001e e e good evening good evening my name is sh chur I'm president of the city school district of Albany Board of Education on behal behalf of the board I welcome you to our meeting today we have member El manavi member Smith uh vice president tab Wilson secretary Ellen CI um and a member Savage just stepped out uh member Dan Damas man is not with us today he not under of the weather uh we have superintendent uh members of the cabinet also present with us this meeting is being live streamed and the instructions to view the meeting as well as the link to the agenda including all the documents we'll discuss are available at Alban schools.org Boe this is a good time for me to note that if you're here tonight to speak in public
002comment you should sign up at miss timens our boat clerk here to all right and with that introduction I invite those of you who choose to join us as we stand up for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the in addition to the Pledge of Allegiance we also 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 the robust educational program designed to provide the Knowledge and Skills necessary for success superent Haw Ridder do you have a report for us I do and we're going to uh begin it with Mr leco terrific thank you very much and good evening uh we are excited to begin tonight's
003District highlights with recognition of one of our high achieving Albany High School student athletes senior aera Gates recently scored the 10,000th point of her outstanding Varsity [Applause] career she has been a leader of the Falcons program since she was a nth grader and it was wonderful to see her achieve this rare Milestone AAR is just the sixth member of ALB High girls program to reach 1,000 career points it is my pleasure to introduce our coach Dey Lawson and our athletic director Kim pill to tell us more [Applause] [Music] good evening everyone uh first of all uh we' like to thank the board for recognizing um AER for her accomplishments um I'm so happy and proud to be here with all of her teammates with our coach and I see my principal back there so it's
004great to see uh everyone here with her support her her her de dad's back here as well um I've been coaching aera uh since she was in uh fifth grade um I recruited at recruited her at one of my basketball workouts for um one of my teams and seen her on the sideline and uh she's been with me ever since so um when she was a seventh grader uh she was moved up to the varsity team as a seventh grader um where she came in and um the the captain on our varsity team uh requested and asked for her to uh be in a starting lineup as a seventh grader um and we've been successful ever since and then as a ninth grader she took on a leadership role which she took it on very
005well um she's a great student in the classroom and a great role model and um I'm just so proud to be uh one of the coaches to help her U make it to the next level where she already committed to be a Sienna saint for next year [Applause] thank you uh to the Board of Education I'd like to um just say a few words about azer um as a former basketball coach myself uh I have uh I have a lot of a heart for the game and watching the entire team uh this season thus far um it's been fun they're a really fun group and as far as um AZ her leadership is is top-notch in my opinion she is a a quiet leader on the floor She Doesn't scream and yell but she is
006an incredible um presence in her style in her approach she makes everyone else better often times I'm on the side saying shoot it shoot it shoot the ball and she just gives the ball to her teammates whenever whenever she can um she is silk over steel um she's one of the toughest selfless uh most humble young young young people that I've ever um watched play um and I'm really really happy that I've gotten to know her on on another level as well so congratulations to [Applause] Ay um thank you to the board for having me here um thank you for everyone that came out here to support me and um I'm grateful for everything thank you [Applause] we'll take a few photos in just a minute but before we do I also wanted to note
007that coach Lawson will be going for his 200th career Victory when the Falcons visits connected tomorrow [Applause] night those previous 199 victories include three sectional championships and that's more than any coach in program history and with a victory tomorrow night coach Lawson will also will be just away from becoming the winningest coach in program history we look forward to celebrating that achievement at a future board meeting as well and now let's take some pictures you got it's not totally attach so you gotta hold I'll show you how you gotta hold is there room to take about a step back for everybody did you come in front that helped though thank you all right smile awesome thank you Mo this out of your way a little bit e [Music] the world needs more Heroes and the
008Albany special education parent advisory council is seeking to recognize them in our school Community cpac's hero award for special education recognizes and celebrates excellence in education by spotlighting a district employee who goes above and beyond to serve our students anyone from our school community may nominate a hero you can find more information and a link to the online on nomination form at Albany schools.org the nomination deadline is February 14th we are grateful to CPAC for this special effort to to salute the dedicated faculty and staff members of our special education department a reminder that it's almost time to roll up your sleeves for the second Albany High School Community blood drive of this school year the drive will be held next Friday January 31st in the library from 8:00 in the morning until 2:45 in
009the afternoon students employees and community members are invited to donate online registration in advance is required you can find registration links and more information in the Albany High section at ALB schools.org and it is now our pleasure to welcome principal Michael Pino and I think he has some very special guests to tell us more about the great things happening this school year at William S Hackett Middle School good evening everyone thank you again for allowing us to be here tonight uh most of you know I've been here a long time this is year 16 I I promised Dr Shure that I'd keep this under seven words tonight I think I lost I told him to go with the under um but having done this for for so many times and we always appreciate the opportunity
010to present to the board um thought we'd do something a little bit different uh maybe kind of raise the bar a little bit today uh and so I have a special uh gift for you today uh Miss house our assistant principal and Mr motry is here with me tonight uh as well as Miss Greenway and Miss Joy Howard who are in the back they are student Equity team uh advisers um and so rather than us talking and I know the time Li would be like 20 or 30 minutes I thought I would give you a special gift tonight and invite uh four young people who represent the student Equity hack or student hacket Equity the hacket middle school student Equity team to present the presentation tonight uh to the board of education on the happenings
011of what's going on at hacken Middle School these are four very talented young people um and as we continue to work to increase student voice throughout our district uh I thought because it's hackit we would do things a little bit different um and allow them to do the whole presentation so this is the most you're going to hear from me tonight I know some of you are going to be really disappointed um but it is my great honor my great pleasure right now to welcome our four student Equity members from hacket middle school [Applause] hi my name is Oliver shatoff I am a seventh grade student and I have been on the equity team for two years at hackit and one year at my elementary school now we'll start the presentation the our dist the
012district vision is the city school district of Albany will be a district of Excellence with caring relationships and engaging learning experiences that provide Equitable opportunities for all students to reach their potential our district mission is we will work in a partnership with our diverse Community to engage Learners in a robust education program designed to provide the Knowledge and Skills necessary for Success our district goals is to increase student achievement enhance the delivery of quality instruction build our leadership capacity and Empower families and partner with our diverse Community our school vision is we will celebrate the strength of our diverse diverse and Foster in a learning community based upon mutual respect and supportive relationships to achieve our our full potential As Leaders Learners and civiliz and citizens our school mission is to implement proactive schoolwide discipline
013plan to foster a pro positive learning environment and our school goals are to provide a safe and nurturing student environment for all students imp and Implement culturally responsive practices and to use all human resources and student support committees our school administration are are building principal Mr Pino our two assistant principales Miss house and Mr mtry our homeschool coordinators Mr Harris and Miss Walton our senior monitors Miss Lewis and our re ource officer officer reic we have 577 students at hacket Middle School 177 students are sixth graders 2011 students are seventh graders and 199 students are eighth graders we have 105 students who identify with disabilities 111 elll students 407 economically disadvantaged students 53 agan students 237 African-American students 176 Latino students and 105 white students hi my name is Gavin and I'm another seventh grader
014on the hacket middle school student Equity team I was on the equity team for two years now and I'm going to talk to you about some of our set focuses and academic successes so onto our step focuses our first commitment is that we are committ to fostering cognitive engagement and amplifying student voice all across the content areas that is responsive to students backgrounds needs and interests to accomplish this hacket is to committed to high impact teaching hacket has developed consistent building wide strategies that aim to boost cognitive engagement and amplify the student voice hacket has also committed to data informed decisionmaking hacka has developed consistent strategies that aim to provide teachers with the tools they need to organize timely and relevant information about student performance and use it to ensure optimal results for students our
015second commitment is that we are committed to strengthening our school climate and culture to respond to each individual student's needs interests and goals through the lens of the relational engagement so that every member of the student School community of the student School Community feels valued included and supported to meet this goal hacket has committed to continuous Improvement systems andru structures hacket has taken steps to ensure that all faculty staff and students understand schoolwide expectations in order to maintain a school environment that Foster academic success for all of our students our newly created on a roll ceremony is just one example of this commitment hacket has also committed to agency belonging and connectedness hacket has developed new initiative to support the transition of new students and their families to hacket Middle School our student focused advice
016advisory groups and summer parent orientation are just a few new programs to support this commitment and finally relationship and Trust hacket has taken steps to further improve the culture and climate of our school new staff orientation monthly faculty Services um and professional development sessions are just a few examples of this commitment and now to talk about our academic successes for the ELA New York state test scores from 2023 to 2024 they were 2% more proficient than the years before in 2023 we had 37% of proficient students and in 2024 39% and we had a boost by 11% in 8th grade for the 2023 to 2024 New York state test scores for ELA for the math test scores from 2023 to 2024 we were 5% more proficient with 2023 being 33% and 2024 being 38 and
017we had an improvement with seventh grade by 5% and eighth grade by 12% thank you and now on to Zora hi my name is Zer hi my name is Zora Miller I'm in seventh grade I've been on the hacket equity team for two years and I spent one year on the district leadership Equity team I'll start with you with talking about disproportionality for student discipline referrals last year we had 1,585 total referrals but this year we had more than 800 less than 2023 for student suspension we've had more than 300 less and for classroom discipline incidents we've had around a 100 less but we're on track to have dramatically less referrals suspensions and incidents than last year the reduction of these counts are a result of the implementation of the cell phone policy and the
018monthly ruler lessons on early release days which teach us about PBIS expectations and social em tional skills in terms of attendance we've gone up and from last year and we've also gone up a lot from 2022 this is a result of increased parent conferences and individualized phone calls for the percentage of students that are chronically absent we stayed around the same from last year but we've gone down a lot from 2022 which is great periodic home visits with attendance officers and identification of tiered intervention helped with this hacket middle school has experienced several important successes over the past several years specifically we achieved NYS accountability status we have the student Equity team we were the only Middle School to be reinvites to the equity Summit which we'll talk more about later we changed the transition
019time between classes from 3 minutes to 2 minutes there's less divisions between aside and bside we have improved student displays to express the floor we have and we have fun fridays student commitment to their academics as evidenced by 283 hacket students participating in the first quarter honor roll ceremony 101 students received gold 100 students received silver and 82 students received bronze Mr Pino created a thing called on a roll which is like on a roll but a little different here's Amilia to explain more hi my name is Amilia a I'm in seventh grade and this is my second year on the hacket student Equity team on a rooll is for students who are close to making on a roll but just fell short by a couple points or have improved their behavior or attendance recently
020some other highlights from hackit are our honor rooll celebrations our ski club which takes students to Willard Mountain to ski every Friday our by annual musicals which this year are sixth the musical and Finding Emo Jr and our extended day program which has a variety of clubs for students to participate in another new edition this year is the Spirit Week celebrations the hacket social emotional Behavior committee has created fun fridays each Friday a different theme is celebrated is selected to celebrate to add a little fun usually relating to dressing up or clothing some examples are a hat Day hack a blue day or dress like a friend day some challenges we have faced this year are filling all the open teaching positions and some next steps we are taking to address this issue are early
021Recruitment and interviewing and modifications to the master schedule another challenge from this year is continuing the increase of Parental inv involvement some next steps we are taking to address this issue are early identification of students from feeder elementary schools the new family orientation and student advisory groups lastly we'll tell you a little bit more about the student Equity team we are the student Equity team at hacket Middle School also called the Guardians of change we fight for rights within our community representing different cultures racial identities gender Expressions sexualities social classes and religions we promote understanding and sympathy we understand the realities of what students face daily and strive to ensure that it does not detract from their Equitable School experience currently we have 25 members rening from 6th to 8th grade during the 2023 to
0222024 school year we were invited Ed to participate in a panel discussion at Sunni with Educators high schoolers college students and professors we were the only Middle School there while we were there we also had the chance to record a podcast some of our goals for this year are to we would want to create a so while we were at Sunni we had did a podcast and that inspired us to want to have a podcast room for hacket Middle School to create podcast and let the equity team and others to share their thoughts um we also try to decrease microaggression throughout the school community and we like to try to gain more student input thank you um any questions [Applause] [Music] that was amazing thank you so typically we don't have questions but and you
023guys this a fantastic uh job that you know I'm sure all of us want to talk to you you know I myself had two children who were Haw at Hawks and now they're you know they became Falcons and one's a sea wolf now it's amazing how in the district we Chang be morph into different entities uh and and they didn't have a student Equity team so what you guys are doing at ha is amazing so congratulations start on that side yeah um I also have a student uh not at hacket but at Ash uh two I have two kids okay one at Ash one at North Albany um the older one was on the equity team and it's amazing all of the connections that you make between yourselves and your fellow classmates and just keep
024doing what you're doing I watched and listened to each one of you and you're all amazing you really are and thank you uh to your principal for sub subbing you guys in because it really lightens the day so thank you so much so thank you it's so good to uh to have be present tonight and to hear your voices uh representing your school and your peers in particular um and I have been communicating with principal Pino uh I'll be visiting and we all do as board members visit your school we can do so pretty much at any time but we try not to be too intrusive but one of my upcoming visits will be to your school and uh I thought if if I could take a moment I wanted to share something with you
025about something I'll be asking you about um and and let me also say I have a very much an affinity and a love love for your being here I uh ever since I was like in kindergarten I was part of at that time we called it Student Government um and uh and I went all the way through high school and uh was representing my class primarily and had a ball um so I I'm very proud of the work that you all are doing but I wanted to let you know something um uh under uh currently uh the excuse me this past year the governor signed into law a requirement that all school districts uh would have to have a student representative on this governing body on this board now that student member will be called
026an ex officio member of the board which means they they get to give offer their opinion and share feedback Etc but they won't get to vote but believe me uh that student is going to be carrying a lot of weight in representing not only the students from his or her high school but also from the milit middle and elementary schools and so um we are working on that process right now which has to be uh completed by the end of the school year I think we're on our way to making that happen beforehand but before that happens um I in my visit to your school and all the other schools along with Miss Wilson and Mr alwi who make up the committee doing this research is that we want to get your thoughts and opinions
027on how a student who's situated at the high school can can best communicate with you and your school about things that uh you want to say about the decisions that this school board makes um for you so in other words you might have you have a whole host of things that you uh get together uh at your school to talk about and um you know and discuss well this is a little bit bigger uh not not as you know it's as important but this is a little bit bigger when we have policies uh I I shouldn't throw this one out but you'll see something coming out around like cell phones um and you may have a lot to say about that and so you have a number of ways in which you're participating but your
028student rep May uh get in on sitting on the policy uh committee that we have as a board will get feedback from your school and all the other schools and so that's going to be kind of tricky how does this student what's the best way for that student to communicate with each of the equity teams and your student groups uh your your peers around decisions that we make on your behalf and your input is very important yes we're adults and we think we do know best and I think by and large we do well by you however um we won't know that without getting your input so again I want to thank you for uh the work that you're doing around the equity teams I'm I can't wait to have a moment or two to
029to sit with you at your school buildings as as true with my peers here on the board so again thank you and I look forward to communicating with with you let me also say before I even get to your visit which could be next week it could be the week after um you are more than welcome to send us an email and Mr Pino knows how you can knows the email for how you can communicate with us and eventually by the end of the year you'll also have a student rep to communicate with but I definitely want to hear your opinions on this student um and the qualities that the student should have and how they should be communicating with you as they sit on the board to represent your voice so thank thank you
030very much thank you all for your presentation and I wanted to say thank you for your service and stepping up in your community and you know as Vicki indicated um taking up the mantle for your fellow students and you know giving us this presentation we thank you so much it was mentioned that you would raise the bar and I feel that that has been accomplished you are a tough act to follow thank you so much my favorite part of the presentation was to set focus and highlight in particular the agency belonging and connectedness and much of your presentation is em blazing in my mind because you such engaging presenters thank you thank you so much for coming tonight um as some of you may know I am the parent of a former hacket Hawk and
031I always enjoyed being in that building you guys are lucky to go to one of the most beautiful school buildings we have here in this city and I'm so glad that the school has an equity team and glad that you guys are taking that role so seriously the work you do is important and that's work that will be important as you move on to high school to college uh to work communities to other types of communities because there will always be equity and diversity issues to address microaggressions to point out and that always that quest to make sure everyone has uh input an agency um into the organizations that affect our lives so thanks so much you guys did a great job and we appreciate you taking the time to be here tonight so thank
032you guys all for being here we really enjoy seeing students and we used to go every board meeting used to be at a different school so we would be in the schools for our board meetings and we haven't done that as much during Co since covid because it was very complicated to move this whole setup around um but we kind of missed that getting to see you in your own home space rather than you having to come to our space so I hope that my colleagues will um let me take a little extra step here and ask to each of you to just say one thing that you like about hackit that use your own words not words that somebody asked you to say or that Mr Pina put on the slide but that something
033you remember that you like doesn't have to be your favorite thing just one good thing about this last year and that'll be um the LA the closing words for the hacka presentation are you guys willing to do that is that okay all right who wants to go first I'll go first um I think one of my favorite things about hacket is how um we I like the teen nights that we do we have teen nights and I feel like like especially when I was in sixth grade when we had the teen night I feel like it didn't matter what grade we were in I feel like we all just kind of came together as hacket and I think that's one of the My Favorite Things yeah one my favorite things about hacket is like how
034creative and the diversity of the school and how like we're not like every other Middle School we don't follow every other Middle School's rules like kind of what he mentioned like we have our own teenut we have so many different things that like make us hacket um one thing I really like about hacket is the musicals specifically they had six and we all got to see it everyone and hacket the all of the grades where they performed it in the auditorium so we all got to see it and learn a little bit more about like Henry and his wives and that was interesting and fun um I also really enjoy the music program at hacket I'm in both the choir and the orchestra and it's really great that we have an opportunity to make music
035without having to pay for expensive instruments you know a few board meetings ago there was one one of the one of the people on this team who wrote an opinion in the dimes Union fighting for equity for Rudolph uh Zoya Miller and so I can see how this Equity team is grown and so looking forward to more wonderful things that you'll be doing so thank you e e e and that concludes tonight's District highlights such a dynamic transition Mr Alco thank you I have a number of updates for the board and community and as we heard from our student uh Representatives we like to share our vision mission and goals um a number of updates we'll start with cell phone Task Force and we heard a little bit about the impact of uh some of
036the work hackit has been doing around restricting use of cell phones so is the community and certainly board knows um last uh late last spring and into the summer we formed a ad hoc committee to study uh cell phone use policies uh we had a number of districts throughout the state um study this this issue and uh adopt policies to limit or restrict cell phone use um either in particular schools or throughout their district and so while our committee was working um the governor sort of uh beat everyone to the punch and part of her budget presentation uh last week uh included guidance around cell phone use and her expect a of cell phone use uh moving forward next September in the 2526 school year so currently uh our policy requires cell phones to be
037off and Away during the day uh we have heard from uh our faculty and staff that that is uh difficult to enforce uh and so the task force has recommended that the district restricts cell phone during the day in all buildings that means Bell tobell uh including lunch study halls between classes in classes and of course there would be some uh exceptions and there outlined here these are some exceptions that we learned uh were important to consider from some of our other colleagues that were implementing such restrictions so uh we have some work to do now that the governor has has announced her expectation um our cell phone Task Force will now uh work through some of these bullets in terms of a mechanism to store and hold the phones during the day uh how
038we conform to State policy so we'll uh be reviewing the um New York State school board's model policy uh to make a recommendation to our school board uh to determine what else should be part of the Restriction U you know perhaps it's not just uh cell phones but we have cell phones now on our wrists and other places on our body and headsets and um uh ear devices so uh our committee will study that as well uh as well as what we've heard through our survey around immedia access parents uh needing to communicate with their child or children during the school day to communicate an emergency um that was a a clear indication or consideration that parents wanted us to uh to think about uh as well as text messages and and sometimes we are
039our own um culprit but uh we're we're a school district that believes in in instantaneous and uh frequent communication and one of those methods is by cell phone and so we have a number of our staff that uh use text messaging devices to communicate with students whether practices is canceled or moved or rehearsal is later or earlier uh so we'll have to uh have a a mechanism to be able to communicate with students in a more immediate way of course uh budget implications uh there are um Yonder pouches that I'm sure you've heard about it so how can we do this in a costeffective way or will this uh be seen as yet another UNF unfunded mandate uh and as we said earlier uh search and removal of devices so you know what do we
040do when student has a device and uh could uh potentially become uh confrontational or involve other folks whether it's students or their families so the next steps is uh we're going to uh speak to some uh districts that share uh our demographics uh regionally across the river at Troy and about an hour and a half south of Newberg and up the river in water valite um on their policies and and some of the restrictions that they have in place uh GIF and Elementary School and our uh Alternative Program at Tony Clement uh has enforced some restrictions over the last number of years so there's certainly some lessons to be learned there uh we need to look at language around expectations as I mentioned earlier some consequences for not following the policy uh and to do
041that uh we're going to have another round of of Q&A perhaps another survey and certainly some uh Community forums those were scheduled in the late fall and we hit pause on those when we heard uh that the governor was contemplating a state wide band we didn't want to get too far out in front and uh start to make decisions or recommendations around policy and have our committee go too far down the road uh just to be greeted with a a Statewide decision which is exactly um where we are so we'll continue to update the board and and our community Through uh these sort of conversations but certainly we'll push out information by school and by District as well and the task force is looking at their calendars to meet next another exciting update uh over
042the last number of months we've we've talked about some uh Regional Business Development and the role of the school district uh M play moving forward and uh earlier this week I met with representatives from the Capital District Regional Planning Commission this is a uh a non-for-profit group that works with uh Economic Development and planning uh organizations um really as a DOT connector they collect data they try to identify business needs they work with school districts they work with colleges and universities to talk about what uh potential Workforce Development looks like uh and we talked about a program in our high school around urban planning and Forestry planning they already have a a very nice uh relationship with University of Albany and we have been building continuing to build and expand our relationship with University of
043Albany in fact I think we're meeting with uh members of their uh Administration and admissions team uh before we break uh in the first two weeks of February and this this is on the agenda as well so we had conversations around elective courses or potential of developing elective courses in uh urban planning and other similar areas uh perhaps partnering with the University of Albany for dual credit opportunities in the High School uh and the Capital District region Planning Commission uh shared information on summer projects summer uh programs that they have and and internship opportunities and I'd be remiss if I didn't say that the time is right because um between the governor and other uh Statewide agencies there's approximately going to be about A1 billion doll investment in Albany a $400 million uh investment in
044downtown uh revitalization and and uh downtown Redevelopment and just north of uh $500 million investment from Global Foundry so uh we are poised uh to see some uh expansion uh in our uh economy here in Albany and certainly the school district can and will play a major role uh in backwards mapping some of the skills that uh these employers are going to need and try to uh make sure we develop a a Workforce and different pipelines for our students um to benefit from that Economic Development we're excited about that continuing with higher education tomorrow we'll meet with the new Russell Sage uh College president Dr Matthew shaftel he was uh inaugurated in the late fall and I was able to meet with him and and talk to to some of his team and we're going
045to continue our conversations and hopefully uh expand our Pathways and relationship with them uh with regards to healthcare and and nursing program so uh after our meeting we're going to invite uh the president and his team to the high school to tour our uh healthc care uh program nursing facilities and and meet with our staff to see where we can uh build that partnership um in a little more robust fashion speaking of STEM related activities we wanted to um clear the water so to speak no pun intended with uh a Times Union article that came out after the holidays uh that that suggested that the school district was not complying with State uh and Department of Health uh compliance laws around testing for lead um the district tested in the 20221 school year were slated
046again to test this spring we've identified a third-party um company that will perform those tests and them um privately off campus and advise us of the results and we'll follow all of the laws and guidelines to post those results to identify uh faucets or equipment that uh are faulty or or don't pass the test and we'll certainly communicate that with everyone uh on our website and and Direct Communications uh to our families and so if you're interested in in the results from five years ago you can go to our website we posted those results um on our website uh La earlier in the month we're going to turn it over to our Human Resources Director to talk a little bit about a recent job fair and some of the results uh from uh the folks
047that uh we met with thank you yes so we are we're trying a new way of recruiting people we've decided to do a once- monthly mini job fair right here in Harriet Gibbons which is fairly easy for folks to get to um it is mainly to Target um substitute teaching assistant and other Subs as well as some of our clerical positions and support staff positions um by doing it once a month we can basically call through all of the applications that are coming in on a monthly basis and then just invite them to come in and be interviewed right on the spot um we had a lot of help uh deciding to do this and and hosting the first one in uh early this month with um from Christina Li in special education um and
048she did all of the interviewing that day because most of the candidates were for um substitute teaching assistant um sped teaching assistants so um from that we ended up getting six new candidates we already onboarded five of them um so it's a small number it was a small job fair but if we keep doing this on a monthly basis and we're getting five or six people each time um it's just going to add to the number of people that we're getting in the door that's it and as we wrap up just a reminder of our prek and magnet Lottery uh process that applications are available uh for the magnet Lottery uh for Elementary kindergarten through grade five seats at Ash dual language monor and toast the prek lottery in all 12 of our elementary schools
049and a number of community- based locations the applications are due in mid-march uh and the lotteries are scheduled in mid April and we have uh a lot of information on our website um and please uh reference our website if you have any questions and lastly uh this this is an interesting time of year we are wrapping up our midyear Regents exam Administration so uh on Friday at the high school so that's tomorrow there will be Regents exams uh no regular classes students are just attending by exam only next Wednesday our district will recognize Lunar New Year and all of our schools and offices will be closed the following week on Friday uh Thursday and F Friday the 6th and 7th of February is midyear winter teacher conferences again the sixth are early evening conferences and
050the 7th uh are in the afternoon with staff development opportunities taking place in that morning and then Monday the 17th to the 21st is President's Day in Winter recess uh our schools and offices will be closed uh on the 17th our schools will remain closed all week and some of our district offices will be open Tuesday through Friday and that concludes my report for tonight thank you superintendent as is our usual practice I ask you to prioritize your question and ask your most important question first we'll start with one question for each board member and so that every member has an opportunity to be heard and if you have additional questions and there's time remaining we can do a second round start on that side with Mr [Music] alavi so thank you for the update
051uh I was curious um and I may have missed it but you're meeting with uh Capital District Regional planning uh did that end up producing a program for next year is that what or are we like planning on something yeah it it was uh an introduction to let them know what their what their role and function is in the region that they have uh summer uh programs for high school students and even internship opportunities and they asked uh whether or not we have uh specific courses that are gearing students up for those sort of um either a major in college or career fields and the short answer is we don't um but we really should uh a we should because we should and be with a million dollars coming into our community we have a
052we have a nice opportunity to work with them and their network uh to build um build interest in high school students and perhaps be a pipeline to Albany or any other number of programs uh universities with those programs thank you Smith yes thank you uh superintendent uh I really appreciate your report tonight and uh in particular I'm just very excited about the building the new stem Partnerships um I did have a a question uh about that I I know that the that currently the uh Health Care um pathway that we have in CTE does not include um uh let's see I'm going to say this word wrong training or certification in flot is that the right word right um but that may be something possible to build in um particularly for students who um you
053know I think you need uh to be 18 have your high school diploma and then you know go through a training course and so that seems to be a nice attractive piece to that Health Care um uh component so that you're you're you're you're have a little bit more behind you than the you know CNA caretaking piece um and so I I just want wanted to know if or encourage you to explore that if you're if you're not already um and to also point out that that does mean about you know um about 25 to $40,000 more per year I think depending on location and everything um so that's really quite significant for our students um particularly if they're trying to carry on you know two jobs at a time or what have you so
054anyway just just wanted to put that particular piece out there and I'll come back have a second question I'll come back to thank you Savage I was also very excited to hear more about the stem Partnerships it's great to see those progressing um I did have a specific question around the water testing um I was I remember when the water testing was done and the results came back that we attended to all of the things um I would encourage us to in to improve the website right now which just lists sort of like here are the results and it says how many were above whatever whatever but it doesn't say um until you dig deeply into like looking at each one we attended to the things the vast majority of them were um non-potable sources
055like slop sinks in the custodial closet right which most of them we have put some signs up that said don't drink the water from this sink but some of them did say were actually places where students might be choosing to drink and the um the notes say that we will change the fixture has somebody gone back and made sure that all those those fixtures which were turned off at the time so they were non-operational no one is drinking water from them but has anyone gone back to make sure that they are not just sitting there dead and that they actually did get the get replaced so we did review the um spreadsheets of the nonp nonp potable water sources I don't have a clear yes or no if we Chang the faucets because this is
056prior to my time here and prior to uh our Ken Keir our director of building facilities so we ensured that the signs were still there until we do a further test and then once it's clear then we will make sure that it's not I mean the ones I'm concerned about are not the custodial sinks where we put signs but there were some water fountains that were turned off and I would like to know if we have replaced the water fountains so that there are water fountains where were meant to be water fountains um and did you answer that because if you did I didn't understand if you don't know that so I don't have a clear yes or no because we don't have any test results or a hey we bought this down we replace
057this down or um so we put the signs back up or turn the fountains back off to test it and then once we get the result we'll make sure that I I just don't want to have something that's I see so you're so anything that was identified as highl back when we did the testing where we know we turned the water off at the time rather than just turning back on you're waiting till we can do another round of tests um because you're not confident that the fixture was replaced yes got it I understand thank you oh and I just would encourage us to just put a little summary paragraph on the website that explains that because right now it just says these test results came back and you actually have to look into the
058spreadsheet to be like oh I see it was actually custodial sync and they put a sign up um but some kind of summary paragraph that they were attended to would be helpful M graie uh thanks for the presentation there's some good news there about potential Partnerships I'd be I'm really excited to hear about those um I just had a follow-up question about the cell cell phone plans I think the work that we did on our own task force is really helpful in establishing what we felt our needs and our goals should be as well as understand our own specific District needs um I was interested so I listened to the governor's presentation and reviewed her proposed legislation I did did want to emphasize something that they put in there that's important which is that uh
059all schools should have at least one method for parents to contact their students during the school day and that wasn't one that wasn't something that I saw at least on the presentation as something that will be addressed is that something that we're going to examine whether our current means to do that are are enough and if not what me what else we could do correct yeah um some of the uh I guess expectations from the governor were not just about how districts are going to submit a plan to reduce use but how there still will be communication Vehicles open when um the task force began its work without knowledge of the governor's intention it really was around policies to restrict use um at that time uh conversations that I know the group had in certainly
060from um the survey feedback was were a number of questions well what if we have an emergency and uh I think that was always going to be a secondary uh set of of answers to to deliberate upon after we handle the how do we restrict the use so I know that that is on there um on their agenda to discuss and we're also um curious to see what um sort of the fine print of her language will be as to what we can use would it be a texting app that would go to main offices or counselors or administrators or to teachers perhaps or a web- based application that would be on desktops and classrooms um there are a lot of uh lot of unknowns around that because that was to to be honest sort
061of a a surprise to us that that made it in thank you appreciate it Miss Wilson thank you for the presentation similar question as Ellen around the cell phone Task Force and two-way Communications for parents but you just mentioned that so I appreciate that you know everyone's thinking caps are on about alternative means if we don't use cell phones what would what what may they privat to that is distracting so it's just all good thoughts um and the last thing is about the human resources update I really appreciate especially from accessibility standpoint um shifting to on the spot interviews or anything like for example Harriet Gibbons being on a bus line and I was just curious if it's the current practice or something that we've considered that perhaps you're doing these interviews and you do
062select naturally one person per role do you pivot and offer or mention that there are other roles a person could work with absolutely yep we're and we do that not just during those on thepot interviews but also as applications come in um the new system that we've been using for over a year now allows us to move applications around so I can pick up an application from one job and put it in another one we recently did that actually with a teacher application the teacher applied to a different school was that school's number to which means that they were already vetted they were a great candidate and we sent that application to another school that was looking for a similar position and in the process of onboarding that teacher now for the other school so
063yes we're definitely doing that great to hear thank you so a lot of good news uh there's not much I have especially with you know things are still developing with the cell phone and stuff I know this gardner has put some money in in the budget for that we'll you know the devil's in the details when when those budgets actually get finalized we'll know what to do really thrilled about all the stem Partnerships that are coming along and um you know when you mention and you both two things that my mind one was when you talked about the money that's coming into the city there's also money and talks about how the haran campus should be redeveloped uh with Wadsworth and then trying to make part of it more accessible and integrated with the city
064and that's just right up the road on Washington Avenue from the high school so the urban planning uh programs would be great for our high school students uh and when Vicki talked about photomy and you're meeting with Russell Sage I haven't been to Russell Sage but uh Hudson Mal's uh Anatomy program they have a cool uh um desk which is basically a digit digitized body and you can you know do autopsies if you may digitally and look at all the things and so it's a pretty cool thing and so at some point I'm hoping that our nursing students would get an opportunity to go to Hudson Valley and integrate with with that team over there learn about anatomy and physiology on that desk I forget the name that it's called but it's really cool um
065any other questions um I just wanted to ask also on the human resources um monthly onboarding I think it's a great um Step do we have like structure Orient like around it is it the first Friday of the month or is it like is it still kind of loose right now yeah I'd say at this point it's still kind of loose we did the first one at the beginning of this month we have the next one planned for February 10th and then we're just going to have to see how you know schedules permit but the goal is definitely to host it once a month and if we can end up doing something like you suggested like the first Monday of the month or something like that um if can work that out yeah I would
066encourage um Administration to try to get advanced notice you know at least a month out you know so if you have two or three months that we know the dates right let's get on the calendar yep so it's still in its infancy but yes great suggestions thank you great um thank you I have a HR piece as well and um uh Miss CE I I wanted to uh I know that you will provide this over time but I I wanted to um just sort of uh Express the the need to have some demographics um you know we we had we have some um uh some um things that we as board you know like uh someone who is a resident of our city it it doesn't mean that they don't get to be you know
067that someone who isn't in our city doesn't get employment but we want to kind of know those things so that we we know that we're getting the attention of some of our residents um and likewise um you know I think while uh we still have also an equity policy and so we want to make sure that we get as diverse a Workforce as possible and so just uh just a reminder and encouragement to to give us uh those uh demographics over time I I don't know that it makes sense when you have like sort of you know one event you know then takes a while for another one but you know when you usually do sort of an annual update if we if we could get to know that um I also just wanted to
068make a note um um because it seems really important um to say this um I was just making note again we we issued a a board and also the superintendent you know a statement to uh reaffirm our commitment to our diverse community and uh uh already we can see where the number of the communities that we uh are concerned about are under attack our immigrant Refugee Families Our lgbtq plus and specifically trans Community um you know just a whole host of of um people and again this may you know maybe some of these executive orders from the federal government maybe they won't happen but in the meantime it feels very stressful uh and exhausting to the public um and uh we just want to make I personally want to make sure that our community as
069they are looking for jobs as they're looking for services um as they're looking for support that they know they can count on the school district uh to not uh take any back steps um that prevent us from following through on the values um and the um principles that we are trying to to live by so again that isn't specifically to you Miss Kate with HR was just an opportunity for me to make a point but uh do appreciate the work that you all are doing and the initiative to uh attempt to reach out to more and more people in different ways and methods so thank you um I just wanted to also I think several people already have acknowledged the pre-work that you did on the cell phone Task Force and the Strategic decision to
070pause while we waited for the governor that's a very efficient use of all of our staff time to not be um hamsters on a wheel while we wait for the governor so I really appreciate that thoughtfulness and I am glad that we're at least a few steps ahead and have started thinking hard about some of the um the communications challenges because it is going to be a radical change um particularly for students at the high school and the coaches and the teachers and the guidance counselors and the parents who are very used to being able to have immediate access to students so it's definitely going to change things um regarding HR are wonderful to have these on the spot interviews I would like to I'd like you to start thinking about the potential of doing
071it in school buildings um over time because a lot of our folks don't drive um and they will only really want to sub in a school that they can easily walk to um and they will probably only interview at the school that's in their neighborhood because that's the one that they choose so um I know that's going to be a little bit in conflict with um my board colleagues excellent suggestion that we have like a repeat know it's going to be there on the first Friday every Friday at the same place place because it is a little harder when they move around which is what we experienced when we used to move the board meeting around that's the second time I've made reference to that and I haven't thought about that in a long time
072every once in a while we'd have a board member go to the wrong school um and so you know members of the community also sometimes found us hard to find so there is a balance between those two things but I do think there are people who are only going to be interested in working in especially Subs in one school that's in their neighborhood so one of the things that I had a conversation with a couple of colleagues about today was using the message boards in front of the schools particularly Eagle Point that's actually who I was having the conversation with um they're hiring a teacher right now they're going to get it out on that board and I don't 10,000 people probably drive by that school on a daily basis and they're going slow so
073they can they can actually read the board um so if we were to if we were to move these to different school buildings we could make sure that if they've got those message boards that you know they're advertising job fair here today or you know tomorrow whenever um and we can work on getting a schedule out of those events SC no I don't have a second question thanks Miss wson Miss wson um going back to the message board I think another thing that we would we should also try and do is um connect with the local neighborhood association so they can be our pieces of uh and know sources of disseminating that information so people in that neighborhood would know this is happening at a local school any every every Avenue that we can tap
074into that choose it I like the idea so all good thank you superintendent Mr President may just um uh superintend I just wanted to also inquire uh you know we've this has been a a year of tremendous loss for some of our uh for our community in terms of students and uh staff and um I just was wondering uh and you can certainly do this any other way but I just just wondering how our students and faculty were doing um because it was uh just a sudden loss of several uh folks and uh so I just wanted to express um some some concern uh about um about folks and uh if we are still uh if if the services we provide are still uh in in place for our youngsters to and our teachers uh
075to um to get to yeah I know we were uh reminded even uh again today of the tragedies of um the students at Washington Park one of the the children had their services today and we had a district presence there um I can certainly talk uh to our crisis team of members we do have uh a number of of members who um aren't don't just serve on the crisis team but they are uh among the first deployed and so I think they would be a a nice group for me to connect with to sort of get a temperature of um how uh how staff but perhaps more importantly students have have been responding so I'll I'll inquire right this is the time we set aside to hear from members of the public the board always
076welcomes input from the community about the decisions we are making we set aside up to to 30 minutes of each meeting to hear from District residents parents students and other members of her community if there are more comments that can be then can be accommodated in 30 minutes which we don't anticipate today we may choose to extend the length of the public common period or alternately establish a second public common period later in the meeting we also accept uh comments virtually on the same basis as those in person and we accept comments in writing and by voicemail we welcome comments in English and in any other language we'll provide translation when necessary um and all that all our information uh is available for uh at at Alban schools.org Boe um we do have people signed
077up in person for inperson comment today um let me know if I mispronounce your name uh we try hard to get people's names right and we appreciate that we are corrected um so when I call out your name come up to the front and then uh so suzan 11 and Lori San and so when when I recognize you please state your name city of residents our statements are restricted to the maximum of 3 minutes and miss scy here our Bo secretary will give you one minute notice and a 10-second notice um and or and I'll notify you if your time is expired it's a good idea to look up occasionally uh to see those notices as they get flashed not surprise at the end of 3 minutes also please not that the board's policy is
078not to respond during public common parent if you do need a response please contact us by email phone or Postal mail and our contact information is again available at alanes schools.org and I or one of the members of the board will will respond back to you okay Susanna hi hello good evening my name is Susanna lven and I live in Pine Hills my kids attended um the schools in the city school district of Albany thank you for allowing us to speak I'm a founding member of the group amida Albany amidan means standing in Hebrew we chose this name to represent our need to stand up for the local Jewish Community to stand up for Israel and to fight anti-Semitism I would like to share with you data from the US justice department in 2023 44%
079of all hate crimes throughout the state of New York targeted Jews Jews were the target of 80% of religion-based hate crimes in New York 60% of all felony assault hate crimes in New York were committed against Jews to put this in perspective Jews are 7% of the state's population yet we are the targets of nearly half of all the hate crimes our local community has experienced eye-opening instances of anti-Semitism including a violent shooting at a synagogue and preschool pretty close to here a li lialis anti-semitic speakers at public libraries and the reason we're here tonight Jewish children in public schools having been bullied and harassed our group was formed by concerned members of the Jewish community in the wake of October 7 20 23 we are united by one common goal the need to stand
080up for ourselves and the truth we realize the necessity of organizing ourselves and standing up in the face of rising hatred hatred toward Jews since October 7 we have seen misinformation about Jews and Israel being rapidly and systematically spread we here represent an organization with more than 200 members and the support of the larger Jewish Community as well as allies we organize educational events and have partnered with local official officials to seminate facts about how to combat Jew hatred we offer a class for local Jewish teens of interest to your terrific hacket Equity team um the kids tell us about microaggressions and frankly macroaggressions that they experience from Friends lost because we can't be friends with zionists to Jewish Boys in yamakas being physically assaulted by teenagers on the street to being told that Hitler
081was right and we should go back to the gas Chambers to constant social media harassment to being taught in your District's curriculum that the Jews killed Jesus an ancient blood liel that historically puts Jews in danger the stories are endless and extremely painful our our children's mental health and their physical safety are at risk unchecked anti-Semitism has been spreading like a global cancer our purpose here tonight is to draw attention to local instances of anti-Semitism in our schools and to provide resources for dealing with it directly we thank you for you know taking the time to listen to us tonight my own son graduated from Albany High a few years back he was a well well-liked AP student like so many proud Jews he went to Israel after his graduation to join our our our
082people and ancestral Homeland nearly all of his fellow graduates have ended their friendships with him having ingested a diet of social media propaganda time was up okay so um some other parents you could send that to us and we can take I'm just finishing I'm just going to introduce our next person so some parents are going to be can we Michelle Sanders to come up as the next speaker okay thank you very much M Lori sop sorry good evening my name is Lori sassone I the proud parent of two Albany High School children and an enl teacher in the district for 30 years I've prided myself in providing respectful and welcoming learning environment to all students regardless of the color of their skin the language they speak the country their origin or their religion as
083a religious minority I understand the struggles of having to take off for my holidays and having different dietary restrictions so when my students need help in those areas I'm happy to help them the day before winter vacation one of my students thanked me for bringing in marshmallows that he could eat for the hot chocolate bar when I asked him how he knew it was me he said missone it's always you it is part of my moral compass that only through such a warm and welcoming environment can students achieve their true potential as a parent and an educator I expect the same for my children and myself much has changed in our district over the past 30 years but one constant has been the strive for Equity to me Equity is making our learning and working
084environment accessible to all but somehow Jews have been lost in the sea of equity how can a Jewish student feel safe in a school where they are being told to go back to the gas chamber that Hitler had it right Hitler is your grandfather Hitler should have killed all the Jews the same school that teaches in their sixth grade social studies class that the Jews killed Jesus comments like f Israel and F the Jews are common place in my daughter's French class my children have left their class social media Pages associated with alony high school because of the anti-semitic and anti-israel rhetoric posted there as great grandchildren of a holocaust Survivor and Israeli citizens these attacks are deeply personal to my children and have created an unwelcoming learning environment for them if you wonder why
085anti-Semitism is Alive and Well in our schools it's because we do not stop it buzzword such as freedom of speech Progressive discipline they're just joking and don't really mean it are justification for allowing anti-Semitism to continue so where does that leave us I can tell you it leaves us in a place where students feel emboldened to chase teachers down the hallway and harass them because they are Jewish or yelling genocide and baby killer out in the middle of class or telling Jewish teachers that they should not be teaching Muslim students simply because they are Jewish it leaves us in a place where my daughter no longer wants to attend Albany High School and is actively pursuing other options for next year if any other group was being targeted this way there would be no cries
086of freedom of speech or Progressive discipline could you imagine a student walking into a black teacher's class and calling them a monkey or the N word or a student walking into a Muslim teachers class and calling them a terrorist or bomber why are those things not acceptable but harassing Jewish students teachers is until we can name the problem we can't solve it the problem is anti-Semitism it is not freedom of speech we do not need Progressive discipline we need to change the way we educate our students so that we can have respectful discourse we need to stop blaming the victims of anti-Semitism and suggesting that they should hide the fact they are Jewish my children have every right to attend a school free of hatred and bigotry just as much as your children do and
087I have every right to work in a school where I'm not harassed because of my religion thank you if you want to I have the documentation from Meer showing that this is being done you can send it to the board by you it or or give it to do you want do you want it electronically as well can I have ephra Sherman come up to the mic as well Michelle okay I am um I'm actually speaking for a parent of a students at Al in the School my name is Michelle Sanders I am a proud AHS graduate from 1976 and so I have a lot in in stock at stake here as well um this is Rachel Pearlman from Albany I am Jewish and the parent of a junior at Albany High School and two
088eighth graders who will be attending Albany High School in the fall all my kids attended monor magnet school for most if not all of their Elementary School careers one started at toast my oldest child attended Myers for a few months but we moved him to private school because the school in the Albany City School District at large seemed either unwilling or incapable of dealing with the bullying and harassment including physical abuse he was the target of almost daily one of the many issues that the administration of the school chose to ignore that adversely affected his ability to learn was anti-Semitism while at Meyers it was not rare for my son to hear accolades offered to Hitler complaints that Hitler had not done a good enough job with this final solution and being met with derision
089when it was a discovered he was Jewish I know that at least one of these statements was made in front of a teacher but I do believe that if I know that this is going on certainly those in the building every day must be aware on my husband's side my son descends from family who are German and Austrian Holocaust Survivors including his great-grandfather who survived booken Wald telling my son that he belongs in an oven is particularly important as amm's parent I learned that reporting incidents to the school and District admin is not enough if one expects any response when something happens that is arguably in violation of the school's Zero Tolerance policy the onus is on the child who experienced the incident to report through a DSA Dasa complaint and if one is not
090filed the administration at the middle school would ignore the incident entirely Additionally the administration would actively discourage you from filing a Dasa complaint that is what they did with us I was naive and assumed that repeated letters to the administration and an escalation to the district and an inperson meeting with school and District admin would be enough it did not realize the goal was to seemingly to bury the issues I spoke to other parents about what my child was hearing and was told that this is the culture of Meyers nothing I told the administration was new but yet there was no attempt to change the culture I got the impression that the acsd largely viewed its Jewish students as a privileged Bunch that could fend for itself anti-semitism appears to be tolerated at Myers in
091a matter that I would doubt other types of discrimination would be tolerated once when my son was pushed down the stairs in front of witnesses I was informed that he could not be separated from the kid who perpetrated the incident because it could be viewed as discriminatory if the school were to side with him against the other individual who I understand to be a member of a protected class that the school is more concerned about when I asked for video of the incident which I was told exists and had been reviewed I was told it had disappeared ultimately I pulled my oldest from Myers and decided that I wanted my younger to nowhere near the Middle School the administration charged with managing the middle schools um because my children's safety and their Humanity was not
092a priority time up I thought I could get it through thank you can I also have um Jory stman come up to the mic ephra hello my name is E Sherman um I live on South allenon uh uh I'm flustered anyway I live on South Allen I live in the district I have a 10-year-old and a six-year-old we moved from Brooklyn four years ago and because of some of the things you've heard about we decided that was I mean my my young Sons were yamakas and Titus and they were going to be it was like putting a chunk of meat into a shark tank and I was not going to do that which is not to cast this you know judgment and anybody who does I want to I have a whole speech that I'm
093going to skip most through because I think you can't address what you can't Define so there's an actual definition for anti-Semitism um I want to just quickly read it um okay that uh the the international Holocaust remembrance Alliance uh definition which was accepted by the Department of State and US Department of State I should note not just accepted this week the Department of State prior to this week accepted this definition anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews rhetorical and physical manifestations are directed towards Jews or non-jews du Jewish individuals and or property towards Jewish Community institutions and religious facilities examples include calling for aiding or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion that's
094not too strange to believe more subtle though making Mand mendacious dehumanizing demonizing or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power exclusively or the myth of the Jewish World conspiracy or Jews controlling the media or economy government other societal institutions fires in the Los Angeles space lasers def uh denying the Jewish people uh their right to self-determination which every group of people on Earth has uh by claiming that the existence of a Jewish state in any borders under any circumstances is by definition a racist Endeavor that would be anti-Semitism applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other Democratic Nation accusing all the Jews as a people or Israel as a state inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel drawing
095comparisons uh of contemporary Israeli policies or Jewish policies to that of the Nazis it's C Holocaust inversion and what I would I will not read the rest because there's a minute left I would suggest that there's a social contract in the United States even people who have no children whose children don't go to a public school pay school taxes as they should as I certainly do and I'm proud to do because it is in the benefit is the benefit of society to have well-rounded educated children prepared to be part of a society that we all benefit from so as a person who's paying into a school district that I would love to send my children to someday but don't feel comfortable doing currently at the moment the the least I can ask is that when
096my eight-year-old comes into Albany his first experience with public school students shouldn't have been that he was punched in the head by somebody screaming Free Palestine he was not wearing Israeli flag when he was punching the head he was not speaking Hebrew not that that should be a crime he was punched in the head because he had a yamaka on his head he was punched in front of a Jewish an Alban school by Alban school students and I would love that that not happen anymore thank you Susan ug oh you're going to pick up where I yeah okay J okay hi everybody I'm Jory susman um I live on cley Street in the Albany School District my stepson graduated from Albany High last year um we just handed out this sheet of best practices for
097the board to review for self-grading so as a very first proactive step we would deeply appreciate the opportunity to present at your convenience our 1-hour review of both the scope of the problem of anti-Semitism and an overview of those those best practices for school boards to consider and implement the problem of hatred towards Jews is very real very present and very urgent we urge the board to review the best practices and to schedule a time to engage with us and our presentation a few of the best practices we are suggesting are as follows host anti-Semitism education programs using resources like the American Jewish committee's translate hate glossery which helps identify different sources of anti-Semitism and exposes anti-semitic tropes words and symbols that often hide in plain sight convene mandatory anti-Semitism training for school administration and
098Educators by implementing mandatory anti-Semitism education programs for school administrators teachers and diversity equity and inclusion professionals incorporate Jews Jews anti-Semitism into the school's Dei philosophy and Dei Department assuming that still happens Department to ensure that Jews are equally included with other minority groups and that the school actively seeks to support and that anti-Semitism is equally included among the hatreds that the school actively combats prioritize campus physical safety by establishing and publicizing a system to report anti-Semitism within the school anti-Semitism is significantly underreported in the United States including in school settings and Jewish students often hesitate to report these incidents as they may believe that their experiences are not bad enough compared to other forms of Oppression faced by their peers have a clearly outlined mechanism for reporting anti-semitic incidents this could include designating a point
099person for students or setting up an anonymous reporting portal include school counselors in these processes provide educator training on discussing the Israel Palestinian Conflict by offering trained to train teachers on how to approach these sensitive discussions related to this conflict in the classroom that promote a balanced and respectful dialogue engage with parents and Community leaders convene your parent teacher Association to discuss anti-Semitism and consider encouraging Jewish parent Affinity groups to provide a platform for open dialogue and mutual support a tend and encourage other administrators to participate in programming organized by local synagogues can you get Bridget Mac next she's GNA take Susan no Bridget Mac up to the bike no you're you're good you're good I just was calling next person sorry all right thank you so to continue um I also was a 1974
100graduate of AHS and I also attended and graduated from hackin and I loved them um we also need you to invite amida Albany to come meet with you and other interested parties to learn more about the Jewish community and resources that we can offer plan events with attention to important Jewish holidays and become better acquainted with Jewish culture including the acknowledgement and celebration of a Jewish Heritage Month students exposure to Judaism and the Jewish community should not only be negative couched slow solely in discussions about anti-Semitism and the Holocaust Jewish American Heritage months month provides an opportunity to discuss Jewish contributions to our nation and expand students understanding of our nation's thriving Jewish communities these are just some of the suggested approaches before we leave well we did provide you with with resources and information
101and again respectfully asked to be given the opportunity to offer a training on anti-Semitism to the school board administrators Educators and any other interested parties thank you so much for your time and attention to this important matter we look forward to connecting with you all very soon thank you Bridget um hi there my name is Bridget Beck I went to school 19 hack it in Albany High because apparently we're doing that uh 1997 um and I have one kid at Ash she's a Class 32 28 and gonna be 25 as long as we go to gym okay I mean okay um I am here about routine consent item number five that's still coming up the routine consent of the memo of understanding between the Albany City schools and the City Police Department um back a
102couple weeks ago there was a tough week for Albany High uh several locking Downs holding places Etc um and in one of those as you are all aware uh there was a student holding a knife and the SRO in the building uh responded as did faculty there was a hold in place Etc and as part of quote unquote de-escalating the scene pulled out his gun which is seemed like gaslighting in terms of a definition of de-escalating so in looking at the memo of understanding section three talks about having a police officer there as promoting adolescent development and I am a board certified Family Medicine physician and I don't know how that's possible especially with the demographics at Albany High and I'm not sure why we need to address juvenile delinquency as a for a school
103as a whole it seems that they in terms of their responses utilizing developmentally appropriate and trauma-informed approaches to youth that does not seem to have happened a couple weeks ago and also while we're doing these developmentally appropriate and Trauma informed approaches to reduce the rates of arrest it seems to conflict with Section number four section number four talks about codes of conduct infractions and there's like levels you are all aware four involves non-firearm weapons and it's uh would be applicable in this circumstance um section six says the APD gets to pick who the sro's are the training they'll do is section seven and they'll do their best which sounds like a whole lot of not committing and number eight number one section eight number one providing a visible police presence throughout the school day why
104and how is that trauma informed I think it's not thank you thank you again um president may we don't respond to board comment uh so so I'm actually okay I don't know if we don't I'm not sure I'm calling on a response I do want to say something sure uh but okay let me hold on all that thought because I was going to ask the super about something okay okay but you'll come back I'll come back okay thank you um we appreciate all public comments and we typically don't respond after Bo for public comment um and we find hearing from community members very valuable um know this this situation that has been described I just wanted to superp and let you guys know about the community round table that happens um so yeah we have
105uh a longstanding um for the last number of years uh Community Education round table that meets in this in this uh space monthly and it's a number of agencies and organizations that work directly with our students or families uh or or support uh programs and services to them so I'll uh meet with our team to see what role uh the organization that was shared with today could play um as an opportunity to network and connect and and see where we may have some synergy so to make sure I shared that thank you Miss I do want to uh thank everyone who who did come out uh from I'm sort of mispronouncing this Ahad is that right okay appreciate your uh being presentent tonight and and for your comments and also for the training materials I
106um I wanted to just uh say that uh and I'm I I'm not speaking for everybody but I'm it disturbs me greatly that any of our students are experiencing any form of discrimination bullying hatred anti-Semitism all of those things and um we have uh our Equity policy we have expectations from that policy for our staff and students and it is no easy feat to try to get a diverse Community to love nurture and support one another in the way that we all deserve to be um but I think that is who we are trying to be and I'm just uh distraught that any of our youngsters are faced with anything um so I again I want to thank you for for being here and I also want to say that you know I I you
107know don't know how we're going forward but I have no problem as a board member while I'm sitting on the board and ultimately when I'm not on the board as a community member to participate in the training that is offered by any group um I do have one favor that I I just want to uh ask um I I and I do not mean to diminish or the impact or what's happening uh to our Jewish students at all um but I must say that it's very hard I'm with you on every point What's hard for me is when there's a there's a comparison say to my people and what my people might experience I have no idea I can tell you the situations in our schools in our society where black students don't feel supported
108where they are are bullied and so it all I I I appreciate what you're trying to say um on one hand but on the other hand I don't because I think it takes away from what you want me to understand about what you're experiencing as a member of the society who is also Jewish and I would say that to any group I don't want the same thing as a you know lgbtqi Community I don't want them to compare I want to hear what your experiences are so that I have an understanding and I also can have a contextual uh understanding historical context for understanding what you have experienced and I want you to have that same or various communities to have that same understanding for what I experience in terms of who I am and
109where I come from so and we are unfortunately in a society where there is so much hatred or fear of hatred actual hatred you know just it it is just EX exhausting as I said in the beginning and so I believe we have to find a way as a community to come together so that we understand what everyone is experiencing and some of those things may be similar they may be different but what we're needing to do I think as you're saying is for everyone to understand what you as a Jewish Community your children as Jewish students are experiencing in the schools and likewise what my kids are experiencing as an African-American student or a Muslim student in the school so I want to just say that but I I appreciate everything that you're saying
110and and look forward to going moving forward with uh with you and a broader Community to address these issues in our school Community thank you thank you Miss sa you wanted to follow so yes thank you very much Miss Smith for your impassion comments and I really appreciate all of you being here with us tonight and sharing your truth with us um I would like to make a recommendation that we look to the superintendent for a report on how the District administration plans to address these allegations in my mind they fall in a couple of areas one um complaints about bullying and d and whether it's being used misused improperly used um secondly this um specific allegation around anti-Semitism in the curriculum that's um certainly a shocking um question um we've talked many times uh
111over the last few months about having some guidance for our faculty and staff around um holidays Jewish holidays and other holidays to go out as a memo associated with the school calendar when it goes out we've asked for that many many times now this semester and you've always said that you're going to do that as part of the release of the school calendar so I know that that's in the works so just that could be included in the report the intention to do that which again is not only for Jewish holidays but for all holidays that are regularly represented in our district and then finally for the request for additional training for um staff Administration um potentially board those seem like four categories that might be covered in a report that you would do on
112this topic but I think it requires um some you know a focused attention on this topic because it's obvious that it's it's becoming it's become a significant concern um so I would like to see that formally move forward if not already needed it's even more important that this thing happens uh given the current situation of our government so um again once again we appreciate all your comments and bringing your points to the board um and we'll do our best to stand by our students so stay stay tuned okay we now move to the part of our meeting we call routine consent uh during this portion of the meeting we approve routine matters for the district these include items like contracts field trips Personnel matters and the like each board member is reviews each item carefully
113but we W on them together as a group with no discussion this allows us to use our meeting time more efficiently nonetheless each board member has the option to set aside any routine and consent item 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 Miss Wilson and Miss Savage uh any sdes okay M Savage number five the apdm okay Miss crei number nine a different outcome M Wilson yes mou for the which we mentioned um a different out no sorry I'm just looking at the numbers move to be moved number 10 11 14 15 16 10 11 14 15 16 okay anyone else okay all in favor of adopting routine consent agenda except items 5 9 10
11411 14 15 and um savagei all in favor tab Cor okay thank you that does pass so okay let's move to item number five actually if you don't mind can we do nine since both taba and you had the Miss number nine different outcome yeah motion to adopt uh different outcome number nine Miss Savage second can by me discussion sure um I read the description of this program and while I am uh pleased about the about the uh extracurricular options this is going to offer to students as as an after school activity I'm concerned about the selection process uh these students will be mentored taken on field trips to for stem theater culinary banking healthc care professions colleges Etc and a local amusement park at the end of the year year and a golf event
115however uh this is only open to young men so I'm concerned that there are not alternative uh after school programs that are held that are available to young women I'm also concerned uh given recent new title 9 guidance that came out last year and became effective in August that this wouldn't be appropriate and I'm not sure if it's really consistent with our Equity policies in general so I wanted to uh put that aside thank you okay Miss Wilson not no we discussing policy n so oh yes I hear and appreciate that I was just had a question about sometimes the support and yes all of the things I think um board member Cy stated are true and concerning I just think sometimes we're targeting particular groups that have disproportionality within their demographic so I feel
116like it would be no different if we had a for example um a a club that was or not a club but a for example a support around for example students who are either non-binary or transgender because that's a very specific group with a very specific outcome and a need but I would love to hear what other thoughts are me too again um you know with the equity policy it's not equal it's tailored to different groups appropriate to that particular situation and if if if the arbor Arbor Hill School Community feels like this program will support a select group of students at that Community I'm sure it's a community school so you have multiple partners and one of these Partners works with a subset of the students there'll be another partner that works with another
117subset of students so I am not opposed to to this particular uh proposal but I but in any case I wouldn't want to support it unless I knew that there were substantially equal opportunities available to the to the young women in in the I non-binary any non-binary students at this school and I would want to know I would want the district to respond to whether this again the new title 9 regulations just went into effect in August so I know we've run these in the past and I know those have been these have been vetted in the past but that's you know the law is different at least for the time being so I'd really love to see that properly vetted before we move into this thanks and I don't have a problem getting that
118information I'm wondering oh I'm sorry um I can gather that information from Mrs Gaines around and provide it to the board if needed oh Miss Brown okay like you heard the voice but I know I'm sorry I don't know if you guys H were able to hear me but I can okay I can get that information and provide it the question is would you mind if we table this and we wait for that information or is there an urgency to get this approved and get that information as an SBF um if we could approve it and I get it to you I prefer that but um I will do whatever is whatever the board decides and I'm okay to approve it uh but if anybody wants to make a motion to table it I I'd
119like to make a motion to table it till L next meeting anybody second that okay Miss Savage so that all in favor okay so that we'll table it till the next meeting and um we'll take it on then all right thank you thank you okay going to number five theou with the Albany Police Department motion to approve by Savage second byi uh discussion so I wanted to uh call this out this mou because it has been anou that's been longstanding um we developed this with guidance from several outside entities Who provided some model language that we base this on when we first adopted it I looked this up a while back um I think it was 2016 when we first adopted this um and I do think it's absolutely essential that we have clear recognition
120of what the role of an SRO is um and one of the things that this mou says that I am um particularly happy is in here is that um SRO are not a classroom management technique right that is that is essential um and that is the essential difference between um District staff who are education focused and um the our sro's and I know there's a wide wide variety of opinions within our district about whether sro's belong in our schools at all but if we are going to have SRO I want there to be a clear mou I'm not sure this mou um I am assure that this SRO needs to be updated because it again it was developed in 2016 where was in forced for some time and then lapsed briefly and is now being
121put in force and I believe the superintendent is already planning to address improvements and did you want to take a minute to talk about that because it definitely has room for improvement yeah I do as as uh member Savage mentioned this was um an agreement that was written in collaboration with with um the board and I believe APD long ago uh pandemic happened a change in leadership uh uh with Chief and Albany Police Department and you'll recognize early on in theou um is a commitment a firm commitment from Albany Police in terms of the number of SRO so that became uh an issue over the last number of years as I understand it that um Albany could not commit to I believe it was five SRO because of of uh labor shortages and so the
122the agreement was in principle at that time and everyone had the same operating understanding when there was a change in leadership and um uh Chief Cox came on board we had the discussion uh he made the amendment uh written in his his chicken scratch uh which mirrors mine um to make that adjustment so that we could effectuate thatou while we both understood we wanted to update it make sure that it fits with current practice uh current um um needs and demands from the school district and also policing practice as recently as last week last Friday uh the uh governor and commissioner and attorney general came out with um expectations with regards to some uh potential changes in federal policy further um detailing the role of not only school resource officers but law enforcement um agents
123in general uh and the role they play or or they play and should not play with regards to any potential change um whether by executive order or federal law so this Mo MOA needs to be updated regardless but we wanted to make sure um that the spirit of it and that the principle of it that has been longstanding um was at least on the books by both parties so this is the first step and a and and a few more that we need to take I just wanted to to finish up my thought that I think it's essential that we adopt this today because right now we do not have an enforce mou and for that reason I Str firmly behind having something rather than having nothing and that we have the opportunity to improve
124it going forward um and that's been my position on this this piece um as you all know for for some time but I do look forward to an improvement and I would ask the my officers to please identify a specific agenda on which you anticipate that SRO coming the SRO mou coming back and if it doesn't hit that agenda of course things happen but please establish a Target so that it doesn't just drift because this is really important that we have um you know that we know when this is coming back thanks sorry Miss Wilson thank you um just a few points that I've noticed while reading and I think it was pointed out during public comment that there really isn't a unifying introduction and section three role definition expectation comes the closest and I
125think it's not um an intentional slate I think there's just when it was coming together as the superintendent indicated there's a certain philosophy or perspective that comes from I think law enforcement you know Public Safety and so it reads that way and there's a certain things I want to point to and I it won't prohibit me from approving it if we just have a plan as um board member Savage indicated to um address it just so if we can pull up the actual can we okay thank you and I'll try to speak while we have it up there's Section 8 where this speaks to developing a strong relationship with staff well I'm sorry Section 8 develop and maintain positive relationship with students and their families I think it's implied but I feel like it's important
126also to say diverse Community just to mention that and have it you know set in stone as well as um section 12 sorry I'm just flipping between screens so forgive me officer entry on school Camp campus um should notify school officials it would it be possible to say will notify school officials just like you know I don't know if that was something that gave flexibility or things of that nature but I feel like that's another thing we can potentially address and the um section 13 about arrest I think uh could be ex let's say expanded upon to be made more explicit um than only arrest like for example if God forbid you know that kind of thing but handcuffs or other sort of thing like just speaking more specifically to that and I know that
127what I'm mentioning may require that we go through and tear it apart and go through it some more um I'm not opposed to pending revision or things but these are important elements that that I noticed Miss grei uh thank you yes I wanted to say I think that this SRO has been a long time coming and I think it's a really good start I think it's definitely I even even were it not for the state Ed Department requirement that school district with SRO have SRO in place even without that you know I I think it I feel much more comfortable having sro's in the schools with some sort ofou in place to address what their roles are and what their roles are not imperfect or not I think it's good and I will say over
128the course of my nine years on the board I really started with some extreme skepticism about having sro's in the schools but as as I've stayed on the board as I've kind of been party to some of the things that happen in the schools as I become the parent of a high schooler so I get the notifications uh you know every time something happens unfortunate and unfortunately there's some real problems with violence in our community and things do happen in our schools that really can't always adequately be addressed by people that don't have that law enforcement background I mean kids sneak in knives uh they stab each other people in high school have had days where they've said we've seen blood in the hallways it's it's not always Brett and it's a wonderful school and
129my kid is having a wonderful experience there but I think we really do have the need for that Sr for those SRO and I appre appreciate this is a good start and I'll do my best to make sure we get this turned around thanks I mean I doo support um you know everything that my colleagues have said and um you know this this whole this mou actually came on board right as I joined the board uh over eight years ago and um you know so this is how we've been operating we we wanted to increase the number of SRO and for whatever reason you know funding and all of those others um that hadn't happened and then Co hit and the staffing issues scpt up and so even though we were operating under this mou
130we didn't have assigned document that committed both parties to that document to that that operating principle so I think it is very important that we adopted today so at least we have something on the books and you know as we go forward we all as as as my colleagues have mentioned there are things that do need to be changed uh and those changes you know will will happen but the way we operate right now we still need to have a piece of paper that people can go by and and say this is how it's supposed to be so that both parties understand you know where they stand and and I also want to bring up the issue where this all raised uh uh the comments that we're hearing are mainly because of the issue that
131happened in the high school a couple of weeks ago and I for one will stand behind that SRO um the SRO that that high school is a very uh um it's a very smart individual and and um um is trained to do the right thing and did the right thing B I mean there there's information that we can share with you folks but rest be assured that it wasn't their first response to pull out a a weapon um and even with the weapon pulled the restraint that had to be shown was also commendable and it it was not lack of thought that somebody just pulled out a gun so I just want the community to realize that we have good people in the schools on the staff even as SRO or or APD staff but
132working with our students right and everybody's intentions and the right yes our our kids are going through some troubling uh environmental um uh uh troubling conditions inside the school and outside the school problems that start out in the community and and travel with them into our buildings uh and and these raise rise to situations where they sometimes aren't mature enough to deal with it appropriately uh but the deescalation uh strategies that are employed by our staff uh prevent a lot of things right and if you if you look at what's happening in schools around us we are fortunate to have SRO other schools are considering them um and you know the people who we have yes we have metal detectors people were against metal detectors and I used to call Albany High and our middle
133schools like oh those are like why are they treating our students like jails but look around the other Suburban districts are thinking about getting metal detectors themselves because it's a different environment that our kids are growing up uh so I just want to point out that I'm in full support of this muu Miss Savage um thank you very much I want to just add a couple more thoughts um one and I know the superintendent is well aware of my strong position on this I really would like whatever we do next to break out the specifics around any sort of financial transaction or any kind of commitment around the number of SRO because the fact that this held this up is really not okay right the issue is we need to have a clear understanding about
134the behavior of s within our buildings and the fact that we didn't get through that I understand why it happened but it's not really okay so for next for this version I hope that we can have theou describe the behavioral expectations and the relationship expectations and not the number so that it will never h get hung up again secondly um I appreciate that some of the language is more um soft and the shall and the will try and I recognize having been down this road with many of our own things right we always do the very best we can but sometimes we can't live up to our own expectations and it is important that the contract have some flexibility the have some flexibility but I do think it's appropriate from time to time to review
135whether the these intents have been being delivered so for example in the example of the training completion it says that they're going to do to their best uh ability and I believe we requ we requested this some time ago and that was being delivered but it seems like something that could be built into theou that we just get a report back right every year or so or two years or whatever on whether those are actually being done because it may be the case that we get an SRO who doesn't have all of the training and that may be important but we but we can always find out factually what actually happened and then finally I just draw your attention again to the computer issue there is a computer requirement is part of the SRO and
136I think that should be very very clear what that computer is and what that computer has access to and what the f repercussions are of that particularly in light of the um latest news around the potential for um immigration um uh Federal immigration officers to be targeting schools I think it has to be perfectly perfectly clear what the our sro's have access to um because they ought not to be put in a position where they have to stand up for not providing access that the school district has chosen not to provide they should not be in that position because they just shouldn't have have that access so that's the those are some of my high Lev thoughts I really hope that we won't try and Wordsmith this mou here on the board floor but I'm
137sure that we will get another version of it sometime relatively soon all in favor okay that passes thank you can we take the whole uh next set as a group miss wison or really yes we can do it well so motion to so other than young Futures all the other five four um motion to approve number 10 mood to be moved LLC number 11 Nelly treats number 15 youth FX and number 16 Lucid writers okay Miss crei second by me discussion yes thank you um it's great to see I feel like if um damis were here she would be super psyched to see the list of people that we are working with in the Community because they are active very visible community members and I just had a general practice um CU some of them
138are smaller to larger organizations um are we moving towards a practice where people fully understand because sometimes you get the oneoff comments and I think it's just maybe they're a little in the dark about how to be paid when to be paid and things and are we how do we approach that and how can we help people as they embark on Contracting with the district SC so I know that we're going to work on a system to put on our website along with the RFP process so that when our community members or other uh vendors do uh fill out the paperwork for the rfps I know just to have somebody fill out an RFP is a little bit of a strain so uh we're going to try to make it so it's less strain full
139um and less difficult so that it doesn't hinder providing the services to our students um but that's something that is a work in progress uh so that we can also abide by our board policy for purchasing so it's kind of like a two two-way street that we have to work out but to also teach our community how to do it just so that and give them the information I don't know if that makes sense but all any other discussion okay all in favor okay motion passes a motion to approve number 14 young Futures incera Miss wison second M Smith discussion I did see a mention at the bottom and this obviously it has nothing to do with the school day but it was a mention of parent parent like targeted um classes for parents for
140the same purpose to help um with financial literacy and things and I was just curious because there is is a cost listed If the parents and or families are allowed to solicit sponsors Andor donations and or fundrais to offset it because I just don't know of every you know what the ability to pay to be a Prohibition it was my question so I didn't know if we had gotten that far or if that's something we can do to offset the cost to if the student does the program and the family member wants to um them not being you know sitting on a Sidelines because of the ability to pay or was that just included and not relevant to no so the way I read it was that the family is invited quarterly just to see
141what the students were taught perfect okay wonderful thank you okay all in favor okay okay next thing on our agenda is the action on the policy items it pass the mic on toas CR policy chair yes I apologize this is actually discussion of policy it's a discussion what it's okay that's okay it's my fault um it's a discussion of policies that we discussed uh last week so on an annual basis we are required to review and review all of our policies related to students with disabilities and that's 4321 and then a lot of subp policies and I'd like to apologize again due due to a technical glitch where we couldn't open the file um we while we do not have any substantive changes to the underlying policy for 321 we only suggested changing it to
142include gender neutral language we do not have the file here but we will put that up on board docs or in an sbu to make it available before we act on it at the next meeting so I'm going to go through the rest of these sub policies briefly and tell you about the changes that we're suggesting for 4321 . three allocation of space for special education we updated this to include person first language using the phrase peers without disabilities instead of non-disabled peers we also added language stating that the district would consider the need for students with disabilities to be placed in the least restrictive environment and that the district will also consider these students needs for stability and continuity in their program placements when the district is making decisions on Space allocation that's already
143required by the state regulation but I think it's important for us to memorialize in our policies um for 43215 confidential confidentiality and access to IEPs IEP programs and service plans uh we just updated to include gender neutral language and to delete some references to some unrelated regulations for 43216 availability of alternative format instructional materials for students with disabilities uh we added a reference to State resources that provide alternative instructional materials and made it clear that that should be the first place you look for the free stuff before you start trying to contract with vendors to produce special versions of things uh we also updated the references to delete an obsolete link link to an nicd web page that was 23 years old and replace it it's amazing to think that the internet has been long
144around that long isn't it though and replace it with a current link to nied resources uh for four3 21.7 districtwide and Statewide assessments of students with disabilities we updated this to eliminate some typos and include gender gender neutral language we also revised the section on Universal Design principles which had said uh the superintendent will consider potentially using Universal Design feasi in our assessments to make it clear that we will incorporate these principles and our assessments to the extent that that's feasible uh to make them work for everyone and to make them be more understand understandable and not something where you can just kind of lose points by doing something silly that's not actually related to assessment of the underly uh curriculum for 43218 impartial hearing officer appointment and compensation we updated to eliminate typos and
145include gender neutral language for 43219 the classification of students with disabilities again we just updated this to include gender neutral language which is actually required by state law that that that we that uh all governmental agencies do that when we write our policies uh for 43210 independent educational evaluation we removed the requirement that parents request an independent educational evaluation within 90 days of the c meeting at which the previous evaluation was reviewed as that deadlines is not supported by law we also slightly rewarded the language to clarify when evaluated who don't meet the standard criteria can be appointed and what is required in order for the district to reimburse parents for an ie um for district for 43212 use of timeout rooms and physical restraints we revised this policy in accordance with recent changes to
146the related regulations to reflect a shift away from focus on let's talk about the physical room used for timeout to Let's Orient this around the process of putting a student in timeout um I would like to note that this policy says that the district will develop a regulation on this however the district does not currently have a regulation on this cabinet is in the process of drafting a regulation and that'll be ready for the board to discuss in February because although we don't vote on regulations we do review them when we review the underlying policies uh for 43213 preschool special education we revise the policy to correct typo and update cross references to include current policy names um for 43214 special education personal qualifications and Personnel qualifications and training we revise the policy to remove
147references to highly qualified personnel as this term is no longer used in federal law um for 43216 programs and services for parentally placed non-public school students with disabilities we revised the policy to be grammatically correct and we undeleted I'm sorry we deleted an un necessary final State sentence stating that the policy shall remain in full force and effect unless Modified by the Board of Education uh because that's the case for all of our policies um I welcome I know that's a I know that's a whole lot but I welcome any questions from anyone that has any questions on those no questions but I do remember when we renumbered all these policies a long time ago and tried to group them together uh I I would like to thank our board clerk for her help in
148getting these all together because this this month this month there were a lot so thank you so much for your help in getting those all together so we'll wot on them at the next meeting okay moving on to the next discussion item is the uh actually it's a discussion action item uh which is the voting location change Mr kis so this goes along with our budget calendar and the need to change our 8th ward uh District 1 through 4 and the 14th Ward location for voting uh last year was at the Myers uh Middle School uh there was a need to put it more in a centralized location within the 14th Ward uh the one location that has responded and accepted or will take us in for the vote is the Bethy formed Church um
149I know that in the past we have used that uh location it was very convenient for our community members so I'm asking for the board to accept the changing locations so that I could put in paperwork for the division of civil rights uh change uh within the time parameter that we need prior to the vote yeah I know the last vote uh the change in location to Myers was really inconvenient to a lot of people both in the eth and the fourth espe the 14th W um so this is a good acceptable location a motion to adopt I have the discussion at point to but but we're going to do the motion first motion Miss Savage M wion okay discussion um Bethany perform is fantastic very convenient I think that's a great step back forward
150as 14th board member we have voted it probably in eight different places since I've lived in my home so Bethany reform is great I would just like to raise a public public process for our own process that I think that that should have been disclosed on the board agenda the board agenda just says discuss the voting location it doesn't suggest where it's going to be um so in the future I'd like to make sure that it's very explicit on the agenda yeah I know it's listed underneath the recommended action too so I could put it I honestly did not even see that because I was looking for an attachment um normally we see an attachment so I did not notice it was in the action so that's excellent I do still think like the public
151process around this was already tough because it was discussion action so anything we can do to keep the information flowing would be great but I apologize for not noticing that because I really did not oh no sry I I'll make sure that it's highlighted like up top or with a memo next time I hopefully there won't be too many next times and I know that Mr leco and his team always do a fantastic job sharing when we change a polling place so this will have to there's several steps before this will be fin finalized but once it's final I know he's always very careful to make sure that it's highlighted for our voters so they know um they will be a little confused because this will be two changes over the course of two years
152but it's it's it's going to be okay and better yeah and in the acttion I if if you don't put the memo at least replace the action or add to the action the voting location so it'll be all in that one sentence so any other discussion okay uh all in favor that's your okay so the next discussion item is the academic report ho good evening our team is very excited to be here tonight to share Albany High's academic report for the 2324 school year Miss kford and I would like to thank Miss McKenna um for her guidance and insight support as we transition this presentation to the division of curriculum and instruction uh and we'd also like to thank the instructional supervisors who are here with us tonight affectionately known as the core four um
153and uh for their attendance here tonight their contributions to this report uh but most of all for our collaborative partnership and uh shared steadfast commitment to our work on behalf of Albany High's students could we this um they're the same it's one's in PDF form and one is in slide deck form I so while um our board clerk is getting that up thank you um we wanted to share that in preparation for tonight's presentation we really wanted to ensure we were adequately prepared uh so we watched last year's board meeting to re acclimate ourselves to your feedback and your questions um so that what you'll hear tonight is our effort to sort of anticipate uh what the board would like to know more about in relationship to our assessment outcomes so there may be you
154know it's a little different um than maybe perhaps in in years past uh so we always start with our district M vision mission and goals and what I like to do is highlight in bold sort of the the connection to this particular report and this particular presentation to that work uh our presentation overview I'm not going to read it at you but is displayed there for the public and I will start with our four-year exam Trends um so what you see here is examination results across all of the region uh exams dating back to 201819 you'll notice a gap of course that we know why there was a gap those exams were essentially cancelled uh and then um all the way up through last year's results and so there are a lot of you know
155changes nuances and complexities to within and across the subject areas um that are worthy of discussion and Analysis But ultimately I thought it important to to raise for the board that we have not yet reestablished or improved upon um overall pre-pandemic proficiency on the Gateway exams since uh coming back from from the pandemic um and we continue to well that would be true in English math and science social studies did get matched right 52% in 61 and we're intending to build on that um this year uh what you don't have in front of you or in the the report or um the presentation is specifically the disproportionality data it is absolutely still disproportionate um it was disproportionate before the pandemic with the exception of ela and it remains disproportionate it hasn't swayed considerably in either
156direction um Ela did have the gap for um racial disproportionality and socioeconomic disproportionality closed um before the pandemic uh and was closing in on our students with disabilities and enl dis proportionality but we have not yet recovered um in that area but that is a a really solid goal for that depart for all the Departments um the next slide really just takes the data and makes it a little bit more palatable uh to to highlight that those pre and postp pandemic outcomes have not um we have not closed back to our our previous performance um with that we'll shift to English language arts um and what I would like to lift for um the board is that this is typically um our highest performing exam um the students do decently on this we were um
157approximately 85% proficiency um before um and now are trying to recover in that regard um and so for the most part um and N you can thank you next slide please um we really have driven our work this year and in years past as well through the lens of our school Improvement plan and our commitments um you're going to notice Trends across all four S core subjects which is really a reflection of our calibration as an instructional leadership team um and uh a reflection of our collaboration and Alignment um so that our teachers are are working toward the same goals in a cohesive and aligned manner um so using data to drive instruction through the lens of our common planning time is a very um important focus of our school improvement work and and has
158been for quite some time um I would say that it's a recommitment because of needing to respond to the needs of our staff where they were really asking for more collaborative planning time with all of the new instructional tools that they um you know were utilizing um adjustments to the curriculum and so we shifted to a lot of collaborative planning and we really are this year um and and last year as well recommitted to True action research where we're using common assessments and Benchmark data to um to analyze student outcomes in that plan due study act model um through action research we also in ela are utilizing diverse curricular resources and high impact teaching strategies at the grade level demand to Foster student engagement and amplify student voice you'll hear a lot of that Foster
159student engagement and amplify student voice throughout um the presentation because it is a very high priority um and promoting student ownership for learning um one thing that I want to lift up about this particular uh team is that for the most part um the team of teachers who accomplished their noteworthy uh Gap closing performances before the it's the same team we've had I think one teacher change and and so they're really committed uh to to achieving those same outcomes that they had in the past um through the lens of advocacy and so these are their their focus this year and we're we're very hopeful um for you know this Administration um to continue to move in the direction of closing those gaps I'll shift to social studies um global history um both social studies exams
160are at the percentage that they were pre pandemic um and we are intending to grow upon that this year and the main focus in social studies in terms of commitments in addition to what I already shared um next slide please and next more slide please is literacy based strategies both exams are very much reading tests as much as they are content tests um there's a lot of text uh there's not a lot of white space on the text text they're dense um a lot of primary source documents that have language reflective of their historical periods and so um in social studies they have focused in addition to datadriven instruction and differentiation um is explicit instruction in tier 2 vocabulary um which is not the the social studies words right it's those literacy based words analyze
161um bias Etc um that are coming up enhancing skills for interpreting and analyzing primary and secondary secondary source documents and really focusing on analytical and argumentative writing um so that has been identified as a priority within the social studies Department that they really needed to hone in on the literacy strategies um and practices that would help uh students access um the text at the grade level demand within the assessment and in classes as well um so that they can respond and analyze and at that point I will turn it over to miss cumerford all right so next is living environment um our exam pass rades prior to the pandemic were um in the mid-40 range um they did peak in the 201819 school year um after the pandemic um we did see the proficiency rates
162um increase at that time um but there was a very low number of students who took the exam um in 2122 um so the Pass rates have um settled back to pre pandemic rates um for um and at the 40 40% range so some things that we're doing differently now um you can go to the next slide please um is our living environment classes have the alternating day Labs linked to their um their daily science lab class in addition to after the end of semester one we have um students identified in their um science classes who need additional supports um to get um academic intervention services at that time um so we we have an extra layer of support for living environment starting semester 2 um so we also have this year it's a transition
163year with the new standards for living environment so the new exam this June um just like the other areas Miss hulahan discussed um that focus on high quality instruction the data driven practices in our common planning teams and the science department um there's an emphas real um emphasis on our Hands-On instruction and um then um that targeted intervention services that I um mentioned with the tier 2 supports um we'll shift to algebra next so there was um the new exam in June um of last school year 2024 um and so 42% demonstrated proficiency on the June um exam this was um slightly below um the uh results um we really you know have seen um a lot of decrease here um after the pandemic due to um really a a crisis with our hiring um
164and the next slide shows the exam uh so we are unable to um fill our our vacant positions still which has had a huge impact on providing academic intervention services for our um albra students so we continue to struggle with that um and I think that really is the struggle that we've had in making the gains that we did pre pandemic in algebra um so again the data- driven practices um and adapting to the new algebra exam is another one of the um huge commitments in the math department um again um just like the other departments um the focus on high quality instruction and then um our frame workk for um instructional practices all right we will go to Advanced Regents um exam results next next and so um we don't just focus on the
165Gateway exams um these are also um a prior priority for us for our um other Regents exams and Math and Science and these are really for our students who are um attempting to achieve the advanced region diploma so here we have um our earth science our chemistry our physics and then you'll also see our geometry and our Algebra 2 results um consistent with the outcomes on our Gateway exams um we have not reestablished our pre-pandemic overall performance but we are approaching that in all of the areas um with the exception of earth science we have um accomplished that so um the gap between um pre pandemic and now we are we are we are getting there with the advanced um Regents examinations um to note our Algebra 2 um Albany students have outperformed actually um
166by 8% um last school year um the New York State average so very good news there and just to note here this is the comparison for our school um The District results and I don't know if you can see that on there and then um State results in the blue all right new to the report this year um is our outcomes on our AP classes um and exams so um one thing I want to highlight is that Albany High offers 21 advanced placement courses which is I think the most or close to the most uh in the Capitol region um many of our students take advantage of of those classes and so I do want to highlight there are of course prerequisite skills and sequential coursework um that students need to experience in order to
167achieve success in those classes but there are no teacher recommendations or minimum grades required in previous classes because we are you know through the lens of our um work in in the realm of equity and and Justice and and really thinking about um groups that are traditionally underrepresented in these classes which is college board language um that uh we really want to encourage our students um to challenge themselves and and take advantage of these courses and not just enroll in them but stay in them um and and it's our firm belief that even if students do not go on to earn college credit for their exam performance they are better off for having sat in the class and challenge themselves um to experience rigorous learning opportunities so um just a little bit of uh background
168AP uh AP exam exams are scored on a scale of 1 to five a score of three or higher is considered passing and as such indicative that a student is likely to experience success in post-secondary study um colleges and universities do have the discretion uh to determine what scores they will accept to award credit um uh for example uh the University at almany will accept scores of three or higher Sienna College will accept scores of four or higher some schools will accept five or higher some schools will not accept um the credit but will have expected you to take the class um and so I just wanted to share um you know even though our AP exams uh the results vary by subject area and year overall uh or by subject area and year overall
169what you'll notice um is an increasing percentage of students who are experiencing success growing from 51% in 2018 to 66% in 2024 I want to note that we administered 716 exams in 2018 and 713 exams in 2024 so the numbers aren't going down uh in a way that makes it appear like we're improving rigor or improving instruction or improving outcomes for students um we are administering the same number of tests and showing that kind of growth um so we're very um pleased about that um Additionally the percentage of Albany High courses AP courses that are performing higher than the national average for that particular course has increased from 37 % in 2018 to uh 53% in 2024 and those are those green lines um everywhere where there's green that's where they performed higher than the
170national average and you can see certainly that there's a lot of green on the right hand side and the the last um piece of data that I'll I'll lift for the group is the exam average which is over the course of 2018 to 2024 you'll notice that all but one are above 50% um and some are are you know approaching um Etc so this is um you know outcomes for our students that we're we're very proud of and so from a Next Step perspective we just want to increase the end number right um and I also want to really take a deep dive I did not have the opportunity to do so because it would require us to cross reference college board and our own uh work but I really want to look at the
171demographics in the class and ensure that we are moving incrementally towards um Equitable representation in those classes um next slide please I'll turn it back to oh sorry that was the step I talked about um I'll turn it back to Mrs comford Miss comford all right so next um section is on our Albany High School sep commitments um so we spent um a great deal of time um and uh really well spent um time and research um developing our sub commitments and this is really a collaboration of um our what we call dabble at at Albany High School so our district and our building leaders so um not only the four core um but also all of our instructional supervisors and then our teacher leaders at the high school uh and um all of our
172administrative team came together first and then from there um we shared out with um our building leadership team um to develop our SE this year and um I think this was probably some of the best work in um I think this will be my 13th year um seventh year in the chair though um in really coming up with you know not only action oriented but um thoughtful um steps for how we're going to continue to um move students at the high school um so our two commitments um really are again um around um the instructional framework and that action research model um to Foster academic engagement by providing meaningful relevant and responsive Le um learning opportunities and then our other one around um really a strengthening our school culture and climate um to respond to
173students individual needs interests and goals and um you know all of our curriculum our coursework our College um and career preparations all focused to not only ensure our students graduate but are also leaving with those postsecondary skills um so you know a huge part of that school culture and climate work as well as um our social emotional supports um and so there's a lot of teams in our building that work um towards towards that social emotional work so um majority of that our Academy mtss teams um there's also um Academy um culture and climate teams um our Equity team our student government and all of our clubs in the building um our our professional development work um we really found over the last couple of years um our Hall monitors our support staff to really
174be um the connection for a lot of students um we just went through the National Coalition building Institute um training um with our Hall monitors and um other support staff teachers and students and so um really trying to build Bridge Builders and um we actually just student um completed having ncbi trainers um with all of those teams of people so I'm really starting to focus more on that culture and climate in the high school next slide please um our next uh slide is attendance as an indicator of student engagement um you can see here we are very excited um that our attendance rates have improved this school year compared to the last two academics years you can see compared here um with now having attendance teachers for all fourmies working collaborative collaboratively with our mtss
175teams we are able to reach more students with with uh attendance interventions um so you can also um see that um not only our rates here but when we looked back from 2122 our chronic absenteeism rate was at 60% uh 22 23 it was 56% uh 23 24 50 and this year we're at 40 right now so um we are moving in the right direction um and to um the next slide um I think well is also a real indicator of us um raising the bar for students um with the changes that we made in the grading policy I think has also really made the connection with um student engagement um so our Pass rates have been consistent um in the 2425 school year um as compared to the last two academic years but I
176also want to note that um with the incre increased expectations of the grading policy that we implemented in September of 2023 um that students are rising to meet meet the standard there so I think that has also impacted our attendance rates um when you look here so you can see you know for quarter 1 um 2022 73% um for 2375 and then um this quarter 1 73% just note that students can still Credit Recovery there so we will always see probably a 2 to 3% increase in that final quarter one so that will likely um increase at the end of the school year all right and M hulham will speak about Blue Ribbon um I just wanted to add on that generally we see as students recover second quarter isn't over yet so there is
177no evidence of credit recovery at this time um but it incrementally increases anywhere probably between two and 5% by the end of the year whether that credit recovery occurs in the context of working with their teacher or uh as in participation in in some of our credit recovery programs um so I wanted to share a little bit about um this new chapter of of blue ribbon that we don't know a lot about yet um and I know the the superintendent um gave uh some of the this will look somewhat familiar in one of his updates I think back in November he provided some context for for Blue Ribbon um but I thought it important to share um it with you today because it is going to you know transform how we do business um and
178arguably the outcomes right um we we research is really clear on standardized assessment and and how limiting that can be to showing what students know and are able to do um and so in November of 2024 uh New York State presented to the Board of Regents uh four key transformations in the context of of their study and work and that is really um around adopting the portrait of a graduate redefining credits uh with emphasis on proficiency rather than seat time uh sunsetting diploma uh assessment requirements meaning that students will still take Regents exams but they will not be coupled with graduation um and then moving to one diploma rather than the three diplomas we have now with a focus on seals and endorsements I do want to note because this is very important none of
179this has been adopted none of this has been voted upon or approved they heard uh recommendations they voice support for the plan but each of those components will come to the board of regions incrementally over time based on on the timeline this is simply what is being proposed at this point in time um next slide please I did want to share um just a graphic of the PO proposed portrait of a graduate uh this is currently in revision uh in response to feedback work the group is working on refining this um and it is slated for Board of regions action this coming summer um so we're excited to see uh what that ends up looking like um but as you can see it really is about these sort of interdisciplinary skills that are reflective of
180a a well-rounded graduate um that would be true across all content areas um the next slide please has the proposed implementation timeline um and so I broke this down by cohort but also indicated uh for the board what grade the kids are in now so that you have a sense of of who is going to be most impacted by this this um these proposed changes so um our current 10th graders and up have current diploma requirements uh with the three diploma types uh the proposed um timeline for our current seventh to 9th grade students they'll maintain their current credit requirements but diploma assessment requirements uh are intended to Sunset by fall of 2027 if the board of regions adopts the recommended timeline uh students will still participate in regions exams um and will there will
181be one diploma type with options to earn seals and endorsements again if the plan is adopted as it as it currently stands our current fifth and sixth graders um um will be the first group to uh have new credit requirements uh things like um there's proposed that everybody has to take like a financial literacy class um a CTE credit which could include the the personal finance or financial literacy um just as by way of example there would be no separate uh diploma assessment requirements and again one diploma type with the option for seals and endorsements cons uh similar to what we have now with the seala by literacy or the Seal of Readiness and then 2029 and Beyond um which is your current fourth graders would really have the first run of the entire new
182system um where they have to demonstrate proficiency not only on their learning the learning standards associated with particular courses or particular subject areas but also the portrait of graduate um and one diploma type with seals and endorsements and uh the goal at that point uh from the recommendations is having a Statewide transcript um so for in the interest of consistency we don't know very much about that except for that piece of information and lastly um just kind of hot off the presses is an update on the plan pilot there are 23 schools across New York State uh participating in the plan pilot uh there are none from the capital region um but each of the schools is participating in one of those three Focus areas um and only one of those Focus areas um I'm
183pleased to know that Tech Valley which is as you know in our backyard and we partnered with uh in a lot of ways uh over the years to learn from them um I went there when I was a teacher to to learn about uh Project based learning um is a mentor school for Focus area c meaning that the state has identified them as a model school um and so it's great to know that we have a mentor School in our backyard from whom we can part with whom we can partner um and that pilot is scheduled to culminate in the 26 27 school year with a findings report and policy recommendations and that is the end of our presentation and we welcome your feedback and questions thank you thank you 's start on this side
184Mr Almani that was a lot to digest I don't know if I have any really meaningful questions to be completely honest so I have um I guess just one just overarching question because there's a lot of specific data and um one of the data points was that essentially we're still not quite where we were at pre pandemic and I know there was many other points in there but I want to just get your opinion um both of your opinions on where do you think um how long do you you think it will take to get back there what do you think we need to do to get back there are we ever getting back there is that is are those days gone I'm just I want to try to wrap my head around it because
185it's been two three years essentially already so I'm not saying we should have made cover that ground at this point but what are your thoughts so one thing I would um lift up for the group is that not in the presentation in the report you'll notice that I included um districts with similar demographics um as ours similar size as ours and that we are not alone um across the state just more broadly speaking the whole state is still I think I I can't remember off the top of my head but around 5% off from where they were um and as we know the pandemic disproportionately impacted um you students of color students from poverty uh Etc and so it is not surprising to me that it has taken us longer than it has taken um
186other districts uh but I what I will say is what you notice in the theme of our commitments this year is around engagement whether that be cognitive engagement relational engagement um behavioral engagement we don't really have to focus on quite honestly within the context of the classroom um that is something that through our instructional rounds our walkthroughs our classroom visits is that we notice a high degree of Behavioral engagement in the four walls of the classroom really consistently and we have you know data to support that um but what I find myself wondering in terms of will we ever get there the answer is I don't know because I'm wondering if when we open up the opportunity to have students have different ways to demonstrate what they know and are able to do through the
187lens of Blue Ribbon right where they don't have to take a test to pass or graduate um and they will be able to perhaps do a project right have a a a project out the community with that involves Civic engagement and then they're going to do a presentation much like we do our seal of biliteracy our seal of Civic Readiness they do research in areas where they choose um there is a um a slide that I can share with the board in anbu that highlights the possibilities it's not that it's limiting but there's a picture I can see it in my head where technical education yeah it might have um exam as a choice to show what you know and are able to do but also you can do a project or presentation or um
188uh engage in a service learning opportunity work based learning Etc um so the theme is engagement which is why we did highlight the Improvement in attendance and the Improvement in um or the the consistency in grading with some of our increased um rigor relative to expectations on late work and and things like that um so we are forever boundlessly hopeful um and optimistic and we are doing the work um I think the attendance piece is Paramount uh I did want to say Kudos uh to you folks for doing uh restructuring the grading policy because I it's another point that you guys mentioned that really stuck with me that um students are under more rigorous standards the bar is set higher but they're getting the same scores that they did before right that was a so
189that means they're working harder to get you know or they're being challenged more and they're still getting the same grade which is a positive sign um so Kudos thank you I'll move on M smth uh thank you uh quite it was quite something and quite a lot of detail um I had um a question um so I think both of you spoke to the staffing issues and so that kind of for me gets a little bit too Mr Al's question because it do you see do you see a way to one get increase the staff and particularly in the areas where we're struggling do you see anything on the horizon this coming year that that would allow us to have um you know u a staff that that can can help you know uh deliver
190um on on on what we want our students to accomplish and uh and and that's kind of probably a not a very fair question because you have no control of that and and and like you say all of our districts are in a similar place however I I still feel like there has got to be a way to um and again I keep thinking about what can State Ed do what can we do um and and and again I'm not throwing I don't mean to throw charter schools in this but they do have a little bit more flexibility you know to bring in some people uh in their um in their uh teaching environment um that that we NE don't necessarily have U the same opportunity to do um such as really having you know
191professors who are you know whether they're Hudson Valley or other places you know can bring in you know to teach math to teach uh some of the harder subjects and I just want us to keep figuring out ways that we can continue to press press press on have finding these Alternatives um and again some of this not entirely in our control um but um it just seems that all of the talent in in America in our community um regardless of some people calling us stupid uh we have quite a few of talented a lot of talented people and it seems to me that school districts ought to be able to uh tap into those um cools of of uh very uh educated and qualified um you know force uh Workforce uh they may not all
192be teachers but they may have been in an industry where they you know utilize certain of these skills and I just wanted to figure out a way in which we could you know help open the door to bring them in um and um and sometimes that may not mean not they're not able to really be in charge of a classroom but they can support a classroom so whatever um but I I wanted to um and so you don't have to answer that question because I think that is not fair um but have Sunni step tutor you know we have a lot of collaborations there we do have some tutors that come in and work in some of the math classrooms um we have the Sunni step program after school so there are some supports there
193um but until we have that academic intervention services enough right it's not enough right and that's but there are supplements that we we have I understand um the I think the other thing I wanted to ask you about um and again I I can't remember whether we get this in some subsequent report but um I I keep wanting to um in my mind as you're talking and also even when it talks about uh the Region's uh new plan when it talks about what a what a graduate would look like um I I keep wanting to ask myself how many of our youngsters are earning college credits how many of them are uh are meeting the career career and Civic Readiness requirements how many of them uh are taking AP um credits and being successful you
194know all of these you know certifications and other types of credentials um I feel like I don't always kind of know that I mean I know that when I see youngsters at graduation a little bit but I don't actually know how many of them are are advancing beyond the high school diploma and to what degree that's true so I I guess I'm looking for some data at some point that uh helps us be able because I'd love to Define you know our graduates you know uh each person's graduating with at least one credential they have they all have seal of uh career and Civic Readiness you know um you know x% of them have earned college credits you know and so I'd love to be able to tout that kind of thing and I I
195I kind of believe we do but I don't I feel like I don't always like it's not something that I can I have to look up I it's not something that I already know um and so I'm I'm those are the two things that were concerning me or I was thinking about as you're talking tonight thank you both this is new for me I'm going to play that card a little bit longer um but I we will either figure out which report it belongs in and and get that information to you I do think not to put him on the spot but Mr lcas could probably tell us C SE a Civic Readiness and by literacy approximate numbers and a lot of that is in when we do the graduation report later in the here
196right yes I assume okay but but different presentation right but it would be interesting to know it's like uh as you do these academic reports especially like this year at this current point where are our students in uh potentially finishing up it or where are they will they end up with certain amount of credits will they end up with X Y and Z being able to kind of see how that plays in and it and is and I think my bigger point is are these uh credentialing and all this stuff is it how is that really helping a youngster to acquire those skills those you know all the how is it how is it helping them complete their coursework how is it helping to move the attendants you know so again it's some I know
197it's I you know I know I feel like I'm sometimes talking like I'm I'm on a different planet and perhaps I am but you thank you but all of these things they we do it for it matters and I'm just trying to make the connection right and I don't often feel like I have that yeah okay oh to the mic thank you sir this is getting recorded So do have to press good all right hi um so the first year we did the seal we had about 98 students um and then the following year we we had around 130 we can do a poll um for the the Seal of Civic Readiness and um the seala by literacy when I when I arrived that was something that that I inherited we had about you know
198maybe a handful of students would get it a year and last year um we we we set a record way above um what I anticipated this early we had about 13 students earn the seala by literacy and one student for the first time in the history of Albany High earned it in in two different languages so we had um I think we had 13 seals with 14 14 deals with 13 students you know so we're we're at double digits already and and that's growing I just got an email from Miss Edson the other day um you know looking for you know some of the languages that our students are testing and we have to we have to order those tests through an organization called apple and the students have to take those um online or
199they have to you know they do it virtually or through a phone um so so that that program is growing as well um I also want to like lift up the um the credits the and the high school credits that we're that we're currently offering those are increasing dramatically now that we've we've partnered with Hudson Valley um so there those are those are growing as we speak so from what we used to earn what our students used to earn and what they would leave with college credits um are they're going to leave with a lot more moving forward um with that new partnership that we have that's great and I and I think what uh sorry um I think I was um I I don't know if is any any way I think when I'm
200looking at mid year is or or the year looking for the next year are we able to sort of do some I don't know predictions or or have some estimates of what we think I me I guess what I'm trying to do is it feels to me like these are great numbers but I think they could be better and that's just Vicki's opin and I don't I don't understand sometimes how how that process works to make you know to encourage that to help students make the connection back to hey you're doing XYZ over here in your CTE well that's also connected to what you're doing English that's also what connected to what you're doing in the business class so just you know again this is just just me sort of imagining something that and we're
201learning as we do it too because this is our third year with the Seal of Civic Readiness and um we we've had some some really great projects um where our students I I'll give you an example we had a a young lady who was in on our cosmetology program and um she did a presentation on um the the the program that cosmetology does um where they they um they cut the hair of of cancer patients you know and and they come in and and they offer like um just a program just to beautify them and make them feel really special and uh you know and just just to see the look on her face when she was presenting it you know that that's that's what education is supposed to be right like that's the thing
202you know I am presenting something that I am I am intrinsically motivated to do that I am going to do when I leave here and and I want to teach you about it you know in the Seal of biliteracy is the same way you know these students are are speaking in a language anguage and they could be teaching us about anything in that language and sometimes I don't understand the language and I'm trying to but I'm following along but I'm watching them and they're talking with their hands and they're and they're pointing at their at their um their PowerPoint presentations and it is it's it's the reason why we all got an education because they're presenting something that they really are are are truly they they love to do so just yeah is that I
203just want to it's Lori hi everyone I just want to jump in here and back in May of 24 so just this past year uh we did present on the 2023 um graduation data so the 24 data is still embargoed and for the first time we did report and present on the seala by literacy um and the Seal of Civic Readiness and if you remember back to that presentation for the 2019 cohort and the 2018 cohort we had three kiddos who did re receive the Seal of by literacy um and then for the Seal of Civic Readiness we had 95 kiddos who did receive um the Seal of Civic Readiness um and that was the first time that the State education department um reported in a state Ed report format um that cohort information so
204I just wanted to jump in uh to Jody's point that we do and will continue to report on uh the Seal of Civic Readiness and um of biliteracy when we report out on the uh graduation data no I definitely appreciate that and and just want to see more of that credentialing documented and promoted yeah great thank you all thank you very much for your presentation so much data I have like about a million questions trying to identify like which are ones that are big enough picture to bring here um is always a challenge I wanted to build on what Miss Smith was saying which is I don't think so much about like how many kids got the Civic and I'm going to get this it's more like how do we know if our kids are
205succeeding in their lives like are we setting them up for success and I think that's always the problem nobody else has their mic on so I don't know why that happened um but I think that's that's the big challenge I think for for education is how do you measure your success it's not really about whether you pass English regions that's not that's not really the thing that's just a like a symptom of the success that you're going to show in your life we hope right so I dream of a day and this is not really an instructional core question it's really like a big question of a day when we actually have outcome numbers you know three years out of high school where are our kids are they employed in the military in um second
206post-secondary education like where are they that's I think what we really want to know the other stuff is just like little bits and pieces that we're trying because we don't actually have the information um and so I just wanted to build on on that but then also um um talk about it in the context of how we measure our success because I think you guys have a really big challenge coming as the Blue Ribbon comes in place and I can see you're starting to think about it already you talked about engagement and you talked about um attendance but I think the question that I want to keep asking you is how are you going to measure success I remember during covid when we knew about the regions exemptions I was like we already knew the
207blue commiss was coming right that was already sort of like in The Ether and I was like well that's that we're never going to be able to compare gradu ation rate ever again because we're changing the definition of graduation rate so you know graduation rate from 2019 compared to graduation rate from 2029 you can compare them but they're not really measuring the same thing and we knew that was happening um even when we saw those those covid exemptions happening and and here it is right in a few years you guys are not you can look at your graduation rate but it's not really measuring the same thing so how are you going to evaluate whether you are having the impact on students lives that you want to um and that's I think it's just going
208to be a really interesting question because it's not going to be this sort of quantification um in the same way so I'm not asking for an answer on that I just want like I think that's really the the CH the chore in front of you unless you want to speak to it now which is of course you're welcome to I always love to have that sort of you know nerd talk right around the work um and what I think is missing from the quantitative way we are held to a particular standard and this is how we're measured as a district and and etc etc um is that it's the qualitative piece of you know and and any good researcher knows that right mixed methodology is important and having the qualitative data that's what we don't
209have is our students voices sharing with us um I we do surveys and and things of that nature right but how do we collect that in in a systematic way that isn't anecdotal and isn't um just you know graduates popping in telling us their stories right but how are we really understanding from a qualitative perspective how the Albany High experience uh set them up for success in their lives um regardless of the path they choose our goal is is for students to graduate ready for what's next and that that is aut autonomously Theirs to decide um and so that's our North Star like that's the man on the moon goal um but I'm hopeful that the opportunities that present themselves over the next few years as we learn more about um Blue Ribbon that uh
210students will have an opportunity to share their qualitative experience um in a systematic way that is not currently represented in the numbers on the page thank you m SC thank thank you for the presentation I guess it is a little bit concerning hearing about some of the issues I had just a quick question wanted to clarify something in the report where you talk about the achievement caps because this I I liked the figures but they're all schoolwide so could you tell me more you said that most of the if I understood correctly most of the achievement caps were pretty much about the same now as they were pre-co except for there was one subject where they we' narrow the achievement Gap but then it had widened again can you tell me more about that and
211what what we're doing on that y so um when we were when Alban high was in receivership um we had I think 12 metrics that you know for which we had to to demonstrate Improvement and uh about a third of those metrics were attributed to uh outcomes on the English region exam so the English Department be was very much in in the spotlight on uh you know doing some of that work um that lifted Albany High out of receivership and one of those they were it was outcome for particular groups of students but there was a disproportionality measure um for which we were responsible and uh a lot of the work we did is a lot of the work we're doing now um it's really about that plan do study act action research model you
212plan your lessons you analyze your lessons and the outcomes that the students have and then study the results uh collaboratively calibrating around success criteria and then what what do we do now right and how do we differentiate to meet the needs of the different students those that are approaching proficiency at proficiency above proficiency uh to meet everyone's uh needs and the last year of receivership we were in the 83% proficiency range um and then we were out of receivership and that Trend continued all the way up through covid and the while I was thrilled of course by the proficiency rate what I was most thrilled about is that last year before covid the gaps were closed um I if I I do know most of it by heart but I believe our proficiency rate overall
213for all students was 85% um white students black African-American Hispanic Latino were all in that um same 84 85 86 range um and same is true of our economically disadvantaged students I believe that was 82 and then the gaps for our students with disabilities and our English language Learners were closing I think we were close to single digits on special education and only slightly higher than that for English language Learners and we have not recovered and and but that team is very determined because Collective teacher efficacy is the highest uh indicator of um highest uh effect size on acceleration and uh contributing to growth over time in terms of uh the effect size is something along the lines of four years worth of growth for one year of instruction it's an acceleration strategy and that
214team achieved Collective teacher efficacy so it can be done and it'll be done thank you thank you M Wilson thank you for your presentation um for one there was a lot like a ground covered and um tonight there was a lot of Albany High School grads in the building and I find that people are almost universally proud to always you know mention that they went to Albany High School especially with staying in the area and I find that you know numerical grades or scores are not the Benchmark of future success in life um ultimately our students are work in progress and there's a lot of things that are character development and formative pieces who they will be as an adult however um number grades do serve as a wonderful yard stick for the overall class
215as um board member CI mentioned or student body as well as their experience and knowledge of the material in the class so I'm very intrigued about the possibilities for Project based learning in that context also um just in terms of I also agree with the notion of if things are changing in terms of the metrics how do we measure how do we evaluate I just also feel like you know I'm curious if there there's a approach sometimes that measurement can inherently categorize and form a cast system and if you're not for example let's say a great test taker but you for example know the work it can be a very horrible feedback loop so I wonder you know as far as students if they're you know know the material sit in the class but don't
216do well on a test when are they checking out you know things of that nature and just another notion about yers and evolution in that sense but the times we are living in it's clearly a dawn of a new day um with the Advent of um AI assist of Technologies and things of that nature we'll we'll see you know how that evolves but you know there's definitely the question of how we move forward that being said uh my questions were asked by a lot of my fellow board members and similar to board member El MWI I am curious of for example how or when or what the approach will be um as far as addressing and you laid out a few of the like I think issues and the actions so to speak and I'm
217cognizant that many people are not really willing or feel like a new thing or initiativ is and imposition for all the obvious reasons because you have your your Baseline work to do but I'm just curious how do you feel for me I need to S out how I can best support students in the school what do you think of the things we discussed like how would it look for example um so you don't F on the spot I was in another context there was uh Workforce Development and they were talking about their challenges what recruitment of a particular demographic and you know we posit it to them people on the call with them naturally are you speaking to you know a different demographic for example are you going into churches and speaking to maybe moms
218and grandparents just basically creating that awareness level so that they can also do like the cross referencing with the the person so I'm just curious as far as strategies and I know there was mention of um Staffing allocation and uh attendance being very important or do you feel like for example do we need to go further down street into the downstream into the lower grades in preparation or you know just curious your thoughts around that could you clarify the question for me please sure I heard a of as far as like brainstorming um with moving the needle for performance or to Hassan's point I'm sorry board member elwi I'm not looking at it like we had to have re um bounced back after the pandemic because to me um it's very much still a pandemic
219you know so many ways there's people with long covid and other um comorbidities or other lingering issues systemically and things of that nature so I don't P per se look at it like where there had to have been or need to be a bounce back to a certain place not giving you like it should have been this place by this time I was just curious as far as strategies what would you think would be a supportive element that we can do so I if I'm understanding the question correctly um I think that our Focus has been on how we Define engagement right and what does it mean to be engaged and the first commitment that we referenced is really around academic engagement cognitive engagement the second commitment is really around being Tethered to your school
220Community right and knowing that it's it's a safe place to be it's enjoyable we know that our extracurricular offerings be it's sports clubs Etc that's why kids come to school right that's their their smaller Learning Community within the bigger learning community and the relationships they have with their peers the adults The Trusted adults in the space and so that has been our strategy is to focus on engagement as it's collectively defined and not just what it means to be like cognitively engaged in the classroom right but to be to feel like school is this psychologically safe space where I can come and be myself and have an identity um and have peers and friends and relationships with adults that um that feel good um and make me want to be there um and and so
221that I would say I don't know if I answered your question but I think that's been our focus and our strategy is around engagement absolutely it makes perfect sense from a level of investment that you feel engaged you actually feel motivated to come to school engage see your friends participate in the subcultures absolutely thank you and data beautiful thing lot of data so a lot of things to digest uh but great presentation a lot of my colleagues has uh already asked most of the questions so I have some comments a question and a request okay I go in that order so we talked about how are we going to track or alumni right how are they being successful and this is something that regardless of the field you are and you need to know if
222you're training somebody to do something you're successful if they become successful right so you need to know what's happening to them outside of your four walls so maybe we could go back to something like the reading buddies strategy where we pair a sophomore with the senior while they in school build that connection so as these kids go into their senior year they're still in touch with with their peers it's just two years right and they can report back to us so it's not the one dedicated person we can do all of the other things alumni tracking but this would might be an easier way and this also builds connections for them because as students are CH are are going through the process of looking for colleges and this and that they need some guidance right
223so you already connected them to some of their peers who have gone through that process that might help them so that was one idea that just popped popped in my mind um with term in terms of the data I love the fact that you compared us with the um other districts that are similar in in size and stuff and I actually looked at the SD data and and UTA for whatever reason is so identical they one high school the demographics are very similar except for you know slight one or two percentages difference between the minorities it's all the they have the same issues they Refugee City I was surprised to see that you know when you look at the scores we're very our scores are very similar to it except for world history and geography
224I mean yeah geography and world history and US history and to some extent chemistry where they blow us out of the water why right and and you were think like with the diversity that we have and the diversity they have we should be just as good and at least world history right because you got peers coming from all parts of the world talking to each other exchanging all these yeah I ideas and experiences and cultures so that that was kind of yeah I asked myself the same question it can I ask a very specific question on that point one of the things I remember but I've got it like it's slightly wrong in my head so you're going to have to correct it on the social studies thing side is that some of our students
225take AP world but then they don't take the world history Regents until maybe they're a junior something like that I have this little sophomore but they don't they're not taking the Regents during the school year in which they are studying the content right um so maybe something has changed that's why I said I may be wrong so let's get clear I would love to find out if UDA does their AP World Class over two years like many districts do they do a pre-ap and then an AP and the coursework happens over those two years which then crescendos at the same time with the world history the global history exam um that's one possibility in terms of of an answer but our students in AP take the entire world history curriculum uh in nth grade they
226take many go on to take European history some do level down into you know world history to honors uh but then they study European history which is part of the exam and the expectations but not all of um that and so um that is could be a contributing factor this actually was a question you did ask last year and we I weird um and we uh we did we have explored and have discussed over time should our um course extend over you know do the preap as nth grade um and then do the AP um as 10th grade the convers is is that our students have the opportunity to earn four but is there a reason they couldn't take the regions as freshmen um because they just studied the material and now like it seems
227like they would and we still there's that like six week period at the end of the class where it's like the AP is over and what's going on so the guidance is like probably intentionally vague um it's meant to culminate at the end of the 10th grade year but we can certainly look into what our options are in that regard um we tend to be rule followers here um and that is one of the the rules that is articulated in terms of the the the expected trajectory for example the English Regent is meant to culminate at the end of 11th grade year some of our surrounding districts do test or 10th graders they do um we have done that in the past and had you know some discussions where folks were asking from you know
228we're in state Ed's backyard and they've asked questions about why you know why were you taking for example your 10 honors English kids and I think Miss C has an add-on question but I would say we have a very good reason because our students have just studied the material so we want them to take the test then not a year later so and certainly I'll look into that and and get back to you I I was just I was also curious about that because I know for our students who were Accel at in math they take the they don't wait till the end of nth grade to take the algebra one regions right like if you're double accelerated you take algebra one regions end of seventh grade you don't wait till eighth grade to take
229it with the rest of your eighth grade cohort so and with science too we've got all these ninth graders or sorry got eighth graders is taking biology regions for example a living environment also on that I I noticed the UDA as well and in one or two cases Troy was uh higher um I I think here's uh here's my other kind of question and I I I may be uh doing a stereotype thing here but I also am curious about the demographics of the students who are taking some of those Advanced courses like chemistry you know um you know because and there is a I think there is a thing where just regardless of students sometimes they don't many of them are motivated to take those things they want to be encouraged many of them
230like hey look I'm smart but I don't want to do that and so again I think it's about how we helping youngsters to uh to to to have to to feel like they can reach those higher expectations um and and how do we also engage it with other students I know that like in cosmetology they've done things over the years where and still are where youngsters are learning more about um the the chemistry involved that that's and that's great that's not the same as necessarily taking a chemistry course but how far away would we be from from those students actually taking and I don't want to say don't because I don't know this but having more of those particular students taking chemistry or phys or whatever um you know and and we have all these
231things where uh you know young women are still not taking certain courses you know um you know so how do we create that culture of high expectations and again it's not about like you know you know the numbers oh we got like 500 kids in this but it's it's about having a meaningful connection to the things they're interested in and to the things that they they they want to achieve and how do we you know encourage that and you know attendance is certainly part of it all these things kind of come together but I'm I'm just trying to figure out like I think in some of these situations there's a demographic around who takes what and and I don't want to I don't want to be remiss not to at least raise that um so
232so but I am curious about how UDA you know I I don't know if there's dialogue going on but what what's what are they doing and is there something about the Staffing is it something about the industries around them I don't know um but there could be a whole lot of uh there could be a lot of things that that influence and the whole point is to raise our standards right and and if if there are peers who are doing better then let's learn from them see what is it that's working for them that maybe might work for us not because it's not like a one chit all right so so you know let's look into that and and while while we have the comparison of of um you know districts that are comparative in
233that respect I would also like to see how we fair with our Suburban districts right even though the demographics are are not the same the challenges are not the same but this is the cohort that's going to be competing when it goes to apply for college admissions right so why should we sell our kids short right so if if if our kids are going to be applying for the same Admissions and pretty much the similar universities we it's good to know where we stand and and yeah we may not be up to them but what can we do to get as close as possible it's challenging ourselves so it' be good to have that data as well um the uh it's good to see the AP the numbers in the the table that you had
234on I think slide 22 or 23 with all the AP scores that the the uh numbers of students taking in all of those different courses is going up that's great that's another another way where we're encouraging our kids to see their their own potential and the fact that they can do this right so I I love that um so you know Co did a lot of things but you know yeah we can blame Co but we can't right so there's a lot of work but I think we're headed in the right direction um so thank you other questions thank you I had one more is it okay um Can somebody bring up let's say the living environment slide which is is like I don't know slide 12 um because one of the things that I
235was noticing on these slides which I they they're very easy to understand and I really appreciate the way they were structured um but I was noticing the difference between the school and District numbers which I assume is because living environment is a course that we offer in middle school right so the algebra as well yes right so you can see like English they're basically School equals District but on the ones we have middle school so what I'm looking at here is 29% um proficiency um for the school those would be our Albany High students who did not for the most part take living environment in middle school and are taking in high school and 40% for the whole District that includes both so that means our middle school students far exceeded the 40% right because
236otherwise it wouldn't average down to 40% so I'm wondering if we've looked at it that way to like look at our Middle School pass rate to see um and that I think is really pertinent to what um Miss Smith is talking about about who's getting access to the curriculum at that way and what what are the demographics look like and I have not looked whether you can look at the demographic outcomes for Regions like compare udica subgroup versus our subgroup subgroup to subgroup um whether we're like our black students are performing as well as they're black students or if it's just a different demographic mix of students who are taking I think that's the question she was asking which is a question we always ask because we know that like the international comparisons can be
237very misleading because United States almost every student takes the CL the the exam and in certain other countries a very narrow group of students takes the exam so it's not really an Apples to Apples thing so it's just hard to see that when you're looking at the data disit but this looks to me like our middle school students who are in we don't track our kids at all in elementary school and I think we're all pretty much convinced of the benefit of having our students have access to the whole curriculum right and not having those strong tracking like some districts do but we do start tracking at at the seventh grade for the most part right this is when we have honors in middle school and so that is a is a subset of our
238students um who've been selected or whose parents have encouraged them to do it or some combination of reasons that they're going ahead and it looks to me like they're they're probably doing pretty darn well compared to the state I just can't see exactly because I don't know what the ends are but so I would I'd be interested to know whether our middle school students are performing more comparably to the state that was a lot of talking just ask a simple question sorry okay um and pardon me because I think I'm just working through something here so you know I apologize um okay so I I know that uh every with every exam uh you all do like an item analysis right so you kind of know where those gaps are as well as you have
239the standards so you know like um what students aren't aren't I don't know aren't getting um the reason for that could be a variety of things maybe it's a teacher it's it's a student It's a combination of things um but I how how how do those discussions then uh turn into some action that is um you know discussed in PD and and in and observed in the classroom I mean so there's there's a certain amount of thing we know some things I guess is what I'm trying to get at and we know those things even down to a student level okay so I'm just trying to understand how that works and and is there something else that we're missing that we can't get deeper into what the Gap how to fill that Gap or how
240to you know what I'm saying you know I mean it's it's it's an instructional kind I mean you guys do this I don't do this but it just makes me think I know this some of this but it makes me think like we don't it's not that we don't know something about the gaps right but the question is are are we do you feel like we're putting in the right resources the right skill sets and I I get that Staffing is a big part of it but are there other ways then that we can tackle this okay okay your mic sorry I was going to say Miss Wilson's question was similar in terms of what the board though can do like you had you were asking what is it that we can do to fill
241these gaps um or do you have any suggestions about what the board can do even on an individual basis because each of us are members of this community um and I think um Miss Smith's question is essentially the same but asking on your oh yeah I'm just I mean we can put more money into it I mean and there's a you know I I mean again I don't I would want to say we don't get enough money but there's something else there's something else and and we don't want to we can't really be in teacher business in that yes you know I mean we can mentor we can support you know but we're not going to be in that classroom right so that's that's why I put it on that level because that seems more
242appropriate from our discussion but anyway I really did my homework to anticipate these questions and that was not one of them so respectfully I would love to reflect a little bit about that and get back to you if that's okay of course thank you the board's job is to enable you folks right so that's and you know what and you started it so so just give it right back no I'm just I'm really kidding I just want to add that because your way of saying it was what way more eloquent that you we want to like tap you as Wordsmith or something move it forward oh no doesn't word Smith yes but I app I do I appreciate you and I again I you know I don't I don't ask these questions to be challenging
243uh specifically I love to be challenged okay but I like and I like that but really it because it it says to all and this is where we can like we need to think about about the whole big picture and what is needed in our community among our students among among our faculty you know to help get us there and and uh and I think the other thing that just to reiterate we have some very exciting stuff and not and we have students that are doing very well um and you know despite some of what they might be going through and dealing with and all that needs to be celebrated and I think I think for one because I know I have high expectations of of everyone than it does than I'm asking that how
244do we get there how do we do better at getting there and it's not a it's not something you all aren't asking yourselves uh I know that um but that's that's the for me that's the context it's not about trying to you know oh let me find out what's going on let me get them uh not at all uh we've got an incredibly talented staff we've got incredibly talented students but we also have students that are struggling and we want them to be just as confident uh in themselves and just as successful as all the other students so thank you thank you and just for the uh benefit of people who are listening I just wanted to say this data you can look up any school's data if you go to New York State education
245department there's public a thing that's a reporting public data and just look for the report card Tab and it'll give you all the demographics of the school and the you know all the exams and stuff so just for your own gratification I had a question so I I apologized I was saving my I'm sorry it's it's a minor question but I was looking over your AP test results and I wondered if you you know because I think maybe we have to focus in the areas where we're more successful and I wondered if we' can given any consideration to maybe offering AP Physics 1 rather than AP Physics C because I'm looking at it and our test results in this one particular course which I think only the most motivated and hardworking student students even sign
246up for this class but our Pass rates are less than half of the national average and it just seems like we're doing a disservice to our students when that's been consistently the case for many years whereas if we offered AP Physics one which is like all the physics but less calculus maybe maybe kids maybe a more kids could take the course uh who because you need to be at least co-enrolled in calculus to take AP Physics and B more students could succeed and get college credit just a thought thank you physics is not my area of expertise but I will get that answer and let you know normine I'm proud to have passed the physics region but that's that's that's the end of it thanks I'm Jing thank you thank you thank you no no
247no no thank you thank you all right the next discussion item budget update thank you good evening um so this is the second presentation uh as we begin our budget season um and more information is coming to us from a variety of locations or variety of uh areas so as always we keep our district vision mission and goal in mind as we um create the budget uh the budget calendar again just for the up next two months uh we had our first Community budget communic I'm sorry First Community budget meeting last night um it was a it was a nice meeting uh and there's a lot more work a lot more explaining a lot more detail to uh address and to move forward with but as you can see uh at the bottom there's the
248actual website or the link for the whole uh budget calendar uh the rollover budget is the was using the all current Staffing and programs from the current general fund and move forward to the next year um we still have the uncertainy for the state aid Foundation um the nice thing is that we did get the state aid uh executive budget run two days ago so we still have to dissect it it's a part of the slide here but we still need to go through and see all the allocations and the money associated with it um so it was a very good run actually because I don't believe they use the Rockefeller Institute recommendations at all and it's pretty close to what if the actual current Foundation Aid formula was fully funded so at the end
249of the day it was about $11 million increase to school districts based on that run but this is just the starting point um the budgetary notes the continuation of existing programs and services our contractual obligations our operations Staffing and benefits under our labor contracts and as always we keep to monitor our overtime related work uh this is the current Staffing ratios a little bit easier to maintain since we have the position control that we've um we I believe we have four more areas to visit uh Kate th and I as well as the assistant Hoops for that location to go over the Staffing with the position control but that's this is so much an easier way to maintain uh what positions we do have our 25 26 legislative priorities um as always we're looking for
250the Expo prek funding an additional 2.2 to $2.7 million support for our teacher pipeline grow our own initiative to $300,000 our charter school oversaturation and support for our enl Refugee students of 3 million um Thea document is also listed below uh the variables still are the state aid this is the first run um the final run is usually in March or April right before our budget vote or pretty close to it our health insurance increases are roughly about 10% but I'm still getting more information on that the tax cap which is uh finalized in late February the tax levy which will be set um in early April and the impact of retirements which a lot of the retirements were listed on the agenda tonight um so this is the first run of a rollover budget
251uh there's going to be a lot more tweaking to it and a f tuning as we get more information one of the biggest areas I'm still waiting for is our debt service since we're borrowing more money um our payments will be going up so this is my best estimate I should be getting more information on that in a few um probably next week early on but there's other information here under benefits uh Retirement System One the ERS Retirement System system has gone up a significant amount for us um and so I'm working through the tuition for the Char schools to ensure that I could uh accurately um present that number as well so there's there's different line itms that this is just my first best guess of the rollover budget and we still have uh
252the individual building wants and needs that were just submitted uh two days ago as well um so here is the first uh state aid run there are things that I still need to look at with these numbers but at the end of the day it looks like $1 million increase for the state aid for the school district um for example the Char School transitional Aid Char School supplemental Aid that's information that I still need to put into uh to calculate um the foundation Aid alone there's a lot of components to it that I still need to look into as well um this is something that there was an action item earlier on the agenda for the 8th District 1 through 4 and the 14th word bowling location the change to uh the bethan reform church
253and our next steps going forward uh as I said the building request just came in a few days ago uh as a cabinet and as a district the priorities and recommendations for the Board of Education incorporate new information as it becomes available because this is just the beginning of the budget season um continue to review the projects budget estimates and the assumptions uh respond to any questions that our board of education has and incorporate feedback from our board community and staff any questions so miss SMI Miss Savage I do just want to ask that you um compare the the um sorry my brain is not fully engaged it's getting very late I've had a long day a long week actually um but the executive budget always includes the prior Year's budget versus this year's budget
254and they show you the what was last year and what was this year and then they show you this percent increase but I always like to look at what they present for last year and compare it to what we actually thought we were going to get when we adopted the budget last year and what I saw was like about a $3 million difference which makes the percent look much bigger than it really is and actually the differential not just the percent but the raw number and that's a meaningful difference um so I'm wondering if you can look into that for me and figure out whether like I just have the wrong number or whether in fact that's what happened no um actually definitely that's a great question because if you actually look at the enacted
255Budget on the state aid website it's actually different than what was even presented for the Governor's run as well so there's a difference between the three different numbers that I need to that's why I need to go back and look at what is actually what we're getting and then how to calculate it going forward right and when you what you're talking about I just want to make sure I understand is three different ways that the state has presented that information right the the number that I always consider the most important from my little parochial perspective is what we put in the budget last year because that's the money I need to not just replace but build on to to handle the salary increases and the tech and the um Insurance increases and all those other
256things so if if we actually in our adopted budget not the state adopted budget but our adopted budget had $3 million more than what she thinks we had thinks meaning what she presented in the in the 2425 then that's three more million dollars that we got to find from someplace right um and so that's that's really the number I always try and validate against and I either I'm looking at the wrong budget number which I hope or as you say there's something wonky going on and I'd really love to understand that especially in Foundation Aid because it's that's like a big big big chunk yes definitely oh and I should say thank you for your real close connection to the Charter School number which I know has been very wonky for the last three this
257is the third budget cycle in a row where the number just looks not right um so I appreciate you're um beginning our conversation with a more realistic number than what was in the executive budget yes thank you m graie uh no questions other than you know qu qualified optimism at this point thanks M Wilson thank you for your presentation I know we will eventually have our um Road Show and speak to many um members of our diverse Community I'm just curious if if it's too early to engage with um for example the city or examp any anything of that nature or would we save that for our common Council presentation and I only asked just to get a sense of climate in terms of um there wasn't I forgot what the word for it is
258but the tax adjustment that took place what it was that reassessment thank you yes so things of that nature is there any sort of dialogue we should engage in at this early stage or just wait and see usually I don't uh try to engage until we get more finalized numbers and try to a budget so that we don't I try not to put too many different numbers out because it becomes very confusing so I think as soon as the board adopts I think that's when we start um to reach out to our community members in site and ask if we could do uh budget presentations again it's too early for questions but one one suggestion I would have is because of what happened last year even with the 0% increase in our budget people saw
259changes in their thing and so you know later on one of our presentation we had a slide which broke their apart and told them why they some people might be seeing an increase in their school taxes without us seeing a dime extra I think that's important as we do these uh presentations um so that people remember that whatever the budget is whatever we think your number is going to change other factors do play a role in that too Miss Smith okay um so this is a this is not specifically per se about the budget although it does impact it so I know that we order and had got a number of supplies and materials uh via Amazon and um I was concerned because they that entity explicitly um uh pulled its Dei related policies and
260specific to the lgbtq and trans Community um and so I'm just raising a question for us to think about um and I know it's political in nature but it it it also is contrary what they're doing is contrary to our values and um I'm just raising the question about how we will want to or if we will want to make changes in our purchases based on policies that we are um all facing in in the society and some of which we don't have a lot of you know control I mean who knows what Google does who knows what these various software platforms uh are doing um we don't know yet but um I just wanted to throw it out there um there are alter alternatives there are people of color Alternatives that are not engaged
261in politics there are other entities that also um could be examined so I'm just raising it and I'm probably should have put it under new business or something like that but it it has budget perhaps budget implications uh if not right now it it may so last year we um decreased dramatically uh the purchases through Amazon because we became a part of The Cooperative bid through Ed data um so I'm going to say we're probably about 99% out of Amazon and into Ed data specifically for our purchasing policy um just because the amount of money that we do spend we had to make sure that we were part of a bid uh so this is a pre-bid it's a company that they work with school districts across New York State and New Jersey they pre-bid
262all the different items that we look for um there 6 months of free shipping so it it it we we made a change about a year ago to not so that we could follow our policy thank you for reminding me of that because I wasn't really thinking about that there's more in my head about what's happening so okay thank you but I do think it's a it's a question that we um should get some more input from legal in terms of our purchasing policy I know there are particular constraints on what nonfinancial metrics we can use to evaluate um purchases and I'd like to really know more about that because this does come up more and more of us really wanting to use our purchasing power to live our values um in terms of um
263purchasing locally whenever we can and purchasing um from underrepresented communities whenever we can and I don't know that I'm clear on where we are permitted to do that and what the you know if there is a fiscal budgetary implication um I I would like to know more and I can't remember purchasing I think might be one that comes up every year is that one of the annual ones so that might be a time we could engage with our legal council on um when in under what circumstances we could instigate um initiate some sort of um because there are certainly businesses that we would not want to do business with right or there could be um and so our that is the whole point of having board policies is to set the guard rails for the
264district to say you can do whatever whatever you want to do but you can't do this right and one of the things might might have to do with this um purchasing from an entity that has um demonstrably um gone beyond what we think is is reasonable um and we'd have to figure out how to define that it would be complicated but I'd like to even know if it's permissible um any other comments okay thank you may I have a motion any other um board committee reports I have two y School visits your email should be checked because the lovely Miss nikaya Sim Timmons did a great job of getting all of the invitations out to principals who are getting back to us with ideas about times um subject to the availability you guys provided so
265please keep an eye on your District email um and those are getting set up Miss Savage yes you're going on to the other commit I was is that okay could I could I just ask I I I would like to if it's helpful I know uh it would help me and the committee a lot but if uh the ad hoc committee on student representation uh we can give you a little a couple of questions that we might have you um ask in your conversations with the school principal around their Equity that sounds fantastic I love that okay great and I don't know when the next visits are because I for everybody I just have mine but when when that calendar is set I'd love to see it so I can get that to to everybody
266yeah I can share the link um Miss Timmons is updating them as the dates get set um but if you just get them to everybody as soon as you can that's great sure just just one or two questions that would help great okay thank you good idea love it uh secondarily the audit committee I am subbing in for Miss damis man who's not here we met on the 13th of January to discuss the internal controls audit from the 2023 2024 school year we also discussed the focus area for the special area audit as you guys will recall we always do that um and we talked about a number of different possibilities including I know we've had some conversation around time sheet tracking and how that is going um uh the use of gift cards for
267our families and our students um how we track and control gift cards but we ultimately landed on um IEP and student needs to ensure both that our students are getting the services that they're entitled to and that we are doing that in a cost-effective way and not um providing Services um ghost Services let's just say um right so that that is going to be the special area audit for this pass and government relations oh I forgot about government relations government relations has been government relating we met with our um brand new assembly member and our brand new state senator last week it was a productive conversation I also had the opportunity to meet one-on-one with the assembly member Romero um which was helpful I think um she's definitely you know learning quick um about how
268all of this is structured and we got some interesting feedback on our legislative priorities um so actually interesting in the sense it was somewhat different than in the past so in the past we've been sort of advised create an Albany pilot project so that we can carve out a small amount of money for you and this time it was sort of like find some Partners so that you can present a more complete picture so uh it did not give me a lot of Hope for our $300,000 CTE um teacher ask um you know we have this idea that we'll create a teacher pathway in Albany and we think we're uniquely site situated for that because we offer CTE in the building which very few schools do so we thought we think that this is an
269excellent program to get a um CTE pathway for our students to become teachers um through a CTE pathway like we have for the CNA they would come out with a certified ta um credential and I did not get a lot of I didn't get a lot of traction on that um I did think that there was continued movement on prek um apparently whoever it is that is the leader in the Senate for looking towards Universal prek has has finally like grasped the Equitable prek uh issue and is incorporating Equitable prek in other words bringing our number up to match what everybody else is already getting as part of the work that they um when they ask for Universal they ask for Universal and Equitable so obviously we didn't see a lot of that in the
270ex Governor's executive budget so it would it would be only if the Senate and assembly are successful in pushing that forward um so that I think is the the main point of the conversation we did of course also talk about charter schools and we did talk about seal there was a interesting conversation about raise the age again and how that implications um for schools and the need to build that into the foundation Aid formula the New Foundation Aid formula as it gets evolved so um it'll be interesting things are things are changing but it was a good meeting M gr oh I we went over the policy committee earlier in the meeting so I don't have anything else thanks okay Miss SM okay so um let see um we uh I think we the last
271meeting or so we already did some update on the facilities um and we um uh have done some work since then but we have our next facilities meeting on the 11th of believe the 11th um and um let's see on with with regards to the student ad hoc committee um we are just moving along we've had uh we still have some meetings to go but right now doing a lot of sort of communication with the high school folks around U uh gathering information around a selection process also talking with various groups and like I said I'm thankful that you all will uh perhaps uh take on a little bit of a task and speak to your um the school leaders of the schools that you're visiting about uh this process and I'll make sure you
272have everything that you need to do that so uh are we on schedule not really but um but I we'll be we'll be okay I did want to address one thing I know we we sort of um maybe it was just from Dr Shar Shar uh sh um we in talking okay one meeting that we are having next uh week which is the 30th um the committee has been invited to uh sit with the student government Association um to talk about this process a bit more and um and get their involvement and input and um so uh that's one thing that's scheduled in the process of sort of getting to that point you know we had some uh I don't want to say they were grandiose ideas not at all but they they were not
273were not actually according to the attorney within the letter of the law and the problem is is that when they when the law talks about selection it says you may you know you know implement the following like methods for student selection we took we took that a little further say okay yeah Student Government Can Can you know uh select elect the student but here's a process piece and so the attorney took us through talking about well that's not quite going to be we don't think that's going to be permissible but we'll let's chat more about it and so we did have a conversation with legal uh and I was also pleased that uh the GSA adviser was on that call uh with me today and uh so I think we've we've kind of round the
274edges but we're we're recommending I think we'll be able to do what we had intended but it will definitely be um I think the preferences to allow the sgaa to make the selection as opposed to the other choices which is um you know superintendent which is um you know uh the board and and largely because we want to we've done so much work to get student voice uh up to where it is and it's really incredible to see these Equity teams and student student government um really taking on the leadership and making sure that uh their perspectives are are included that it feels uh it felt a little bit like what we were going back if it's a selection only by the principal only by the superintendent or even by the board so we're we're
275working through that um but we are going to uh do that meeting with sgaa on Thursday we're also on February 12th um I believe is the date am I right tab I think it's February 12 we are going to be available for power lunches at the high school and I would encourage any it doesn't have to be the committee you know because we there are there four lunch periods I think something like that there's more than one and so we want to have some representation of the board at each one of these it doesn't necessarily have to be a member of the committee it can also be um you know Dr sture or can you know any one of our other folks and the idea there is to help students understand um and they can
276tell us that they already do or that they don't but really to talk with them about what this governing body does and what it's about and then also to promote um you know their uh engagement in this process so anyway we're we're working I feel like we're working hard but it's it's just it's going to take us a bit but one thing I did want to mention you know one of the things that uh we talked about is like could we perhaps consider bringing on a student now as we have done in the past um and while there is some interest in a couple of students to do that uh we felt like it's just going to mess up the process so as much as it would be nice to have a student sitting and
277that it would be different if we had one that was assigned already last September you know we just would work through that um but this is this is a little different we feel like we're we we really got to focus on the process and not try to figure out how we bring on a student right now even though the energy is there I'm glad to hear it you know um and and this person happens one of one of a couple people happened to be a senior um and just is like oh my God I would love to do this and so that is exciting and I hope that he or she can you know get that energy out to others um but we just didn't feel like it was um and I say we really
278not so much the committee as much as um the staff at the high school and I think that's right so um there's there's energy there's momentum and uh as soon as soon as possible we will get um to the policy committee um and I know you you're going to have a slate of things to focus on um this being one of them but I I would I want to say I think probably at the March some point in March we'll be able to get you something and I'll have to pay attention to your next policy committee meeting but it's definitely March and um we will uh kind of get busy with the policy committee so back I think it was preco or or yeah I think it's preo when we we actually put together a
279slight deck that when we used to have Leon for schools that you could go to the PTA meetings and present about what the board does and doesn't do and things like that I'll find that slide and share it with you guys so when you're doing the presentation yeah yeah I I sent that yes back when we first started talking about this the one that you presented at toast I sent it to to Miss Smith we have it because you can use that for the and and what I've also done is in in the teams Drive um I'm sure I could do this other ways but uh there is a folder called you know ad hoc committee and so uh there's the law sits in there um there's a piece on mentoring that that that we
280want to also put into place for the student or students um and then also just there are districts that have a policy already um and um and they have students already so uh we we I put some stuff in there um in addition what we're also going to do um Miss uh timens is working with me now and and superintendent to connect with um a couple of districts I think SK and um Buffalo I think there's maybe one more so we want to have a conversation with their student and even though their law is stated for their the size or the type of City they are in is a little different nonetheless we want to um figure out some or understand from that those students how they uh interact with their peers how they focus
281on you know bigger picture things as opposed to you know what they specifically are doing um I also have collected a number of policies uh many of them are straightforward but there are some that have a few little things in there that that we might find beneficial and I'll pass all that on to the committee so stuff is happening it it feels slow but it also feels about right in terms of um what we've been able to do thus far and so we'll be revving up some Communications with uh School leaders more directly and all staff across the district so thank you thank you any other board items if not may I have a motion to return to exec session Mr omavi Smith all in favor okay I don't mean to stand on ceremony but
282could we have a oml by reason to go to Executive session so like we're going to make a motion to enter executive session for discussion of personnel uh matters leading to the employment and um or promotion of a particular employee yes okay yes yes I don't have my cheat sheet with me right thank you