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

001Good evening. My name is Shrid Chhatur. I'm president of the City School District of Albany Board of Education. On behalf of the board, I welcome you to our meeting today. We have uh member Elmanavi, member Smith, member Crerache, member Savage and member Manthus. Uh vice president, Miss Wilson is not able to join us today. Uh she's a little under the weather. Uh this meeting is being we have superintendent Hawkrator and members of the cabinet joining us as well. Uh this meeting is being livereamed and the instruction to view the meeting as well as a link to the agenda including all documents we will visit uh we will discuss are available at albonychools.org. It's a good time for me to note that if you're here tonight to speak in public comment you should sign up with

002Miss Timmons here to my right. With that introduction we introduce we invite those of you who choose to join us as we stand up for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. In addition to the pledge of allegiance, we always focus our meaning by restating the mission of the city school district of Albany, which is to work in partnership with our diverse community and to engage every learner in a robust educational program designed to provide the knowledge and skills necessary for success. Superintendent Hawk Rider, do you have a vote for us? I do. And I'll turn it over to Mr. Leco to get us going. Seems like every

003time I hit that button, it start. Is that better? All right, here we go. Albony High School's flag football team has been pointing toward this game for a full year, and it's almost year. The top seated Falcons take on number two Shannendoa in the class two CL uh section two class A championship game Friday night at Troy High School. Game time is 7:15 p.m. The Falcons have had an amazing season again this spring, though they are 13-1 and have beaten their first two playoff opponents, Skenctity and Saratoga Springs, by a combined score of 96 to zero. to get back to the championship game for the second year in a row. The Falcons were runner up runners up to Columbia in last year's inaugural section two title game. They'll be hoping to take that final step

004this time and advance to the state playoffs. Tickets to Friday night's game are $7.30. That's a weird price, but it's $6 for the ticket, $130 for handling in the online the online uh system you have to use, and they must be purchased online in advance by a GoFan. You can find that link at almanschools.org. Albony High also will have a fan bus for Friday's game. Students have until 9:30 in the morning tomorrow, Friday, to turn in a signed permission slip. The first 25 students to do so will get a free ticket to the game. The fan bus will leave from the front of Alb High at 6 p.m. sharp on Friday. Our athletic staff asks that everyone arrive by 5:30 p.m. The bus is expected to return about 9:15 p.m. hopefully following an awesome Albany

005High win. Good luck to coaches Becky Lawson and Rachel Swan and all of the Falcons. We have a long weekend coming up through the combination of Memorial Day and our two unused snow days. All of our schools and offices will be closed next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We will return next Thursday, May 29th. Also, a reminder that tomorrow is a regular day of school and work since we used one snow day earlier this school year. Looking a bit further ahead, please note that all of our schools and offices will be closed on Thursday, June 19th in observance of Junth. The talented student musicians at all of our schools have been perfor performing for friends and family throughout May and will continue into early June. You can find the dates and times for your school's spring

006concert at albmanschools.org. And we hope you'll join us in celebrating the sounds of a very joyful season. And we are now pleased to welcome Principal Rosyn Gains Herel to tell us about the great things happening this year at Arbor Hill Elementary Community School. That's fine. We'll share everyone here. Okay. Good evening to our superintendent um members of the board and all those present this evening. And we also like to congratulate Dr. Chatau on his reelection. Um and we were just going to go and get started and we'll introduce we've already been introduced but we'll go right into the district's vision and vision mission and goals as stated. Um, and I'll read those over. Uh, City School District of Albany will be a district of excellence with caring relationships and engaging learning experiences that provide equitable

007opportunities for all students to reach their potential. The mission, we'll 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. And the goals are to increase student achievement, enhance the delivery of quality instruction, our leadership capacity, empower families, partner with our and partner with our diverse community in alignment with the school district. Our school vision is at least one year of growth for one year of education. And our school mission at Arbor Hill is to stimulate and nurture the intellectual, emotional, and social growth of all and physical growth of every child. And our school year school goals this year um are really based on school performance and they include student voice, social emotional support, attendance, parent involvement and engagement

008as well as social justice. And as you can see, my name is Rosman Gains Herrell, principal of Arbor Hill Elementary School. And I'm Janet Escodoy, the assistant principal at Arbor Hill Elementary. In regards to our demographics, as you can see by the chart, our full fall full fall enrollment, we were at 324 students. Our current enrollment that includes preK and kindergarten that does not show on uh the um dashboard is 350 students as of today and we actually it should be 352 because we have two that have not started that have been enrolled since this week. Um, our demographics include three kindergarten autism class. One just started this school year. Uh, we have two sections of prek and one section of a special education autistic prek classroom. And looking ahead as to how our program

009is going. On beds day in 2024, our student count was at 306 students. By the end of the year, we were at 327. And like I just stated, we're at 350 now. All of our artistic kindergarten classrooms currently have nine students and um three TAs, but starting in the fall they will be at 12 um 1214 iss 12 students, one teacher and four TAs. Our f um our set focus and highlights around academics. Um you can see you can see here that we talk about increasing student proficiency um data and course corrections which was a big thing for us and within that we um target small groups and provide intervention um for grades three through five specifically within within the last trimester and our data tracking with our math interventionist and our reading um interventionist.

010We um tried to make sure that we supported all of the tier one, two and three stu students uh to again target we're doing targeted instruction for math and ELA. Also in that academic world we have um we state had the state had recommended last year we looked through the documents for the step plan recommended um um hits which is high impact teaching strategies which which ironically we would had already started. So we were already in alignment with the with the state and um there are a lot of great things in that document to increase student engagement and so we have been working on collaboration. We've been working on um in in the world of student voice. We um try to allow them choice and you'll hear more about th that element of choice as

011we go on in our presentation also uh in cell and PBIS to increase their the students self-reflection and response to emotions. Uh we daily we do um meditation every single day. Um all of the students do that and you know Miss Bam was actually able to come by and and partake in that. Um and so um we are continuing to grow our program and not changing things so that we can have our kids get acclimated to the things that we want them to do. In regards to attendance, I first want to say a huge huge thank you to our parents and our students and our guardians because if you look at the percentages in 2025, we are at a 38% chronic attendance rate. Um, and it has been dropping. Uh, we are thankful to all

012of you because we had the winter bus again and we saw a um an increase of 3% since last year's winter bus in regards to attendance. So, it's definitely working. So, thank you for that. Uh students continue to track their attendance on a daily basis. They all have student trackers where if they're present, they they record it, they put a check, and if they're absent the next day, they will record absent. And um during the time, some of our teachers take that time to discuss, you know, are you okay? How are you feeling? Just so that there's more voice also incorporated. We have our attendance committee meets every single Tuesday with our homeschool coordinator, myself um not every week, but as much as I can attend. Our attendance officer, Mr. Orus Austin Morgan, and our

013community site coordinator where um we go over excused absence notes. We make sure they match with school tool. We look at all those letters that have been returned because of address um situations. And once we look at that data is when the um homeschool coordinator and the attendance officer go out to homes to make sure why is this being returned. Uh during our assembly we have attendance awards uh for the students. We have um parties for the class that has the highest percentage of attendance from K2 and then from grades three through five. Uh we also have attendance banners that they get to hang outside of their classrooms if they win. Um uh and basically once again I wanted to highlight the fact that our intendance did increase from last year in BIU in regards

014to the stu the winter bus. So uh we hope that continues. One of our surveys that the students took in that survey 87% of the students um said that they look forward to coming to school because of the enrichment that that we are providing. So, our enrichment is during the school day and we you name it, we probably have it. Um, our community site coordinator who runs a lot of that recently um let us know at the meeting that we are the school that has the most enrichment taking place right now. Um, so a lot of a lot of support goes into that and we're very grateful because the students are being very vocal and expressing their voice in regards to what they like and if that's making just a tiny bit of a difference

015in regards to attendance, it's something that we have to continue doing. As far as our school highlights about what makes us unique, um we like to say Arbor Hill is an experience and we're servicing the whole child. Um what we also have expansive property like no other elementary school. Um it's coupled with several other factors like the culture and climate which we are very proud of. It brings a lot of synergy to the work. Um, everyone that is in contact with the school plays a role in the school. Um, from the custodian to the TAs to the hall monitors, cafe staff, teachers, and anyone in in between. If you come to Arbor Hill, there is a space for you. We can find something for you to do. Um, we also are very excited about our

016community partners which continue to grow. We have um just recently in the uh the picture before there was that big experience with the clouds and there was another there's another picture showing there with the two um young women with the basketballs that is from Sunni Albany because we have so many students from so many different colleges come to our building because we you know we do take in a lot of student teachers those um the athletes um at U Albany these two ladies were um like the presidents of an organization helping hands they wrote a grant they wrote the grant specifically for our school and they won the grant and that allowed them to come on campus. They had little backpacks for the kids. They they they had stations. They had activity stations at every

017single they used the whole property. And some of our more reluctant students who have, you know, adverse to gym um seemed to um take, you know, take take on the because they were doing they had like um they had a group of students who were basketball players on the basketball court. They had kids um what else they they had um um field hockey people out there. They had um track. So they had every different station football. They had all those um Sunni students on on campus playing different games and activities with the kids to get them excited about sports. It was a really really um great experience. And um we also finally have our food pantry up and running after you know long wait. Um that is also exciting. Um, we like to say that

018we're proud of also having our um, early bird program to support working parents since we are a late start school. Many many of our working parents have to go to go to work prior to school starting and we want to give them that opportunity so they can keep um, keep those those jobs that they've been working so hard for. So, we're very proud of that. And um, we also, which we'll get into more detail about, um, uh, our Best Buddy activity. Um our best buddy program is is really taking off. Um just recently um the the president for the area, the regional president came to our school because he was impressed. Not many elementary schools have an official Best Buddy program and he came to our school to be part of uh what Miss Lavoy

019was uh taking part of. They the kids um did tie-dye shirts outside in on the um in the back part of the property, our outdoor learning space. They they all did made tie- dye shirts together. Um and they've also um were able to go bowling. I mean it's it's just been an an exciting opportunity for them. Um see academically. Um one other thing we could add is the teacher in the teacher intervisitation. Um we spent a lot of time we've been building this on a three-year plan. So we spent a lot of time last year learning and growing as educators. um you know targeting that hit the HITS program targeting um the science of reading also another thing that we had started prior to the science of reading being offered um we've been uh doing

020principles of instruction and elevation which are all things that the district is is is doing but um we also wanted to make sure that they're the the we learned about um surface deep and transfer learning which is different methodologies of teaching that you know you start at you know, surface learning is things that you learn. The first time you learn something, you don't really have a good handle on it. Um, and then as you go, you go deeper and learn, um, you're able to internalize the material that you learn. And then transfer is when it when you're able to take the information that you learn and transfer it to other subjects or areas. So that's the kind of academic work that we've been doing as a staff and trying to figure out how to go

021deeper with instruction so that our kids will um perform um have better performance. uh some of the things that we've done with the the that depth of knowledge. Um some of the materials we worked we worked on we had um we had students who we had first grade learn about the solar system which is pretty early for first grade but it is something that is part of the the structure of information that we use. We had the students in kindergarten. They were kings and queens for a day. And we're not talking about kings and queens uh fairy tales. we're talking about kings and queens like the actual structure of kings and queens like in England. So they were learning about the history around that and they were able to dress in um th those types

022of things. Um and the other thing that we did that was a little bit different is we have SAG groups for um those are small groups not only for academics but also for attendance. So you can be in a small group if if you have a low attendance um you have a high chronic rate that you get into a small group and we work on practicing why it is important to go to school. Um they track the data for the kids in the small groups and they celebrate that. The students have um the the tracker right there up on the screen so they can see how they did each week as opposed to the month. So they check in on attendance each each week. And um we also have we all not only do we

023target the students with the highest chronic rate, the individual students, but we also track this the classrooms the whole if there's a classroom that has a high um chronic rate, they get a whole classroom intervention as opposed to the small group of of students. One thing I I want to mention that Mrs. Zel just talked about was in that solar system project the the planets that the students made were made out of paperier-mâché. And so when they came in one day after they were left out to dry, one or some of our furry friends in the building decided to get to one of the planets. And of course, some of the students were upset. However, another student suggested that now they had a moon because you know how the moon has craters. So they ended

024up painting it according to the moon. So now they had the whole solar system hanging with a moon that was helped create by our furry friends in the building. Uh challenges and next steps and and I like to tell um call them bumps in little bumps in the road because uh bumps can be paved and that's what we are constantly doing. We're paving those bumps to make them better. Uh Mrs. El has a phrase that we use in the building and it's um how we are evolving into surgeons uh to better our craft and we're seeing small gains with this approach and we're going to stay on the path and how we're doing this is by leveraging our community being a community school and our programs as well as our services that include our TAs

025and building academic and behavioral check-ins. So, for example, even the community um the providers that come in and do the basketball programs and do the different activities, they take part in and speaking to our our students, asking them about the point sheet, asking them why they didn't get the highest score or how they're doing. Uh RTAs have become also check-in and checkout um partners with the students. So, the kids look forward to this because it's yet another person in the building that's showing how much they care about them and are worried about their success. Uh, one of the things that we continue to work on that's a bump in the road is increasing our neur neurode divergent learners um we need they need um different opportunities for socialization and that's why we are so proud

026of that best buddies program because our goal is to have at least one to two students from every general education class supporting those students in those classes so that everybody has a buddy. Um, so we are looking at um the office for people with developmental disabilities as a funding source to why not have an afterchool program like we do for boys and girls club and and um the YMCA for those type of students as well because we do have parents that have reached out to us looking for that opportunity. There's no reason why they shouldn't have that opportunity as well. Another little bump in the road is the fact that we do have um the seven autistic classrooms in the in the building and especially next year for every classroom we need for TAS and

027we don't have four TAs for every classroom. that has been a challenge as I know throughout the district as well. But it is a challenge that we faced every day um in regards to the hiring and even keeping those that you know are there to stay with us. Additional successes is that we have a strength-based model. And when we say strengthbased, we're talking about the entire staff. Um we try to utilize any type of strength that they have to better our school. and they know that we have a um a large amount which we appreciate of our our retirees who come back to support us. We really need that because as we continue to transition um this is just a period when the school is having retirees like it is across the district. We had

028five who retired last year. We'll have five more this year. So having those retirees come back to support the work and support the the new staff has been a really big help for us and um and they and they love it. We also have done some work with um our sub certification. That's another thing we do. We try to make sure if subs come in and they're interested that we get them certified so that they can be a part of our workforce. We have seen a large increase of family members in the community that have children who've had children in the building or have children in the building now who are also have been interested. So, we were able to pull those those candidates. Missoy does a lot of work with trying to support um

029the subs to get into the actual um certification world. We have um we also, as you know, we have our college volunteers, but we also have um college students from from all the area colleges who come to our school for student teaching experiences. And that also is a way for us to um solicit more um teachers. And we've had great success with that as well. Last year we were able the district was able to hire three three of our our student teachers in the district last year. Um and we're able to hire more, you know, this year as the open teachers that were then TA subs internship hours and then stayed as teachers. Yeah. So, we continue to keep them keep them in our program and then they and and actually when they're still in

030college, we require them not to stay with us the full five days because they need to be worried about their studies. So, we try to check in with them about what days that they they have heavy course schedules so that we just kind of jigsaw them into to sub and we have a teacher who's in charge of that intro to coming into the building. So we have a nice um a welloiled machine that has been working very very well for us is in in regards to recruit recruitment. Um we also have had Russell Sage recently come over when they have course work they've come over to visit our school um and they come in um walk through sit in ask questions afterwards we do some Q&A because we want to expose them to what is

031possible if they stay in the education program. Um, we also were able to because we're take we're taking on new challenges, right? So, we also were able to be um a site for the community schools. Um, what was it? The New York State. Yeah. New York State Community Schools. Um, we were also a site. We, you know, and we um told them, you know, a lot about what you're hearing today and they said, "Well, well, how come everybody doesn't know about this?" And, and we are just very modest. we just appreciate the work that we're able to do and combine and use all the resources that we have in the district to make it work for our building. So, we did start to do some more commercialization of just to just to put things out

032there for our families to let them know how important the work is that's being done at the school and um so that's what we're doing increasing our communication outreach. The other um for the equity and student vo voice piece um more of what we continue to do, we have video announcements. We actually through our community schools um partners, we had someone come in because I think we won a we won a prize of some sort through um community schools. So, we use that surveys that were filled out of all the community schools, one by our building. And so, so with with that, we were able to have someone actually do they had a um they were they're doing they were doing some photography and some videos. We also were able to get um some murals

033be started in the front of the building so it could even be more enticing um for people to walk in. With all of that space, we want to try to liven it up a little bit. So, that's also great. Um we have um we already already talked about tracking but the other thing I wanted to mention is that um we do have based on what the kids had wanted. We're going to have a June student takeover. So the kids they talked about the things they're interested in that they do well and like for example we have a third grader who said he's he's he's hates boxing classes and he wants to run a boxing class in the school. So each room will be a different space and you have to sign up for it and

034the kids will lead. And we asked the third grader, well, do you want K through two because you're in third grade? He says, no, I I will take K through eight. I can teach the class. So, you know, just trying to remember the strengths because that's not something you would find out about a student in in our structure. So, we're really trying to find out those things outside of school that they can do um and bring it into the school. So, their strengths are being recognized. And um we are also researching with our explosion. I say it's a great explosion because it has brought a lot of diversity into our building of our um MLL students. Um learning how to communicate in five or six different languages is foreign to us, but we are doing

035it. Um and just learning how to manage entering and emerging students at that that level. Um and I and I told them I said the I'm going to start with just saying good morning in five different languages. So that's that's where that's where we started. Um, and the other thing I wanted to mention, oh, we're at the end of our presentation, I believe. Yep, we are there. Um, we just wanted to again, thank you for listening to our, um, amazing school and staff and families and everyone that's a part of our school. And, you know, we just left a couple of pictures for the last slide. Um, we had a Yep, that top slide actually is a picture of what our school looks like at night. Um and so just just it just gives the

036feeling that our kids need. They get to come on campus for that every single day. And the other picture is um from students from Bring on the Spectrum that we get to do multiple times per year. And the last one is a picture of one of our families when we when we had the the solar system. We had lots of families from that first grade class who came in to the two first grade classrooms to be a part of the presentation. And that is the end of our I just wanted to say a special thank you aside from thanking all of you to our staff and our faculty because we would not be here and and be able to talk about our successes without them. Um it truly takes a village and like I said

037to them recently in in an email. Um I was taking care of the village one day that I was alone when Mrs. Herrell left me and I am eternally grateful to them because every single day there is not one person that steps up not only for Mrs. Herel and I but for our students as well. So thanks to all of them as well. [Applause] We don't normally do this, but I just wanted to make a comment. your engagement um at Arbor Hill Elementary um with families, community partners, students, and uh parents is second to none. And you know, I had the privilege of being there um back in April. And uh Arbor Hill Elementary is a peaceful place. Um it's a joyous place. It's an inclusive space. Um and uh it's kind of a righteous

038place. So, thank you. Thank you for all you do. All right. And that concludes tonight's district district highlights. Fantastic. Okay. We have a few updates for my portion. Uh and is this our tradition, our vision, mission, and goals, but want to uh update the board and our community on a number of happenings. Uh we'll start with a very major happening that happened on Tuesday uh and was uh celebrated uh in this room about 48 hours ago uh that our budget passed with uh more than 80% uh approval uh from our community and that included an increase uh of more than 700 total votes from last year. So, uh it's good to know that not only do we have uh more folks participating in democracy, but uh they are also supporting our efforts at the school

039district. So, this is the third year in a row where we uh eclipsed 80% approval rating. Uh and as I mentioned earlier, uh just shy of a 30% uh voter turnout from last year and north of a 50% turnout from 2023. And we want to offer our congratulations to our current board president, Dr. Chhatur, and who is with us uh as well, who will be joining the board for a four-year term is Austin Wolf Gang, who uh won their campaigns. And um Dr. Chhatur will remain on the board, and Austin will join us in early July and be sworn in. And we want to take an opportunity to thank the community for their ongoing support. And as Mr. Leco often reminds us uh school board and uh school budget votes are not one in April

040and May. They're one all year long. And so I want to take a moment to congratulate Mr. Leco and his communications team on getting the word out uh on all the successes in our district as well as uh some of the hiccups and hurdles that we have to overcome. Uh but uh 80% turnout with more than some more than 700 votes cast this year than last year is certainly uh a a nice message and a good pat on the back for this group who works tirelessly um and for more than 2,000 of our staff members. So we want to thank the community again. Uh earlier this week, Mr. Leco and I uh were uh invited uh to hear some remarks from the governor uh starting to put some finer points and details uh on the

041$400 million investment in downtown Albany that uh is starting to take shape. We heard uh earlier this week that 200 million will be uh dedicated to downtown specifically within a onem radius of uh Empire State Plaza, 150 million for state museums and other cultural uh resources throughout the city and additional funding uh to beef off beef up law enforcement both um uh the Albany Police Department as well as the county and state police. uh and I think it was around4 or $50 million to continue this study uh around access to the Hudson River, which uh is really the uh uh conversation in our community around the future of 787. And so the governor um did disclose that they've hired a third party firm to uh identify opportunities for growth. Uh I had uh the opportunity

042earlier uh in the school year. was uh in mid December to be part of a 30 member team to meet with the governor and her economic and and business development team around this project around the the beginnings of the project. So, it's good to know that um they have included the school district. They'll continue to include us uh in deliberations and that includes u networking with folks from Empire State Development, the Chamber of Commerce, the downtown bid as well as the governor's economic team. So, it's uh we're very thankful to the governor and her team to include the school district uh moving forward. And it also is a is a reminder about all of the potential um that our current CTE programs offer and what the future holds for our CTE programs because in addition

043to the 400 million uh coming through the state budget, there's uh about another 500 million from Global Foundaries uh to beef up um their infrastructure and their presence in the capital region. So, we're very excited to uh be part of this conversation and and to play a role uh in the city's future. Last night, uh the teachers union, ABSA, honored more than 30 teachers who are retiring at the end of the year. And these 30 teachers combined for more than 550 years of shared experience. And I was able to spend a few hours with them last night. And I was amazed uh at a number of things, but I think what I was most amazed at, the number of teachers um not only who were retiring, but a number of previous retirees that came back

044to honor those that retired last night. And so um you know, that's a sign of a pretty healthy school district when those who are uh who have already moved on and started writing a new chapter in their life come back to celebrate uh their colleagues. But I I think my biggest takeaway was um really impressed, not surprised, but impressed at the number of uh retirees and those that previously retired um that lived in the district uh whose children were educated in the district and who have remained in the district and have plans to stay in the district. So um we have done right by their children and our children have been done right by them for their 550 years of combined experience and we wish them well. It is uh end of the year. So

045just one more uh reminder and we'll keep this slide fresh for our uh board meetings in June, but we encourage everyone to go to our website for details uh on commencement uh opportunities, moving up ceremonies, last day of classes, uh all the good stuff. So, you can see here um programwide uh for our um secondary programs, middle level and elementary, what to expect as we uh begin the final push to end the school year. Yesterday was Albany High School's final blood drive of the year. Uh they were able to bring in 23 firsttime donors uh and 63 total donors. They had around 90 uh folks who were um supposed to uh donate blood, but they had a number of last minute cancellations for for a number of reasons. But uh this effort was led by

046seniors u Nate Martell and Ana Stzer and of course the adviser and high school librarian extraordinaire Alicia Abdul uh again supervised the effort. um and yours truly donated again and um we're not too sure we were uh really happy about the outcome of that donation. Uh as we have reported here um the superintendent has been uh the two-time defending speed donating champion and uh allegedly I relinquished that belt yesterday. there uh there are some future conversations that need to happen because um it was not as uh the the time of of our own uh high school teacher Leah Poita was not uh publicly notified. It was not noticed. Uh usually what happens you walk into the library, you sign in and it has uh the top donation times uh on the board so you know

047you know you know how much to to uh pump your fist and try to get the blood going. So, um, while Leah has the belt, um, the, uh, American Red Cross is investigating. So, we'll, uh, provide an update, uh, at a future date. But, uh, mark your calendars for Friday, September 26 to kick off the 2526 school year, uh, to donate blood at the high school. And that concludes my report tonight. Thank you, Superintendent, and board colleagues. I just want to take this opportunity to um say a few words. I mean, thank you so much to the community for uh supporting our budget. I mean, we we keep saying, we keep hearing, you know, it takes a village, it takes a village to raise a child. I'm going to say it takes the city to

048raise a child. So, thank you. Thank you so much for being uh you know, our ardent supporters for so many years and and it was it was really good to see the increase in number of people who came out to vote. Yes, we had some issues with uh technology uh and you know the poll the people who were running the polls had nothing to do with it. It was um you know the software that the v the vendor wasn't getting support from Microsoft and we ended up facing the brunt of it but uh people got to vote with paper ballots and and people were patient, people were kind, people were calm. So thank you uh and thank you for providing me the opportunity to continue serving our district and welcome Austin. uh soon u you

049know in a in a month or so you'll be or joining us on the on the on the table here uh anyway having said that uh board members as as it are as is our usual practice I ask you to prioritize your questions and ask your most important question first uh we'll start on this side as usual Mr. Miny. So, does that mean I get to move from this spot? Is that Yes, you do. You stop hiding out over there. Yeah. No, I'm really looking forward to uh working with uh new member Wolf Gang. And um I am super impressed as always by our communities um coming around us to support us with uh what we need for our students. And um I'm also excited obviously to work with Dr. to tour for another four

050years. Um potentially four years with me, you know, being done in three, but um so no questions, just all around happy and uh glad to be a part of this team. Miss Smith, as well as like to to thank the voters. Um u I uh you know it's it's always uh good to to have a successful budget um and to have uh you know candidates who are interested in running for school board. Um I uh I'm I'm sure I'm always going to be the one person who will say something that maybe people aren't happy with and that is I think I do I am very concerned about what appears to be a good you know decent participation. It really isn't u in our voter population and particularly again given uh the life uh the the

051circumstances that we find ourselves in this country it is really really imperative that more and more people participate in this democratic state that we have. Uh without it um we really you know can't always be conf I mean we might pass a budget but what does that really mean? um you know that that goes for city taxes too. If we're not participating, you've got a small group of people who are carrying everything. What does that mean or what does that what do other people have to say about all of that? And I really am quite concerned as I hope we all are about uh sort of diminishing or not so excited participation in the electorate um process. Um particularly given where we are and uh and given how many lives have uh been you know

052have struggled to hold on to this democratic framework long before me long before most of us. Um and so I know it was instilled in me at a very young age not only with my family but with my teachers with my school that I had to participate in that voting process. So every year when I think I don't want to do this and get up and go out the door, I have x number of teachers, Mrs. Layman, Godfrieded, I can name them all sitting here saying, "Oh no, get up and get out and participate in this process. It wasn't given to you. It wasn't handed to you. Participate." So community while I am grateful and appreciate your participation in the passing of this budget and successful candidates uh coming to join us um we need

053as a society to have you participate more and more take ownership of the process. Um and uh so I also just wanted to just kudos to uh our Arbor Hill uh principal and vice principal. uh just great presentation and it's always exciting to see and hear about the every the strides you're making. Uh I I particularly loved hearing um about the activities where you're not only looking at what you you're you're sort of honing in on kids passions. What is it that they like? What do they want you to know about them? And I love, you know, third grader sharing his or her boxing skills. I mean, that's tremendous. I wouldn't want to be in the ring with them, but you know, even at at this age, but I I would I do think it's

054just fabulous, uh to continue to find ways to engage our students in learning and in teaching. It's a beautiful thing. Um and so, uh I think that's all I wanted to add for now. And superintendent, thank you for uh the report here. Um and, uh pretty good week as all as as far as all the budgetary things go. Thank you, Miss Man. Hi. So, couple of things. Um, I I want to piggyback on what board member Smith just shared, and I also want to say, Board Member Smith, I I'm I'm going to miss you. Your leadership has been second to none. And so, I I need to say that out loud. Um, and to Austin Wolf Gang, congratulations. Really good job. Um, this is my favorite time of the year. So, thank you, superintendent, for

055um all the updates um as to what's happening. And uh and thank you to the community for helping us pass a budget and um and as board member Smith said, the we the more people who are involved in the process of voting, the better. Um, so that's it. Thank you, Miss Savage. Thank you everyone. I'm holding off on my comments about Vicki for two more meetings because I refuse to admit that this is happening. I'm in complete denial. Um, we are excited to have New Blood to have um Mr. Wolf Gang join us. It'll be wonderful to have some fresh ideas and fresh thoughts, but um I'm really not ready. So um that said I wanted one minor point of order. The slides those slides are not on the agenda. So can we just get

056those on the agenda so that the community can access them. Um and I wanted to make one more comment about um voting and I would like to encourage us to continue to press for additional support for mailin voting. You will all remember that when we did mail and voting, the one time that mail-in voting was made legal in New York State when for reasons that still remain unclear, school districts and school districts alone, not regular elections, were required to do mail-in voting for the 2020 election. We turned out 11,000 people to vote for our school election. And the votes were predominantly the increase was predominantly in wards where we have low turnout. So in the the low-numbered wards, the river wards, those the redlinined wards, those were the wards where we saw three times and

057four times as many people vote when there is mail in voting. And in the wards where we always have reasonably turn reasonable turnout and I agree with you Vicki that it's not acceptable even at the high end um we saw nominal increases. So that's the difference is when you make voting easy for people, they will vote. But it's hard to vote when you're living a very busy life. Um and um we do more than almost any school district I believe in the state to make voting um geographically possible for people. Most school districts you go to the high school to vote. That's what you do. There's one polling place, the high school. There's no confusion because you go to the high school, but it means if you don't have a car and you live, you

058know, deep in the 15th ward, you know, good luck. Um, so we have done a lot to make that possible to have polling places throughout the neighborhoods which does create confusion. Um, but it does also mean that people can get there, but it's still hard. Um, and so I, you know, we could push again through our efforts through NISSBA and the Conference of Big Five Schools. They don't vote on their budgets every year, most of them, so they don't care in the same way we do. But we could push on that as um you know an advocacy to really have um to have civics come to life for our schools. We need our kids to be able to watch their parents vote and they could do that at home. So that's my spiel on mail-in

059voting. Um and why I think it's so important. Um but I do appreciate all of the remarks and particularly I was interested to hear a little more detail from the governor. Um, and many of you know that I ride my bike absolutely everywhere I possibly can in Albany. And the reason I'm able to do that is because Albany is really, really small. So when you say a mile from the plaza, that's like at least half of our schools fall within that mile. Like it's a lot of Alby's geography that's within a mile of the plaza. So, we don't know how that money is going to be spent, but it's not a it's not in a small um if that's what she said as the geographic boundary, that's a pretty large boundary. So, thank you so

060much, Miss Gra. Thank you. I should have made notes of what I wanted to say because this there's there's there's definitely a lot to say. I wanted to thank the district staff that made the election happen. I know where this there were some glitches, but I know they really worked hard to get everything going so that everyone could vote. It's so important and that it went smoothly. Thank you to everyone who made that happen. I'm disappointed more people didn't vote. To echo what what Miss Meth said, on the other hand, I was very happy to see uh that for an in-person election, this was a pretty a pretty large turnout this year. And it's gratifying it's gratifying to know that people care about what goes on in the school district and that more more than

06180% of them um support what we're proposing. It's also in in some ways nice to even see a contested schoolboard election because I think it shows especially when you're replacing someone who's retiring rather than trying to get them out. Um it shows that people are following what's going on. um they're engaged, they're involved, and they would like to be a part of it. That's really a good thing to see. I'm really excited to have a second Albany High alumni on the board starting next month. I think that's going to be a fantastic addition. And uh that's yeah happy to see those things as we continue to I think to harmonize what both my board members me uh said kind of work for sort of technical changes uh that can increase equity by making voting and

062participation available to more of the community. Thanks. And Austin's gonna have big shoes to fill sort of like I'm so sorry I forgot to say congratulations to Dr. tour. I'm I'm very happy to I'm happy to be able to serve with him for another year. Thank you. Thank you. And you know, it reminds me of when I got elected to step into the shoes that uh Dr. Brandon was uh you know, left for me to step into. And hopefully, you know, I've kept on her legacy. And Austin, you can you know, you're going to step into uh Miss Smith's shoes and and continue the great work. Uh so all right. Uh are are there any public comments today? Okay. Well, this is the time we normally set to hear from members of the public. While

063there are no uh other public comments today, we do invite members of the public to share thoughts on the decisions we are facing. Uh we accept public comment in person, by voicemail, and also through our web-based form. Uh information about public comment and contact information is on the district's website at albchools.org. /buy. Okay, moving on to the next item on our agenda is routine consent. U during this portion of the meeting, we approve routine matters for the district. These include items like contracts, field trips, personnel matters, and the like. Each board member reviews each item carefully, but we vote on them as a group with no discussion, allowing 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

064separate discussion and vote on that item. Now, with that introduction, I now entertain a motion to adopt routine consent agenda. Miss Smith, seconded by Miss Cree. Any set aides? Okay. All in favor of adopting routine consent agenda. Okay, that's unanimous. Thank you. All right. Okay. Um as is our normal practice, u the next action item is the certifying the vote canvas. Um may I have a motion to adopt the uh board canvas. Miss Smith, Miss Man, all in favor. It's unanimous. Thank you. This meeting is moving fast. And as is our normal practice, we have arranged agenda to have all the action items at the beginning. Uh unless something unexpected has happened, we don't anticipate the board will take any further actions tonight. The balance of the meeting will be items of for discussion, some

065of which would might lead to an action item either in our next meeting or at a future meeting. U the next item on our agenda is a discussion on the curriculum instruction. Can I just you you you went you blew by discussion on the canvas and I don't really have a lot of discussion but I did want to ask a couple of little things if that's possible. Um so superintendent, I assume we're going to get some sort of formal communication from the vendor about the um challenges we faced um and other districts faced um and as well as a um effort internally to think through our backup plans to make sure that we're able to hit the ground running and really to you know we we we've been through some you know this was relatively

066minor but we do have this happen from time to time and it's always good to look back and I'm wondering if we should expect a report to the board about like how how things are going to be mitigated in the future. Yeah. Um moments before our meeting began, we heard from NTS, the software company. They sent out a um a communication to all of their clients. I provided that to the board. We'll um share what we can uh with the public. our team will do a debrief next week u because there were some uh I wouldn't say miscommunications but but scenarios of what happens if and so with as many polling places as we had and we tested all of our technology I believe it was the Friday before the u the vote we felt

067confident going into it um and so we need to make sure we review uh on our side our practices of what our plan BCD is and then make sure we share that so we will report back to the board and then the other question. Our our soon to be new board member let me know that he was aware that at least a couple people had been redistricted but their district did not align the the school database did not have the correct district for them. Um and so I just wondered if we could look into that. Um and then his idea not taking credit but thinking we can get the ball rolling on this. Back in the day, we used to have specific ballots for specific polling places, and we stopped doing that after 2016, thank

068goodness. Um, but it's not clear to me why we can't have walk-in voting at every place. It's not clear to me since we're pulling people up on the iPad, they're they're checking in, that's instantaneous. Why do I have to go to the 14th W polling place to vote in the 14th Ward? If I happen to be downtown, why couldn't I just go to Hackit to vote? And so I'm wondering there's probably a reason like often many times there's a reason for things but I'm wondering if we could investigate that now that we have we're not having the books and the printing and this like could we potentially create a more flexible voting mechanism. Yeah. So again not my idea u Mr. Wolf Gang's idea but I would like to um get it rolling. Yeah. We'll

069look into all those matters and um report back on NTS uh our internal sort of checks and balances and that topic as well. Terrific. I appreciate that. Any other questions? Sorry about that. Okay, moving on to curriculum and instruction division update. Good evening. I'd like to thank the superintendent and the board um for the opportunity to lift up the work of teaching and learning tonight. uh for our community and especially for the opportunity to lead this division this year. Um I've learned so much and it is such an honor to walk in this work with the amazing leaders sitting behind me. Um without whom I could not have stepped into this space to do this work um and to do my best on behalf of students um they've held me up all year. Uh and

070so special thanks to them as well. Uh we always thank you. We always start with our vision mission, our district vision, mission and goals and to which our division goals are also aligned. Thank you. The work of our division falls into three key areas. Uh instructional supervision, curriculum development and implementation and professional development. Uh through the lens of instructional supervision, we work in concert with leaders uh both at the administrator level and the teacher level to build our collective capacity to support our teachers. um while also engaging directly with the teachers in our respective departments to build routine use of the best practices that advance learning. Um in terms of curriculum development and implementation, uh all of the departments have had standards that um have evolved over the past 10 years. Um and the standards

071are what drives our our curriculum and instruction. Um and so even as um the the curriculum is evolving in response to the standards um how we develop and implement curriculum um our goal is to be engaging, affirming and meaningful at the grade level demand. Um in terms of our professional development, we have a professional development plan with uh four clear goals that I'll discuss a little bit later. Um, but those goals are all really grounded in thinking about how adults learn um, and how to have meaningful learning for adults that is self-directed, that is, uh, built upon their life experiences, that is goal oriented from their perspective, um, relevant, motivational, and attends to their readiness and is problem centered. Um, and that's how adults generally, you know, from an adult learning theory standpoint, how adults

072learn to appreciate their professional development. Um, we have professional development days, a mentoring program, and student teaching, all of which center around that concept of adult learning theory. Next slide, please. This is our division. Uh, you'll notice a couple of asterisks there. Um, Elizabeth and I have been sharing a variety of of roles this year. Um so um the titles are a little you know muddy right now but uh we've been working together and it's been a really amazing an opportunity for us to look at this system vertically in a way that we never have been able to do before and we've learned so much and are so excited about um the partnership we've been able to have this year. Um Kim and Glenn are our latest members of our division. They're kind of half

073with us. They're with us through the lens of physical education and health teaching and learning. Um, athletics is not currently living in our division right now, but um, they've been uh, helped contribute to this report tonight and I thank them for that. And then uh, Jen and Lisa are, you know, the backbone of this division um, and doing work behind the scenes that none of us could do without them. Next slide, please. All right. From a a supervision standpoint, I meet cycllically with all of the supervisors. Um even though we are frequently in the same spaces, I think it's important to protect time for leadership development focusing on um you know having this protected time for reflection, having this protected time for celebrating our wins, our strengths and progress and we work together to solve

074problems of practice through um a particular lens. Um so I meet with them all cyclally in that regard and then we have the same model at a monthly level as a team both at elementary and secondary. Next slide please. So our division as we're out in the you know the schools um we belong in schools with teachers. we belong in schools in the instructional setting. Um so we have monthly meetings in the buildings. Um we're very very visible. Um in all of the buildings we work with our coaches. Um we have a large cadre of coaches at elementary. Um a modest but powerful group at the middle level and department chairs at the high school. Um teacher leaders are very much a sleeping giant in a lot of ways and tapping into teacher leadership is

075one of the most um effective ways to propel learning forward. Um we have common planning time at each level and we support the coaches that push into those spaces and we push into those spaces as well. Next slide please. The heart of our work really is being in classrooms. Uh we have a system of classroom visits and walkthroughs. Um the work of all of us is to be in those classrooms in common planning time in collaboration with our leaders. Uh our goal is to deliver meaningful feedback. feedback that is specific, timely, motivational, and by that I mean strength-based, starting with um the things folks can do and building off of that. Uh being goal oriented um and being learner involved because um research is really clear that it's in the classroom, it's studenttoteer feedback, but

076in any learning setting, right? It's it's the person collecting the feedback from somebody else to then inform um how they support them is is really what's most powerful. Um when we w when we're in classrooms we have a variety of things we're looking for. We are always looking for the difference between written curriculum and implemented curriculum. Uh because we have our all our curriculum has a written articulation but sometimes how it's implemented you know necessarily shifts but it's important for us to to keep our eye on um how that curriculum is evolving in the classroom. uh we are always looking for our SEP goals uh specifically through the lens of our instructional framework and our tier one best practices to make sure that they're being implemented with fidelity and then we also look for trends

077to inform our professional development. I do want to highlight that um the bottom bullet uh the seven supervisors which makes up approximately just under 10% of the you know administrators unit has conducted 766 classroom visits this year which is 30% of the visits classroom or districtwide and 65% of the walkthroughs to date. um walkthroughs are a little more involved, a little bit more um they have conversation on the front end and the back end with the teacher. Um and that is not in any way um meant to diminish the work of our building leaders who are also in classrooms doing that work, but to highlight what a privilege it is to have our office able, our division able to dive deeply into the work of teaching and learning in partnership with our building leaders. Um

078but I'm really proud of the folks during this transitional year for spending as much time in classrooms working um with teachers alongside our students as we have. Our next major area is curriculum implementation. We have a five-year cycle of review which has been around for pushing a I think a decade now or a little bit less perhaps. Um uh this year we had um two departments who were up for review. Um neither of those are happening this year. Um which the CTE um component we've had um some transition and growing pains there and Frank and Amanda have done an amazing job picking up little pieces of that and supporting Jod, but we really need um the opportunity to have a full program review which um Karen is actually starting to do some focus work right

079now. Um and ENL I think it you know uh was best to postpone. Yep. Yep. It's been a year. Um, and so we're looking to this summer really take a look at the cycle and determine what the best path is moving forward. Uh, ELA and science are up next year, so having all four of them up might be a bit of a challenge, but we'll have to prioritize and think about what is the most important thing um, to do there. Science has new standards um, and ELA will need to do um, a program review relative to our our resource. Uh in terms of standards implementation, um I those are all of the new standards and the progress we're making in those that regard. Uh we have as you know June regions coming up where new

080tests for science and math and that will continue through next year. Next slide please. Our third major area of focus is professional development. Those four goals are the written goals of our professional development plan which uh is a three-year plan that expires this year. So we will be writing a new professional development plan uh for next year. Um we have professional development days listed there. Uh we are very lucky to have some early release time for our middle school folks. Um I think Karen added up the hours once and when we talk about all of the different learning that we want to do when some of it is mandated. Um and we don't have a choice about three to four hours of what we have is mandated. Um time is a finite resource. Um so

081we really are looking for as many spaces to develop professionally as we can and are very grateful um that our school calendar allows for those days. Um and then in terms of fostering that out of um other opportunities for for professional learning we have had folks 10 575 conference attendees this year which is um slightly higher than last year at 443. We typically conduct PD surveys. Um, I've linked for your viewing pleasure what the opening day schedule looks like, which the March schedule looks like to see the kind of robust offerings that we have and really how we endeavor and try so hard to make sure that we have something for everyone and that is relevant to their work. Um, you'll notice, for example, our nurses got to do stop the bleed training um, in

082the spring. Um, things like that where we really try to not just have a one-sizefits-all professional development plan um, and sessions. So, um, we survey, uh, while I wish the participation rate was a little bit higher, you can see that those who do participate generally, um, find value in what we offer. Um, our mentoring program, I really have to, um, I can take no credit for this whatsoever. Jen Justice is an amazing mentor coordinator. Uh, her photo was up earlier at the retirement party. She is, um, setting her sights on her next chapter. Um, she has done an amazing, amazing job as the mentor coordinator. We have so many probationary folks who get support with mentoring and she matches all of them. She matches the mentor to the mentee. She trains the mentors. She supports

083the mentees. Um and this is regulatory um from back in the early 2000s that every teacher must have a mentoring experience. uh we endeavor to ensure that even teachers coming to us who may have met this requirement in a previous district because if they've had that in another district that counts so to speak but we really know that you know our system is unique and complex and so we endeavor to have a mentoring experience for everybody whether they're new to teaching or just new to us. Um and then we do have folks who sometimes ask for a second year and if we can accommodate that we will um by h if we have enough you know mentors to do so which we typically do. Next slide please. This is uh a bar graph of all

084of our mentors and mentees. So you can see most recently we are approaching 200 uh mentees this year um with slightly less mentors which you know obviously communicates that some people have more than one mentee. Uh Jen also does a tremendous amount of work in supporting both traditional and non-traditional certification pathways. Um this is sort of a partnership across three divisions. uh grants has a hand in this, HR has a hand in this and curriculum and instruction has a hand in this and so we have a lot of different irons in the fire so to speak with you know teaching assistants or our substitute teachers trying to support them in getting their certification um people who might need coursework supplementary extensions etc. Um Jen aside from Mr. Ziggler, who is our kind of go-to rep

085at um who knows all about certification. Jen is truly knows all of the things about all of the ways to get certified, and she has helped so many people, be it a TA looking to become a teacher, be it a classroom teacher who's looking to extend into ENL or or what have you. Um Jen has really been instrumental in that regard. Um, and so this is one way that we're trying to, you know, really get creative about how we diversify our um, our teaching staff and think about, you know, maybe non-traditional ways to get folks into our buildings and into our schools. Uh, uh, Miss Gaines Herell alluded earlier to some student teaching coordination that they they do at Arbor Hill. Um, and they have been really successful in that regard. Um, and so there's

086a lot to learn there as well. We have a variety of partnerships. We have a Clarkson teacher residency program. We have four residents this year from the Department of Labor. Um we have a partnership with Sunni Empire and the teacher opportunity corps. Uh currently we have two teaching assistants that are with us now who will be poised by this time next year to be certified. Um Jen would tell you those are success stories. We're really excited about that. Um, Sunni Albany is implementing a P6 M's program to leave fill that gap that St. Rose has left. Uh, we've been doing some we're in conversations with Mallaloy University which is a predominantly online program. And then we have your traditional, you know, student teaching experiences through Sage, Clarkson, Sienna, Sunni, Albany, Sunni Empire, Sunni Newalts. Um,

087and actually I just have something came across my desk for Ithaca. So, um, lots of different college partners. Uh we have 69 placements this year in student teaching which is way higher than we've had in in recent years. Um so we're really excited about that. I think uh one of the most important things is when we can get student teachers in and they fall in love with our district. Um that is the way to really have folks who can [Music] um proceed through their first year with some tools in their toolkit. Um, and that's really uh fantastic. Uh, I have a couple student teachers teaching right now that have expressed interest in in working here and I'm really excited about that. Uh, we also have smart scholar grant that is in my office and we

088work with some title funds through our that you know support our STEM and humanities and fine arts enrichment programs. As you know, I am the district calendar committee person at the moment. Um, and uh I Yes, it's wonderful. I the texts I get is like, well, could we do something? That's not how that works. I can't do anything about that. Um, I also support um Jasmine and uh Ken Chaffy right now in our SEP development at the building level and it is my collateral responsibility to lead our DEP work, which is the district comprehensive improvement plan. Next slide, please. All right, so this is the fun part. Um, I'm not going to read all of this at you, but there are some really amazing highlights going on in our uh different areas. I wanted to

089lift a couple of different things. Um, I'm going to credit Elizabeth and Bob with all of the work they've done uh that's represented here. They have both really um endeavored to weave experiential opportunities into our curriculum and experiences for kids. Elizabeth has taken this really integrated approach by um crosswalking our ELA standards with the standards for socioeotional learning, the standards for um culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy and really thinking about uh the current researchers is really leaning in the direction of having knowledge building curriculum. And so she's uh have text sets that she's integrated text sets that have socio emotional themes. We have our own text sets that we've built that are reflective of our students in um the social studies elementary classrooms and our fourth and fifth grade trips are aligned to the social

090studies standards. Um Bob is leading a grant at the high school. We're in year one implementation. We currently have 16 students in this course. It's the peer uh group connection course. It's a leadership class and um under the leadership of Mr. Alteri and um Miss Rosa uh they those 16 students that are juniors who are juniors and seniors weekly meet with a group of freshmen and mentor them. Um so it's a really cool opportunity and we just had a recent interest meeting to have the course uh develop and expand next year. Uh very quickly I just wanted to lift the seal of biiteracy and civic readiness. uh we had 22 presentations this month with 14 seniors uh who are going to be awarded the seal of graduation which is you know continually increasing and we

091have we'll have approximately a 100 students get the seal of civic readiness. So that's really exciting. Um, you can see some other opportunities that our students have had through the lens of civics um, this year. And I really want to credit Bob for his work in this regard and bringing lift to this because this is the future of New York Inspires. Like this is how New York Inspires is going to take us in this direction with capstone projects and community service portfolios, work-based learning experiences, um, and really creating these authentic spaces. And we are well poised to do that. uh I think far better than a lot of spaces because of the work that's happening in social studies and world language. Um so thank you to Bob Math Highlights. Uh this is Sarah and Frank's

092wheelhouse. They have worked really in partnership very closely along the lines of their priorities to have emphasis on studentto student mathematical discourse uh student centered instruction. We are in year two of our fully aligned implemented new primary resource in illustrative mathematics. Uh we have integrated some new technology tools. Snorkel for example is a tool that it's AI generated and students can do a math problem and it will help you figure out where you went wrong and it's like that in the- moment feedback that allows teachers to really truly differentiate at the individual level. Um so that's exciting. We have math game lending libraries in all of our elementary buildings and uh we've done some work with uh research. This is kind of the book in the math field right now. It's like the nerd book

093of building thinking classrooms that's focused on collaboration and critical thinking and students taking ownership of their learning. Uh Frank is like dipping his toe in the event planning. We have so many event planners in our department that those of us that do less event planning like have um you know we're like missing out a little bit. So Frank dipped his toe in this year and event planned. Uh we hosted Alb High hosted the 64th annual Hudson Mohawk Valley Math Conference which was really cool to showcase to all of the surrounding um folks who participated, you know, the beautiful campus that we have and all of the opportunities we have there. So thank you to Sarah and Frank. STEM highlights, Sarah and Amanda, I'm in awe of of them. They are event planners. They are materials

094schleers. Um they are active with our community partners. Um they have tons of community partners. They uh coordinate field trips. They're their commitment to providing hands-on enrichment in STEM is really just I'm in awe of them every day. Um they ambitiously pursue funding in pursuit of this um and can find they can squeeze like water from a stone, blood from a stone, whatever that phrase is um to be able to create these opportunities for our students. and I've just highlighted some of those there. Um, thank you Sarah and Amanda. And then CTE has been a labor of love this year with a lot of different people contributing to try to keep CTE at the forefront. Um, and I really have to thank Frank, Amanda, and Jod and her team for the work that they've done.

095So, we've highlighted a couple of things here. We are really excited about the work that um we have planned for next year as we really try to reach out and and strengthen um you know when if you build it they will come. They are coming. Um enrollment uh numbers are very very high uh for our classes and now we just need to figure out um how we are going to ensure that the students that enter the pathways have uh the skills and dispositions and the support to finish pathways and explore them. Um, you know, sometimes I think figuring out what you don't want to do is as important as figuring out what you do. Um, and so trying to balance that, um, ability to sample the pathways while also ensuring that students complete pathways and

096leave us with something they can utilize um, out in the world. um fine arts. The queen of event coordination is one Kate Wright who um you can look at all of those things that our amazingly talented students have participated in through the lens of art and music and theater this year. We've done 25 art shows. We have all of these partners. We've all of these enhanced performances and programs and just it's unbelievable what you know how talented our kids are and it's I love seeing them out in the world doing that work. And last but certainly not least is our PE and health highlights. Uh Kim and Glenn are newest to our team. They really have done a good job um laying a foundation for innovation and progress in this area. Um Kim is working

097diligently to get our curriculum really aligned both horizontally and vertically. Um she's really excited about our uh developing a unified PE program uh to promote inclusive physical education and we are currently exploring the introduction reintroduction of our swim program. Uh Albany High will definitely be swimming next year. Uh the goal um at the middle level is to have swimming in place by January um as a unit and then we will be moving on to elementary and getting them um back up and running. Uh and then um we are transitioning our PE structure to a 910 1112 to better meet developmental needs and we continue to have um partnership with Planned Parenthood and are currently reviewing the K12 health curriculum to ensure alignment with the standards. And with that I will take any questions you have.

098Mr. Mavi. Thank you, Mr. Hulahan. Um, I'm going to try to refrain from asking all my questions. I've got three or four, but um probably most important is how much of the PD is mandated versus like you sign up for it. So there are a variety of mandated professional development. Um they're typically regulatory. Um you're hazmat training like that kind of stuff. Work, you know, work-based harassment, all of those. We have a system called Vector where um some of that is housed where it's like it's a video. You do your multiple choice and it's some of it's annual, some of it's one and done. Um some of it has earlier due dates, etc. um that totals be between three and four hours, probably closer to three than four, but it it is required. Um and

099so that sucks up 3 to four hours of our professional development time because we really do endeavor to provide teachers with the time and space to do that work. Um and so then our professional development days where we have um two days in the fall, one one and a half we have, you know, our convocation and our union meetings and our um staff meetings typically on the first half of the first day. And then we have a second day that's really more traditional professional development uh where we have workshops and um there may be some degree of choice within those workshops or some of it's um aligned to our school improvement plans for example. Um and then the third day is that teacher preparation day where teachers have the autonomy to do what they need

100to do to get ready for the students the following day. We have our two half days of professional development associated with our parent on the opposite side of our parent teacher conference days. Those are both building based days typically because we don't um we it it's really difficult for teachers to travel on those days to go to other professional development offerings because they want to be there ready for the families when they get there. Um and so we those are building based days and then we typically have one additional day. This year it was March 31st where again it's typically half building half department. Um and we do that work there. And then sometimes we do find ourselves on the days where we could have autonomy and choice as a district where um particular departments

101do have additional mandated training that they have to participate in. For for example, TCIS is an annual reertification. Um we had some mandated training from state ed this year for our behavior um behavior plans, our BIPS and our um what's the other acronym? Third behavior plans and um FBAs, functional behavior assessments. So sometimes that happens. Understood. Um and the reason I ask is essentially if there's a mandated 4 hours of PD and um there might be a total of 12 available hours for for PD. Are we keeping track of who's doing the elective PD? Are we making suggestions to folks? Um I just I'd like to understand like is it most of our you know staff just does the the mandated and like kind of leaves the rest like where do we lie on that?

102Everybody that has to do the mandated do does the mandated training and then all of the other time I just described is dedicated to professional development that is informed by our professional development plan has been designed either by in some cases an outside provider but typically in-house um we have a robust team of people who deliver um high quality PD um and we try to shift that really explicitly into teacher leadership in spaces is where that works well. Our coaches do a lot of professional development. Um and I think the professional development is typically aligned to our school improvement plans. So if a building is focused on a particular, you know, practice, for example, um that's what will be centered in their professional development. But there is a definite shift in an effort to ensure

103through the feedback we've collected via our surveys and just anecdotally and qualitative feedback that we need to continue to to do more to ensure that folks have choice when it comes to professional development. Um that folks uh have relevant professional development because sometimes like if you're the school nurse and you're sitting in a faculty meeting about tier one best practices in the classroom like that's not your work. Um, so really being differentiated, and when I say differentiated, I mean by interests, I mean by needs, I mean by readiness. Um, you know, a first year teacher is not going to need the same kind of professional development that a veteran teacher is going to need. Um, so I'm really excited at the opportunity to have the PD plan expiring so that as we're rewriting it, we're

104really thinking about the reflecting the needs of our diverse student body as well as the learning needs of our diverse um staff and the stakeholders and what role they play in our system. Because everybody, every adult who works here deserves an opportunity to be better at their work through professional development that's meaningful to them. Miss Smith. Thank you, Miss Hulahan. Uh, and and all these wonderful folks behind you uh that that contribute so much. They are they are um and um I wanted to mostly they're mostly comments. um as I um as I was listening to you uh you know go through the entire presentation there uh it did remind me of the school visits that we uh partake in um and I and I want to kudos out to the school uh leaders, principles

105and so forth because in walking through they sort of bring to life for us uh what you have written here on paper. And so I'm really glad that the board has uh gotten back into these visits uh certainly after COVID and uh and and we'll continue that because it's sort of you know um you know you just it's a different kind of thing when you can you know you can read it of course but to actually have go through and experience uh and particularly uh what I like and and it's not a uh I don't want to say that this is a the purpose of what we go to school schools to visit but it sometimes is helpful um to understand and that is the walkthroughs right so you know when you're walking through and

106the school leader is telling us about you know what's happening in this class and um that maybe he or she had uh observed x y and z and then you get to sort of have a little bit more question well what is that what does that mean and or what does that look like um how do you know and how do you um and that person will say and you know you know there are students in there that have varying abilities well No, I don't really I can't really see that, but give me like sort of an example. So, it kind of really enriches the conversation. And so, I just a kudos for the work that happens uh on this higher level with curriculum instruction and certainly uh with uh what goes on in the

107classroom and the support that that um our teachers are getting. So, um just good great stuff to see. And and I think I want to just also say that all of the highlights also just are, you know, I mean, every every subject, every area, uh I don't think you missed a single one. Uh you'd be in trouble if you did, right? Um and so that's the stuff that really makes uh learning happen and and lets us know that learning is also happening. Um and so I just want to thank you all for that. Um I think and that includes the seal of bi literacy and readiness. I love that. Um I think my only uh one question that I did have and it has to do with the um 69 uh teacher uh student teacher

108placements. Um and I'm just like we're sort of also trying to keep a track of uh like uh TAs and others who might be uh going through the various uh grow your own programs. I'm very interested to know more about who is who we're actually now seeing in these 69 placements and whether or not you are seeing some of that uh uh some difference in the demographic. Um and I don't you don't have to answer that. I just I think it was just a sort of maybe an an SBU question who is now in the classroom uh become wanting to become that teacher. Um and and uh and what and I like that that they're seemingly you have this group of students they're interested in urban education and I really want to kind of have

109a sense of what it is that we are doing to make sure they leave our um institution really having a good handle on what urban education is about and their um their contribution to it. So, it was just a general question about their demographics and and what we're starting to see or or if we're not seeing much change in that diversity. But regardless, we want to make sure that these folks are highly skilled and understand the context in which they are looking to work. So, thank you. Um, I know we have Lisa Donardo has is impeccable recordkeeper and has all of the information about who is where, with whom, and um, I don't know that I would have to see their paperwork to know if I have that information at my fingertips, but I can

110certainly work on it. Thank you. I just can even be an SBU. you know, I sort of I'm looking over at Miss the who whose area this probably isn't, but I just, you know, she does give us a lot of HR demographics, so I was just sort of I think I woke her up over there. Did I K? No, I'm I'm really teasing you over there. But, um, but nonetheless, I it doesn't have to be something that's necessarily public. I'm I'm just it's just sort of anformational piece and sort of wanting to look at towards what the future might look like, um, you know, for our kids. Yeah. Thank you, Miss Man. So, I I really don't have any comments except for a praise, right? So, thank you for a very thorough presentation. Thank your

111team for all of their work and and again, your presentation was very thorough, so thank you. Um, and that's all I have. You're welcome, Miss Savage. I always find these presentations amazing because it's like, okay, let's talk about the entire district in 10 minutes or less. Good luck. Um, so we really appreciate and recognize how influential this team is on all of the good stuff that's happening throughout the district. Um, and like everyone said, I really appreciate the quality of the presentation and the and the information that was provided. I of course have a couple of questions because I always have questions. Um, the first one is super easy and I might be able to get two this round because the first one is so easy. Um, we do have as part of the curriculum

112policy, we keep the five-year chart, you know, the and we don't have a current one. So, if you could send that to Miss Tibons, she can put it on the um even though I know it won't be quite right because of what you described about CTE and um ENL. Um, even if we could have wherever we are now, it would be better than what we've got there because we're starting in 2023 in the current one. So that would be very helpful. And then the second question um has to do with what you described about all of the work we do to support our um aspiring teachers um and the grow your own programming. Um and that's an area that's been in an area of interest for us for a really long time. I think I

113speak for all my colleagues when I say that and I appreciated your recognition of it's like it's many departments working together to try and make this happen. Um, and so one of the things that I would love to know, which I do not expect you to either reel off or even write in an SPU, but this is like a thought project for us as a leadership team, is to figure out what the real barriers are. What are the real barriers? Can we as a group get together with people who are currently our TAs want to be teachers or our TAs haven't really explored being teachers? Like what is preventing it? because I know there was this whole thing about the 40 hours that people kept explaining to me and I kept not getting and I'm

114not asking someone to explain that again. But what are the barriers and which of those are within our control? Right? Some of them are not within our control. I recognize that some things are regulatory, but I think that this board has been really clear that that's a priority for us and the fact that it might cost more money to do something to break that barrier should not immediately take it off the table. It should be a we know that we could get more TAs to become teachers and further diversify our workforce if we could d um and that will cost x y or z. And that's something I think that we would like to have that conversation raised up. And again, I'm not asking for an or an answer. I'm just raising that um because

115it seems like everybody wants the same thing. And at least we I think I speak for everyone don't feel like we have a really good handle on what is preventing us from success in that area. So yeah, go ahead. Ask the president, but it's fine. Well, I I know, but I first wanted to ask you if I could interrupt you. Absolutely. Go ahead, Dr. Stewart. May I? So, yes. And so on that uh grow your own piece, I think um I don't know if we've done this. Have we do we do a survey of say our teaching assistants or just across the board you know folks who are interested in uh perhaps pursuing teaching um and then that way to get at the barriers because I suspect they're going to be some very could be

116some very unique things depending on who you ask um and so if if but if we're finding that we're getting one set of people demographically uh that says something but if and if we're not getting others that says something so I think if I I want to sort of maybe if you're going to do something that we broaden that to get an answer um so we might understand the fullness of any barriers that might be in the way of folks being able to to move forward in their you know that's a great suggestion. Thank you. I can work on that. Thank you. Not a directive. Okay. I want to make sure. Okay. All right. Thank you. This is a question for Kate. Uh piggybacking on on what was just said is it um you know

117like like the university for example when you get evaluated you have your evaluation but you also have a program planning for the next year right so do we do something like that with our staff where TAing and things like that you know where the next year's thing I would like to do this gets added to their it's I know how it was done at U Albany and it's we do it similarly here but it's not identical. Um it's uh it's sort of allin-one as part of your evaluation. There are some expectations for the upcoming year. Things like particularly if there are things that you need to work on. Um but what we don't have that that was at you Albany is that performance program for the upcoming year. Um but I think that that's certainly

118something that we could work towards because if we can capture their aspirations, right, that feeds into Exactly. Yep. So I'm going to go back since it was my question like this is my my dream that we can't implement yet but we would I would love to get us to a place where we could where that becomes we become the place where people know that they we are thinking about what they want and need to grow like that's the d that's where we want want to be um and not just in a survey not just in a written evaluation but in a really um rich one-on-one conversation because some people don't right some people are like I'm good this is what I'm doing I'm very happy with what I'm doing my life is good. I'm ready.

119And some people do have bigger aspirations and to really have those conversations and look for ways to support. Um and that's really, you know, that first phase is understanding what the whole like what can we do so that we can offer it. Um but I do think we really want to be in that personal support um model someday. Miss Gree, uh thank you. You know, it's really great to serve with board colleagues that really sparked these really inspired, robust, collective conversations among everyone. I wanted to thank you so much for your presentation. Thank you for stepping into this role with with such enthusiasm. You seem I just get that enthusiasm for what you're doing when you've presented and talked to us about this over the course of the year. So, I wanted to thank you

120uh for doing that. I did have a question. It's sort of a little bit of a followup on the question. my colleague Mr. Elmanawi asked which is about the outofd district conferences. It's really great that so many of our teachers well I assume so many of our teachers are attending them but I wanted to get some more information about who and what and how and just how the process happens because you know is 575 conferences represent a little more than half of our teachers each get to attend one out of district conference a year or is it you know 50 teachers who attend 10 conferences a year. So, I would love to know more about the process for are these people going out on their own, identifying something that they think would be helpful and

121coming back and asking their principal or are principles or district leaders going out and saying, "Hey, I found something that I think would be really great for my third grade teachers and I'm going to recommend some people go." I would love to know more about that process. All of the above. That has been one of my most interesting learning curves this year is to really understand the conference like thing. I it's really it's complicated. Um I I've learned so much. I've learned the things that are permissible that are not permissible. All of those kinds of things. I would say that it's a mix. uh we have for our schools that are in status, they have funding um to support very specifically support the professional growth of those particular staff members at the school. Um so

122you do have folks who have gone to a number of conferences. Uh we have some conferences that we have invested in deeply as a district such as Unbound Ed and um the standards institute and the leadership institute where we have found real value and real alignment in the vision of of that group and our vision um around educational equity and what that means in the classroom. Um which from a definition standpoint to me means like it's every student's right to the grade level standard. um that it's not, you know, that that in in other schools we don't have, you know, eighth graders getting fourth grade materials and and fourth grade um expectations. And so, you know, it is every student's right to the grade level standard and it is in fact our job to scaffold

123up to that standard um so that every student has that access um and that so their philosophy really aligns with ours. So, we've really built a critical mass of folks who have been invested in Unbound Eden's professional development for that. Um as one example um we have some folks who have uh requisite professional development. Our school psychologists our speech language pathologists there are certain things they must attend um and we support them in that regard. Um we do have a component of our professional development uh plan and our conference uh request form that essentially when folks go out and learn the things there is this embedded part where it's supposed to kind of come back and be turnkeyed that's something I would really like to work on systematizing a little better um with 575 different

124things that is you know coordinating you know what does that actually look like coming back and sharing with colleagues I think sometimes it happens very organ organically. I'd like to see it happen a little more systematically and a little more intentionally so that when we're investing because you know oneshot learning is not it doesn't have the thing that you know where it has teeth. We have to be able to turn key back and then build routine use around those things that we learned. So, I would really like to see some like that's a goal of mine is to see how we can better systematize that so when folks do go off to different conferences and they're coming back and sharing that in a very intentional way with their colleagues so that we can all benefit

125from that. That would be really great. I know one of the things that our policy requires for the curriculum and instruction report is detailed report on which conferences uh the staff are attending and we haven't had you know with every everything going on here we haven't had that in a while beyond beyond that sort of bare number so if if at some point and I know you're very busy that you could uh kind of collect that into to an SBU that would be really fantastic thank you absolutely thank you sorry my mic was going Um and I think uh it's an excellent point I think because what I mean as a board we we want to invest in those things right those conferences and those skill sets but being able to understand the impact is

126is is the information that we don't have and and and it may be a lot harder to do but but we we don't for instance know how many people then have the person came back they turn keyed or did x y and z how many people and then at what levels were they involved is that direct student impact services or is that you know more supportive? So I think that that would help and again it's not trying to make more work but really trying to make sure you all do so much so much so much so much important work but being able to get it documented so that we as a board can you know continue to support and decide you know is is is this is where the investment ought to go. That's why

127we're asking so that we can judge that not to make more work you know and I know you know that I'm just reiterating. Okay. So I was going to also ask something along the same lines on conferences. So I'm seeing first of all I was slightly surprised that there were so many. I wasn't sure if it was counting people or actual conferences because it's like more than a conference a day essentially. And comparatively to last year, it's over 25% what we did last year. And that's totally okay. But I was curious if there was, you know, some kind of event that happened that lots of people like lots of our staff wanted to go to or if there was what was different about this year than last year that pumped us up so much more.

128That's a good question. Um, I don't know that I can fully answer it because I kind of stepped into the middle of it. I can tell you that there have been some bigger conferences. For example, we have a large contingency of folk going to the community schools conference that is coming up right after the Memorial Day um weekend. Um we typically send a contingency to different unbound ed, but that we send a lot of folks with, you know, some of the ARP funding and all of that. some of that, you know, we don't have as much uh to spend in that regard, but we still, you know, some of the buildings that are in status that do have money are investing in continue to invest in Unbound Ed. Um there's a lot of local stuff,

129too. Um that doesn't cost anything. Um but you know the dayto-day stuff I'm again I'm not saying um anything negative on it but I and I definitely agree with your point that um if we can get folks to come back and disseminate that knowledge to our the rest of our team it's you know a double win essentially. So um the number needs a little bit of metadata behind it. Um, again, not not bad. Um, but curious. Thank you. It's great when all your colleagues and you actually figured out what I was going to ask and sort of answered it already. So, I mean, the the whole point of PD is is twofold, right? I mean, it's to give the person who is getting the PD an ability to learn new skill sets, to improve on

130themselves. So there is some next position on the ladder that they can climb onto right. It's its benefit and and on the other hand the investment is eventually coming back to the district to the student who is at you know at the end they are the customer they're our customer right we all serve the students so how does that needle move in favor for that student right so there those are two aspects so I agree that you know it's an investment that we make for people to go out and learn at these conferences it'd be good to know what were the things that they learned that We actually implemented in the district observed and say okay we were sitting here now the needles move this year graduation's increased students are learning better whatever that that

131measurement is so that we can make those ch as funding becomes tighter it would give us more information to decide hey this was a great conference we should find a way to supported more if we had to cut one this other one would be okay to cut and so there is some equity and and some thought process and thinking that rather than oh we don't have money which one do we cut and you know let's cut this let's cut because we we tend to do a lot of things in the district and that sort of gets to people at some point like they need to understand they need that buy in right we need buy in from them to understand why is it that we are supporting these conferences what is the expectation at the

132end of the day we see it in the in in whatever the student is per how the student is performing so um the that's what I was going to relate to and then you know all these questions basically came up to the same thing. So I'm going to ask a different question. How do we make an opportunity for our kids to go to like the science olympiad or the math olympiad or even things like the mastermind which I guess is a club activity that used to exist exist in our district but is not there anymore. uh how do we make those kind of opportunities? Um that's a good question too. Um so I don't know as much about our student activities through the lens of clubs and extracurriculars beyond what sort of the experiential learning

133in the context of you know field trips have to be aligned to the you know the curriculum and the standards etc. Um, I know that, um, Sarah and Amanda have been working so diligently to, um, figure out how to with St. Rose closing and our I don't remember the exact name of it, but there's a science fair that was grounded at St. Rose, Joseph Henry. I knew it was a name. I didn't. Sorry. So, they have been working so diligently to try and replicate that with St. Rose closing. we have like this person's willing to do this little part and this college is willing to do this little part but St. rose like it was more of a comprehensive opportunity and so they've been really really trying so we did some in-house stuff this year

134to ensure the kids still had some experience um but creating a an experience like that um in alignment with sort of you know this science olympiad math olympiad um I would have to like look into that further um but certainly there are opportunities for us to consider how students go out you know in the world through the lens of their own learning um to have those experiences too The reason, you know, the reason why I asked that question is because there are things like the uh region run scholarships, the Coca-Cola scholarships, which all of these things would feed into and make more opportunities for our students and as their juniors and seniors, but they need to know about this. So, how do we let them inform them that, hey, here's these opportunities that exist, you

135know, for you for scholarships to go to college. Here's what the kind of things they look for. here's the kind of things that we could do with you participating in-house or out, you know, outside that will feed into your uh resume that that goes towards these scholarship applications or these nominations, whatever have you. So, at the end of the day, you're you're benefiting the the student in a much more broader long-term vision rather than just just the immediate thing. I'm really excited that we are culminating our first year with having a college and career counselor back at Alb High School. And I think that that is something long overdue that we're really excited about. Jen Quinn is doing amazing work at Albany High um to start to be the person who can be the face

136of that umbrella and then really thinking about um how we through the lens of both not just CTE but just pathway experiences in general um coming down into our elementary grades, our upper elementary grades, our middle schools to create those experiences. I I have a senior this year. So I have just com just almost completed my 13 years of like the lens of a parent through the public educ. is wild and I have learned so much um as a parent and thinking about those things that as an educator, as a leader in public education that I still had to learn and balls that I dropped and and thinking and I sit on, you know, my family sits on a throne of privilege and and so having, you know, just having to learn those things along

137the way and how students find themselves kind of sifted and filtered throughout their educational experience in a way that um has some really winning at the end and some who did not have the same opportunities. Um, and so I think that's really important for us to be thinking vertically about exposure at earlier grades. I think when students sometimes learn about the things it's some it's a year, two years too late um to really best leverage those opportunities. Um, and that's I think I was alluding to that earlier a little bit with the pathways, like having an opportunity to explore, but also, you know, finding the right pathway and being able to complete it um so that they're leaving with with something um tangible um to go out in the world with. Nailed it. Thank you.

138Thank you. Any other questions, folks? Oh, 20 25 art shows is crazy. Wild. Yeah, it's crazy. Um, I know I don't have the amount of staff that the school district does, but I've I tried like seven over the last year at my my shop. It was incredibly difficult. It was just one person a piece. So, um, great job to the team and um, uh, Kate Wright for that. And I'd like to also just take a minute to shout out her. Um we have a our TOSA this year, our coach, um Kim Reynolds Toffman, and she is tremendous. Um she is a wonderful addition to the teacher leadership staff, and um she and Kate have worked in great partnership this year, and we couldn't be more excited about what she brings to the table. Thank you.

139Thank you all so much. Oh, thank you, Miss Savage. Thi this is one that I have asked before and I just will bring it up you know because I like to throw things out into the world and see if they can um materialize eventually is um we have a whole series of systems that we use to track employees and I would love to track who's had what PD in that system so that we could easily answer questions like what percentage of our staff who is supposed to have had CTE um training has had CTE training which is a really different question than how many people have we trained because we have so much turnover as all school districts do. Um, and so I would like it embedded in my dreams because I dream in the

140HR management system so that those questions, those pieces of information are tied to the employees record so that we can ask those kinds of questions and that's a a thing we do not do to my understanding now. Um, but but I think we should try and build towards that as we continue to make significant improvements. Kate looks like she wants to say something in our um systems as we have been. We we just had this conversation last week. So there and lots of ideas were thrown out about how we could incorporate it into one of the many systems that the districts uses. Cool. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up is the 2526 budget update. I We just passed the budget. All right. Thank you everyone. Good evening. Oh, sorry. Good evening. Uh, so

141just a very quick budget update. Um, just because the state budget was adopted so late in our process, there are a couple slides that I had to update. Um, I just wanted to put it out there. Uh, as always, our district vision, mission, and goal. Um, our expenditures remain the same as the budget was put out, but the state aid came in at $460,000 more than what was estimated prior to um the budget being adopted. So I just wanted to make sure that I change the numbers in the state aid slide here and change the appropriate fund balance to reflect the difference between the two. So that's a very quick budget update. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Anybody? Okay. All right. Board committee reports great. So, I could spend about an hour just summarizing

142our last policy committee meeting. However, it was a long one. We we talked we and and yet I do not did not have any board policies to present uh to you tonight, but we we did make a lot of progress uh with our code of conduct and with the new the planned new cell phone policy and procedures. But we are waiting for some additional information and hoping to meet on that again to get everything finalized because as you know there is a deadline by which that code of conduct has to go to press. We did make a we did really make a lot of progress. Um the other thing is um Miss Smith sent me some information on some background information on the exeicio student um policy which I'm working my way through. I've gone

143through the slideshow in the notes, but have more reading to do. And I believe once she gets me a draft policy, we will schedule a special meeting of the policy committee to address that and discuss that. But that those those are the plans. So exciting exciting plans for policy. And it it's just been really great to put the put these things together. Thanks, Miss Smith. Great. Thank you. And Miss Critchie, just to start there. Um, and I apologize because you did send me a possible dates. I didn't know if you already you all were planning on scheduling one, but I know I got to get to you, but I wasn't sure that that was that was Is that the only thing you're waiting on for for me? Okay, then we'll get that. Um, do you

144have a date already in mind? Just so that I can I think it I I think I was originally thinking next Tuesday or Wednesday and then we realized there was no school. I think we were thinking if possible if you can get it to us in time June 2nd because yes the law says we have to have this in place by July 1 and June second would allow us that's right to Yeah. Okay. So we'll do um so if that's your date u I'm going to say like do what you all have to do on that and I will um follow up this this week with that. Okay. Thank you. And um oh gosh facilities uh we've been pretty pretty busy. Um um and we uh do have a meeting coming up in uh in

145June which is like right around the corner there. Um I'm not going to um hold I always do this never have the date right up. Um but we have much work to do and we'll the date will be announced. It's uh usually that um first week there in June. Um ad hoc committee um we also have some work to do. We um are just sort of had a to some review of materials uh on Monday and I if we haven't already we are working our way to get Mr. um hear some feedback. Um and so we're also hoping to wrap that work up. I I I think certainly by the end of June, right? Um I think we're there almost. Um I keep saying that, but we we'll get there. So, a lot of work.

146Uh and I certainly will uh do my best to help make sure we get all of those the work of those three committees uh together um and wrapped up um very shortly. Okay. Government relations. Uh government relations has not had much to do recently. There was a as you know presentation of the common council as we try and do twice a year. Um I don't know if we've already begun trying to set up a meeting in the fall. We usually like to try and do one um which is tricky because it's their budget cycle. So I encourage um Mr. Mr. Leco, when you have the opportunity to reach out to see if we can get on the council in September, October, um, early October time frame. Um, and as you all know, because you've heard

147me say before, I will not repeat my whole long saga on this. June 4th is the next policy is the next government relations meeting. And if you would like to um, submit an idea, for example, I think we're going to go for mail and voting again. I think we tried that once before. I can't remember what happened to it. I have to go double check. um or any other ideas for state law changes that would benefit our students. Um we can start that process on June 4th. And then um school visit committees I have nothing to add because we've been we done we done been done for a while um and we will be starting up again next semester. All right. Okay. Any other business items? Well, audit committee met uh what five weeks ago

148and um we're not meeting again until I think July. We're fine. And so the internal claims audit reports are coming. Um that's right. I I will I've been working with the orders to change some of the verbiage that we were talking about. Uh but that should be on the June 5th agenda. Okay. Very good. Just so that that's not so cryptic. The why we're asking the auditors to change some languages is some of it was written in a way that it made clear the individual person for whom that was a problem and we don't disclose personnel issues obviously um in a public setting. So we asked them to um be more discreet about the way they describe something so that it's clear what the problem was but not who caused it. All right. Thank you.

149Um before we adjune, I just wanted to u let people know that the uh I mean this is AAPI uh heritage month and there's a celebration that's happening in at Central Park in Skenctity on the 31st. So if you can make it, great. There'll be uh you know different cultural programs from different uh countries around uh Asia uh being represented there, food vendors. So if you will be cricket no I mean cricket cricket's happening other times of the year too. So uh in fact um in Glennville there is a cricket stadium that is being built and that should be opening up this summer. So yeah the capital district is getting big and big on cricket. Okay. Motion to adjurnn. Miss Smith, Mr. Almanavi. All in favor. Thank you everyone. Good night.