Board of Education Public Meeting | Live Stream | April 24th, 2025

001Good evening. Good evening. My name is Shroud and I'm president of the City School District of Albany Board of Education. On behalf of the board, I welcome you to our meeting today. We have uh member Elmanyavi, member Smith, Vice President Taba Wilson, member Savage, and Member Man with us. Um member creche uh can join us today. uh and we have the superintendent and members of the cabinet also joining us either in person or virtually. This meeting is being livereamed and the instructions to view the meeting as well as a link to the agenda including all the documents we will discuss are available at albonychools.org. This is a good time for me to note that if you're here today to speak in public comment, you should sign up with Miss Timmons, our boardler here to my

002right. And with that introduction, we invite those of you who choose to join us as we stand up for the pledge of allegiance. United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation for all. In addition to the pledge of allegiance, we also always focus our meeting by restating the mission of the city school district of Albany, which is to work in partnership with our diverse community and to engage every learner in a robust educational program designed to provide the knowledge and skills necessary for success. Uh, Superintendent Hawk Rider, do you have a report for us? I do, and we'll begin with Mr. Leco. Good evening. Thank you. We are excited tonight to recognize five Albany High School students who have earned the opportunity to represent their school at a national competition

003this summer. The students are part of of the high school's family, career, and community leaders of America club led by adviser Chris Foot. Each student earned a gold or silver medal at the statewide competition in March, earning the trip to nationals, which will be held in Florida. Our students are juniors Matilda Gish, Devanni Haladine, and Olivia Stewart, and ninth graders Sarah Ner Sangabo and Moima Noose. It is my pleasure to welcome Miss Foot to introduce us to the students and tell us more about their achievements. All right. Um, thank you for inviting us here that tonight. We're very excited um to be here. I also want to indicate that we also have another student who um received a bronze medal award here uh today. Trayani Morales Perez is also here as well. What we're going

004to do is we're going to go across the room and the students will introduce themselves and indicate what the topic of their presentation was for the star event. The star event is students taking action event that is um provide uh part of the fax family consumer sciences curriculum um that is in New York state and it's also a national curriculum across um the nation as well and they compete in events where they come up with um ideas under um specific starv competition titles and they come up with their own project and what they're going to do and um to say that Uh these students represented um our school district um with um it is with a great uh pride and um academic stellar and everything is is an understatement. I can't be more proud of

005these students. So here we go. Yes. So I want to introduce myself. My name is Devanni Holline. I'm a junior at Albany High and I represented the New York State for interpersonal communication. I actually my project was regarding deaf communities. So like I try to make introduce non-verbal communication because deaf communities they have to communicate through non-verbal communication which is another form of interpersonal communication. And I identified like the cause and effects and I was able to connect this to my job my future career. I want to become a doctor and learning about all these disabilities and all these like fatigues people have helped me establish a career that I really want to pursue as a doctor and yeah my experience was great absolutely amazing. I got a gold medal first place in my category.

006So I will be representing the state hopefully at nationals. [Applause] [Music] Hello. Oh, hello. My name is Matilda Gish. I am an 11th grader from Albany High School and my and I had a professional presentation on and mine was on BMI and how it's an in it's an invalid indicator of health because it has racist sexist origins and it should and and not only that but it also measure but it also does not take into account um muscle mass. s or where fat is stored. And this truly was an amazing this truly was an amazing experience. Like I I have aspired to be a dietician like throughout my life. And throughout my life, I've always been interested in food. And I'm a student with autism. So I aspire to help people with autism through like

007nutritional needs and navigating through who we are and our values that we that we have that we have to that to improve society to prevent abbleism and the the FCCLA conference was truly an amazing experience. It was very fun and it really and um it really and I think this is an an amazing opportunity to help to help me to help me get closer to my goal and my dream of help of um of helping autistic people just like Temple Grandon did through food. [Applause] Hello, my name is Sarah and I was a level to in the entrepreneurship category and um my idea was to create a mental health facility called Revibe Wellness Studios catered to the younger generation because study shows that um college and the corporate work culture causes a lot of um

008mental health and stress um within the younger generation. So I decided to create an affordable facility where um you can share your problems and be able to [Applause] relax. Hi, my name is Moima. I am a 10th grader of from Albany High School. I did interpersonal communication about the uh culture all over the world like me I'm from different countries so I wanted to like tell everyone that like for who come from different country their languages like English is not like so good for like everyone like my parents so it's very difficult for them to understand and the other people they should like talk with them politely or how to do it like interpersonal communication we use so many like technique take like uh active listening and like talk slowly with them and how you

009should like interact with them about that and I wanted to like create a occasion or like um a invitation about that and like there we can talk about that and our culture we express our culture to everyone. Yeah, that was my [Applause] Hi, my name is Olivia Stoyer. Um, I did a professional presentation. Um I was level three on how the the impact of AI or imple the implementation of AI in psychotherapy and how it can broaden access to treatment and um um um the the the research I did um helped me understand how varying factors like cost or location you are at or like just uh like who your therapist is can all impact your uh treatment and how you can access it. Um and I was able to uh pro uh have a

010presentation on that and um the FCCLA conference really um opened up a whole new world to me up and provided um me the ability to present a presentation even though I sometimes am very shy but I was able to face my fear and like uh present and it was really eye opening and I was able to do different workshops and it was really one and I was really glad I had the opportunity. So, as you can see, um, and Trayani, we had one other student, Trayani, who, um, didn't get into a national representative, but she, uh, also did a star event. Would you like to share what you did, Trayani? I did um career investigation for a registered nurse because that's the career path I want to take when I get older. And the FCCLA

011um trip we went on was also nice because I got to learn about other things have to do with being a registered nurse and things like that. Okay. Thank you. All right. So, uh, all I can say, as you can see, I can't be more proud as a teacher to, um, you know, uh, having coached these guys and, um, and and that, uh, they're, you know, they're following their dreams. So hopefully we'll have an opportunity to continue on with that and go off to the national conference this summer. Thank you. We're just going to make some room with the tables and chairs and then we're going to get together. It is now my pleasure to welcome Stephen and Harry Meyers Middle School principal, Bill Rivers, to tell us about the great things happening at his

012school this year. Welcome. That is a hard act to follow. I didn't have my first board presentation till I was over 30. So great job. So we always start with our uh district mission, vision and goals which we visited. Um so if we want to jump to the next slide from Meyers. Um uh our goals are aligned and our goals are really focused on uh create uh increasing student achievement, enhancing the delivery of quality instruction, building the leadership capacity of myself and our team and our teacher leaders, empowering our families, and partnering with our diverse community. The leadership team consists of myself, uh Miss Torres, who is our grade six assistant principal, Miss Gallagher, who is our grade seven assistant principal, and Mrs. Dylan, who is our grade eight assistant principal. You can see our

013demographics on the next slide. And in continuation, you can see um our demographics for our English language learner population, our students with disabilities, former L's. Um and our students with disabilities are broken down by self-contained special class students and direct consultant teacher and students that receive resource room. Um, I just want to add that specific to Meyers is we have the three 812 special class programs, uh, which serves the needs of 24 students, um, who have special programming, um, that we are very proud, um, to serve, and Miss Torres, our sixth grade assistant principal, supports um, the students in those special classes. Our SEP focus and highlights uh are rooted in providing Gleam instruction across all content areas with a focus on high impact teaching strategies, datainformed decision-making. And our second major focus was to

014strengthen our climate and culture through relational engagement. Uh we wanted this year to expand our staff knowledge of restorative practices and immerse our building in the six pillars of our community schools model. All rooted on um establishing a stronger sense of community and relational practices between staff and students, between administration and staff and of course through our families and community partners. as an outcome from that focus in our work is our significant increase in attendance and decrease in chronic absenteeism. So over the last four years, you can see a steady significant decrease in chronic absenteeism uh year in and year out. So three year uh three points down from four years ago uh down to 40% 35% last year and we are currently um between 25 and 27% regularly. So I think this morning we

015were at about 26% and we're trying to get below 25 um as a a heavy lift but we are making progress and it looks like we have an opportunity to get there. We'll talk more about that. Um our attendance system is we over the summer identify our students that are chronically absent and we do outreach over the summer um by grouping students based on their attendance. So students that were at a an attendance rate of 0 to 69% are assigned to our attendance teacher over the summer, 70 to 79% previous year's attendance are assigned to our school counselors and homeschool coordinator. And then we use um some school improvement grant funds to pay teachers or we have a teacher duty that connect with students that are 80 to 89% from the year prior. And then

016every month uh we review the data and we add students to the list. Um, and students do get removed from the list, but we still check in uh with them every 10 school days. So, if you make the list over the summer, you stay on the list. Um, but you might not get that meeting every day or every week, you might get that meeting a little less frequent and the kids who need it more um receive it more. I want to shout out our homeschool coordinator, Mr. Burke, and our attendance teacher, um, Mr. Austin, for their hard work and their leadership uh, in in our school attendance. It's shown some incentives that we do um are new this year. And so we did um an attendance breakfast on the next slide for quarter 1 and

017quarter 2 celebrating our students with 90% or better attendance and you can see some pictures there. We just did our quarter 3 attendance cookout where I got to be the head chef on the grill. Um and we had a huge turnout um for that. We also had a large donation for Toys for Tots and had some extra gifts for kids. And so every kid uh that made the quarter 3 cookout also received a gift and we uh received some generous donations as well such as um bicycles and video game consoles from some of our additional community partners. We did a raffle for those and the gaming headphones were a big hit there. um in the works right now is our last two weeks of school plan. And so our data has shown us over the

018years the last two weeks students that may not have been chronically absent sometimes fall off. And so we're looking at reworking our last two weeks of school to be more inclusive of all students, not just students that are passing all classes and so on. We are looking to engage students in school through field trips, um through additional events, but also providing support to help kiddos still try to avoid summer school if they don't if they, you know, if they don't need it. Next year, we'll continue this work. Um we'll uh look into um collaborating with our teacher leaders over the summer to um revisit the work and make adjustments. And we are looking to add a before school, during lunch, and after school uh gaming room for kids who can access it if they have

01990% or more attendance. Through our community schools model, we've increased a number of events throughout the school year. Just a couple are pictured here. I mentioned the toys for tots event. We do a big dinner for all families that come in and every uh kiddo receives a gift. Um we are working with the vegetable project who are uh pushing into our self-contained classrooms, our special classes and increasing engagement there which is really really a unique um feature. I think a first time um that we've done that for our special classes in the district. So I'm really proud of our partnership with the vegetable project and the work that our kids are doing through hands-on uh science curriculum and learning both in the classroom and in the garden. some really exciting outcomes that we have. As

020you saw, our chronic aspentism was down 8% this year, 13% over the last three years. Um, you'll see on the next slide, our ELA and math assessment scores are are climbing year in and year out. Our student sense of belonging from our focus groups this year are are up by almost a full point. So, point, you know, 8/10en of a point. Uh we ask kids, how do you rate yourself um and belonging to Meyers? And we want to create that sense of belonging. And so students do feel as though we are we are getting there. We're not where we want to be, but we are getting there. Um and student engagement in our special classes through the vegetable project is the the other highlight I spoke about. So challenges and next steps. Um we are

021in our SEP development process. You can see the next steps bulleted out below. Um and in our initial work, we really want to dive into literacy instruction across content areas. Um and so we know students are writing in a number of different formats across departments and we are looking to maintain some of that but also provide students with some more um structure around argumentative writing across departments. Um and then we are still going to be focusing on our high leverage instructional best practices as well. You can see the steady climb in our combined ELA and math assessment scores. Pre- pandemic, we were at a combined score of 43.6. Just last year, we were up uh to 76.5. And the steady growth is um impressive for our teachers and our kids and our staff and our

022families. And so I'm very proud um of where we were. We have places to go. Um, but we are making that steady growth year in and year out. And lastly, our student voice piece of the presentation. You'll see in the video here, grade six, grade seven, and grade 8 student equity teams and what it is that they are working on. [Music] Sixth grade student equity team. My name is Edward. My name is Leila. My name is Hans. My name is Picio. My name is Eden. My name is Tan. My name is My name is Aiden. My name is Joelle. My name is Ben. My name is Raven. This year we are working on finding out how to navigate Mayers. As new students, we will create a pamphlet including important policies for new incoming students to

023help them with to navigate my we will create version alll student major so they can have it too. We chose this because it would have been helpful information for us to have. I represent the seventh grade equity team. My name is Sher. This year we're working on helping students and knowing what to do when they're being bullied and when we develop a one pager so students know take steps to take during their meeting bullet. Hi, we represent Meyers 8th grade student equity team. Hi, my name is Alyssa Harris and this year we will be working on creating a newscasting video. My name is Jose Reed. We will discuss students experiences with racism, bullying, and safety in our school. My name is Fa Henry. We'll be discussing potential solutions in our video interviews to share it

024with students. Hi, my name is Scarlet Fields. We decided to do this because we wanted to spread awareness on these issues and include our peers input on how we could create change in our school. So, our equity team started as a whole building equity team a couple of years ago and we saw that there were different needs by different grades and wanted the students to have voice by grade to help the next grades coming in. So, thank you. And that concludes tonight's district highlights. We have a number of updates for board and community and again our district vision, mission and goals. Uh number of of topics to uh brief everyone on. First is state testing. The last time the board met uh we were on the heels of dealing with some um state testing issues

025both with the state education department and also the vendor um that they selected for the computer-based testing. Uh at that time uh the city school district of Albany uh in addition to a number of other districts statewide decided to pause uh and revisit testing after uh spring break. and we have resumed and knock on wood we have not um had any other malfunctions. So um while we know it was uncomfortable for students and parents um we are thankful that the uh the issues have been addressed. Uh updated testing schedules for elementary middle schoolers are available on our website and uh because of the hiccup earlier in the month the testing window has been extended uh right up until about Memorial Day weekend on May 23rd. uh yesterday and every day, but yesterday we took a

026a minute to celebrate our administrative professionals. And these are uh key staff members throughout our organization. They include office managers and administrative assistants and secretaries and receptionists. They're oftentimes the folks uh that students and family members and community members interact with first when they arrive to uh a school building or come to a school event. and we wanted to make sure we recognize them and thank them uh for all of their continued service uh to make sure that our students and families and community members uh come to schools that are safe and are able to communicate with their children and uh they are the backbone of our organization. We wanted to make sure we took a moment to thank them for their uh outstanding and very important contributions to the organization. Uh also earlier this

027week I had uh the opportunity to attend uh a New York educator workforce event that was sponsored by the Hunt Institute and the governor's office. uh a number of individuals from the governor's office as well as elected officials and education experts um representing both uh public education and a number of um uh outside uh and private agencies to talk about how to diversify work forces. And there were a number of panels and small groupoup discussions and um it was an honor to uh share some of our best practices and uh what we talked about in terms of uh what we're doing here in Albany is establishing a pipeline. We're having conversations with the state education department about building um our uh teacher pipeline and a potential CTE pathway for students that are interested in learning

028more about education, being able to graduate with credentials. In fact, we do have an individual who I believe uh at least one uh that works at the high school that's a recent high school graduate who through some of our networking and support with community college was able to get that individual uh uh entry level certification to be a teaching assistant. And so we were able to talk about those practices as well as um this board's commitment to um trying to keep talent within the city school district. I talked a little bit about the uh policies that we have. Uh one is to um recruit, but also uh all things being equal, be able to hire uh recent graduates or or just graduates from our school district to keep them in the system and gainfully employed.

029Uh and also uh some contractual uh language that we've been able to negotiate and are interested in in terms of residency stipens for those that work in our district to incentivize them to live in our district. Um, we talked a great deal about uh creating additional pathways uh to work in schools that some of the the red tape uh and while well intended has had some unintended consequences for uh not just recruitment efforts in Albany but across the state. So, we're trying uh part of the workforce uh group was to make a series of recommendations to eliminate barriers statewide for folks that are interested in working in public education to make that a little more um uh a little more affordable uh and accessible for them. So, we hope that uh those recommendations can turn

030into some action. But, it was honored to be a part of an esteemed group earlier in the week at University of Albany. We are heading into official endofear scheduling uh communication efforts. Um Memorial Day, we will observe Memorial Day on May 26. And we will also uh use our unused snow days on Tuesday the 27th and Wednesday the 28th. And um like the rest of uh public schools in New York State, we will celebrate Junth on Thursday, June 19th. Uh continuing with end of the year info, make sure that um families uh reference our website, but we have our last day of classes uh at Albany High School, Tony Clement Center, and our newcomer program are identified. Last day of classes for middle school students, including those at uh Tony Clement Center and the newcomer

031program. Our uh last day for elementary instruction will be early dismissal days on June 26th and 27th. and kindergarteners uh will or pre kindergarteners will celebrate the end of their program uh on June 20th with the exception of Monasuri that will follow the K12 uh schedule. We also want to celebrate some of our uh student athletes. Uh we have um brought in a number of student athletes to talk about their uh postseason success, but uh we have more postseason successes to share around sportsmanship, ethics, and integrity. And a number of our teams uh were awarded for excellence for their display of sportsmanship throughout the school year by the New York State Public High School Athletic Association. And we want to thank our uh new athletic director Kim Pillah and her team and all of the

032coaches uh and especially our student athletes for this recognition uh and displaying sportsmanship not just on the field but off the field as well and not just at Albany but at the in the number of venues uh that they visit uh as they represent um Albany throughout the Capitol region. We also have uh spring concerts. Uh we had one last night, the chamber concert that kicked off uh last night. And if you weren't able to make it, a number of videos are are on our social media, but make sure that you check out our website for our endofear uh spring performances throughout May and early June. They're um if you're interested in hearing our student musicians, there is seldom a day that they're not performing. So uh if you want to hear uh their end

033ofear concerts, check out our website and we hope to see you there. And lastly, uh, a very important, um, nonfor-profit group that supports many, many initiatives in our district, uh, in very public ways, but perhaps most importantly, uh, very meaningful, quiet ways is the Albany Fund for Education. They will have their annual gala at the Albany barn on Saturday. There are tickets available uh, at their uh, website. The um, show starts at 6:30. There'll be a presentation at 7:30 uh and uh the jazz band is playing and they have a DJ uh for those who would like to dance and work off all of the carbs so far that uh we take in on that Saturday. But we hope to see you at the uh Albany Barnet. And if you can't attend, you can still

034donate to AF on their website if you're interested. And with that uh that um concludes my update. Thank you, Superintendent. As is our usual practice, I ask you to prioritize your questions and ask your most important question first. We'll start with one question for each board member uh so that everybody has a chance to be heard. Uh I'll start on this side. Mr. Elmani, I have no question right now. Thank you, Miss Smith. See, Mr. Almani, I was hoping you'd buy me some time. Um passing part. Okay, no worries though. Um, good evening. I uh, Superintendent, thank you for um, your report and Mr. Leco, thank you also for the introduction of of our students. Um, it is just always always amazing to um to just celebrate our youngsters. Uh I'm so proud of all

035of them and uh I just wanted to acknowledge that a couple of the students uh in the that were brought to the table tonight. I have met before some some through um the work that we've been trying to do to uh recruit a student board rep uh some through um the other day I was uh uh with a colleague over at the international club um and of course JOTC cadetses. So it is just always always great to to see them and engage with them. Um, and we're very very proud of you and uh and we hope that uh we are doing everything right by you. Uh we know we've got work to do but we are continuing to to try to do the right thing to ensure that you are successful and happy and learnered.

036Um superintendent, I did want to focus on one um part of uh your presentation and that had to do with the uh workforce uh component. the um and I I don't know whether it's uh I'm sure it probably is just the uh the the age that I am at this point, but I continue to find that while a lot of things change, a lot of things remain the same. Um he's chuckling cuz he knows I was probably going to say that. So there's just so so much always the constant oh diversity and the equity and I'm I'm not pointing fingers at any particular group or entity but this is like now years of these same discussions and we have yet to really uh in our district and in our society I think diversify our workforce

037um thus our practices and mindsets so that we are uh more and more inclusive of everyone who comprises uh and makes up our society. So, um I just want to encourage um this district. Um while it is wonderful to, you know, you know, I'm glad the state is doing something. I'm glad the you know, Governor Hokll is doing something, but all of this in my mind is just way too much talk and not enough doing. And we have to step outside of all of that talk to say, hey, we know some of these bar these are barriers that have gone on and on and existed for years and years. What's new about this? Is it what is it that we're going to do differently to ensure that the doors are opening? Um and and sometimes

038we have to o open those doors with our youngsters. I believe that. But that is to believe in them. Say you can do this. You can be successful in no matter what you do. Whether you're going to college or not, or if you're not going to college right away, we're we're here to help you be successful. And your skills and your very being matter to us. And so some of it's a a mindset um really working to make sure that our youngsters, no matter who might be at the top, you know, all Caucasian, very few teachers of color, that we still care about you. And we're going to try to make sure that you um have a meaningful and successful life and that who you are does matter. And so I think it starts there

039from, you know, prek on up. Uh, I think the opportunities we have to continue to um provide to youngsters to to grow. Uh, I was pleased to to hear Mr. Rivers speak on the literacy efforts um and the writing that's going on. And I think we also have to do more of that that allows youngsters to uh demonstrate their passion about something because I've my experience probably yours is that when they're passionate about something, they are writing about it, they're talking about it, they're doing everything about it. Um, and so I want us also as educators to find ways in which to engage our youngsters differently. Um, because I mean, you know, otherwise I'm not sure what what we're doing differently to to make sure um, we have that diversification um, throughout our systems and

040our society um, which becomes so important. So, um, I just I just want to say that, uh, as well, you know, in the context of the society, again, I know I'm probably a broken record by now, but at the same time, where we're continuing to hold on and and and bear down on our equity and diversity efforts, we've got a um a federal regime that says we don't want you. And so that means a lot of more work on our part to make sure that our community, those who live in our community, know that they are welcome, know that they are that they matter and that we want um to ensure that they are successful. So that's really all I wanted to say. I know in so many words, but but I want to thank

041you all again for for taking on these efforts, but I want to really encourage you to to get out of the, you know, the discussion box and into more of the action. We know what to do. Thank you, Miss Man. I just I want to start by um just really appreciating board member Smith's comments. um there a moment ago. Thank you for that. Um and and I have no questions. It was a a wonderful presentation. So, thank you, Miss Savage. No, I agree with Miss Man to acknowledge and appreciate Miss Smith M's comments and to also thank the superintendent for acknowledging the policy work that we've long done at the board level um to try and enhance our ability to um to ensure that the folks who are students in our school district also have

042teachers um that are both doors and windows for them. Um and this educator workforce event sounds like a wonderful next step and I hope that as um Miss Smith said that it can lead to significant differences. I know that we had hoped that we might um solicit the state to contribute um an additional source of funds. This is one of our legislative priorities to create a real CTE pathway for future educators um throughout our district because that is what we need to do to close the loop. Um, and I continue to hope that we will deal with the administrative challenges that the superintendent referenced that make it harder for our TAs to become teachers because I um believe that that's our our most immediate meth mechanism to getting grow your own in our district is

043to take our our TAs and and um find ways to support those that would like to become teachers. Um and that would have huge positive impacts for our district. So, um, anything that can be done, uh, to that end, whether it's the bureaucracy that needs legislative advocacy at the state level or whether there's sources of funding that need to be found to make that happen or just our own internal processes changed or um, supports added is I think a very very good investment of our resources. Thank you, Miss Wilson. Thank you for your presentations. I too was amazingly um proud of our students who did the FCCLA family and career community leaders of America presentations and it just struck me so much that people talk about you know education and the real world and you

044know being able to for one the breath of research they did and then how they conveyed it in just a short time. I can only imagine um that was stunning. So well done to you guys. And the other thing I feel like this is the appropriate place to plug that GIF is also having a garden party tomorrow with a dedication of a peace pole. So I feel it's welcome to community members beginning at one. So yes, so that's something else happening. And of course AF and plus one to everything board member Smith said. Thank you Miss Smith as usual. You may sound like a broken record, but it's important that you do because we all need the reminder, you know, we all need to be reminded and more so now than ever before. And and

045the FCLA students, I mean, FCCLA students, it was amazing the passion that came out in their uh when they were talking about their projects. And two of them, you know, one talked about, you know, how um active listening and learning for deaf people, right? Another one talked about immigrants and how they have a hard time communicating in this universal language that we assume is English, right? And and how we need to be more active listeners and and trying to understand what uh is coming through from the other side rather than just talking, right? And so um these are these are skill sets that I think we are are ever so important these days. um just to be good citizens um uh and and be mindful about the environment around us, taking care of the people

046around us. Uh it's basic civil sense um which seems to be dissipating at a faster rate than ever before. So I'm glad that we are giving our students opportunities to to engage in these in these activities and and demonstrate that no I mean things may have changed for the rest of the world but in our district we still value these these principles and we are trying to do our best to keep them alive and and and grow. Um so thank you. Um and and just one more and one last thing. Um you know in the same light in the the light in the same uh we talk about the achievements of our athletes, right? But the fact that our athletics department and our athletes got recognized by the state association for being good citizens and

047showing good sportsmanship. It's not about winning a champ in a competition. It's about who they are and that's kudos to them. So, [Applause] Miss Smith, Mr. Mo, let me go there first. Thank you. Sometimes it it's hard being first. Sometimes you just have to collect thoughts. Um, so I also wanted to give a huge shout out to the students that joined us from the students taking action uh with responsibility or uh I think that's what it is from SC FCCLA. They had such inspirational talks. It made me super interested in what they were each studying. Like I started taking notes like that's like BMI. like I didn't know all this stuff about BMI. I'm going to start looking more into it. I knew it wasn't like really a solid indicator, but um it's so exciting

048to see uh their energy uh and it's overflowing. So, good great job. Um I also wanted to recognize um Stephen Harriet Meyers um and thank Principal Rivers for uh his presentation. And I'm looking at the just focusing on the successes um the combined achievement for ELA and math and it's gone up 23% since precoid like 1718. That's significant. um you know the it's a nearly quarter p you know quarter increase in achievement and um I'm proud of our students and I'm really happy that you are uh showing us all these great things and staff is taking the lead in making these things happen. So thank you so much. Um and plus one to what member Smith said. Uh we really we really um can't let that thread go uh in terms of maintaining um expectations

049not just talks but expectations on achieving the diversity and equity you know achieve uh goals that we have as a district. So thank you Miss Smith. Miss Smith. Thank you. Um so superintendent if I could just push upon you a little teeny bit here more but in terms of the uh educator piece um well two things starting with our students at one point and the board can correct me if I don't have this memory correct but there at one point we were trying to I think have some courses um some introductory courses to teaching um I don't recall whether that's still in place um and I think what I'm just trying to figure out is um what can we do uh more of um so that we're not constantly waiting on the decision of the

050state or some process to to say hey it's okay to have a CTE pathway in you know teaching um and can can we do that is it reasonable to to do a bit more each year you know each semester where we are encouraging youngsters to um to uh you know if they're interested in history, how do we take that passion that they have and and say hey and as a teacher here's what want you to know you know so it's not just about the pedigogy you know but it's also about identifying that passion that a student has to say and you can teach this you're already doing it in your classrooms you're presenting I mean look at these youngsters here today they're already presenting themselves as teachers in in you know I think in the

051context that I would say is very helpful. Like I learned something. I know something now that I didn't know before. Um you know and so that's the kind of thing I'm encouraging us to to try to do. where can we begin to make more of a difference um using the knowledge and the skills and the curriculum that we already have to get our students into um some of these career paths um that um that we yes we could wait until there's a pathway approved but why yeah let me respond briefly um without all the information in front of me somewhere uh on the high school website I I want to call a health and human services pathway where the education focus falls. Um myself and um Jen Hulahan and uh Jody Cummifford and Ron Leco

052met with some um of the uh administration at Sage College to talk about revamping that pathway and tying u college credit to it so that students early on in that pathway can see themselves on a college campus. Russell Sage would prefer theirs, but we also have partnerships with with Hudson Valley as well. So regardless of SED approving the pathway for a credential, which is a really nice recognition of a commitment from students, we believe we'd be able to achieve maybe a more meaningful designation by offering course credit, um even automatic uh admission or enrollment to Russell Sage, particularly in their education program. So, we're taking some some steps to move quicker than the state. I think it's nice to be recognized by the state. Um, we have been advocating for a long time, the city

053school district of Albany, for um, additional funds, reimbursement froms from the state education department so students can start their pathways in 9th grade. So, there there, you know, is a little bit of a financial benefit to to it being a pathway. Um we're awaiting uh a return phone call to have this discussion with the um state's CTE director. We've also um we have long worked with uh uh with a company that provides some uh online and digital uh course material in uh approved by New York State and educational pathways. So we're we're moving. We're not we're not waiting for the state. Um and we'll have more more information on those partnerships partnerships with Sage uh momentarily. We are also going through um the accreditation process uh with um with New York State to make sure

054that all of our programs, you know, minimally meet their requirements. So, I think we'll have more developments over the summer. Thank you. And and I I want to not I don't want to be remiss. I want to acknowledge that some of this you have presented to us uh previous meetings and maybe even as two meetings, three meetings ago. Um and so, you know, I I wanted to raise it because I think we have to keep this elevated if this truly is um a a task or a um excuse me, a goal that we have. It it just needs to stay, I think, in our forefront. and every opportunity that we have um to um to create a way for our students to um engage in learning and become the person that they want to be.

055Um I I want us to be sure we were able to do that. So, uh I appreciate what you've added and and thank you for, uh not waiting. Um and uh you know, appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. And I just wanted to add that um when we were advocating with the conference of big five the early access to um CT programs as a pathway in through 9th grade was something that we also advocated for along with them. Uh so let's see where you know the state lessons are they actively listening. Okay any other questions comments? If not um we move on to the next part of our agenda which is public comment. Um this is the time we we set aside to hear from members of the public. Uh while there's no other public

056comment today, uh we do invite uh members of the public to share thoughts on the decisions we are facing. We accept public comments in person, by voicemail, and through our web-based form. Uh information about public comment and contact information is on the district website at alskchools.org/being. and and you know I I would be remiss if I didn't mention that you can submit a public comment in any language of choice and we will provide a translator or translation services. Um so we love to hear from you. So you know we have opened up many channels uh many ways in which you can communicate with us. So please do use them and and uh help us do things better. Okay, we now move on to the part of a meeting we call routine consent. During this portion

057of the meeting, we approve routine matters to the district. These include items like contracts, field trips, personnel matters, and like. Each board member reviews each item carefully, but we vote on them together as a group with no discussion. That allows us to use our meeting time more efficiently. And unless each member has the option to set aside any routine consent in order to require a separate discussion and vote on that item. Uh with that introduction, I now entertain a motion to adopt the routine consent agenda. Mr. Almani, second by Miss Wilson. Any set aides? Okay. All in favor adopting routine consent agenda. That's unanimous. Thank you. Okay. And that was the last action item for the day. Um so unless something unexpected happens, we don't anticipate the board to take any further action tonight. The

058balance of the meeting will be items up for discussion. Some of which would lead to an action either at our next meeting or at a future meeting. Uh and that brings us to the next topic which is policy discussion which uh Miss Savage. So I am taking over in the absence of Miss Crattoy who chairs policy committee u revisiting my period of chairmanship. Um so there are three policies before you today. There is uh 4100 response to intervention. You'll see that the red line shows very um nonsubstantive changes. They are essentially consistency um with our efforts in all of our policies to always be sure that we include non-parents, guardians, and other folks who are responsible for children um to all of our policies and to provide some consistency in the language. 1741 homeschooled students.

059We tried to clarify this policy explaining exactly how it works. This is for homeschooled students specifically around um their whether they need an IESP for special education. and you'll see some changes there. And number three, 4321. This is actually a policy that you you may recall a few months ago we did 4321.1.23.4 all the way to like 19. Um there was a whole set of uh policies having to do with special education and the the lead policy for them 4321 had some technical issues literally like with the document um and got held held out from the other ones. But you'll see here that there is some clarification around the age at which special education ends and how the diplomas work for students who age out of the system as well as adding some examples of

060some of the work we do with students with disabilities. Um again there's some consistency. You'll notice um in almost every policy we are doing our very best to strip out either gender specific language um and or um you know just very various ways we've done gender and convert to all they and there throughout all of our policies for um for consistencies. So those three policies are before you for consideration and I welcome questions and we will put them for action at the next board meeting. Any questions on any of those? Okay, we'll act on them next week or next time. Okay, so the next thing on our agenda is probably the most uh hotly weighted topic for for the night, which is our cell phone task force discussion. house. Good evening. It's like a little

061comedy skit here. Uh good evening, Superintendent Hawk Rider, member of the um board of education. We are proud to be representing the work of the cell phone task force and to share a brief overview and the current recommendations. These conversations began in July with the charge of initiating a task force to review the impact of student cell phone use during the school day and to formulate recommendations for edits to policy 5695. That's a student and personal electronic devices. These two essential questions guided us and the charges provided the framework for our work. As you can see, the task force membership included parents, students, and all unions including ABSU, ABSTA, ABSA members, as well as departments and Honeywell Law Firm. Board policy 5695, student use of personal electronic devices, was reviewed in relation to the current

062student code of conduct. Not only did the task force determine that these two policies were not in alignment with one another, but over and over again, we heard concerns and frustrations of frontline employees and parents as they expressed the negative impact of students cell phone use in the school environment. Ultimately, the overwhelming solution was to explore a phoneree school day. The task force also addressed what should be in a policy and what would be needed in the corresponding regulation or the how-to guide for the policy. The recommendations were to educate students and families on the negative consequences of access to electronic devices particularly cell phones during the school day. Negative outcomes include classroom distractions and the impact on learning, social isolation, privacy and security issues, bullying, cyber bullying, as well as escalation of peer conflicts

063at a higher rate than adults can provide intervention. The next couple The next couple slides summarize some of the important sections of the proposed regulation to policy 5695. Upon student arrival, all student devices will be turned off, unheard, and unseen from the start to the conclusion of the school day. We anticipate additional strategic planning particularly at Albany High School for this additional procedure and to and have suggested implementation start during summer school if at all possible as a soft roll out to address any emerging issues during COVID. We taught encouraged and promoted the behavior of reliance on electronic devices. Now with proposing the reverse, we will need to go back to best practices for aiding the sup separation while addressing the reported needs of hometo student communication. We reached out to yonder uh company as

064one option to have an idea of the cost of a tool to aid in separation of student devices specifically at the secondary level. The first year of implementation is estimated to be about $131,500 and subsequent year is projected to cost less. The task force also felt that students are expected to comply with this new procedure. However, we wanted to wanted to take an understanding approach that the separation of students from their devices may come with some resistance. There are emotional, social, and habitual challenges that we will have to prepare for as well. The intent of ensuring that all students will have access to their phone at the end of the school day is to ensure safety as well as communication of activities or responsibilities. Our next steps are contingent on the final outcome of the

065state budget and the impact it will have on our district. We also need to be thoughtful on how we prepare our students and school community for this type of change. Proposed is a combination of in-person, virtual, digital, hard copy educational information and sessions for students and families. Thank you for allowing us this opportunity to share the work of the task force and we're sure that you may have some questions. I'd be surprised if there were none. Thank you for your work. Um, and I do have a question regarding the estimate of $131,000 for yonder pouches. I just want to know how did you come to that number? Is there a certain number of pouches that you calculated? Like, and it says for the first year of implementation, is that going to be expected to go

066forward for a certain amount of time and then stop? So, we've only had the preliminary quote and a preliminary conversation with Yonder because obviously um we were just exploring what that would look like for this presentation. Um and how it was worked out is we provided the number of buildings with the number of students in secondary only we're talking about. So our secondary locations and a number of students and um the yonder pouch works with a magnet. So it also includes the number of magnets estimated that would be needed for each location. So the subsequent years would then be only the pouches that you need to replace if we were going to do a replacement. But you wouldn't necessarily need to replace the containers that they're held in um the magnets or other equipment like

067that because we've already purchased it. Um and this is an actual purchase. It is not a lease or a contract. So the the company gave us this estimate. That's how we came up with uh that number. Miss Wilson, you have a followup. Thank you. Um just keeping down the same line of um as we move towards implementation. So we have the pouches and did we discuss how it looks in the morning when we're doing the you know putting in the yonder how it stays identifi identified to the student. So we've definitely had preliminary conversations about it. Um, and it might look a little bit different at the high school versus the middle school based on resources and how arrival works. We're pretty well established with having solid security procedures in place. And so, in some

068ways, we're ahead of some of the districts that we spoke with because they had no security procedures at all. So, they were creating that wholesale. For Albany, it's really just an additional step in the process. There has been some conversation around whether the bag would be assigned to the student or there would be a bin of bags you take one in the morning you drop it in the afternoon. Um it felt a little bit like putting the cart before the horse to make that decision when we were still kind of in the preliminary phases. But the committee believes um and in our conversations with administrative staff that um it can be integrated into our existing procedures. Any other questions with the order? Okay. I'm glad that you you uh clarify that it's not a lease

069but rather you're purchasing the thing because that's what I'd heard like yonder you have to it's sort of a yearly subscription that you pay every year on top of your purchase. So that's something for us to consider if we go that way. And um while I was looking at this I saw that there were a couple of other companies new case and phone locker were also being used in other parts of the country. Uh some of which may have slightly different uh uh features like yonder will seal the thing but it doesn't stop any signals whereas some of the others might block the signal. Uh so things for us to look at. Um there's more than one option. the owners more popularly talked about one, but um I'm just wanted to ask a quick follow

070up on that. I assume at for a cost at this level, we're going to need to do a formal RFP and a formal procurement process. So the discussion about using that brand name of yonder, it's almost like using the word band-aid, right? It's just a familiar term that means a pouchlike device in which a electronic device can be held. But I don't think anyone should take from that that there's a commitment here to use any particular brand of those things because it will have to be procured formally. For those of on on tape, Mr. Carris's school business official is nodding vehemently, you know, and and then also in other districts, uh some of the smaller schools, they've used uh behind the door pouches and things like that which are non yonderlike uh pouches which may

071have um a different price point or zero price point for that matter. Uh and so I I think when we look at these options, we look at it more on a building or a school level situation. In some cases, we may may or may not want to use these versus others. So, we did review the idea of um classroombased um bags or pouches or containers um and many teachers are already using those and the committee um determined that that was not a solution to the belltoell um cell phone free experience because students would still be able to have cell phones on them um in the cafeteria in the transition between classes and and things like that. Um, and so at this time the recommendation would be something that would take the phone out of the

072student's hands for the duration of the day. Like I know that at least when my kids better at hack it um you were supposed to leave your phone in the in your locker um and in which if you didn't then it went to Mr. Pelino's office and you can pick it up at the end of the day. So I I think that's where I was going to go to is u so I have worked with a number of schools not in this area where um and even going back over 20 years um where the youngsters and it's also part of their physical plant lockers are down on a lower level and so kids come in to the lower level everything goes in the locker they come up the stairs and they're actually uh there is

073a uh scanner So, you know, you're not going to make it, you know, through there with a phone or anything else. Um, but they are so engaged also that no one and and they've started when they were this little. So, it's a habit. It's a practice. This is how it works. Blah. Um, so I I also wondered if if it's possible to start something like that, certainly at the lower grades where it's easier to get youngsters into a practice. It goes into your locker, it never comes out. Now, I know we have cubbies. at a certain point that's not going to work. But when you have a a solid locker to be used, but that also means that the lockers have to be uh fairly secure. I think they are now with the new ones.

074Uh previously my I know my daughter had two phones um stolen from a locked locker. Um so um especially in the athletic area, but there I think just trying to think of also ways where we can instill a a culture, a climate, a habit, a practice of this is what happens. This is this is what the expectations are. Everybody's following that. Um be you know uh because I think that's what it's going to take, you know. Um and it's even as an adult just trying to get rid of that fun. It's sitting right here. I'm trying to my best not to go over there and just touch it, you know. So, um so I can hardly blame youngsters. Um but anyway, I think that was another thing just to begin a process perhaps at at

075lower grade levels or um you know, also with uh my other question related to that was um the the need that maybe some special populations may have for a phone. I don't know what the uh options or solutions or things like for them are. Um, but that is also just a concern. And and I'll throw my third thing out there. I I did want to kind of get a sense from you all and and I think this is going to come up when you start having more of these um uh sessions, information sessions, and that's who who in our community is having the most uh is is concerned about what it means for their child in in terms of safety, in terms of you know getting back and forth home and so forth like that

076because I still feel like we don't quite know or I don't feel like I quite know uh who all has participated in in the survey what their needs or perspectives are around the use of cell phones um so that we have a a fully informed you know set of data to to respond to. So just wanted to put that out there. You raised a lot of good points and I'll rely on my colleagues to make sure that we answer it all too. Um uh we did speak of the difference between elementary, middle, and high. And we also in the task force a lot of members discussed as well like just the acquisition of a cell phone doesn't typically always happen in elementary schools or maybe fifth grade. Um but it's later elementary. Um and then

077you know the idea of our elementaryaries um through the committee felt as though um they had a system at that level that they didn't necessarily need the yonder pouch. They students had their cubby right in the room typically or right outside um somewhere it's very close accessible. it's easy to manage and um that you know really focus our attention more on the secondary and the the necessary tools um because over and over again in a literature we read the the different things that have come forward is um students are not able to maintain this behavior without support and um just overall feeling like what does that look like? how can we support this transition? And um then we moved to some sort of a separation device and that's where we ended up looking at a

078pouch idea. Um so you know the I the then the special populations we spent a lot of time on that and um you know we spent uh you know time also looking at translation for our our students uh the EL's refugee population and what we were currently using and what they might need and were we relying on cell phones and then Chrome and then Chrome was getting rid of that extension and how that would impact. So like while the whole committee was going from the start of September, all these things were kind of evolving, right? And then new things were coming up. And so um the one particular company we were looking at does have a medical model um in which uh it is not a locking mechanism, but it's a a very secure velcro

079and you can hear it like I don't know how like it's right. is really loud. And um so that was an option that um certainly we were exploring for special populations if there needed to be immediate access or or students who um may have medical needs that are connected to their device as well. Um and then also looking at um the social emotional needs of students and uh that was part of our conversation with our neighboring district Troy and uh coming up with their solutions hearing how they have also navigated this um as well. So uh the committee has a lot of this information in detail that you know we certainly would be able to share at a later date too. Oh, just one more thing please. I wanted to give um Mr. Shay an

080um just in referring to the lockers. Um at the high school, I can say that probably 30% of the students actually use their lockers. So it' be a huge shift and sometimes the locker that they need is not anywhere near where they are during the day, so they don't use it. Um so in terms of going back to get a phone, they wouldn't leave it because they wouldn't leave their stuff in a locker. They drop it off in a teacher's classroom. Just say, "Hey, can you leave my coat in here?" and they say, "Sure, I'll come back in the day and get it." So, it's not necessarily a secure location at the high school. Um, so with that piece and then looking at some of the concerns that parents have had um in our committee

081work and even with talking with Troy, a lot of it was based around communication during a a crisis situation or um sports pickup or sports changes or, you know, picking up the the youngster on the way home from school or shift. Um, and a lot of that stuff we kind of talked through. One of the biggest things I know that Bethlehem does is they have a room that, you know, open during a certain time of the day that if a kid needs to make a quick phone call or access their phone, they go to the room, they're supervised, open the phone, make a quick call, put it back, and they go. So, that's something that we were kind of toying around with as we went through this this work. um and is one of the

082ways to kind of circumvent that communication piece. Um and with the emergency situations, the we went to a conference in September um the disconnected conference down at the plaza or the not plaza but underneath the plaza and uh the sheriff Apple was there and said that in this emergency situation you don't want students to have any phone if it's a lockdown or anything of because miscommunication goes out. So you hear, you know, X, Y, and Z happened when it didn't, and everyone gets alerted and you have, you know, parents and community members upset, but it didn't happen anywhere near that level of a crisis situation. And I can say at the high school that communications happened in multiple emergency situations where we're hearing things that didn't actually happen because students were on phones and getting

083the the phone tree and you know playing telephone. Miss man, I appreciate the update. I I really like the idea if it's possible of doing like a soft roll out during the summer just to kind of get folks ready and then you have these uh credible messengers right that are then go back out and say things like it wasn't that bad you know so massage um thank you very much for the presentation we know you guys have been working hard for a long time and we know that the um evolution of the governor's thought on this um was a little bit of an interesting change of direction for you guys because we thought we'd be having this conversation with you probably six months ago and then we all just said, "Oh, we better wait and

084see what the governor does before we do the wrong thing and have to redo." Um so that's been an interesting evolution. I I'm sure that you already planned this, but when we get the governor's final language, the preliminary language is out. Um, but the final language is not. We should probably just match to all of that because like she's got a very specific definition of what she's defining as a school day. It's kind of slightly different than the wellness policy defines as a school day. So, that's kind of interesting. We're going to have two different kinds of school days, but whatever. We will work through those things. Um but once we once the state budget eventually does get adopted and that comes with it, I I think my questions are mostly about whether you've had

085um preliminary thoughts about how we will replace our communication with students that we are relying on cell phones. And the two examples which I think have both been mentioned here that but that come to my mind most frequently are translation services. Every time I'm in a building, I see an adult with a phone translate using Google Translate or something to communicate with a student. So, I'm wondering how we're thinking we're going to work around that. Um, and as part of that, I guess I'd like to get a little bit of thought about modeling behavior um from the adults in the building who also perhaps are using their phones in ways that are not necessarily consistent with their job description. um and whether we've started talking about how if we're going to shift the culture for

086students, we're going to really want to shift the culture for adults. Um and that's tied into the translation because I know that adults are using those phones for very specific reasons sometimes. But then also I I get the sense that adults are using them to um using the various Remind and band type apps to reach their kids like not parents, teachers and other coaches and you know people saying oh the field trip bus is you know especially at the high where where kids have a little more independence the the field trip bus is late please continue to the end of your second period and then come down comes out over remind um and right now the kids have that on and I don't know that example I'm just making something up. Right now, the kids

087have that on their phone. They get the buzz. It definitely disrupts their ability to learn in the class that they're in. So, that's not necessarily a good thing, but they don't show up when the bus isn't going to be there for 45 minutes. So, look, if we started thinking about how we're going to use how we're going to replace that communication because we as a district and our our staff and faculty have become um stuck on it um or or reliant on it. And then I really liked this idea of the room. I had not realized until I had asked a preliminary question and then I was like, "Oh yeah, no kids know phone numbers." So like it's not enough to have a pay phone or a pay phone like device because nobody knows anybody's

088phone number. They just know how to say call mom. Um and so you know the idea that they would be able to go someplace and unlock their phone seems like a great idea. And I know I'm asking a bunch of questions. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. But um I am interested in how that's going to work in practice particularly at the high where we've had a similar situation in place for bathrooms for a long time where the bathrooms are locked and it's uh a hall monitor is available to unlock the bathroom and they're supposed to be there all the time but things happen right and students don't feel I don't think that they have plenty of free time like if they need to check in with mom to find out what time you know the

089dentist appointment is there's not a lot of time during the school day and last saying, "Have we started thinking about what we need to do to get communication to flow the other way?" Parents are very, very used to at this point being able to say, "The dentist canled. Take the bus. I'm not picking you up." Right? And so that level of communication, which when we were in high school just wasn't there. Right? You just you did whatever it was you agreed on with your parents at 8 o'clock in the morning, but that's not how the world works now. Um, and so have we started thinking about whether we have enough office staff or are we thinking about maybe some other mechanism like I don't know um particularly if if parents have like an actual emergent

090reason they should know to just call the office but I don't know they probably haven't done that in 15 years. All right, I'll try to answer all those. Um, kind of going with the communication piece, circling that was the kind of like a full circle thing. Um, I know right now we've uh really focused on within them particularly like making sure that if there's a phone message to answer it and respond as quickly as possible. Um and you know we've also talked with uh John Wild in communications about making sure that if you know my secretary in innovation isn't there yet then it gets sent to someone else and then eventually it does trickle to someone who's going to be at a desk whether it's the main office and then get that communication back to

091wherever it needs to go. Um I will say right now we also do have at the high a um new communication leaison which has been huge with getting some of those timely bigger communications out u which I know parents on our committee have said that a lot of their concerns have been alleviated this year with having some of those more timely communications that way. Um, but it's something that we definitely we've actively, you know, worked through as a committee. And a lot of those pieces were, you know, didn't want to put the cart too far ahead of the horse because we were waiting on what the governor was going to say about, you know, if it is a bell to bell and kids can't have it, then all right, going down a path of looking

092at a room that could be manned or, you know, you know, staffed. Well, if that's not going to happen, then we'll plan for it and figure out how that looks. but then kind of going, you know, the back way and then with the translation services a little bit. Um, that's something we can got to toy around with and kind of dig deeper into and avenues. Um, I do think there is someone said there is a a workaround within Google that you can still use to get translated services or be able to translate and I know like as administrator I have a district phone that I can easily take and work with a student if need be. Um, so that's something we'll we'll continue to, you know, work through and kind of flesh out on our

093end. Um, that's all I got for me at least for now. I want to talk a little bit about um the conversations we had with the administrators in Troy because a lot of the questions we had for them are the questions that you asked like what about parents calling and what about the students need to communicate with home and basically what the administrator said is that like the fears existed in their head and it didn't play out. um maybe a little bit of an extinction burst, you know, when the policy was first implemented. And then I think, you know, what the research really shows is that we think we need our cell phones all the time, but when we are liberated from them and when our kids are liberated from them, they realize that they

094they don't need that. Um, and so yes, there are legitimate, you know, needs that if a parent calls, the message gets to their child. We talked about that for a very long time at multiple task force meetings. But I think some of the anxiety exists in releasing that ability to communicate. Um, and we're going to have to even internally, you know, shift some adult behavior, right? So, if you're a coach, you need to remember you can email your students. Like, if you have a district email account, you can email your students. You just don't text them, right? We're not cutting off access to all ways to communicate. Um, and I do know that at the middle level, every classroom has enough Chromebooks for every student. Um, students have access. And speaking to the middle level

095specifically, um, administrators and homeschool coordinators have district cell phones. You know, I text parents more than I, you know, text anyone else. And so, um, we are ready and able to support kids communication with their families. Um, and I would imagine at the high with the number of offices there are and the number of administrators there are, if a student has an urgent need to communicate, kids are pretty good at letting us know that urgent need. Um, and adults are are primed and ready to support. Um, I do think, you know, when we roll this out to kids, we may have to have the conversation. If you have not memorized your parents' phone number, like now is the time. And like at the middle level, we may have that part of our lessons that we

096do when we do this roll out. Um, and I see you all laughing and smiling, but it's very real because if I need to call my mom, I'm not necessarily and and there's a phone dedicated for my ability to do that, then I need to know mom's phone number. Um, and that's okay. Like we our kids can rise to this. And I think, you know, when we heard students speak at the disconnected conference, they talked about not even realizing how addicted they were to their devices until they truly no longer had access to them. They couldn't sneak it. They couldn't go to their locker and check it real quick. They couldn't disappear to the bathroom for 10 minutes. um and that they felt like they were able to more authentically engage in the educational process.

097Yeah. And I don't want I hope nothing I said made made you think I didn't understand or believe that, but I do want to make sure that we as a board have invested in the resources we need um at the school level because otherwise we're just asking the same staff to do more, right? Like because we're basically saying staff, we're not adding any staff, but we're adding this new level of communication like intervention. you're going to be the, you know, the liaison between students and parents in a way that you previously weren't. Um, and that's that's more um and you know, I just want to make sure that everyone has thought through whether that more can be absorbed um into the staff or whether we've created unreasonable expectations for our staff um and it'll be

098impossible for them to do what they need to do. It's basically measure twice or thrice, cut once, right? Yeah. So, uh I mean we have full confidence that you you've you've done the work and you you're looking at all these different aspects and you've come up with the best solutions. Um you know the um you know when you talked about Sheriff Apple and how uh he said you know we don't want kids to have phones in case of emergencies. I mean a lot of many many many thriller movies have been made where it's complete silence and somebody's cell phone rings and then the person knows where they are. So um I can see that um the one thing I did wanted to ask is we talk about cell phones right but the way the policy

099reads or the governor is talking about is electronic devices and today it's not just cell phones it's your your your watch your your glasses and all these other devices. So some things we may want to consider um is will they fit the pouch? So, we uh when we were with Troy, we asked Troy the same question, and they really said that um they can fit they a watch inside the pouch. They're extra large pouches, so you can fit a watch in there and a pair of um AirPods um will fit in that same pouch. So, you can latch it up. It's a like neoprene, so it's a little flexible in there, so you can jam it all in, seal it up, and then they're kind of off the whole day. And one last thing, when

100they put it inside, are the phone silenced or or shut off because otherwise that would also happen, right? You have it's in the pouch, but you can hear it ringing. So, one of the things at um Troy, they have um two they have their administrators at the at the door, which is something again at Albony High we figure out. Uh try to make sure that happens more. We we're there every morning, but make sure like dedicated times, but um they watch the students turn off the phones and drop it in the pouch and seal it. So, it's it's very readily seen by administrators. And if it's something that would go off, it's something that the teacher could call for a security staff and then we could easily get a um one of the guidance in

101there, unpatch, unlock the pouch, shut it off, and the student then put it back in. Um I do want to quickly circle back to to uh Miss Savage there about communication um around sporting events and stuff and things like that. We at the high school had can easily email out all those things to students. been trying to encourage students to check their email more and you know in my office and talking to students like check your email I'm going to email you in 20 minutes and then making those more readily um over announcements over the loudspeakers about bus changes and things like that. Yeah, I don't I mean I I hear what you're saying. I don't think email actually solves the problem because if they're checking their email every 20 minutes then they might as

102well check their phone. You know, it's equally as disruptive. I think the P the old school PA system does sort of solve the problem if it is um uh intelligible and um you know I just know that there's plenty of times where classes are you know doing things and involved engaging engaged in learning and perhaps not listening to the announcements but you know that's going to be a learned experience after a kid misses the bus um that they're going to listen more carefully to the announcement when it comes up next time. Miss Smith. Yes. Just I almost forgot my question. Uh no no not your not your fault. Um well and the other thing the reason I was smiling at uh when you said Miss Steman about uh knowing your parents' phone number is because

103I still know my home phone number in Virginia and it is still the my family's home phone number. Um and I can't forget it. Um but um I wanted to know about uh Troy's experience. That's the one that has the room or is it Bethlehem? Bethlehem. Um and and how does that affect um uh getting to class on time? Uh getting students to where they need to be in the morning if they're going into a room or do they have several different uh uh ways right now? I mean, is it the pouch that goes into your locker? Is it also this room? Is it, you know, how do they do that without impacting the uh the time to get to class and so forth? So, I don't have a direct answer to how it happens.

104I just know it's there. I have friends that are teachers over there and I believe and I will follow definitely follow up. I believe it's during students lunchtimes that allows them to use that space during lunch because it's an easy uninterrupted time or a study hall situation where they're not leaving a classroom, but when they when they enter in the morning, oh, right. Are they putting the pouch into that room in the morning? They carry it with them at Troy. They carry it with them. They put in the pouch and they walk around. They don't have metal detectors at um Troy. So, they had to create a whole new system. So, they had three lines. One of them was for students who had their pouch and they saw they sealed it up. The administrator let

105them they carry it the whole day. And then the line was for students who didn't have their pouch that day when then they checked it in with an envelope and they put it in there and then it sits in the the main office safe or a designated area and the students would pick that up end of the day. said they don't keep to carry that one because it's easily openable. And then there was a third one for students who don't have a phone at all or say they don't have one and they would actually get wanded on the way in a quick wand to make sure the u the device wasn't on them. So So that's what I was kind of trying to get at is were there different avenues for where you how you

106enter with your phone and so forth and then the impact on their ability to get to class and where they need to be. So, I mean, I think that helps, but it would be nice to know if all that's how smoothly that is working. Yep. So, I know at when we were at Troy, they said it was seamless. It didn't add anything to the day. I do know at Albany High, we're going to have to do some tweaking around how that looks because we get a lot, we had a large influx of students and we get some late students and what that looks like. So, there might be some different, you know, budgetary things that we might have to work through on that. Just being forward about it. Um but something that we can definitely

107look through and work on. And I I just want to add one thing. Um through the um work with Honeywell and the committee, it was advised that as much as possible, we want students to maintain possession of their own phone. We do not want to take the cell phone for obvious probable possible issues, you know. Um, but it's only in those cases where they don't have a pouch or we run out of pouches or something kind of has happened that way, um, where we would then take the phone if it was misused and we would keep it until the end of the day. Um, and I just want to stress it overwhelmingly the committee did not want to do what other districts are doing where we keep the phone until the parent arrives to pick

108it up. overwhelmingly the committee did not want to send a student home with no phone and they they did not sit well with the members and they did not want to go to that extent. So I just wanted to mention that too. So it seems like there are a lot of uh openings and you know questions still out there regarding the pouch, the use of the pouch like so the students bring the pouch home with them and they're expected to bring it back. Is that an assumption that's correct? So the districts that we spoke with that is the protocol they have in place. We did have some extended conversation around our experience with Chromebooks and students leaving their Chromebooks at home. Um, and so we have not finished having that robust debate as administrators because

109again it we're not until kind of the decision was made that debate will take a long time. Um, but there were kind of two camps. one is, yep, they're going to keep the pouch. They have an incentive to keep the pouch, otherwise I have to go to the office at the end of the day. I need to wait in line. I need to get my stuff back. Um, and I want my cell phone immediately when that bell rings. The other school of thought would be that we would have bins. You grab one when you arrive. You put your phone in it for the day. Um you carry it around for the day and then on the way out the door you you know open your bag with the magnet and somebody um you know we

110already have folks positioned at exits. They would just be there making sure you dropped your pouch um in there and there was a lot of support for that um given our model. Um and so no final determination has been made um and I think sorry that's my kids go to bed alarm. How lucky. Um, and they are machine washable. So, uh, the middle and high schools all have a washer and dryer already as part of our FOX program or other usages. And so, if they get kind of yucky, we're able to throw them in the washing machine and the dryer and have them ready. Got um, which was something that was brought up as a question. Um, and I definitely know how difficult it is for me to remember all of the things that I

111have to bring with me to work every morning. So, I can only imagine we probably need more than this $131,000 if that was what we were going to end up doing, letting people take the pouches home, just to put it simply. Um, and then overarchingly, I just wanted to say that um, just kind of relay the story from my work. My work used to have a cafeteria in it. It was amazing. Everybody loved the cafeteria and then they cut the cafeteria. This was five or six years ago. People are still talking about the cafeteria. So, what I'm trying to say here is it's going to be roughly six years before a seventh grader that now uses their phone or you know it'll be seven years for a sixth grader that now uses their phone and

112they're going to say oh remember those times where we used to have the phone. So like this is a long-term process and the sooner we can really talk to the students and I'm saying from preK upwards about the essentially the dangers of getting addicted to screens and um the amount of time that is lost and the things that are lost in in translation when you're looking at the screen um the better it's going to be. So that um that nostalgia of like you know man I wish I could access this it like lessons because we are certainly all very much addicted to looking at all of the things that we can and um it's going to be it's going to be a rough few years um if we don't start educating and start getting those

113students on our side with it. When you were talking, I was thinking about the loss of the smoking section when I was in high school, right? I don't miss it, but we talk about it like remember when there was a smoking section and hopefully cell phones will be similar. Like it wasn't good for us. We shouldn't have had it, but like remember when we used to do it. So that is my hope moving forward. Yeah. And as usual, you know, there will be cases where people bring two phones, you can buy an extra magnet and all of those things will happen. And so um and you I know that you are also in charge of developing the code of conduct. So you guys will figure it out as to what the uh um puritive um

114measures would be so that you know they're still reasonable whether be actually educating the students about the um that it's it's a bad thing if they do this uh and that's why we don't want them to have these devices while they're getting educated rather than okay now you're suspended so now you're going to miss the educational aspect of it anyways right so so those are things that I know you will work out on those things and make it more meaningful. It's great that you're working on both. Any other questions, guys? Miss it's more of a comment. I mean, I remember in the in the 80s, which to be clear was the best decade ever. All right. Um, but we didn't have phones. Like, we didn't we didn't have phones. And you know there was something

115about you know my mother sending me off to school and it was like see you you know what I mean and I you know and and um so as you're talking I'm wonder like how did we get here? I mean what we had in the 80s was like the uh the Walkman right? So, and that's kind of when it all kind of began, right? So, um but uh but you know, folks didn't disappear. My you know, my my and I and I'm not minimizing how children are raised because I have children who are and I can locate them, which they don't like. Anyway, um but uh it there was a level of independence that happened when you didn't when we didn't have a phone, you know, and and so I I I advocate technology. I

116do. I do. I do. But boy, that was just it was just a different and I'm not being nostalgic. I mean, horrible things were happening, but but not but not I'm I'm on record, okay? um things happened but you you dealt with it and they quite frankly had nothing to do with like the the color right so um so this is going to be interesting to see it all play out so that's my comment savage I also have fond memories of the 80s we have a similar high school experience age wise um I my question or comment was much more mundane and speaking to um what Dr. Chur raised about the code of conduct. I know that you have a lot of processes to work out, but the code of conduct needs to be adopted

117in the next six weeks. Um, and so, you know, the policy committee at which we're going to hear that is next, you know, on May for May 14th. May 1st, I believe it's May 14th. Let's let us Carl, we will verify on that, but we if we need to a little more time than May 1, we can certainly do that. But um it's I would like you as you think about how you're going to write the policy and how you write the regulation and how it works with the code of conduct to do your best to not put the same information in more than one location so that when we change it we would have to realign it. So I believe this is the case and you you know much better than I all consequences

118in terms of student behavior currently live in the code of conduct. We don't have them scattered in this policy and that policy right they are in the code of conduct. So it seems like that would be a consistent place so that if we wanted to have something in the regulation or in the policy, it could say consequences will be, you know, go look at the code of conduct if you want to know what the consequences are rather than enumerating the consequences in the policy and then enumerating the consequences in in the code of conduct and then we are like stuck trying to make sure that they are in alignment for the rest of our natural lives. So that is my mundane and purely bureaucratic comment, but just let's let's try and keep it easy going

119forward. This is a 14 by the way. Sorry, I was thinking about next year. Um, Miss Wilson, thank you guys again. And, um, something to Damarissa's point about cell phones weren't so dominant. Something Ann was saying about how do we communicate in absentia of phones reminded me of the days of like AOL instant messenger, which there were cell phones, but that was the dominant thing. We just said, "I'm away." And then your message were there. But, um, thank you guys so much. And it was not immediately clear to me that you were thinking the vision was that people kept their device on them. Um that we didn't retain like organize and save it for them. And I can see my original question and thank you board member Smith was about if there were going to

120be bottlenecks and like if we were going to need extra staff to sort of like assign like you know but it's clear that they're taking it and to Hassan's point even on exit if you it's um my experience with Yonder um years ago was that you know they gave it to you to go to the show because they didn't want you to record and then on your way out it was like how you left like you couldn't leave unless you dropped it. And I could just see that being very smooth for us rather than to his point us, you know, allowing students to take it home. It just there could be a lot that happens in between. So that was just a thought process. Just really quick with that, at the high school level, I

121I want to say that I'm up front every day. I think there will still be some bottlenecking. I mean, there's when we're down security staff, then we got to make sure there's more security staff. So there might be some things to work through on that end just because if we're down five monitors then it affects there's a ripple effect throughout the whole day. So um that's just some of the things that we have to think at the high school and kind of work through. So and just to build on that um I want to comment that the first week or two of school we always have bottlenecks. And so what we don't want the message to be is that the new cell phone situation has caused it. It's always a process to make sure we're

122getting kids in through the building, particularly kids who are new to our system or everybody gets an ID and everybody forgot their ID. And um and so we just don't want there to be a misunderstanding early in the fall that it's because of this and not just kind of what it has always historically been um because it is real. It is frustrating and then it gets worked out every single year. Miss Smith. Okay. Just I know we're going to end this, but Miss Man, um there's something you just said. I do not want to date myself any more than I have already, but um I still can't figure out how come my mother knew what I had done at school on a particular day when there was no cell phone or email or anything like

123that to be had. Before she got in the door, she knew. So, I still can't figure it out. [Music] It still took a village to raise a child back then and the village knew. Okay, Mr. Almani. No, you're okay. Uh just last thing because I know this was mentioned and I want to fully support it if I can that um if we can do a test run over summer that would probably be really good especially just to get the communications out to families um as early as possible um in terms of this new cell phone paradigm that we're going to be walking into next year and Um, I really like the idea that like I'm not going to email my kid every other, you know, minute or whatever, but that is still a really nice

124line of communication if it's if it's allowable, I guess, or if like like is that something that it can be done or because I I heard it was mentioned. And the other thing like before I I don't want to like keep going but just uh going on about um the learning aspects and this is something that uh Kent Baker previous director of all that good stuff that long title um you just mentioned digital citizenship and that term has stuck with me for so long and it's like are you being a good digital citizen like your personality or your like your interaction actions online like are they safe, are they good, like what can you do to avoid and that just needs to be tied in um to the conversation with our students. So about the

125email, do you have um there was a initial conversation with John Wild and um Dr. Prespatino uh about that and um at this time there were so many concerns about um students receiving emails from the outside or sending emails to the out from the inside to the outside uh based on security and uh protection of the student. Um, one of the things that also was looked at was, well, what if we took the time and put all the parent emails in the system? Um, and then that would then allow any parent to email any student. So like just kind of um looking at protection of our students and we know the fishing and how uh you know our staff are are you know basically tricked on a daily basis. Um and so those were the

126um concerns right now. Um the technology team has informed us that there are certain organizations that do have permission for email um that have been approved by the district for student communication. Um but overall right now they're saying that there it is not possible. Um just also just just point of clarification. So it's not internet enabled devices. It's essentially all devices, right? It's because for a while I remember it being like only internet enabled devices and you could potentially have like a flip phone or something. Is that still the case or is it just all devices? I think the governor's language is internet enabled devices. But I think that even a flip phone is attached to technology. So it may be more broadly networked, right? Because even even a flip phone you're you're reaching out

127to beyond your phone. It's not like a um a bricked phone where you have no connection to the outside. But the the legal language in the bill as it was originally presented in the executive budget was internet enabled devices. So, okay. Thanks. Beepers. Remember those? Beepers. Anyway, any other questions, guys? Thank you so much. So, all right. Next discussion topic is ENL TED. Welcome. Is that working? Yeah. Okay. So, good evening. Thank you for the opportunity um to be able to present on behalf of the Department of ENL and Refugee Services. Um I did bring some friends with me tonight. So, I'm going to do some introductions quickly. To my right is Jodie Cozy. She is our K through8 ENL instructional coach. Um, and something that um, I wanted to highlight this year because, and

128it was just said just a few minutes ago, it really does take a village, and that is true about our ENL department and the education of our English language learners. Um, it doesn't happen in a silo, and we have a lot of community partners, um, that support families in their transition to, you know, city of Albany and, um, do many things that, um, help support students in school. Um and so I wanted to introduce um Daniel Butterworth who is the executive director of RISE. Um we also have Mickey um Himenez who is the regional director of Capitol Region um Capital District Latinos and Vanessa Gonzalez who is the director of community community- based programs um at Whitney Young Health. And they're each going to take just a couple of minutes to talk about the work

129that they do in the community and how their work supports our ELLL families. So, I'm gonna just turn it over to them. Good evening. Thank you for having me. Um, as Rachel said, my name is Vanessa Gonzalez. I'm the director of community- based programs at Whitney Young. So, in my role, I oversee our school-based health clinics that are located at Sheridan Prep, Albany High School, and Gifin Elementary, as well as our mobile unit, Whitney on Wheels, which serves Albany International Academy. And you know, we are able to provide primary care services. And if you are enrolled in our school-based programs, the student can still have an outside primary care physician, but we can also see them in the school. The Whitney on Wheels is a little different. If you're seen on the mobile unit, then

130you Whitney Young does need to be your primary care physician, but then you can also visit one of our brickandmortar locations. Um, there is no out-of- pocket cost for the school-based health clinics. So if a youth or family does not have insurance, we do have a social health engagement specialist that will work with the families and work with any social determinance of health that they may be experiencing. Our biggest work is at AIA um with all of the newcomers and just to ensure that they have the proper vaccinations so that they can remain in school and as well as providing that whole person care to them um to ensure that their transition whether they're at Albany International or when they leave and go to their home school. Any child that resides within the Albany City

131School District, they don't necessarily have to be in one of the schools. They are eligible to receive services at our school-based health clinics. And on a personal note, I'm proud to say that my daughter is a second grade teacher at Albany International Academy and she started her career at Rise actually with Dan. So, she really found her calling with that population. Hi everyone. Um, again, my name is Mickey Himenez and I'm the regional director with Capitol District Latinos. We're located not too far from here, 160 Central Avenue. And it's interesting because we're located in what used to be a German church. Um, and so the history of being and and a beautiful uh because it's a beautiful uh church, it was built in the 1800s, it's like it's come full circle for us, right? Because

132the history was that St. John's Lutheran Church used to also have a German name which when they didn't want them there had them drop that name. And so, um, when we purchased the building, Capitol District Latinos is one affiliate of Akasia Network, the leading, um, Latino-based organization out of New York City where provides a lot of services from behavioral health to substance use disorder. Um, we have, um, Head Start program. We expanded the footprints up in the Capitol district. And so the thought was when we purchased the building was to really do services that were going to expand on the behavioral health. Interestingly enough, the pandemic hit. We were deemed unessential and the phone then started to ring and who was calling but it was our immigrant community that did not qualify for the stimulus

133monies. and and that's when the the turning point for us at Capital District Latinos. We needed to now get our local officials and partner up with schools because the children were also being affected um to see how we can help meet their needs but meet them based on ba on the base level with basic needs. So we have a culturally responsive food pantry and what does that mean? Um you could come Yeah. the majority of folks that we service are Latinos. So for the and and I'm Latina, but I've never seen so many different types of corn and because we and and different foods um because we meet people where they're at and they tell us what kind of foods and then that's how we order it. We're also located in a very high Muslim

134community. So although we're Capital District Latinos, we're there to serve our community here in Albany. And so we have a lot of foods that are halal. Um and so we try to really work with our community and then with the children. So one of the things in in hearing um um my my good partner here is that when we had the experience with the immigrants, we were very concerned about the children making sure that they had their immunization. I have a staff of three. I am so grateful about our unsung heroes which are our volunteers. I have volunteers taking the children to go get the immunizations. We do a lot of educations because the parents when they first were coming in didn't understand that you can't keep that child at home. That can be construed

135as abuse and neglect. So, a lot of education that we were doing, but it was partnering up with other folks in the community to make sure that those children did get their vaccination so that they can go to school. So, in that experience, what we found is now fast forward and we have a compassionate closet, a lot of the children, depending on what countries they came from, image was a big deal. You know, they they didn't see themselves as an American child. So, dressing like them. So we had so many folks step up donate um and we have pictures of them wearing you know the clothing that they saw the other child. So we wanted that child as they entered into the school system to feel as fit and welcome as possible. Um we have

136done mystery nights at the international schools. They'll call us up and they'll say can you get someone here to read a story? um we have connected with NY which is the teachers union they've donated so many books to us we have them in different languages and to see whether is an Asian child or a Muslim child and look at a book that looks like them was a big deal so for us we feel that we are a great connector to the education and when a child is happy those parents even though they're working so hard for them they see the future in that child. They are here working so hard and what they want is for that child to thrive in a society and as you know for us especially in the capital district I

137pride myself in saying this that it does take a village and for us you know we couldn't do what we do if it isn't everybody coming together and then saying how do we make them feel that they are welcomed that we don't have a title of a sanctuary city just because of a title, but that we do care. Um, so our connections with the education is really, really important. Uh, when they come in an hour early, uh, to our food pantry, which we open up, uh, four times a month, we open up an hour early. We don't have a line outside. We have a a children's section where they're going to have arts and crafts and things because the parents are coming in with those children. So, we want that to be also um a

138learning experience. The other thing is that we help educate them to assimilate into our culture, right? So, we connect with Cornell Cooperative Extension and we have cooking classes and sometimes they'll tell us, "Hey, you know what? I can cook something." Um, and so our dream is we're going to be fixing our kitchen and it's going to be grandma's cooking because no one ever cooks better than grandma. So, we're going to have a YouTube channel. That's our future. and have every culture be able to have their foods and and take pride in and helping our community also um appreciate that. And at the same time, they're learning how to, you know, I I used to get out of the food pantry saying, "Well, they, you know, we give them a bag and they don't take everything."

139Well, they don't know what peanut butter and jelly is, you know. So, part of our responsibility is to teach them. So we do a lot of education on um also health prevention. I'm a nurse by pro um by profession. Um so I I'm a lot into preventive um so we do diabetes prevention, chronic kidney kidney disease prevention. So there's a health component while there's also an educational and we do a lot of know your rights. You know, we have one coming up next week. And again, we get a lot of communications from the schools with parents. If there's been a parent that's been deported, which we have a situation right now, we know that's going to affect the child. So, we are a community-based organization that's there to help partner up in any way we

140can to make um the schools know that if you have certain situations that we can help out with, that's what we're all about. Good evening everyone. My name is Daniel Butterworth. and the executive director of RISE refugee and immigrant support services of um thank you for inviting us to join you all today um to talk about the work that we do and and the connection that we have with the school district. Um RISE was founded in 2007 primarily as an educational organization providing English as a new language instruction for newcomer adults. Um, our program has grown over the last 18 years to encompass not just our ENL program, but also a an afterchool program for youth ages 5 to 13, wraparound case management services, employment assistance, and an immigration clinic. We serve hundreds of families

141each year. And um, our our mission is to help our our newcomer families build new lives and thrive in the capital region. But the vision uh that we have at our organization is the one that I think um the school district has been an an incredible and integral partner in helping us achieve and that is um that it is a vision of the capital region as a model community for how we welcome support and celebrate our newcomer neighbors. I want to thank this board and also uh Rachel for um in uh for all of the really intentional work that you have done to support newcomer families. The creation of the Albany International Academy uh was really precient 10 years ago when it was founded um as we now have a newcomer population and now population

142that is five times as large as it was then. Um that number will continue to grow as uh migration trends globally and throughout the country continue to grow. Um, and it's been a really key partner for us in um, helping to support not just our adults, but also all of our children and and the family structures that that we see come through our doors every day. Um, RISE is uh, running its afterchool program now on site at the Albany International Academy. Uh we started working over there about two years ago under the uh uh subcontract with the district uh on the uh refugee school impact program. Um we also have a subcontract with you all on the uh 21st century community learning centers grant. Um and across those two we're able to serve uh 60

143to 70 newcomer youth each year through our program and it is a balance of academic support and social emotional enrichment. Um the site location at at AIA has been really key for our continuation of this program as resources have uh dried up and logistical challenges and regulatory issues have become uh more challenging. Um having AIA as a location, a safe location for our students has been uh really really important. I also really want to thank the district for um the support that you all have shown during these troubled turbulent times. Uh less than a week after inauguration day, we got notice from our district partners about the enhanced security protocols uh and and safety measures that you all were taking a district-wide to ensure the safety of students and their families on on school grounds.

144And um you were the first partner, excuse me, to reach out in what was a very difficult week. Sorry, I'm a big softy. I cry all the time. um um but that meant a lot um to myself, to my team, to our community that we serve. Um, we're looking forward to ongoing partnership opportunities with AIA and across the district and right now are having some conversations to offer ENL classes for adults on school grounds um at Roots Academy where we have a high percentage of newcomer families and also Arbor Hill um one of which may be a parent and me class um where young students 0 to 5 can learn alongside with their parents. Um it really does take a village. We really appreciate the partnership, the work that you all do and the service

145that you do to the community. Um, if you are looking to diversify your workforce, come see us. We have an employment program. We're always looking for employer partners and uh always looking for new opportunities to connect. Um, and if anybody would like to join us next Tuesday. We are co-sponsoring an event with the New York State Writers Institute at uh the downtown New Albany campus called Ultimate Citizens. It is about a uh Iranian-American immigrant school counselor who creates an ultimate frisbee team for newcomer youth to help promote learning and uh social emotional growth. Um that's on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Page Hall and hope to see you there. It's a really heartwarming film. But thanks for the opportunity and thanks for for listening. Thanks. Um thank you. I'm I'm really bad at this microphone

146thing. I'm so sorry. Um, so I just want to personally thank um each of you for being here tonight to share the important work um that you do and on behalf of all of our families and it really does make a huge difference. Um, and thank you for sharing, you know, in such a detailed way the work that you do. They're going to stay and then um I'm going to go through some slides. They can also be part of the Q&A. So if you have any questions for them um at the end. So moving forward, um just to update you on um changes from last year, um there's really there have been a little bit of changes in staffing in terms of we've added some ENL teachers. So you see that reflected in the number

147um in the first bullet. Um the other big change was that we moved our family engagement coordinator who was housed at AIA. She's now based at Harriet Given to help support um especially at the beginning of the year the the huge influx of new registrations that we have. She's bilingual um and so she was um you know hugely impactful in that role um here at and and continues to be here at Harriet Gibbons. with regard to the next slide. So you can see um that our enrollment by month we we you know we had huge numbers in the summer um and that has trickled down um but it hasn't come to a stop and so we have exceeded um as of the um end of March we have exceeded last year's enrollment number for L's.

148So we're at 762 and of those 323 are transfers from um other places in the US primarily New York City. Um and so when you look at for example February and March while we still do have um L's arriving and enrolling in the district many of those are transfers they're not necessarily coming um directly from abroad or overseas. All of our schools have L's um enrolled. Um and so you can see that number there. We're at 1821 total. And that represents a milestone for us. Um when a couple of months ago I had a meeting with our ENL intake coordinator and she said we're almost at 1,800. It was like um you know it it was a really big number unprecedented for us for sure. um but it represents about 20% of our student population

149which means that one out of every five students in the school district um is an L and um you know that that's important and then going on to our top languages. This also represents a shift especially as we think about how the demographics have changed over the last 10 years um with such a large number of Spanish um speaking L's um you know more than half of our LS have Spanish as a home language which makes sense in light of the next slide which is where um you will see where most of our students are coming from this year. So this represents enrollment um during this school year with the most number of students coming from Venezuela and Ecuador. Um and then you can see there's several other uh Spanish speaking countries on that list.

150So um and we still we do have um you know Afghanistan remains to be a pretty um you know a large number of students coming from from that location as well. A lot of secondary migration from Afghanistan. and they're not necessarily coming directly from Afghanistan, but they've they've settled elsewhere and then they'll come here. Um, and then moving on to our academic outcomes. Um, I know Mr. Julio always was proud to share the um, graduation rates and so we do definitely see, you know, we can we saw a little bit of a dip, but um, at 77% um, last year is still much higher than it was um, six years ago. So, um, we hope to see that trend continue. As we think about um last summer's programming, um we do always collect data around

151uh our summer programming through the form of um parent um parent um feedback. Thank you. I don't know why um I'm losing my words here. Um but you know as part of the parent survey we did have 55 surveys come back which is um of the you know 185 students that attended um you know for those that number of families to to provide that feedback and then for us to get it translated you know get that all in another language um it's a pretty robust number we think um 100% of them said that they felt that their students learned what they needed to learn about the basic systems and routines of American schooling. um they they you know more than 90% felt that their children learned English while they were there um and that they

152were they felt welcome. They felt that their children were ready to begin school in September um or to continue um with schooling in September if they had already been here. But many of our um the majority of our students who attend in the summer are newcomer students. Um some of the things that they talked about in terms of feedback for improvement and these are always things we're thinking about. So they were really good suggestions. One of them is um sending home more instructional materials, but along with that sharing strategies with families about how they can support their children um at home and that is always something that we hear from our um AL families, you know, and then we want to work with them on especially if they don't know English, but they want to

153help. So what what are some of the strategies that they can use to do that? And then I have a slide with some pictures um from summer the summer program and the all the way to the left one of our partners is the APD and you can see that they made a visit. It was a very popular popular day um in the summer program that day um where they brought you know one of their police cars and you can see that one of our students got to try in the police vest. They got to climb in the car and um it was a really really exciting time for them. Um, and then you also have some classroom scenes. And then in the middle, um, we had a field trip for our secondary students as part

154of the refugee academy. Um, that's funded through the refugee school impact grant. And they went to Thatcher Park. Um, as part of that grant, they do do they are required to do some local field trips. And so Thatcher Park is something that they do and is very popular as well. Um, I'm going to turn it over to Jody Cozy for some instructional highlights, things that we've been working on this year. So, one of the first, um, big changes this year was the implementation of the National Geographic curricular resource that's being used in our standalone ENL courses. Um the teachers are using it to promote and support the English language development component of CR 154. Um additionally we've had individual and team coaching cycles at the elementary and middle school levels. So I've been able to

155attend bi-weekly CPTs at the middle level. Um some monthly PDS at the elementary level and also some individual coaching cycles to support the integration of content and language. We did some work with the center for applied linguistics. Um topic was what is different about teaching reading to students who are learning English. And we really took a couple of days to look at the science of reading and how it affects um the learning that our English language learners are doing and how it is different. Um one of our our big initiatives was the rollout of the elevation strategy. So, Elevation is a data management platform that we use for um our ELLL students. Um there is an embedded um professional development component to it. So, every teacher in the district now can access that. Um they

156are able to directly connect to their roster um and as well as their student data so that they can learn and implement some um best practice strategies to support their students. And then finally, um we just convened a um team of teachers who will be working to update the um K5 ENL progress report for next school year. Um looking at some of the districts, um standards as well as New York State targets and measurement and the proficiency level descriptors. And in terms of priorities for uh 2526, this is something that I rolled over from Mr. Julio's presentation last year. And I just want to say that it really has been um a great honor and privilege to be able to fill in for him during this time. Um you know, I I talked to him

157regularly and kind of keep him updated. I know he's um you know, he's looking forward to getting back. Um and it was important to me to make sure that I'm doing everything I can to carry on the good work that he does. Um, and so these are a rollover of what he shared with you last year. Um, and they're still relevant. Um, they're still things that we're working on. Um, you know, engaging with NCBI to support, um, social emotional programming and and support, um, you know, es especially at the secondary level, um, to support like cross-cultural kinds of communications and things for students. Um, that will continue into next year. Um Jody mentioned the National Geographic resource as a standalone part of our standalone curriculum. That's still a new new resource for teachers. So we

158plan to um you know continue professional development and coaching for implementation of that. And then um you know continuing with the elevation with the strategies and also um really being able to maximize that system as um like a data not just a data warehouse but also like a system for being able to progress monitor um for our students. So, um, those are things that I when I spoke with him, he said, "Yep, we're going to continue with those." So, I included those and, um, at this time we could take any questions. Thank you for that wonderful presentation and and, you know, thank you to all our community partners. Actually, a couple of weeks ago, I was at your uh, Rice building celebrating uh, Narrow with the Afghani community and that's a church too that was

159converted, right? So, um, and Whitney Young, I mean, uh, I don't know h how indebted we are to you for helping us through co when we needed to vaccinate our students and get them back into the schools and and things were completely different back then and you guys stepped to the plate and helped us um work through that. So, thank you and thank you for providing the food pantries. I mean, food insecurity and it's it's sad that in this first world country, it is still a big problem. Uh I was just talking about this about um food insecurity. The yesterday there was an immigrant family that um the kids don't know peanut butter and jelly. The exact same conversation that you pointed out and and so I was trying to explain to this other person

160that you know our schools actually have halal foods and and so there is more than uh what you think is available. Uh and but I think there's a disconnect in how we can show them what resources are available to them. So trying to provide um jobs that's one thing. Uh but maybe we can employ some of those community members as advocates in their own community. So if we educate a few people um and then they partner with other people in the community and we can get that word out uh that the resources do exist. Uh it's just getting that information communication right. Um so anyways, Mr. John Mini. So, I was trying to think of a couple of words that um would describe you guys. And um I was like, "Oh, you guys are like

161saintly or angelic. I'm serious." And um so I started thinking like you guys are really and I think I thought I I created um meant to um look up a new term because I really think you guys are the paragon and I learned a new word paragon. She's like the the height the most excellent thing of virtue and generosity in our community. I'm being dead serious. You guys help the most the most vulnerable of our population of which I have some experience because my parents were immigrants and not really shared this publicly, but they had immigration problems up until my oldest brother was 21 when he advocated for them. My dad has a PhD in physics. My mom is a social worker. They have children that all have degrees upon degrees. And I will tell

162you straight up, it is traumatic to think back to going I grew up in Kansas to going to the immigration centers in Kansas City every couple of months essentially that my dad was essentially begging to stay on his student visas and that I was I could be just snapped away from what I knew. And um it it literally escalated up into up until the point in time where I was in high school. I swear to God, I woke up one morning going to catch the bus and then there was a knock at the door. The folks at the door said they were police and that there was my my parents car was in a hitand-run accident. It was an absolute lie. They were immigration officials and it was almost like an entrapment. I swear to

163God. And what you guys do is so important to so many people and I want to thank you personally from the bottom of my heart. Um, now that I've got that therapy session over, um, I also just wanted to just shout out that, you know, a little stat that I saw 2018 to 2024, over 50% growth in grad rates for L's, which is to be celebrated. It really is. And um it just means that you guys are all doing a fantastic job and that the students know why they're there and that the parents and the families of these students are I mean the saying would be all in for Albany. But really it just it just goes to show how much you guys are dedicated to these students and I thank you tremendously. Miss Smith.

164Yes. Yes. Um, first, um, member Elmani, I, uh, I don't think I think you have somewhat started to tell your story, but have not actually completed or shared much with me. I don't know about others, but I want to appreciate your doing so and your bravery, your courageous in doing that. um and you remind me of so many many families that are in that situation or in this similar situation right now. And um and so thank you for for that. And again, I want to echo your comments about um the tremendous support of the organizations that are represented here tonight. Um, and I I can't say it any more eloquently than than he has, but we're grateful and thankful uh to have you here in our community and to be in partnership with you. So,

165thank you all three very much. Um, and um, Miss Rachel, uh, you and Mr. Jillio and and Miss Cozy, just a tremendous uh, you know, just want to echo everything that you do, especially at AIA and also to support our L's that are in all uh, our schools. Um and um so I I I thank you. I I I had just but one question. I think I ask this sometimes um on an ongoing basis. Um I think that um we have not uh necessarily seen uh uh ups and downs in attendance that we might would have expected. Um and I don't know like our organizations whether they're seeing like they saw up and then now it's quiet. I don't know if it's kind of fluctuated like that, but um I do know that that um

166the communities um very much know that your organizations are around and here and available. Um but I I wondered if there is anything that you're having to do or communicate um to get the message across to our families that we're still we're here. We're going to help you throughout um that the district supports you. uh and also in getting um you know addressing other needs. And so so it's kind of a two-part thing just wanting wanting to know about attendance and whether we are able to still continue to engage our students um who are facing uh all of these uncertainties and how much more we're able to do to ensure their needs are addressed. Yeah. Um it's a great question and we we have gotten that quite a bit about attendance. Um and we have

167been tracking it since um since December till now and we've been looking at it across the different levels elementary you know middle secondary and then also comparing it to the same month during last school year. We haven't really seen a big dip in attendance. Um the one exception I will say there was a day in February that was a Monday. It was a day without immigrants. Um and so we did see um a pretty big dip on that day um because students didn't they didn't come to school but that was part of a larger movement. Um but but I would say that you know attendance remains pretty stable and in some cases even better than the same month last year. Um but but what we do hear about are the anecdotal kinds of stories. Um

168like you know you just mentioned that there was a parent that you know of who's been deported. So it it's almost like th that those are the things that we're hearing about. I wouldn't say that we're seeing them as trends. It's more of a um you know, we hear about a a family here or a family there. And so when we do, we engage um our staff like the family engagement coordinator or you know, our ENL teachers are very involved across the district, very um very close to the families that they work with. And so um we we try to make sure that we're connecting them with resources um as they come to us and ask about that. Um I do think that in the early days um of some of the changes having the

169support of um you know of of the district to say we support our students um these are the things that we do in school to make sure that everyone is safe. Um I think that that going out in many languages and and being able to be communicate I think that that was reassuring to our families and I think that the attendance is a testament to that. So I do I like we do hear like another example would be sometimes we do hear um well so and so didn't come to school today because they thought ice was down the street and so um but but we're not seeing or hearing about kids just not coming anymore. Um and so I think the second part of your question though was around um like what we can do

170more or I don't know if I've addressed everything but Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Good. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know if you want to add anything, but uh we've seen pretty consistent Oh, sorry. Thanks. Uh we've seen pretty consistent attendance um through that as well um for our immigration work that has declined significantly um as fewer and fewer options are available. But um yeah, I could just add that when there were talks that ICE was on Central Avenue, uh we usually average um 85 to 90 families coming to a a food pantry and we had 24. So that was an a real eyeopener for us um when we saw that decline. Uh I share a lot of information with other food pantries and blessed sacrament which is not too far. um sister um Patricia

171called me and she had three. So we knew that that information did affect. So the next question was the children. Um we did hear some children being kept home and that's when our education started, right? Calling those parents and telling them no, you got to do the reverse and you got to send them to school. Um we don't want them to transfer that anxiety onto the child. um but that they admitted that some of them did keep their their child home. What's interesting is two weeks later, food insecurity trumped and I pun intended but trumped their fear of ICE taking their child and they were back in the food pantry because food insecurity basic needs always at some point makes them stronger. they want to survive and they're going to show up and so our

172numbers are back up, right? So, we take that opportunity to reinforce the school system is not going to just allow anyone to show up. They all have their cards, you know, we carry everyone has it in their language and I know that but they all have their know your rights. Um, and and again, I think it's, you know, it's their strength comes from a community who cares. And so when they see that, they know that we're a safe space and that when we are going to give them information, we're talking the truth. And that I think has gone a long way for us. There's one additional resource um so RISE has been um working with a number of community partners u including these two um to uh connect with families um and start uh creating

173family preparedness plans um and we can share some of those resources um from some of our local and statewide partners um that might be helpful for counselors and some of the community school liaison if there are families who are vulnerable. particularly um to start creating these and it would include emergency contacts, temporary custody if that is needed. Um and and uh legal counsel, things like that. So that's all in one place should the unthinkable happen. Um and happy to share those um with with anyone who who would like. And I'm sorry, could I just add one thing and I'll then I'm done. Um yesterday I did have the um the u experience and privilege of being at the high school with the international club where um the director of operations from rise was doing a

174presentation with students there and uh so it was fascinating because those little cards red cards um I don't think many of the students have had that education of what to do if ice approaches or you know whatever the situation might be. And so they were like like this and asking questions and we even did, you know, a demonstration of, you know, a knock at the door and and how to respond. So it was it was very engaged. I think it was maybe about 20 25 students. Um, and only two were from this country originally. Uh, that's how diverse our schools uh are. Um, but anyway, I I wanted to just share that that that was um quite an eye openening experience for me. um to to see these students who have already faced incredible you

175know circumstances that they're still um have they still are living with fears and and uncertainties and uh sometimes a lack of understanding what do I do if so um just again thanks uh to the organizations and to this district for its um dedication to uh all students but in particularly our immigrant and refugee and newcomer families. Thank you, Miss Men. So, I'm I'm just um incredibly grateful for the partnership that um exists and and and um it's it's bold work and it's work that's right and righteous, you know, and um and and I'm thinking when you when you were talking about attendance and how you have not seen a dip in attendance, that's a testament to school's a safe space. You know what I mean? And I think that um for a lot of families

176um uh your organizations are like bridging that bridging that gap and just reinforcing that school's a school's a safe place. Um because I would say that the world right now is really a safe space, right? Um and so so it's just a comment. I just appreciate um the work that is happening in in my community. You know, it's something to really be proud of. So thank you. Miss Savage, everything that everyone already said. Um, in particular, it's it's really hard to know that our kids are having to do those demonstrations. It's the same way I feel about safety drills. They shouldn't have to do that. They shouldn't have to do that. They shouldn't have to be asking that question. They shouldn't have to be thinking about what happens if ICE comes to the door. That's

177just not a conversation that a 10-year-old should be even having. So, I appreciate the work. I'm glad it's being done, but I'm horrified that this is where we are. Um, so I did want to ask say a couple more mundane things and ask a real question. Well, first of all, I wanted to ask you to please pass on our regards to Mr. Gillio. Um, we miss him. Um we're grateful to have your able al ablely stepping in and I don't know what we would have done a few years ago you know when we didn't have that redundancy in our department because if Tom had been out for this substantial amount of time we would have really been scurrying. So it's just been great to know that this community that has such deep needs was in

178such good hands um even in this very difficult time um for Tom. So uh so please pass on our regards to him. And then I wondered if you could tell us a little bit more about the report card project. I honestly these are the things like I've been doing this a long time. I you know you think you kind of know a lot of the things and then you're like sure of course their report cards are probably different but that like never occurred to me that you didn't follow the normal report card pattern. So if you could talk to me a little bit about what you currently do, what you're planning to do. I'm just curious to know more about that. Yeah, I'll turn it over to Jod. But I will say it's really a

179progress. They still get regular report cards. It's a progress report that goes along with that. So, I'll let Jody tell you a little bit more. So, a lot of the conversation has been around um students proficiency levels, making sure that the information is in parentfriendly language because we tend to um overexlain things. And so, we have a group of teachers working looking at these targets of measurement that are associated with the nice slot and the proficiency level descriptors. So we can see how the students move from level one, you know, all the way through the the the levels. Um, and then the teachers are working in grade level teams to actually kind of tweak those uh targets so that they're easier for parents to understand. Um, and we're also going to be working with Elevation

180to see if we can import that form into Elevation so that as Rachel mentioned, we can um progress monitor through that and then have all of our data live there. That's really interesting. So it comes they they the children get both the report card that we would that I'm familiar with for non members of your particular program plus they get this on top as an additional way of of progress monitoring for their own child to to support and show the language growth. That's terrific. I had no idea it was happening. I'm thrilled to hear it's happening. It makes perfect sense that it's happening. It just, you know, didn't occur to me. And I really appreciate your comment about parentfriendly language. Um the superintendent knows this is not the topic of the day for me. Um

181I was looking at some other materials that um and I I feel like our district has room for improvement in that whole area in many many um areas and departments that um I had just had a quiet conversation with him which you know is not like a big thing but I had said do we have a district um target like that all of our communications go home at no more than a fourth grade reading level or no more than a sixth grade reading level or something like that. that do we do we have that as like a standing expectation for all our parent communications because we know it's not just our L families where there's literacy challenges um among the the guardians and the parents. So, it seems like, you know, as much as possible,

182we should be trying to make things really readable. Um, and it's it's hard it's hard to do that if you're not really intentional about it because it's easy to get caught up, particularly. And as a lay person serving on a school board, I can tell you that there's a there's a lot of stuff happening in all your heads that's been happening in there for a long time through many years of college and, you know, graduate programs. And it it takes sometimes a couple of questions to be like, "Oh, that's what they meant." Right? Because you're speaking the the familiar professional language and it takes a bit sometimes as a lay person, even a very well- educated English-speaking native speaker um person to understand it. So um so there's a lot that we can do as

183I think and I think that would just go a long way to build trust with our families again not just our l families but all of our families that they can understand us and we can understand them and we are actually communicating that's the objective. So anyway I appreciated that particular comment and would like to broaden that for all of the work we do. Thank you. I think it's telling me that I'm talking too much. Um but no, I think that's excellent. I I wondered too. So, it is specific to um your school and also to the NISSLAT. No, this project. Yeah. So, it's specific to the NISLAT, but it's going to be districtwide K5. Okay. Oh, wonderful. And um I don't know if if uh if you can I I would love to just

184kind of see an example of of the of that piece like so like will I know will I I know what it was like when my child was in school. What was it? What does it actually look like and how does it read you know today if and when you know just not a not a pressing thing but I would love to see an example. We hope to have them done by the end of the school year. So Okay. And and is there um so you but you're already speaking and talking with parents about about this or you're having these conversations with them. So do you mean about the change or the the it's already occur has it already it has not currently there is um there is a progress report that goes home um

185and has has for many years um and that's been translated into all the different languages. So they do get some information um currently about their child's progress. But we felt as a department that um you know we we wanted to be sure that we were aligning um like the comments with how they're being assessed um similar to like a standardsbased report card. Um and so I I think that was kind of the impetus for for the work to happen. So I think once we we we have them completed then there will need to be part of as part of the implementation education for families on this is what this means and here's how this is you know so on that note for me then I don't want don't send me anything I I I really

186no because I I want to I want to experience it as as our families would experience it right and so the your your instructions to parents or I don't know if you're doing parent university around some of that but those are the kinds of things I'm really interested in how how does that then get shared and communicated with parents and then what is their feedback? Does it and and and are you do you actually know that this is better than what was before, right? Yeah. No, that's a great point. Okay. Thank you. And and just to add on to that, I mean if a cliff notes, you know, whether if you're doing it in parent university is great. If not, a cliffnotee version of hey, this is your report card. These are the things that

187you should be looking for because like like an mentioned you talk about CGP and all these things like when I first got on the board I'm like what are they talking about there's NWA versus this and you know and so to imagine these people coming from a completely different system can understand English for the most part and then trying to convert all of these things and try to make sense it's mind-blowing right so if the more easier we make it for them to understand okay Here's salent features. Green going up, red going down. Okay, there. Now I know that. Okay, this is something I need to focus on. Now I know how where I need to help my child with, right? Because that's what they want. They want to know how can I help my

188own child. And so now you're you're helping them help their their families and and now we got engagement, right? And once you get that, it just adds a builds from that. So yeah. Yep. I think that's great. Miss Wilson, thank you for your presentation and thank you three for your service to our community. You're greatly appreciated. Um when you mentioned, you know, feeling emotional, this has been very emotional. Um and I would say in addition to the deep empathy I feel I also feel a little bit of anger. um you know in terms of human dignity and human rights and the climate that we're in and something about what our board member El Mawi was talking about and the trauma of what's children of im well I'm a child of an immigrant parent I was

189born in America however the trauma and the posture of don't make trouble don't ruffle feathers and you know being prone to so much exploitation and wanting to look the other way when something's not right and me being 13 and like absolutely you have rights and you know maybe even crafting an email or um sending things there's so much from the child's perspective because you're acclimated and you are to some degree integrated that you're doing a lot of advocacy and managing up in your family you understand what's happening and then you're interpreting it um translating and explaining um in addition to I feel like it's important to call out that different immigrant groups get different reception and different treatment and tend to reside often in the most marginalized communities. So, it's it's a quadruple so on

190so forth, you know, um multiple headed hydra. And again, thank you for your work. And I I was also researching briefly trying to think like I know every school level does to some degree um international reception or day. I did see that May 21st is like the national day around cultural diversity and dialogue and that would be a great um opportunity to maybe push something out as a district maybe just a communication that you know one in five of our students are English language learners or you know this is the representative groups that are in our district and that's just an opportunity I see. Thank you. I remember standing in front of what is now North Albany Middle School when the you know we announced the International Academy and and to see 1821 students now.

191Um that's something. So thank you for what you've done and thank you for helping us keep doing what we're doing. U so thanks again. Yeah. No, thank you to the board for all of your support. We really do appreciate it and thanks again to the community partners. We couldn't do this without you. Okay, next item for discussion is the budget update. Mr. Caris Good evening. Um, thank you. Uh, and I appreciate that we had a special meeting on Tuesday to help with um, finalize the budget so that we could help with our deadlines and timelines so that our community could actually see exactly what the budget consists of and what is uh, within the budget for us as a district. Um, so this is the presentation that uh Mr. Lecoll has and his communication department

192has helped create for our community. Um, I just wanted to show it here so that we can continue the the conversation about what we're providing, how we're moving forward and the story of our district and what we're providing to our students. Um, as always, our district vision, mission, and goal um plays a role of our mindset as a school district for our students and our community. Um, tonight's agenda, the budget proposal, uh, additional school related propositions, this board of educational election, public library budget proposal, voting information, and a budget calendar. Uh the budget development goals. Um we wanted to support our academic and social emotional needs for all our students. Maintain programmatic and extracurricular offerings at all grade levels. Strategically reduce staffing through attrition to align with declining enrollment and the end of federal COVID

19319 relief funding and minimize the tax impact on our residents. Uh highlights of the budget proposal. Uh we are asking for a.9% uh proposed tax levy increase. Uh this is the fifth consecutive year less than 1%. Uh over that time line it's an average of 0.55%. And over the tenure average it's8%. Just a little couple of statistical information there. Um it's also supported by an estimated state aid increase of 12.1 million. Uh and invest $ 122.6 $6 million from our district's fund balance and reserves and maintains our current programs and initiatives to continue to provide opportunities to all students or I'm sorry that all students need and deserve. Um within the budget we also have the full day prek in all 12 elementary schools and 11 community locations. We have four magnet elementary schools, our

194band chorus orchestra that all start in the third grade. our community schools initiative um at Albany High, Arbor Hill, Delaware, Gifin, Myers, North Albany, Roots, Sheridan Prep, and Toast. And our newcomer program K12 at the Albany International Academy. Um we also have our social emotional supports, our behavior specialists, psychologists, and social workers. Our instructional intervention positions to support and accelerate learning for math, reading, and ELA. our ALB marching falcons and indoor percussion ensemble. Our 67 athletic teams including three unified teams in partnership with Special Olympics of New York and intramural programs for students in grades 7 through 12. Our expanded uh advanced placement and university high school opportunities. Our 11 career and tech pathways, I'm sorry, career and technical educational pathways. Um, we also have our Alme High Theater Ensemble Program and as always our

195culturally relevant teaching and learning practices. Um, on this slide here are our categories for our general fund expenditures for the last two years and then this current year and our estimated for the upcoming school year. Um, as you can see, our salaries and benefits are our top uh expenditures for the district. And as the next slide, you can see that our budget is going up about 4.9% from 326 million uh 244289 to 342,36598. Our general fund revenues uh are ask tax levy increase. You can see um for two years prior and this current school year, it had remained flat. So we've asked for community to just raise the same amount of money every year up until this point up until next year where we're asking for a 0.9 increase. Um the state aid, you can

196see the difference. Um our local revenues, uh the appropriated fund balance and reserves, um our federal aid and total, you can see that they match up to 342,36598. This is a very nice chart. I think it's uh very visually stimulating. Um where you can see where over this time frame from 201617 through the 2526 projected school year where the property taxes in 201617 made up 49% of the school budget or the revenue. Um for the upcoming school year, it makes up 36% of the total budget. And on the flip side, you can see on the light blue or the state aid, we have received a lot more state aid in that time frame as well. So that's where it flips between we're getting more state aid and rely less on state tax or on our

197community taxes. Um our staffing ratios for the 2526 budget propose proposal um includes a reduction of approximately 36 positions through retirements and vacancies uh necessary to account for anticipated enrollment decline and for the end of the co 19 relief funding. Uh the CO 19 funding was approximately $45 million from 21 I'm sorry 2021 through 2024 and the last of the funds expired in September 24. Um in addition to other CO related investments, we used the temporary funds to add staff to support student academic and social emotional needs as we built back from the pandemic. Um while the federal CO 19 relief funding no longer is available and with the enrollment expected to decline due to changes in federal immigration policies, we need to strategically reduce staffing to be able to continue to support our programs

198and services for our students um and our community can afford. So no positions will be eliminated through layoffs. Even with the planned staff reductions through attrition K12 staff, the student ratios will remain the same or improved as enrollment also declines. So here's the chart of the actual projected enrollment um and a little history for the past enrollment and the staffing. You can see that we are estimating about 300 less students in the upcoming school year. But if you look at the very bottom um per bargaining group, you can see that the ratios are actually the same or a little bit better for our students. Um a little tax levy history, you can see from the 201617 school year, which started at 0% of tax levy increase to the proposed 2526 school year of a.9% tax

199levy increase. Again, the 5-year average is a 0.55% and the 10-year average is8. Uh, if the budget is not approved, um, the board in the school district has a couple options. We could put up the same proposal with another vote. We present a revised budget with for voter consideration or adopt a contingency budget. If we did put up a vote again and it failed, we would go into a contingency budget where we would reduce our budget by $1.2 2 million. But with that reduction, um the regulations are um very strict on what you can and what you have to do. Uh part of it is it requires community groups to pay for building use, requires cuts to specific areas, including potential cuts to staffing and programs, and prohibits spending on student supplies. Um, also on

200the ballot, we have two more propositions that do not affect um or will have no impact on the taxes. Uh, proposition two is, and I think the link is there within the, uh, um, presentation is to update the HVAC system over at New Scotland Elementary School that uh, we've been having we've been fighting with, I'm going to say, for a few years. Uh then we have Monasuri where we're replacing a couple uh units that are aged out and at Sher and Prep as well. Um the total proposed uh proposition is $5 million which would be paid for through the capital reserve fund and again that would have no impact on the taxpayer or the tax levy. Proposition three that'll allow the district to sell a small vacant parcel at the south end uh located at

201877 um South Pearl Street and 13 Bingington Street. It's a onetenth of an acre. The district owns but has never occupied this property and there are no structures on the lot. Um we're asking the voters to allow us to sell it at a minimum of $1,000. Um, as for the board of education, their election, there are two seats that are up. Board, um, President Dr. Star and who is running for re-election, I'm sorry, and board member Vicky Smith, who is not running for reelection. Uh, currently, there are no other individuals uh, who have filed for petitions to run. Interested individuals must submit notorized nominating petitions with signatures from at least 100 qualified voters by April 30th at 5:00 PM. Uh, you can also visit albschools.org for more information or you could call our district clerk

202Mia Timonss at 5184756015. Um, for the Albony Public Library, this will be Proposition 4 for the May 20th ballot is uh the library's proposed 202526 operating budget which is 8,275997. um that's their operating budget, not inclusive of the capital project payment that they also have to um we have to raise taxes for. There are also two library board of trustee positions up for election. For more information about the library budget, visit a public library.org or call Stephanie Simon at 5187083912. Uh information for our voters, inerson voting at 15 locations citywide. Polls open 7 am to 900 pm. One new voting location, voters in eighth ward, district 1 through 4 and the 14th ward, all districts will vote at Bethne Reformed Church located at 760 New Scotland. A uh last year this was at the Myers

203Middle School. So that's the change. Uh more information, which also has a searchable directory for polling locations, is found at achools.orgvote org/vote. Or if you have any other questions um about the vote or uh questions about voting, call our board clerk, Nikai Tims, again at 518-4756015. Uh early voting by mail. Um all eligible voters can also vote by mail. Uh again, visit our almanschools.orgvote org/vote uh to download an application or you can pick one up at our district office or Albany public library branches or you could call us at 518-4756015 if you want to pick up an early voting ballot in person at Academy Park. Uh, complete applications must be received at Academy Park by May 19th at 4 p.m. May 13th is the deadline um for requesting an early vote ballot to be mailed

204just so that we have time for the the mail system. We will continue to mail absentee ballots to people throughout Alb County Board of Elections designated as having a permanent disability or in the military as well. All absentee ballots and early mo early voting ballots must be received by May 20th by 5:00 pm. Again, if you have any questions about early voting, please look at our website at almanschools.org/vote or call 518-4756015. Uh Mr. Leco is very busy uh getting a lot of presentations ready for us as a district. Um, our virtual community presentations are coming up Tuesday, April 29th at 5:30. We have Monday, May 12th at 5:30. Then we have a virtual uh Q&A session with the superintendent. Uh, Friday, May 9th at 9:00 a.m. Wednesday, May 14th at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 17th

205at 10 a.m. Monday, May 19th at 9:00 a.m. Uh, also just remember to vote Tuesday, May 20th. Again, the polls are open from 7 am to 900 pm. Uh for more information, look uh go to achools.orgvote. Any questions? Thank you, Mr. Garris. Mr. Almani. No questions. I just wanted to acknowledge the balancing act that this is of finding the right ingredients so to speak of you know we have x amount of retirements and can we apply this this way and it it just there's so much that goes into it and um with $342 million Um there's just a tremendous amount of balancing and that's why it's called balancing the budget. And I just want to give you the shout out and all of the other staff members in um the finance office, the business and

206finance office. Um, and I also want to just reiterate that this board, I mean, prior to me coming on to it, has been very um, conscientious about raising taxes because we all pay them. We are all property owners and we live in this community as well. And um I think it's very reasonable that um we ask for.9% increase considering all the other increases that are happening around the world. And um and this is really to better our community. So um thank you. It looks good and I look forward to seeing it pass. Miss. Yes. Thank you. And I agree with uh Mr. Elm Yawi. Um, but I also wanted to expressly thank you for uh helping me out because I wasn't reading very well last meeting uh about the budget and you've clarified virtual I

207saw it virtual meetings you know so forth. So I I I'm joking but seriously though I am thanking you for making that um so uh explicit so that you know people like me who are glancing through uh can see that very clearly. So, thank you and I'm uh looking forward to to joining uh and participating in the community discussions uh as needed and and wherever I can be available. So, thank you all for this work. Miss Matt, thank you. Many moving parts, but um it's come together quite nicely. So, um so thank you and I I support um the budget. Um, I'll piggyback on to what my colleague Mr. Alman als Why am I I've worked with you for years. Okay. So, um, yes, I am. I'm a little I'm a little tongue tied, but

208um, I want to piggyback on uh, his comments. Um, and uh, uh, and I will be participating in some of the budget presentations. So, thank you, Avage. So, thank you for your excellent work in preparing the budget. As always, it's a um an interesting experience. Albany is one of the least predictable places you can be when you're a school business official because you never know what is the enrollment going to be next year. Who knows, surprise, there's a charter school opening, there's a charter school closing, there's 300 more L's, there's 300 less L's. So um it is um an act of faith in the future and um faith that we have done the very best possible job we can and to predict what is going to happen this year in particular since we don't know

209with perfect confidence what our predicted state aid is. There's even more faith um involved but I think it's a very reasonable balance. Um I always like to talk about as Mr. Joe Mawi did the impact of property taxes not only on individual property owners but on our city as a whole. It is extremely unusual for cities to have higher property taxes than the surrounding suburbs. That is not normal. That is unique to Albany. That is not how it is if you live in Rochester. That is not how it is if you live in Buffalo. And it hurts us as a city that the property taxes are higher in the city than they are in the surrounding suburbs. And I'm very proud of the work that this board has done over the last 10 years to

210maintain our very very modest rate of property tax increases. And that has only been possible because the state has fulfilled the promise of foundation aid. In other words, given us the $30 million a year every single year that that we were not getting a few years ago. And that has made it possible for us to continue to deliver a high quality of service to our students um despite the fact that we've increased our budget only roughly 1% or a little less each year. And it is going to be I suspect a very different next couple of years for not just Albany but for every high needs district because strange things are happening in our economy and particularly in New York State where the whole state economy is deeply tied to the financial sector. when the

211state budget is in a weird place, then it is a weird place to be for um a high needs school district in the state. And I remind everyone that because of our contractual obligations to our amazing, fantastic, fabulous staff, our budget goes up 3 to 5% a year, every single year, even if even if there's no inflation, just contractual increases. So, the fact that we've held our property tax increases to less than 1% is purely because we've been able to fill that gap with additional state aid. Um, it could be that our enrollment continues to decline as we expect and that will give us some give. But if that doesn't happen, things are going to get difficult. Um, and so I just, you know, I would like it to be as easy for the next

21210 years as it's been for the last. Um, but I'm not sure that's going to be the case. Um, I had two minor um, administrative things. I wanted to let you know that this version is not the version that's on board docs. And so I ask you to make sure that this version replaces it because the one that's on board docks only goes to 2425 on the property tax grid, the property tax um, bar chart. So um, if you could just update that sometime um, before too much time passes so that people who just look at the slides and not the presentation um, or the video see that. And also I believe and I think you were just asking about this that you do not need to have your petitions notorized. Am I correct Miss

213Timmons? Right. The petitions don't need to be notorized only the financial disclosure. Right. So can you just correct that in the slide because I don't want anybody to um to have that information be incorrect. It won't matter for presentations after April 30th which is coming up right quick but it should still be accurate. Um, and so that will be wrong in the video, but maybe you could correct it on the slides before you update them. And that is it for me and thank you again for for all your hard work, both you and your cabinet colleagues. I know that this is a group effort. Oh, it's very much a group effort and it goes from the board to the superintendent to the cabinet to administrators and everybody has this uh the need to provide for

214our students and our community at the same time. So that's where I'm the balance of my part is where making sure that our community can afford it and we provide the best possible for our students. Miss Wson, um no um edits or revisions or things of that nature. I'm just reflecting on since I joined the board. More budget processes have been more contentious than this. So this is relatively smooth. I know it still has to pass of course and I am thoughtful about what board member Savage was mentioning um as we move towards the future. I know there was injections along the way for example ARPA money that helped us sustain throughout but it could have been different and now we are in a different climate. So I'm just curious but for now this has

215been very smooth and thank you everything my colleagues have said uh thank you thank you for uh a good presentation trying to get a decent budget that is you know easy to understand as well as um reasonable to expect in this climate. um you know it's not a huge burden for the community and the um services that are provided through that budget um are are self-evident. Um the students as we saw today I mean everything we do is for them ultimately and and when they're rising to the occasion and they're they're you know they're should they're doing what they what we thought they would do and more and representing us nationally. Um so that's you know we've come a long way. Um and in terms of the presentations you know back in the day when

216I started it used to be two presentations in the community. Uh it used to be in one location people show up don't show up and then it was like hopefully people will show for the budget w uh so I'm glad that we are taking it out uh having uh more opportunities for people to see it at different times weekdays weekends. Um, so there is no excuse for people not to know what they're voting about, uh, get their questions answered. Um, so I'm glad that we've come a long way in that respect as well with community engagement and then trying to make it more transparent, right? So thank you. Um, now it's a matter of burning the incense and praying to the gods and see what happens by next week when the states state gods decide

217where, you know, we might be able to get some money. So, thank you. Moving on to board committee reports. Yes, ma'am. Uh the audit committee met this past Monday. Um and uh it was a very positive meeting and um there will be our uh internal claim auditor will be presenting at our next um board meeting. So thank you Miss Savage. Uh I'm pleased to announce that we have completed our school visits for the year. Go team. Um so that is great news. Um, every single school, elementary, middle, and high, has received a school visit. I know from speaking with each of you that people really enjoyed the opportunity to get to know principal a little better and to get the opportunity to see a school and see some um, children using the resources that we

218provide and some of the great things that and creative project-based learning that is happening in our schools. It's um, it's always a wonderful thing to to be there. It's well beinging with you guys is fun. Being with the kids is definitely way better. Um so thank you all for your commitment to that. I know it's a lot. Um we are all living busy lives and working and taking care of children and so to make to carve out that time um is hard but I think really important. So that's good news. Government relations, you know, I've been government relating but I can't get a budget passed no matter what. I spoke with an assembly friend yesterday and I will just say she said the assembly staff is feeling fairly demoralized right now. Like they're just really

219deeply frustrated by the lack of motion on the budget and on many many other activities. Um and uh in any case, our next government relations meeting will be June 4th. Do not forget that if you have an idea for a New York State School Boards Association resolution to set the legislative priorities for the New York State School Boards Association, uh it would be great if we could get that prior to the uh government relations meeting and then we will go from there. Okay, Miss Smith. Sure. Uh let me start with the U board ad hoc routine consent committee. Um we uh are meeting on Monday the 28th. Um and we still have a bit of work to do um in terms of um the um well I think we're now have we moved on now

220I think to field trips. Yes. So the basically the the process for the uh you know the um um small grants and things activities. I think we moved along pretty well there and now we're on to the um field trips. So um you know what we we may still be at this for a little teeny bit. Um so but um appreciate Mr. Caris and and his team and uh also Ellen and an and I think what we're doing is making this process um better um for everyone. Um you know I think our first intent was to make sure it was good for the board so that we had clarity but I think uh ultimately we are addressing um staff um the processes and uh issues there for staff. So thank you all for that. Um

221the other uh committee that I wanted to uh bring your attention to is the facilities committee. Um and uh let's see a couple of things there. Uh our next meeting is on May 13th 5:45 here and um we are of course uh focused on uh all the things that are going on now to finish up the uh high school. Um and some things look really really good there. And uh uh I wanted to uh give a little shout out for Mr. Elmanoi who is who uh was able to travel to Massachusetts to take a peek at the um craftsmanship of the stained glass windows re renovations. Um and uh you know I'm still waiting on those pictures but anyway um no no I'm kidding you but uh but he is was able to get there

222and and perhaps uh there was a committee member or two that went with you. Is that right? Okay very good. you can say more a second. Um, and so the the committee is also uh while we're sort of uh working with staff and keeping an eye on the uh completion of the high school uh we are also uh looking to the future. So I think as uh you see on our budget we are looking to address some immediate concerns HVAC systems and so forth at three of our schools. again, no budget uh terry impact and no tax impact uh with those uh initiatives. Um but we're also doing work to uh complete the process of uh acquiring um a contractor to help us with our uh upcoming building condition survey, which is all towards the

223development of the five-year plan, the next five-year plan. So, a lot of that work will begin to um take place over the course of 2025 here and um and so uh that's what we're working on. So, May 13th there. Um the other uh committee has to do with our um committee ad hoc committee on student board representation. I think um it's such a long name and I get that mess up all the time. But um uh I did want to acknowledge that uh at least I think three of us or so were part of uh or participated in the webinar that NISBA, the New York State School Boards Association conducted on um Wednesday. Yesterday Oh, yesterday. Okay. Yes, it was yesterday. Um yeah, that was Wednesday. Um, and I wanted to say that was a

224fabulous um, webinar. And what made it so fabulous is that they were focused on uh, it was entitled welcoming and supporting student leadership on your board. And uh, I'm waiting now or we're waiting now to get the recording. We will share that out with uh, the board members as well as members of the policy committee and and the superintendent. Um, there are lots of materials there as well. And I think um my suggestion is that those materials be reviewed by particularly the policy committee before their next meeting which I think is the 14th I believe. But I we will in the meantime I think the week before I'm going to touch base with um Miss Wilson and Mr. Almanawi so that we can send you uh kind of a synopsis of where we are. Uh,

225but I I think that where we are is is not going to prevent the policy committee from starting its discussions because I know that time is is getting it's not really getting away, but it's it's it moves fast now this time of year. And we'll have a number of things on the upcoming meeting agendas, but we don't want this one to get left out. But I I wanted to just um say that it was absolutely fabulous in particular to hear yesterday from uh student uh from Unionale um free school district and also from um Orchard Park um uh city school district. And uh they were just fabulous. They their uh representation of students on the board has been in place uh well before now. Um I they describe those processes as not necessarily being easy

226and I think they've tweaked them uh since they got started but those I mean it just reminds you of how uh exceptional brilliant our children are, our students are. um they were totally in um to the work that they were doing to represent their student bodies um on on issues that are I mean these are pretty big macro level issues that they take the time out of their uh busy school schedule uh to make sure that their their peers know what's going on and that they also have uh an opportunity to permit uh submit feedback on those policies that the boards are are making. And a couple of points and there may be others who have something uh that they want to add about this but one um a couple of things that were very

227important too. Uh one is that there is a national student schoolboard association and so that was good because I'm not I I think I'm not sure if I really concretely knew that but it was good to uh to have that acknowledged and one of the young uh students also is on on that national board. Um and uh so anyway, those were just great. And if and if board members did nothing but listen to what those two students had to say, you're going to walk away with ah I see the policy. Um now I think also I I wanted to just remind uh or say one thing about uh one of the comments that both the student made and one and his superintendent and that was that the the students see their um role as being

228significant and very important as do we. But they made a point of saying it's not seven members on the board or seven plus one it is eight. And so that really uh I think was a powerful statement made by the students. They may not vote of course they're not able to vote um but they are participating in all the ways that you and I are um they're able to participate in all the um you know public policy and facilities and other um committee meetings. Um you know they just have a few things that they can't do and frankly I don't I mean that's not necessarily the important work. um the important work is is really um their participation in in the decisions we make and gathering the feedback from their peers. Um and I think

229that's going to be very meaningful and and more powerful than than it ever was. Um uh we have had student representation as we've said before on the board but this is a little bit different framed differently and certainly um encourages the um the voice of all students to be reflected not just what a single student you know thinks about something. Um and so we have we have some things that will come to you all uh with uh some suggestions on terms of the actual policy. Um, but this was a great presentation and uh can't wait for you all to um to get your hands on it and um and take a good listen. So, thank you um Miss Bam. You know, Vicki, um board member Smith, um I just want to um thank you for

230your leadership um in uh getting that uh off the ground involvement. So, thank you. Nope, no problem. We enjoy it. And I will say just so that you have it for the record uh once I you know when I complete my term I am happy to be a part of that process as a mentor or some support um you know just because I think uh I mean not that you all won't make time to do that but um but I but I won't be sort of you know so so intimately involved um and can maybe help with some mentorship um but it's this is this is a tremendous um and a part of a part of our de I like this because it's a part of where we where we've been but also where we've

231go going and to have these equity teams student government teams student voice all that having developed over the last couple years it is tremendous uh opportunity for students to really have an impact in the decisions that uh we make uh for them and on their behalf. So thank you all and thank you Miss Wilson and Mr. Almani. Mr. Salman, do you want to add in something about the stained glass? Um, we had a really nice time going to Great Barington, Massachusetts. They the studio was kind of off the beaten path in like a rail yard. And um it's just fascinating to see artisans at work like that. I mean, they took a they took apart every single piece of glass on the three windows. Well, let me let me back up. They like took like

232etchings of them. They like laid giant papers and like took etchings and like followed the lines of um soldering um or lead and took everything apart, took away all of the 100 plus year old solder, replaced it. It's just fascinating. But I'm super excited um to get them back. They are putting them back in the they're put they're putting them in new frames. Um the frames are all standard same shape whereas before they were kind of different. Um yeah, it's going to be fantastic. Thank you. And Miss Smith, yesterday uh those kids were amazing, those student board members. um the way they carried themselves. I mean this is a webinar that was open to anybody in the state and and the way they presented themselves was just amazing. So I can see um you know

233our student board members on in that role and and and the kind of civic engagement and um confidence that it'll boost in in these our students in in future government uh posal positions. Uh that'll be amazing. So it was it was a well uh crafted webinar and um yeah so looking forward to our process. So anything else for any other board business? If not, may I have a motion to adjourn? Miss Smith, Miss Wilson, all in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you everyone. Good night.