to um underscore how parents can reach their children during the day. Um important messages uh can be phoned into the main office or their academy principal or academy office at the high school. Uh those offices will get relayed to students uh by way of classroom teachers. And for families uh whose English is

014is their native language, we'll continue to use use language line. that is our district-wide um translation service. And in fact, our our team reviewed usage um just the other day. And uh all of our schools, I'm I'm excited to say all of our schools use language line very very regularly. So it's um it's a a baseline uh program that that families are used to and certainly school personnel are used to. Uh at the request of the board, we are trying to determine if there is a another third-party communication tool um that we could use for text messaging. Language Line is just is phone based. You call in, there's an interpreter. Uh but we are trying to identify if there are uh programs that are out there that um translate uh via text. Um there are

015a few. Our team has uh reviewed those. Uh and just so so so the board and community knows, there would be a cost to that. And I had the opportunity to sit with the governor uh about 10 days ago and talked about our implementation. Uh and while we're proud of being able to pilot our implementation at the high school, I did share with her that I think one of the um unexpected hurdles that uh school districts in New York State, especially diverse ones where students speak um many different languages. I think one of the unexpected hurdles that she um also acknowledged hearing uh is the need to translate on demand quicker. Um and so we talked a little bit about unfunded mandates and whether or not there would be money in the future uh so

016school districts could could move quicker to adopt those um those technologies and be able to pay for them uh out of special funds whether it's from the governor state state education department rather than taxpayers. So, uh I do want to let the board and community know that is on the closing comment and I'll turn it back over um uh for pictures. Uh is that we have mailed uh reminders and updates to families along with our student code of conduct. Uh we will also u uh include uh information on our changes in cell phone on our wall count district wall calendar. Middle school information schedules are set up for the week of August 18th. um both in per well in in-person uh opportunities for families and students to interact with um the leadership uh at the

017elementary schools and we continue to post updates and reminders on all of our website and digital communication channels. Uh I'll finish my report after we take a brief pause. I'll turn it back to Mr. Leco. Thank you. And we are glad to welcome Sarah Nurier Sangabo to tell us about her experiences in Florida. I just wanted to say thank you so much to the board for letting me come on this trip. Um it was pretty nerve-wracking at first, but I'm really happy that I got the experience to practice my um public speaking skills and, you know, have people grade me on that. We have a little plaque for you as well, Sarah. Come on up. Take a picture. And now we'll take a few photos. and that concludes tonight's district highlights. Okay, I will turn

018it over to um Miss the to give us a exciting update on a recent job fair as well as um a recruitment campaign that is ongoing. Yes, thank you. So last Friday we had a job fair at Albany High School where 90 potential uh employees showed up which was fantastic. We were able to do some interviews right on the spot. Um it was primarily focused on support staff. So we had a number of substitute candidates, hall monitors, teaching assistants. Um we did interview a couple of teachers as well and I'm happy to report that we have several people from that job fair in the pipeline right now to get hired. As of today, we were somewhere in the neighborhood of I think 10 people um have done their paperwork with HR from that job fair

019and there are others still in the works uh working, you know, pending fingerprints. Um so we'll be able to update the board uh in a couple weeks once we have final numbers from that job fair and also kind of see where we are for the start of the school year. Um the other thing that I'm happy to to see that we're renewing is our hiring campaign with CDTA. there will be um wear hiring ads in the bus shelters in the area. Um and that's just another great way to get the word out that we're hiring. Again, most of the positions that we're going to be hiring for over the course of the year are going to be our support staff positions, lunch aids, hall monitors, substitutes, um and teaching assistants in particular. Thank you. It

020is officially back to school time as I mentioned earlier. So, uh, children, uh, attending our schools entering preK, kindergarten, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 9th, or 11th grade will need, uh, an updated physical. They can communicate with our school nurse if they need help finding one. Otherwise, their, uh, child's health care provider will do. Immunizations um, are also uh, important that we have those updated. um we need uh immunizations um or proof of immunization from a physician uh that are required uh for attendance and so um folks can call our health office or find additional information on our website. Other reminders, our athletic season starts in just a couple weeks. If you are playing high school sports, registration is open uh for for grades 7 through 12. Uh we will have physicals in our high school on

021Friday the 15th and Tuesday the 19th. You can also schedule them uh with our partners uh Whitney Young. Uh high school practices start on Monday the 18th and modified will begin on Wednesday the 28th and all of this information can be found on our website as well. And our last update is uh a nice little uh midweek weekend a number of us uh spent together. Um when I uh was hired a little about two and a half years ago uh as Alby's next superintendent, um there was a lot of information that was shared from focus group surveys and uh focus groups and surveys and and different u meetings that I had with uh with different folks throughout the organization. And the one theme um that resonated throughout was around climate and culture. How to improve

022the workplace environment, how to make an impact on on climate and culture. Certainly uh we want to be able to retain our teachers. We want to have a a workplace that uh is engaging and thriving to be able to recruit teachers. Uh and climate and culture is is a really um it's a hard thing to talk about because you can't really pinpoint it. um that it it's um it's very conversational and not very quantitative, but um what we did was uh we scheduled a two-day retreat and we asked uh each of our three unions to bring a team. So the administrators brought a team, the teachers group brought a team, and the support staff brought a team. And the agenda, it's important to to underscore the agenda was created um by myself and the three

023union presidents. So this was not uh two days spent talking about climate and culture that was um done to anybody or like going to a conference where the where the agenda and the deliverables and the conversations are preset. Uh each of our three union presidents played an instrumental role in developing this um and identifying what the deliverables should be and what success look like. Um so there were 40 of us um 10 from each of the three uh units and our entire executive team our cabinet participated. We uh had an outside group uh facilitating uh the two days uh throughout the campus in Wlerville which is a a spot that um uh our district has uh attended in the past for similar um similar experiences. We we had some hard conversations. We talked about what

024workplace dysfunction looked like. We talked about what a thriving workplace should look like and and what the characteristics are of of highly um engaged staff and schools. We developed a portrait of a staff member um so that we can identify the skills and characteristics uh and work off of those for not only our future uh staff that will join us in the school district but certainly our existing uh well over 1500 staff members. uh and we made a commitment that the 40 individuals that spent two days together are going to be the team driving this work going forward. It was important to understand that um and underscore that their participation uh in this work was not just um showing up to a conference an hour away um but to be ambassadors of this work and

025um I think wherever whatever our professions are and wherever we work um there are many many reasons that keep us showing up uh but there are also opportunities to improve and that's what we talked about. We talked about all the great things that are happening in our school district. why people have chosen to work here, more importantly, why they chose to stay, um, but address some some elephants in the room and talk about how we can improve workplace culture for everybody. And we're really excited about that work going forward. The conversations were were direct, sometimes they were intense, um, but they were hopeful. And at the end of the, uh, at the end of our two days together yesterday afternoon, uh, all 40 participants had to describe one word about their experience. And uh I

026would say about easily 30 uh 30% more about a third of our participants identified hopeful as a word to describe their experience and what they were excited about going forward. So, um, again, I want to make sure that, uh, Tori Chapel from ABSU, Laura Frans from the teachers association, and Michelle Bridgewwater receive a lot of credit, um, for standing not only with me in this work, but actually in front of me at times and saying, um, uh, their combined experience in the district is uh, more than 80 years. And so, they have seen some things. Um, they're proud of a lot of the work and they want to improve some work. And so having them uh lead this work and uh be ambassadors was really important. Uh and it was also nice that we had

027a visit uh on our second day yesterday morning from Melinda Pson who is the uh NIST president. She came and addressed the group after uh spending about an hour with us and and learning about the first day and um she validated what we're trying to do. Um the New York State United Teachers represents um hundreds of thousands of teachers and more than 700 school districts in the state. Uh and she is not aware of any other district that's tackling this the way we are. And so it was nice to to have her there and participate and give us words of encouragement because it is um it's really hard to work in public education period. It's certainly hard to work in public education these days. uh the profession has been um uh the profession has been

028uh denounced uh over the last couple of decades. Uh and so to have Melinda there and certainly in partnership with the three union presidents um to be not only a voice of reason but inspiration um made these two days very very special. And the last picture here is is all of us. This is our culture and climate team. Um they're going to be coming together throughout the school year. We'll make sure that they have an opportunity to um update the board and the community on some of our work. But um it it it's funny there there are people in this uh in this picture who uh when we showed up at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, we didn't know each other and we left uh at 400 p.m. yesterday. Um certainly much more closer and much

029more appreciative of everyone's roles and responsibilities. Uh but certainly um a commitment to sharing in this work going forward. So, this will be the theme of our convocation back to school um video. We have a number of testimonials from many of these folks telling their story about their experience in the school district and over these two days. And uh we'll make sure we continue to share that with the board and the community. And with that, that concludes my update for tonight. Board colleagues, as our as is our usual practice, I ask you to prioritize your questions and ask your most important question first. We'll start with one question for each board member and then follow through for second round if there are more questions. We'll start on this side with uh Mr. Wolf Gang. Uh

030so quick question on the cell phone update you provided. Um, so you said that we are changing it from giving the students the yonder pouches to to like bring home with them to they're picking them up every day in the morning. Number one, that was the students feedback on that. That was their preferred method. Yeah, that was that was some of the feedback from the pilot um at Albany High School that the pilot began with having students sort of own and be responsible for bringing their yonder pouch home at the end of the day and on weekends and then bringing it back. And what the what the feedback uh student and staff feedback shared is that it really was unnecessary. Uh the the pouches are washable. We have the opportunity to wash them every so

031often. Um and that let's just eliminate any sort of barrier or stressful moment that uh if a child is is on their way to school or is ready to walk through the door and forgot it, you know, we can take that away from them. And um Yonder also um recommended that practice even though some districts do sort of allow students to have it and keep it. Uh we did have experiences where on any given day there were 80 or 100 students that forgot their yonder pouch and now we're giving another one and it just seemed like we could get out of the rat race by just having students return them at the end of the day. And you're not concerned about when we scale that up to the full Albany High about that creating like

032an additional bottleneck coming in in the morning? No. all all of the the secondary schools are sort of planning what the distribution will look like um because we would be distributing them um in a way I think the middle schools are looking at grade level entrances the high school now that the that the new wing is complete uh there's a a second larger entrance and so um they're not concerned with that and um we have enough staff and um we're able to uh move students through exiting um procedure that will keep it quick. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Manawi. Yeah, I'm going to stay on the cell phone topic. Um specifically regarding the updates on how to contact your child. I'm really glad there's now, you know, at least a standard. I definitely think it um

033is essentially kind of the first level and that I would like to hear more about, you know, the research into the messaging apps and finding out how we can relieve some of the potential call influxes to main offices because I know, you know, my at my job um once somebody gets a phone number and they know you can help, you're going to get slammed. Like part of my office got a thousand calls in a week as soon as the phone number got out. So I just want to make sure that we're, you know, we have the, I guess, procedures or, you know, the standards of, okay, we're not going to catch every call, but we're going to have, you know, an updated answering system or, you know, so people can leave the voicemails and how

034do we deal with the voicemails? So I just want to make sure because we're we are coming up to, you know, the time where parents are going to start wondering. So that I just want everyone to be clear about it. Um and maybe for us to be clear that there might be a little bit of um you know discombobulation to begin with. So there's not really a question in there, but yeah. Miss man, hi. It's more of a comment. Superintendent, I I do want to thank you for your leadership in um articulating and advocating with the governor the needs of our uh students around cell phone policy and around um uh specific technology resources um for our non-English-speaking students. And um that's the benefit of being a part of the Albany City School District. The

035governor's office is right across the street and I appreciate that um you've been able to access her in a very real way. So, thank you, Mr. Thanks for the update. Uh, like my other colleagues, I'm going to I'm going to focus on the cell phone issue. And I echo what Miss Man said. Thank you for advocating for the needs of the district and potentially for extra financial support to fully implement the cell phone policy and enable parental communication. And I also had a follow-up question because my question had also been like Mr. Wolf Gang about the pouch um giving and coming out. My understand I think I think ultimately it will be helpful to have those pouches held by the school overnight both to prevent students from forgetting their pouches and also to prevent potential

036tampering with pouches magnet removal that kind of thing that I've heard is things that people at least in other districts have explored with these pouches. Um, but I wondered because I know whi when we were talking about this on the old model of bring your own pouch, we were talking about uh school dismissal and whether that would create lines and you know lines for people to get their phones unlocked and they were saying there was going to be some way that you'd have like a tool up in the stair a tool up by the doors where students could swipe and unlock. So I'm wondering if there will be more staff necessary to once the student swipes and unlocks take the pouch back. Is that going to create and also what about students I think I

037had asked this question anyway. What about students that don't have for example eth or nth period classes? How will they be able to uh unlock their things? Ask the last question one more time if it was students that may not have a nth period class. Yeah. So, I know uh at the high school there are going to be um the devices to unlock the pouches at the standard exit. So, if students are being dismissed early or need to get picked up, go to an appointment or they have early dismissal. Um the schools are are discussing and I know there's a there's an upcoming um middle school meeting on this about receptacles. um basically unlock, put them away uh or put them in in a receptacle that then we would take at the end of the

038day, rotate them uh in and out of use and um be able to wash them on a schedule. Thank you. And in other words, you you anticipate perhaps not needing as much supervision that no one's going to want to take the pouch home with them, correct? As as a souvenir. Okay. Thank you, Miss Wilson. Thank you. Um staying on the cell phone update, I was curious if we had any um anecdotal sort of qualitative feedback from the students about their experience while they're in school without their cell phone just like any contrast in the experience prior and just a quantitative question about whether to our knowledge has the language line been in use during any of the pilots. Yeah, so the langu I can answer the language line is um has been in use uh

039for a while. We looked at usage a couple weeks ago and had conversations with our ENL team um and they are very confident at the comfort level of families who have used language line and that there haven't been um there haven't been concerns on on their point to Mr. Almani's um consideration scalability. So, um that is where we'll need to sort of test just the um if if we see a increased volume in um in usage in phone calls or or being able to um uh be able to use that that service. Um we will go back through the survey and we'll look at we we'll send the board a summary document of um staff and student feedback um during the day, what what things felt like um what students uh experienced, how they feel

040differently, and we'll make sure we get that to the board. That was a good um discussion and and I'm glad that we had the chance to pilot it during summer. Um, I'm hoping that before school starts, if we can do just like we do mock drills, if we can do a mock test with language line and see if they get inundated, we may have a backup plan in case something does happen um before students come in. Any other questions, folks? Oh, go ahead. Mr. kind of a side question to the language line like are we going to expect an additional cost because of the additional calls or is it because there's do we have a agreement that it's like a contractual agreement or like how how does that work? Do we have like a yearly

041contract contractual agreement where like it's just one sum price or do we have like a you know kind of variable pricing like how many calls? I I'm you don't necessarily have to answer that right now if you guys don't know, but I'd be curious. Yeah, I I'll make sure we get that to you. From from what I believe is it's a um a per minute feature or a per minute fee. Um and I I'm fairly certain of that. Uh and I want to make sure that I'm separating language line from the textbased um application we're considering that has a different fee structure. But I'll make sure we get that back to everybody. I'll hazard it again saying that it is by the minute. uh there's a base contract and then how much usage you have.

042Typically that's how it is but we'll get more information through an SBA. So any other questions? If not uh we'll move on to our next part of our agenda which is public comment. Um does the time be set aside to hear from members of the public? Uh M Miss Timmons, do we have any public comment today? Okay. Uh while there's no other public comment today, uh no no public comment today. We do invite members of the public to share thoughts on the decisions we are facing. We accept public comment in person, by voicemail, and also through a web-based form. Information about public comment and uh contact information is on the district website at albonychools.org. Okay, moving on. Next part would be routine consent. We now move on to the part of our meeting we call

043routine consent during this portion of the meeting. We approve routine matters to the district. These include items like contracts, field trips, personnel matters and the like. Each board member reviews each item carefully, but we vote on them together as a group with no discussion. This allows us to use a meeting time more efficiently. Nonetheless, each board member has the option to set aside any routine consent item in order to require a special discussion on vote on that item. With that introduction, I now entertain a motion to adopt the routine consent agenda. Miss man, Miss Crerache. All in favor? Well, any set aides? None. All in favor? Okay, that's unanimous. Thank you. Okay. My paperwork together. Next part of the agenda is a discussion on policy. I'll pass on the mic to Miss Crree, the chair

044of policy committee. Uh hello everyone. Uh tonight we have one policy on the action agenda and several policies on the discussion agenda. Um if I may start with the action agenda um for policy number 4526 computer network and internet acceptable use. Uh this policy was discussed and was on the action agenda last time but based on some some information about how the Wi-Fi networks uh were going to maintain be retain sorry the district wasn't going to eliminate the Wi-Fi networks um that students currently use during the day. it was just going to restrict access to them, but they would still be available for students uh who have an exception to the cell phone policy or an exemption and to students after school. So, the policy has been revised um to allow students to connect to

045Wi-Fi after hours or during the day if they have an approved exemption. Um as a reminder, this sorry, the that's the other changes um that are associated with this are actually to regulations. So the board would not vote on them. Um, could I get a motion, please, to adopt policy 4526? U, Miss Man, second, Mr. Wolf Gang. All in favor? It's unanimous. Thank you. Um, for discussion, we finally tackled our policies about committees, which is exciting because this has been something we've been meaning to get around to for a while. It's been been a process. Um, for policy number 2250, board committees, there's no change to the text of the policy, but we have finally uh we finally compiled committee charges for each of our standing standing board committees, a description of what we do

046in that committee and why to add to the policy. Um for policy 2260 um Miss Wilson worked to revise this policy to explain why we select district residents to include the importance of their lived experiences and their insights as well as their knowledge and subject m matter expertise. also including language about the purpose of the commit of these this type of committee and what they add to the district and also a disclaimer that the board will not consider recommendations that committees make that fall outside of the scope of the advisory committee's charge. There's also an exception that was added to the general rule that board members will not serve on advisory committees because in some situations other laws or regulations require board members to serve on these. Uh finally, we have a new a brand

047new policy up for discussion tonight, 2270 superintendent advisory committees. Uh we realized we had this type of committee but did not have a policy to go with it. So this is a new policy for that. And I realized we have in addition we have updated teams operation manual section 13 committees. We changed the name of this section from board committees and board advisory committees to include all three types of committees in accordance with the proposed changes to the policies I just mentioned. Finally, two other sort of loose ends for policy 5300.65 visitors to the schools. We revised this policy to add that all visitors may be subjected to metal detector screenings at all times. We also revised it to say that during the school day, all visitors must go through the visitor management system aka

048Raptor process and that for events outside the school day, the visitor management system may be used, but it must be based on objective criteria such as event size, location, risk assessment, and public safety considerations. Finally, for policy 5030, student complaints and appeals, uh, revised the name of this policy from student concerns and appeals because it already appeared appeared as complaints and appeals other places and calling it student complaints and appeals was simply more descriptive and would make it easier for someone wishing to register a complaint to find that policy. Um, is there any discussion on any of the discussion policies? And seeing seeing none I will yield the floor back to Dr. Chhatur. Thank you. As is a normal practice we have arranged an agenda with all the action items in the beginning and unless

049something unexpected happens we don't anticipate the board will take any further action tonight. The balance of the meeting will be items up for discussion, some of which would lead to an action at a later meeting. Uh that brings up the next topic which is our DIP. Our instructional team while they make their way uh up here, we're going to blend uh G and H together uh our DIP and our elementary and secondary SEP presentation. So, Miss Jasmine Brown and Jennifer Hulahan will walk us through these presentations and then we'll wrap up with a update on our pipeline initiatives. Good evening, board president Dr. board members, Superintendent Hawk Rider, and those community members that may be joining us this evening. Um, Mrs. Hulahan and I are happy to be here to present and review our district

050comprehensive improvement plan as well as our school comprehensive education plans. Um, next slide, please. As always, we start with our district vision, mission, and goals. Um, this presentation truly embodies all three of these things as we work through our implementation plans in efforts for school improvement to better improve instructional practices and thus student experiences and outcomes. Next slide. Good evening everyone. We were here maybe I don't know month ago, a little bit less. Um, and this slide might look familiar. This is from our presentation on our uh division priorities. And so one of the uh pieces of feedback that we took away from that presentation was really being explicit about our theory of action. Um so we thought about what we shared last time around the collective student experience really being a north star for

051us. Um and we we've really been highlighting that as we've done our summer planning with our leadership team. um and thinking about how every student reading, writing and computing on grade level, every student graduating ready for what's next. Um and then I think we've even added a dimension of every student seen um to um some of our conversations. We also lifted that equity as a guiding principle. Uh for us we defined that educational equity is about every student having the right to grade level learning and resource equity being that every student needs equitable resources to access grade level learning. From a theory of action standpoint, um our thinking is is that if we implement our district and building level improvement plans as written, um which is what we are doing, uh while collaboratively and continuously

052assessing our progress through discourse, inquiry, and reciprocal feedback, which is how we're doing it. um uh grounding our purpose in the collective student experience and um in strengthening the collective student experience and using equity as our guiding principle which is our why um and why we're doing it that we will then more progressively move toward realizing our district vision mission and goals. Next slide please. Um so I just wanted to share a bit about the improvement planning process um that is uh dictated by um the state education department. Um for our schools that are identified as either CSI um comprehensive school improvement, ATSI um which is targeted school improvement um and TSI targeted school improvement. Um I forgot about the A in ATSI but I think it's it's like in between the two um that

053it's been a little bit longer traditional DSI. Thank you. Um that is uh kind of in between TSI and CSI. Um and so for those schools we are required to authentically engage in five activities that are um uh really very explicitly laid out for us to do. And um we do those with fidelity in all of those buildings. And then certainly we encourage our schools that are in LSI status um that they can and should as a best practice incorporate minimally the the the spirit behind those processes and ideas um even if they don't execute them exactly as pro prescribed by um by the state. And so those activities involve envisioning, thinking about your current state and your ideal state, analyzing data both quantitative and qualitative. Our quantitative data comes from our um you know

054state assessments, our NWA outcomes, um other data points that are of interest to us um through um you know our MTSS process um multi-tered system of supports and qualitatively looking at our survey data. We annually survey all of our students. Uh faculty and community members. Um all have families have an opportunity to complete that survey. Um and then we do a listening activity where um we have focus groups um student focus groups and family focus groups that um the questions are designed in response to some of the survey results. Uh and we contracted this year with education elements in all of our elementary buildings and we'll be doing so next year um for all elementary and middle. Uh and then we they write their plan and then we implement the plan. Next slide please. So

055um Mrs. Hulahan just kind of went through what that process looks like. I'll add a little bit as it pertains to our school comprehensive education plans. Um so much like it's been in the past, it truly is a collaborative process um as we work through development of them. Um while we begin planning in the spring, um when we get our documents from the state, our guidance comes from the state. Um like I just said, we are progress monitoring, doing some of those needs assessments through the year. um in thinking about kind of what the next step is in regards to our school improvement. Um this year there was a slight change in the document and we moved from um some language from commitments to strategies um which is what you see on the slide above.

056The state outlined for us that um we had to identify at least one instructional strategy. um non-instructional strategies were optional um but there had to be between two and five of them um and they are really identified through that needs assessment process. Um all principles along with their building leadership teams and district support serve as the core team with smaller subcommittees working through the plan. Um it is also expected that parents are um a part of this process. Um it does look a little bit differently at each building um because the process is so intensive around parents um when they are engaged as they work through the identification of the work that will happen at the buildings. So upon completion of that um you'll see up above that each building this year we tried to

057get better aligned across the board identified two instructional um strategies the researchbased instructional methods which I'll um go into on the next slide and our MTSS process has been identified across the board in all of our steps. Um, our non-instructional strategy was only identified by our community schools. Um, and that too was informed by our needs assessment process. So, some of them may be um extending some some programming. Um, some of it may be tied to parental supports, but again, the needs assessment process kind of dictates um what that looks like for those identified key strategies. Um, next slide, please. Um so here you'll see all the researchbased strategies um that each building identified through that um needs assessment process and um multiple conversations with um all those involved in the process. Um, we also

058identify the action steps tied to each of these um, key strategies and what implementation looks like, who's responsible for them, um, what particular measures we'll be using to see if we're moving toward progress throughout the year. Um and while we develop these at this point of the year, they really are fluid documents that we revisit quite frequently um to try to measure the impact of them throughout the year. Next slide, please. So this year, uh there were also changes to the template for the DIP, which is the district comprehensive improvement plan. We had some choices this year. Um we could implement the uh priorities DIP which is what we've used in the past. Um and we have you know in full transparency found cumbersome at times. Um it can be it's not always intuitive to

059think about do you write the district plan first and then the school plans or do the school plans inform the district plans? How does that you know work? And when everything's due at the same time it makes that complicated. Um so we were really excited to see the systems level DIP as an opportunity this year. Uh the processes to first support schools in identifying those key strategies which we did I want to say at our April district admin meeting. Um and that's when we supported the schools in identifying those key strategies and then we kind of ran parallel and you know as we the district provided feedback to the schools the schools provided feedback to the district. Uh one thing we implemented this year across the elementary and middle level uh is to assign a

060district liaison to each building as a thought partner. Um and so um that was something that the middle school has done for a while now and the high school has four, um district liaison. And so we we did that K12 this year because Mrs. Brown and I have really been working on K12 alignment. Um and so that's sort of like this reciprocal feedback and conversation um that occurred. And so um as we develop the DIP, the key components of the district plan is to articulate what the supports are for the schools, which is already embedded in their plans and always has been. Um and then really thinking about cohesion. What's the district's role in cohesion across the plans? And so for that area, we really focusing on two components of our system. One is our

061instructional framework, which really we've had since 20 I think 16 and clearly lays out those researchbased instructional methods that are now required by the state. Um we were doing that long before they were required. Um and then the second component of the district plan is to think about um and describe the equitable distribution of resources. And what I found fascinating about this is that for us that section wrote itself because of our resource allocation work. I'm not sure what other districts would do that haven't had the benefit of that process because they're really very targeted questions about how are you going to as a district equitably distribute resources so that your students in your identified schools have access to um you know just as I think the way it's phrased is as equally qualified teachers

062as you know students in LSI schools or something to that effect. So, I was able to really lean into our resource allocation work as I was articulating um what that would look like, which was amazing. Um and I think that about sums it up. So, last slide is we're happy to answer any questions you might have or take any feedback. Colleagues, Mr. Wolf gang. Yeah, just a quick one. Can you for the researchbased instructional methods that each of the schools have can you talk about how you're like integrating that just a little overview? So it really um is embedded in almost all the things that they do. Um we work hard to really align um what happens in the classroom instructional practices how we further de develop that and then how we're kind of monitoring

063the implementation around it. Um so you'll see like those first three schools at the top when it comes to like cognitive engagement. Um we will do professional development about what that looks like at the particular building. It may be monitored by administrators in the classroom. The coaches are supporting the teachers around it. Um and then we may just be kind of monitoring what the implementation looks like and then our teams come back to look at look at that again and see where we need to to make shifts. Um, so part of the set process really is what implementation looks like and then continuously revisiting that um to see where we need to make shifts. Mr. Mani, no question. I just wanted to commend you guys on the organization of the chart where you know you

064have the key strategies and the schools. It breaks it down very simply and you know I think this is a really good guide and I'm sure you guys use it as a guide throughout the year to you know make sure that the schools are you know executing these strategies appropriately and that like they stay on track. So, um, thank you for this work and no no further comment. Yes, ma'am. I'm just going to, well, first of all, phenomenal pro presentation. Thank you. And I want to piggyback on my colleague um, uh, board member Elman Yawi um, about um, the organization of the chart really kind of outlines the process. And so it's not chaotic, it's not frenzies, frenzied, it's well um uh it's well planned and I think that um um and I I I

065think that our teaching staff um and uh building principles probably really appreciate that. So thank you Yep. No questions. Just thank you for the presentation. And I did notice that the format for the DIP and for the uh student the school level plans really does make more sense this year. It's more understandable to a lay person, which I think is important. So I I wish I wish you luck in the year ahead because we've got some really I I really liked looking at some of the school plans and understanding what they're doing and I loved the student focus. Really good stuff. Thanks Miss Wilson. Thank you both for your presentation. Um just trying to synthesize it into one um blended sort of question. So uh the thing that makes me well for one plus one

066to what um board member Crerich just said I feel like the iterative process every year is just a I gain a deeper understanding. it becomes that much more um natural and transparent to understand and the presentations also are refined so much more every time to synergize perfectly. But um I was curious about or most excited about the resource equity work as you mentioned and know that it's like an evolving process and curious about the adaptability because I know that when it comes to equity it will be targeted naturally to each school's unique needs but curious about the adaptability of the plans um considering that within even within a school even if we're talking equity in a building um there's diverse needs of all students and community So the plans as written, we are really good

067at writing plans. Um what we are really holding ourselves to high expectations this year is the implementation of those plans with the fidelity with which they were written, but also having that adaptability and flexibility to course correct as as we're evaluating how things are going. Um, I think we have really strong systems in place that allow us to evaluate um, and really triangulate that work, right? Because we're delivering professional development that's based on our needs assessment, based on our plans. And then we have our class visit and walkthrough structure to observe those practices in the classroom. And then we have our common planning time structure where teams come together to conduct action research and are really focused on three key principles um ensuring that students learn uh a focus on results and a culture of

068collaboration. And so by triangulating sort of those three mechanisms and those three systems that we have, um it allows us to be I think more nimble in addressing when the plans need perhaps adjusting or we need to adjust what we're doing in response to how um you know the staff needs. Um we're really working very hard um to ensure that we're starting to cross-pollinate our best practices. Um as you can see the several schools chose to focus on similar areas and so um now with the district leaison in place it will hopefully help them to be collaborative when they develop professional development um together. Uh and I just wanted to lift one more thing in response to Mr. Wolf Gang's question earlier around our instructional framework which really very clearly defines what these things are

069um because it's important to start from a common definition so that you have a common understanding um when you are implementing these uh these strategies. Um what differentiation means to one teacher could mean something else to a different teacher. And if we aren't being consistent in how we're um leveraging that work in our professional development, we're likely to see um implementation that is not at the level that um we hope it to be. Did that answer your question? I think yeah. Okay. Thank you. Again, I agree with my colleagues. Uh great presentation. I have a few questions. So if if you guys don't mind, if you have other questions, I'll do it one at a time or I can ask them all. Okay. So I I like the way the new format is. Uh but

070I do notice that not all buildings have had the ability to include parents and students. Um so I I would like to talk more about how can we thinking forward does it have to be a parent of a student in that building or could be any parent in the district. So it's something we continue to work on across all buildings. Um this year in the the rubric there was um a notation about a a parent um that did not work in the districts. some um or in the the building. Some build some buildings in the past have had some parents that are kind of on staff and they have supported this process. Um and it it it us there usually are particular buildings that struggle a little bit more and they've attempted to to be

071creative around um how they're able to to bring parents um into this process. Um so we absolutely are open to ideas and continue to explore what work or could be just an advocate from the city you know from the community because there are lots of people who want to get involved in our schools right and if you can't find a parent in that building and here's a group of people who are willing can they represent that fill that slot for this for that that school I do believe it explicitly says parent in the in the rubric and in yeah in the success criteria I don't know that it specifies that it has to be a parent in that building. That would be the ideal state of course. Um but I would like to lift that

072um because we conduct the surveys and because we conduct the focus groups, there is input in that regard even if it isn't a parent sitting like at the table developing the actual plan. Um and I think that that's important to note. Um our survey results were were decent this year even though we had a snow day on um our parent teacher conference day which was our you know our big push to try to get um more families um connected to the survey. Um and the schools uh that do the focus groups find those to be very very valuable. Um and so it is something we will continue to work on and um I mean I would certainly agree that any parent is better than no having no parent. Um but we'll continue to impress that

073upon the buildings as an expectation and try to support them in in tapping in to those folks. And then then the five points that that you have to touch on the envision one of them was interviewing students. Right. Right. And and I see that at least one of the school didn't have that column at all. Was just omission or did they not have any interviews with the student? because we do do surveys through the throughout the year and especially now that student voices even has a position on the board floor, right? We want to make sure that that does happen in every building that we're hearing the voices come through the u from the students. I think um the school the state mandates that the schools that are identified are the ones that have to

074follow execute that whole process. Um we share that process with the schools um and we encourage them to utilize it uh and we can certainly revisit particularly that component um as maybe something that we are expecting all of them to do rather only found one school that didn't do it or didn't report that they did it. So we can we'll look into it and find out for sure. Um, and I also do want to lift um that we are I am very excited at the idea of having perhaps our student board member being able to um be an ambassador of the work of the district plan um because that that's really several levels removed from the students and it's it's it's something that um Mrs. Beal found challenging. But I think that that now that

075we have that student board member that's a perfect um responsibility or way to you know to represent students in that plan. Next question is budget. Is there a fixed budget for doing this stuff? Uh or is there a different budget for CSI versus TSI versus LSI schools? And LSA schools don't have to report what they're doing because all the all the LSA schools have no information on that that last page. So I looked at my friend in the back from grants. Um our identified schools who get school improvement funds are required. um to connect what they're doing in their plans to their expenditures. So that is also a part of the process um for not all of our schools but for particular schools. And so the identification dictates how much money they get. Um and

076so to reiterate what Mrs. Brown was saying if they have suggested that differentiation is the focus this year that's the evidence-based method and then they are asking to go to professional development that has nothing to do with differentiation you know that you have to that thread has to come all the way through. Um, we also received funding associated with our district plan. And, um, this year we were really grateful to see that we had more flexibility and autonomy with the funding than we previously knew to be true. Um, because the ongoing challenge is that our LSA schools do not get funding um, through this particular mechanism. And so um, and we know that some of, for example, our summer programming benefits our students across the district. So, we learned this year from some clarification guidance

077that came through that Dr. Prepino shared with us is that we can um leverage some of that funding to support district implementation. Um that does benefit some of our LSI schools who don't have that degree of funding. So, for the LSI schools, even if they don't have to report to the state, are we still capturing what does it cost for them to do what they want to do? on a different form or some means. So that when we do looking at resource allocation at some point in time, it'd be good to see the whole picture. Again, do they we they're okay now, but who's to say tomorrow? It's not captured in this process, but there there are particular costs in those schools as well um tied to their school improvement funds. Um, and we on

078the cabinet level do uh do work to try to figure out how to support what their needs are as well. Because all of that kind of stuff would be useful especially as we approach budget season so we can see what is our investment, what's actually working, what's not working, where do we need to look for more resources uh and it it help us streamline some of our advocacies and um strategic initiatives. Um um okay then I I mean the variation between what they're spending goes anywhere from you know 60k to 200k which is why I was like is there a umbrella ballpark or are there you're allowed to spend up to or I believe CSI schools get two 50 and the district gets an additional 50 so you can be recorded. And then as Miss

079Hulahan said, we were able to strategically think about um those district initiatives. So we with partnership with those schools would set aside funds for things like summer programming um some of the the evaluation services and things like that. So that's why you would see the the difference in range is based on their status because even and I mean there's one thing for the key initiatives but even the monitoring expenses are are so widely varied and the development and some have no charge even though they are CSI schools and others have a bigger charge than you would expect for you know Yeah. And and as Miss Brown said too, they and and Miss Huhan, they changed the um the connection mechanism. So it was your SEP to what was in the past an activity chart which

080broke out every kind of price to your your budget at the end. Now they have something embedded within the set that's called their expenditure plan that has to be specifically tied to uh a strategy and an an approved state intervention. Um, so they had to go through and they had to actually say, "Okay, $15,000 will go towards this strategy." Um, so it was very very much more specific and I think in the end it'll um hold us more accountable to make sure that we really are utilizing the funds to what we say we're going to be using the funds for. Okay. I do just to go back to your other question regarding um SEPs for our LSI schools. I do know and it's a great point and I think it's something that we've probably will

081continue to look at through resource allocation review but every school gets title funding and so many of our schools who might not get school improvement funding will use their title funding to do the strategic work within their SEPs as well. So I just wanted to add that. Thank you. Uh now each promise last question each each school has their own targets right it's going to improve by 10% 70% 95%. It would be great at the end of the year when you do the uh academic reports to bring these back and say this is what our goal was. This is where what we hit so that you know we don't wait till the next or even you know it would have been great to know what worked and what didn't work for last year based on

082this is the goal did we meet target or not because it would it would ground us to reality. Are our targets just you know so high that we're not even meeting them and we're just moving on chugging along without or are we actually making it a a goal that is achievable and then pushing us to the next level which push us to the next level because at some point you don't want people getting feeling you know giving up saying it's never going to happen right so it would be good to bring this data back when we do these uh elementary and secondary reports this is what we had proposed and here we are you know if we achieved all of them great. If you didn't, then we know what to look forward to, right? And

083we can absolutely do that at the building level. Um it is not captured on these documents, but we do um set I do set closeout meetings with all the the building leaders for us to look at where where we landed. Um and like I said, it it appears to be a timeline, but it really is it truly is kind of continuous work um that happens throughout the year. But we can absolutely um consider that for the next presentation. And when every school comes and gives this presentation, they sort of talk about what they put in their SEP, but they're coming at so different times that you really can expect them to have the data if they're early in the school year versus late in the school year. But the the instructional um curriculum talks that

084we talk about for the secondary and elementary towards the end of the year, that might be a good place where we can bring this two slides. this is what we aimed for and look it seems to be working or we really need to think this through and thank you. That's all I have. So, thank you. Okay, next we move on to the discussion on grow your own pipeline initiatives. and Miss Holan. Good evening. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to give you an update on our teacher pipeline initiatives. I'm joined by Dr. Fred Anglehart, director of grants, and our newly minted assistant superintendent, Jennifer Hulahan. Um most of the programs um I'll be talking about but they're both here because they are taking the lead on a couple of the um initiatives that we

085have going on. Um as always we start with our district vision, mission and goals. It is not lost on any of us that our teacher pipeline initiatives and other recruitment strategies are critical to achieving our district vision, mission, and goals. Um so one of the uh actually I'll just go through the the ones that we're going to talk about. So, we've got the Empire State University um oh, my brother's keeper um opportunity corps, the NYU program, which we'll talk a little bit about, uh teachers of tomorrow, Sienna University teacher residency program, um our CTE uh career explorations pathway, and then also some additional retention and recruitment efforts. And also, fun fact, somebody tried to point out to me today that uh Sienna is a college, not a university, but both Sienna and Empire became universities.

086Sienna most recently. Um so anyway, fun fact there. Um so with Empire State University, we started this as Karen was uh Karen Beal was getting ready to retire um and as we were moving away from the NYU Steinhart program. So, this Empire State University has this grant that they are using to help get uh folks into their program to either earn a bachelor's or a master's in teaching. They uh they have an almost uh 100% admission rate. Almost everybody gets in and they provide credit for your prior learning experiences or your prior uh work experiences. So, if you've been a TA in the district and you want to go back and get a bachelor's degree, you'll get some credit for the work you've put in as a teaching assistant. Um, one of the best parts

087is it doesn't cost the district anything. Um, all we're doing is is promoting the program and trying to get folks to um to apply and enroll in the program. Um, at the moment, we have four employees enrolled in the program and three of the four identify as black or African-American. Um hopefully we get some more folks into this program before that grant is over. The NYU Steinhart program is one that we ended at the close of the 2324 school year when we realized that for what we were spending we weren't getting a return on our investment and we still um have only hired roughly 30% of the folks who went through that program. Um, but NYU doesn't want to completely abandon a partnership with us, and I'm not sure that we want to abandon it

088either if we can come up with some other creative ways to work with them. So, one thing that we did this past year was we worked with NYU to hire substitute teachers. Um, so they were getting credit for the program by being substitutes with us, but we weren't paying for their tuition. Um, what we do have to do though is fund the mentors. So, we had, I think, three successful students complete the program this year. Um, and we did have to pay those mentors. So, that the only expense to us for that is obviously paying the sub. Um, but then also coming up with the funding to pay for the mentors. So, we're still continuing to develop that program and figure out how we're going to fund the the mentor siphons. Um, we also have

089the teachers of tomorrow grant which uh is used to incentivize teachers to teach in these hardtofill areas and also to stay with the district. Right now we're focusing on math, science, ENL, and special education. We were able to award 65 of our employees a $3,400 award this year. Um, I can tell you that most of them are incredibly grateful when they get this money and they reach out um to let us know that um they're eligible for up to four years. Um and they are required to work for us for one year after the receipt of every uh award that they get. Um and to date and I went back four years there was we received this grant back in I want to say like 1819 maybe 1920 and then there was a pause because

090of COVID. Um we picked it back up again in 2122. So from 2122 until now we have a 90% retention rate which I think is pretty pretty fantastic. Um there is a tuition reimbursement component to the grant that we are not currently uh using. Um there's a couple reasons for it. One is and I'll get to that uh in a later slide, but one of the reasons is because we do have tuition reimbursement programs through the bargaining units. Um but we might want to explore the tuition reimbursement component to this grant because it might offer some additional opportunities, possibly be a little more generous than some of our own tuition programs. Um, so that's the the TAT grant and then I'll turn it over to Fred. All right. The teacher uh residency program is uh

091through with a partnership of Sienna University. Um we it's funded through the Department of Labor. Um and as you can see here, it's a residency model where student teachers participate in a full year embedded residency experience. Um sim similar to the teachers of tomorrow grant the funds target those hardtofill positions um but uh those are identified by the school district. So we've identified those many of our residents are in the TEAL program the teaching English as a second language um uh but they leave with a master's in that and they're simultaneously doing the residency. So it meets both of those requirements. Um so as mentioned we are partnering with Sienna. Sienna is doesn't necessarily have to be exclusive. Um as we continue doing uh the TRP we may find that U Albany or some other

092um institutions who offer masters. It does have to be a masters. So other institutions who who do a mast's program may want to participate in that. Um in year one we only had one participant. I think it was fairly new. it was still being um you know put out there by Sienna. Um but that one teacher is now teaching for us. So that's great. Uh we had a full five this past year and we anticipate another full five for this upcoming year. Um and we we do think that there's at least one more who might join our workforce. Um the reporting component of this because the Department of Labor wants to see if it's working because it's fairly new. Um, we do have to keep track and Sienna is helping with this um around if

093they've received positions in other districts as well, but hopefully they're going to stay say yes to Albany. Next, we're going to talk a little bit about growing our own relative to our students. Um, and so we previously had an education career explorations pathway years and years ago. Um and then when we restructured what those programs look like um that pathway uh was not of interest you know it sort of died a slow and natural death based on students enrolling in it. Um and so now we are really excited to be working Mrs. Cumberford. Miss Cumberford has been working um to sort of rebrand, reinvigorate um and and uh she's got a consultant uh thinking partner at Boseies um and thinking about how we can um engage our students in recruiting them for that program. Um

094now that Miss Palm Mary will be starting um I think actually she started today maybe. Yeah, she started this week. Um and so that's going to be one of her um emerging priorities as she um you know takes her coat off and gets settled. Uh and so we're really excited to rebrand that this year and hopefully um interest some students in participating in that program. Additionally, um we are still in partnership with discussions with Sage and U Albany um to create opportunities for students to earn uh credit toward a degree in education when they start with us and then continue it at Sage or U Albany. Um Hudson Valley is also um something we're considering. I just wanted to add to to um to Fred's uh comment about the one person uh who we've hired

095from the the Sienna program. Uh she's an Albany resident. She's also a woman of color and she's phenomenal. So, um I'm really proud that the program is is kind of, you know, helping us do exactly what we've set out to do. Um I also wanted to talk about some of our retention efforts. tuition reimbursement is a huge tool that we use for um for recruitment and retention. So, I just wanted to highlight again what those benefits look like. So, our our administrators union allows existing administrators to continue to improve their leadership skills um at and postgrad at the post-graduate level. Um ABSA allows teachers with permanent certification to go on and again uh improve their craft. Uh but we are re-evaluating that tuition reimbursement benefit to see if we can assist our 74 teachers who

096currently sit with um either initial certification or no masters or both. Um and then ABSU has a very generous program. Um and I think Fred can attest to that as he came up through the system as a teaching assistant, used the ABSU benefit to get his bachelors um and ultimately become a teacher and so on through the administrative program. Um so we continue again to promote that. Um, the other thing that we're working to do right now is expanding the coaching and mentor program to to the ABSU positions. So, we currently have that in place for ABS, excuse me, for ABS members, and now we're looking to implement something similar for our ABSU members. This will help our teaching assistants um, in particular, get certified if they're not already, keep their certification up to date,

097and also learn about uh, other resources available to them if they want to become teachers and what that pathway looks like. Um, and oh, there was one more thing I was going to add about that. Uh, it's escaping me at the moment, but it's going to be a great program for our ABSU folks um to have that that support that they don't currently have. And that is it. Now, just questions. Mr. Wolf. Gotcha. Sorry. Um, I guess first a quick comment just can we look into like with the teachers of tomorrow grant using the tuition reimbursement to like offset some of the tuition reimbursement we already offer the employees because I know we talked about we might have better benefits but if we can use like let's say 10k of theirs and then throw in

0985k instead of throwing in the full 15. Yeah. I so I think one of the things we need to look at is what uh participating in the tuition reimbursement component does to the 65 slots we have for the initiative um the sorry the retention initiative. Um like I said we were able to award 65 people with $3,400 and they are very appreciative of that money. Um so I just want to make sure uh we let me back up. We awarded it to 65 people because that's how many slots we had. But we have more teachers who are eligible for that money than we have slots. So that's why I just want to make sure that we fully understand. So what we're going to have to dig into that a little bit more and fully understand

099what that will do uh to the other side of the the money. Yeah. I mean definitely if it's taking away then but if it's just like an extra pot that we can grab at that be great. Yeah. I just I was going to say this with TRP similarly. um TRP um incentives could be used for tuition. You'd have to check that box to do that. TRP uh because Sienna offers such uh great financial aid and also loan forgiveness um for teachers who go into that field. Uh what we found is that kind of like life credit um or life support um things like child care and just that type of more general uh funding was better. No, it's what students wanted more than just tuition reimbursement. So again, it kind of adds to the the

100beer context. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Alvi. So, I'm seeing that we're dropping the NYU, we've already dropped the NYU program. um and that we have essentially two to three, you know, sources. I just am wondering I'm glad to see that we're kind of diversifying, but is one more I guess um do we have more focus on any one of these? Is there like a better return on any one of these? Um and specifically with like the Sienna, this is going to be the first year we're doing it, right? Um third year is it third? Okay. So like do us year three of the TRP. Got it. So are we finding that any of these are, you know, I guess more productive than than another one? Well, I I can let uh Kate talk a little

101bit about this, but I the way I see it is if you look at um the Empire slide, um those are targeting um really bachelor's degrees. So, folks who are just starting into their exploration around education as a career. Uh TRP is really targeting you have to be going for a master's for your TRP. And then the teachers of tomorrow are for those who are already teaching and it it allows and promotes retention. So you have many different angles. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. So I think it's and again even going to our embedded CTE program the thought is um you know high school students can start out with a TA certification. Now they're part of APSU. they could get um tuition reimbursement through their union, become a teacher if they want. So, but there's already some

102embedded structures for a pipeline within our system. Um and it's just really supporting that and how do we get the word out. Very nice. Thank you, Miss M. So, bear with me here. So, when we talk about recruitment and retention and first of all, this is fabulous. This is a lot and um and this is fabulous. So, thank you for the for the work and just putting together the presentation and sharing the information. Do we have ambassadors of the program? I'm thinking about do we have ambassadors or would it be helpful if we had ambassadors of each of these um grants? I'm thinking of the uh you know, bear with me in the 80s the best decade ever, they had a fabra shampoo commercial, right? And they tell two friends and they tell two friends

103and so on and so on and so on. And so even at my current company, we really have ambassadors in many of our departments and and a part of their job is to tell two colleagues and have them tell, you know, and and you know, it's one thing to read it, it's one thing to hear it, all of that is good, but the idea of being it being uh of having the message or these opportunities delivered from um your colleagues who you sit alongside with is also very effective. So I just it you know it's just like a thought. Yeah, I think we're all in agreement that that's a fantastic idea. I will say though we do get a lot of support from the mentor coordinator. So Jen Justice who just retired has been instrumental

104in making sure that new teachers who are being onboarded know about these programs and so that they can participate. So that's been really helpful. But I agree getting the the word out there through other means will be very helpful. Thank you, Miss Grer. Thanks for the excellent presentation. It's great to know that we have these multiple pathways. I know we had such high hopes for NYU. We kind of pinned all her hopes on that Steinhart program for several years, but it's nice to see things partnering with local universities and doing more realistic things like being able to help people with the cost of living while they teach. Um, I'm really excited about the prospect of the CTE pathway. I think that's really promising. And just also had more questions because one thing that stood out

105to me in this presentation was um 74 teachers with their initial certification and no master's degree and just the need to find some way to retain these teachers by getting them into a program or providing that tuition reimbursement. But for if we wish to provide that, we'd have to wait for the next contract bargaining session. Right. U we're having conversations about potentially doing an MOA. Um there's a committee has to meet. There's still a lot of work to be done to sort of figure out if we're going to make changes. Um but it does it will not necessarily require that we bargain again. We can do it via MOA. Excellent. Thank you so much, Miss Wilson. Thank you for your presentation. Can I ask my two now or are we doing one? Okay. Thank you.

106Um, first question is about um, thank you for your insights on during this presentation. I understand we're going our separate ways with Steinhart and if I recall part of the nuance with that is that we weren't getting the people were using the program. they were enjoying it but they weren't staying per se like you know as we would ideally so I'm just thinking of like the one of the known state I believe actually education reimbursement actually to sort of invigorate doctors going to rural areas they have like a service requirement do any of these call or beckon upon that for the individuals the teachers of tomorrow grant has the service component to it the Steinhart one did as Well, um, now that we've now that we're not doing that program, there isn't one. Now that

107because now that we're not paying their tuition, if we continue to do this program where we hire substitutes, um, there won't be a service requirement, but there also isn't a huge um, commitment on the district's part either. Okay. Thank you. And it kind of feeds into the second question that um, this last slide that we happen to be on, it was alluded that, you know, there's a decline, so to speak, in interest in education um, pathways with students. And I'm wondering if there's some kind of um potential here now that there's like a known shortage of childhood um education directors um programs in general and the staff. And then of course I'm wondering if there's has has there been any sort of like micro or targeted to perhaps for example first generation families who have

108yet to have someone go to college in their family and say this is a pathway we can support you. I'm just curious about like that level of minutiae. Sorry. So, I think that's all part of the work we're hoping to do this year, um, is is really find our student population, the niche that is interested in this work and support them in that process. Um, and then, you know, that will come from, you know, a marketing lens and how we're selling the coursework, rebranding the coursework, from what those experiences are. Um, I know that we have some neighboring districts that uh find funding to support the the teacher the TA certification exam and then they turn around and use those newly graduated seniors in their summer programs. Um, and and so that is, you know,

109that I sit on school board in South Colony and that's something they do there and all of those students work in their summer programs. It's fantastic. Um and so it's something that um you know we'll be prioritizing this year and really trying to think through what group of our students have we not yet reached through the lens of career explorations and what can we offer um to to pull them in. And also just the um climate that we're a part of now. I remember the last economic crisis there was like a lot of talk about college careers and you know solidifying yourself and things of that nature. Not that we're in that exact time right now, but just the climate overall and people's thoughts about careers and moving forward and opportunities. Great presentation. I I

110love how we are thinking out of the box and each year trying to find new ways to do what we've set out to do at least 10 years ago now that I know of. Um so um the fact that we have a diverse community I know there are lots of people in the community who have been in education in wherever they came from but never got certified or what have you. Uh so there is still a lot of potential I think in targeting the community to get them into one of these things either starting as a TA or or you know opening the door to bring them in and then showing them and and I think we should be should think about how how more got to form my words first how we can better

111do do better outreach um you know think outside of just the district staff that we currently have Um, and I know that's the south calling thing I was going to ask you and you just said that. So, yeah, you know, in terms of reaching out to our students and and getting them hooked just as they're graduating over that summer, uh, that's a great way to to, you know, keep them in enthusiastic about this uh, teaching pip um, career. the there was also this talk about doing more CTE uh like you know more university in the high school like thing with Hudson Valley in the CT program that's another thing I think where we can see if people want to use any of these programs to develop their courses and and be able to become teachers

112that offer courses that are university in the high school. So now this the students at the high school all have an added benefit in addition to the staff who are already being benefited. Um and and with the with the international community I think you know we we can certainly get more people in the ENL program and when we talk about you know the few things that we talked about cell phone policy all of these things we talk about languages right so um we have so many people who speak so many different languages and a lot of them have qualifications and degrees advanced degrees for that matter from where they came they just haven't been able to hit it right in this country yet. Um, and and I think some of these, you know, doing better

113outreach and showing them that we do offer these things might pull them into the uh CSDA family um and help us with our goal of of, you know, getting people who who live in the community and therefore care more about the community. Um, I just wanted to note, we were just recalling that one of um, we just completed some paperwork today to support one of our Sienna candidates for this coming year is an international student. Um, so we're really excited because we've talked a lot about how can we um, tap into um, some of our, you know, local population but um, you know, thinking about that. Um, and so we're excited to have an international student in our program. Cool. Are there ways in which we can use virtual um I'm just thinking in terms

114of more in terms of the shortages that we have to to help with that. If we if there are things that we can get students who are not located locally but might be interested in the future to get them into the classrooms in in some roundabout way. I mean even though we don't like virtual it is here everything is AI and everything is computers. So uh why not embrace it and use it to our advantage where we can supplement what we are doing in the classroom with something virtual that gives them a feel for what the district has to offer and then maybe the next year they can be in in in the building and so on you know ease them in that way. I I do know that through the interview process when we

115hired Maggie Palm Mary, our our CTE director, uh given her previous role working with Boseies and in collaboration with the state education department, they were given um I believe they were given the okay to work with University of Albany on a virtual certification program for certain high to high needs tough to fill positions, but I think that was just at the at the university level, but I'll double check. I mean, if there are things that we can advocate for that will benefit us, you know, those are things that we should be thinking of because before we know in November and December, we'll be here when we end up in the doorsteps of the legislature asking for things that we would like them to support us with. So, Mr. Wolfkin, um I just I'm very excited

116to see that the CTE program was in here. Um, that's something I mentioned to the superintendent in our first meeting was that I wanted to see more of us uh leveraging our alumni. I think we have a lot of great uh alumni that we could pull back in. Um, so I just want to reh highlight as we're talking about this that we should try to identify the Albany High alumni who are back with us so that we can engage them in that process. Um, I know one of my classmates uh was on last meeting's HR agenda as a teacher. So, they're just coming back. Um, so we're starting to see some of the people I graduated with. So, I think, you know, that's a great not student, great employee to pull into the process and

117talk about what got them from student to employee and why they came back to Albany. Um, so I just wanted to make sure we talk about that in the context of the CTE program and and part of our in our resource al allocation review grant and our team has uh another dayong retreat and meeting about that tomorrow. But um let me put Dr. Angelhart on the on the spot. I believe in our grant we have some money set aside for sort of HR slashrecruitment slash uh advertising that we could use these resources for, right? That I mean not only grow your own but here are people who have who grew up in Albany, use these pathways um and they're working with us and use them as as ambassadors. Is that correct? Yeah. I don't I

118don't know that we have fully decided which direction we're going to go with that, but we've brainstormed um you know using that position for out for outreach purposes. So um more to come on that I guess. Yeah, one one of the things we did talk about it was one of our problems of practice um was how to do just that and talk uh and highlight folks who are in our system who have found success um as an employee within our system and saying like you know this is why you choose Albany, come work for us. So, um, but I love the idea of an alum and and their story. So, I think that's a really good idea that we can kind of throw into our menu of options. That was Yeah, I know I've mentioned

119it before and I don't want to belabor the point, but you know, someone I actually graduated in the same class as was on that agenda last week, so it was very exciting to see. And then with this in here, it's like we got to get them involved, too. We came full circle. Any other questions, folks? Thank you once again. All right, board committee reports. Thank you, Dr. Chur. Um, the committee for facilities met on Tuesday. It wasn't yesterday, it was Tuesday. And we had a pretty robust discussion with um our counterparts uh you know taking uh Don Obererman the facilities director and our counterparts who are helping build up around the school. Um we were updated on the five-year plan. Um we spoke about um SEI who is the contractor working with uh the school

120district closely to begin those procedures and processes. Uh we discussed open items at the Albany High School. Um, we tracked some ongoing matters that are we're looking to close out before the Albany High ribbon cutting, which is actually on August 26th um from 10:30 to 12:30. We had um uh pretty pretty straightforward discussions. It was mostly about the five-year plan. Albany High um and getting getting that project across the finish line. So um this is my this is my first official uh I guess committee report. So I'm getting used to it. I'm getting I'm trying to not give too many details but give an overview. Um Dr. Tutur was there. So is uh member man because uh Miss Savage was out. So was there anything else that I should add? You think No, that's a

121good summary. Audit. Miss man, do you have anything for audit? Okay. No, I think that um well for audit, yes, but let me just say um member Alyawi, I think you did a great job with your first uh committee report. Um, in terms of the audit report, uh, or the audit committee, um, we're not meeting for, I think, uh, a month, a couple of weeks. Um, and, uh, and I look forward to that meeting. That's it. Miss Gray, policy. Thank you. I have no policy update. Uh, but on behalf of Miss Savage, who is not here, I have an update on the ad hoc routine consent committee, uh, which met on July 28th. We had our first meeting uh with Miss Savage as the chair and our first meeting uh with new member Wolf Gang

122where we continue to discuss and finalize uh the field trip approval form and we did kind of a brief bringing Mr. Wolf Gang up to date on field trips and what we've done with them so far and just the ad hoc routin routine consent committee generally and we have started to discuss uh the conference request form. So, we had a really robust discussion on that and we're going in the right direction. Thanks, Miss Wilson. Policy meets the 13th, August. Yeah. And government relations. So, we met and we discussed the child safety zone regulations as well as I think that was the gist of what we talked about. Yes, that was that was the most of it. And then uh we went through the resolutions that uh the member uh school boards across New York State

123have submitted to NESBA. Uh since I sit on the New York NISBA's resolutions committee which meets on August 19th, uh we sort of talked over some of these resolutions to to to help me decide which way I would be voting on the resolutions committee. And then based on uh what the the DEI committee met yesterday, the resolutions committee meets next week. Once that is done, then uh whatever gets passes the threshold for uh being sent to the u general uh school board membership um will be sent out to all the school districts um all the board members at the school districts who will then vote as a board at the annual meeting of NESBA uh to see what position NISBA should should take on any of these resolutions. So we've talked about that. Any other

124have items to discuss? If not, may I have a motion to adjourn? Miss Wilson, Miss Cree, all in favor? That was quick. Thank you everybody. Good night. Thank you.