Board of Education Public Meeting | Live Stream | January 5, 2023

001good evening my name is Vicki Smith I'm president of the city school district of albany's board of education on behalf of the board I welcome you all to our meeting tonight I am joined in person by board member Hassan Al miyawi member Ellen crazy member Dr chaturb some of my apologies who is our board secretary and Savage our vice president member Tabitha Wilson and member dammers Mann I also want to acknowledge Ms Timmons how are you this evening good to see you and thank you very much for your support while I was trying to vacation I appreciate your help and Ms Whitson good to see you as well let me also uh uh thank the superintendent who's here tonight superintendent Quita Adams uh our assistant superintendent for finance business and finance Mr Joe Carris I'm

002also just uh waving tonight uh doing Mr uh Honeywell our attorney saying hello to you so that I don't forget and do that at the very end I also see in the audience uh our interim superintendent Mr John nagelski welcome sir and of course Mr Baker our assistant superintendent for technology and there are a number of other things that I'm not going to glance at and don't forget and get them wrong but thank you Mr Baker and uh I also see that many of our cabinet members are there Dr Wilson Turner um Karen Bechtel um Lori McKenna and um just wanted to just say hello to everyone and Community thank you for joining us um I also want to on behalf of the board um I hope that all of you had an enjoyable holiday

003uh I know for a lot of you and I'm thinking particularly of some of my colleagues and employees who were from Buffalo has been a tough year season for Buffalo uh I'm the good news I'm glad very glad to hear uh our football player Mr Hamlin is doing better he's waking up um that is very hopeful and I'm very excited for him and for Community um I also just want to wish all of us at our board members our community a very good and successful New Year we have something many many things to look forward to okay so with that I just wanted to say that this meeting is being live streamed and the instructions to view the meeting uh are available at Albany schools.org forward slash Boe uh and for those of you who

004are listening in and you would like to access those materials we will show the relevant slides and documents on the virtual screen in the meeting room as well as on the screens uh that you have virtually you may also access everything that we're presenting tonight via Albany schools.org forward slash Boe um you will also notice and hear from the superintendent that the guidance for school districts has changed regarding coveted precautions while Mass are no longer required and those who choose to wear masks are encouraged to do so as you know we do see some increase in flu and cold and respiratory illnesses so we are encouraging everyone to take those precautions seriously wearing masks washing hands and taking other safeguards like social distance if you do not feel well for those of you here in

005person uh if you plan to speak in public tonight I ask that you uh see Mrs Timmons there at the corner and she will sign you up okay and with that introduction I want to invite those of you who choose to stand as we say the Pledge of Allegiance thank you I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to sue the Republic before which expands of unjustice for all thank you so much uh just a little departure tonight uh I want to just recognize that there are many Community Partners in the room and uh and other colleagues uh from the district I want to take a moment to uh acknowledge superintendent Guida Adams and no it is not your time to give a report I gotcha um so I wanted

006to uh we've done this a couple of times maybe I think uh early on in December but I wanted to take this time formally to thank Coweta Adams for her leadership for her uh immensely important contributions to this district and which ultimately have led to Greater success in our students diverse student population we are going to miss her uh in so many many ways um but I want to tell you that one of the things that she has um leaving us with um and perhaps uh some of us don't even recognize that but that is the leadership that we have in ourselves she has inspired us to uh be able to take on some challenges and take new directions um to focus our work and we will continue that as a district um we do

007however appreciate her much needed leadership at an important time in this District's history and we uh just can't say enough about you and I'm immensely immensely grateful to have had you as our leader as well as for us my colleagues to learn from you um to seek your guidance um and support in the work that we're doing so that we're all in this together and all working on behalf of ensuring our students are successful and so with that I'd like to at least tonight uh present me with a set of flowers um we have just so that the community knows we will have an event uh on February 4th in which we will have a reception to more fully recognize superintendents Adams contributions um to our community and to the education of students but tonight

008I think it is important that we just do a little something take some pictures would you care to come out thank you Department thank you thank you thank you it was a little impromptu but we wanted to uh acknowledge you tonight and um and again I also uh just want to thank you and also this amazing staff that we had I I I'm always reminded that you say uh or have said often that you don't do this work alone and uh certainly um I I see that for the work that we have been doing and the work ahead of us so again thank you very much so with that superintendent are you prepared for your reports tonight okay I'm forgetting how to work the microphone already um thank you so very much uh this is

009quite unexpected but thank you so very much I do appreciate it and I appreciate so many people out in the audience um that I know are here to support this last board meeting uh with me and I just want to say thank you so very much for coming and for supporting um and then I will get started with my report right now good evening and happy New Year as we begin the 2023 portion of our school year we have several recent student highlights and accomplishments that I would like to recognize at William S Hackett Middle School in case many of you did not know an experiment proposed by a team of eighth grade students will travel to the International Space Station for the second year in a row this spring astronauts on the space station

010will perform the effect of microgravity on orza stativia for rice the experiment was crafted by the Hackett team of Everett Mercier Sadir athman David Stefano Rosales yamar Santiago and John Tang all students of science teacher Craig ashram last fall 8th graders in the district's three middle schools took part in the student space flight experiment program they worked in teams to design an experiment that tests the effect of microgravity weightlessness on a particular scientific variable Mr Asher's students were Among The District semifinalists in the contest a group of district teachers and administrators judged all of the experiments and forwarded the top three to the student space flight program which then selected the Hackett experiment from others submitted from around the country it is my pleasure to congratulate our students our Scholars and Mr Asher on this

011impressive accomplishment let's give them a round of applause on the sports scene our undefeated high school girls basketball team climbed to number 14 in the State ranking this week after three impressive wins during the holiday break the Falcons posted victories over three other state-ranked teams and were 9-0 on the seasons heading on the season heading into tonight's home game against Saratoga Springs the Falcons also have another big contest coming up Tuesday with the road trip to Bethlehem which is ranked number 19 in the state so let's go Falcons we also had the great pleasure right before the holiday break of Hosting our annual exceptional students reception in person for the first time in three years we welcome the students selected for this year's District calendar and their families to the performance center at Albany School

012of humanities celebrating the many ways in which each of the students Stand Out Among their peers we are exempt simpler three some are exemplary in their academics or extracurricular activities or community service all however are shining examples of the thousands of exceptional young people that comp that comprise our school district it was our joy to honor them once again in this meaningful way and we look forward to their continued achievements in the years ahead also as we bring 2023 in and we look forward to our success in the year to come let's be reminded of what we have achieved in 2022 we have grown over the past year and we have a lot to celebrate we believe in accentuating the positive of our students so that they can believe and see what is yet to

013come we celebrated an 82 graduation rate and a narrowing of the achievement Gap among our diverse demographics we celebrated the implementation of an equitable feeder pattern at the middle school level we celebrated the expansion of stem programs and activities in our curriculum to pay 12. we celebrated the first Hydroponics Freight Farm in the city in the capital region at the Albany High School we now have hydroponics in all of our classrooms not all of our classrooms but all of our science instruction from K-12 we are encouraging our teachers and students to learn and grow through local and international travel expanding their opportunities beyond the capital region we are engaging in meaningful professional development to build our leadership capacity and enhance the delivery of quality instruction with Equity at the core of our policies practices procedures

014and the decision-making process we continue to examine our unconscious bias and implement the best practices of Relentless Equity as we focus on choosing courage over Comfort challenging the status quo having high expectations for ourselves and our Scholars and understanding that Equity is not a fad or a buzzword it is how we should do business on behalf of our Scholars and our families we built and celebrated our district and our school-based Equity teams and most importantly we have empowered our students our student Equity teams at each school which gives life to student voice at all levels we have been able to manifest the ideals of our Equity policy through our Collective collectively designed Equity metrics categories and indicators we celebrated the continued and accelerated growth of our educational technology infrastructure this has included the deployment of

015hundreds of interactive panels throughout the district many are among other enhancements such as the infrastructure all designed to build a tech forward secure state-of-the-art learning environment with Blended learning for all of our students faculty and staff we celebrated the Albany highs girls basketball team section 2 Championship as well as student athletes throughout our Athletic program and on and off the field as they demonstrated High academic standing and athletic ability we have our valedictorian here tonight who is not only an accomplished scholar but also an accomplished athlete we celebrated exceptional new learning environments for many of our CTE programs providing enhanced equity and access for students exploring these rewarding careers toward college or other career paths and our salutatorian is with us tonight who also represents JROTC which is another program that is a highlight at

016our high school related to that we have celebrated the overall progress of our transformational rebuilding Albany High School project opening an array of new spaces as the seven year project moves forward to put our students and teachers on The Cutting Edge of today's educational experiences last summer we celebrated the completion of the academic spaces at North Albany Middle School one full year ahead of schedule saving hundreds of thousands of dollars for the district and we are looking forward to celebrating the upcoming completion of that outstanding project with a new Auditorium this spring last spring we celebrated record voter approval for our school budget with 78 of our public saying yes to our financial plan for the current school year it was the seventh time in the last eight years that 70 or more of our

017voters supported our budget proposal this list of our accomplishments is long and there are much there's much more for us to feel good about as we continue to focus on building and sustaining a cycle of continuous Improvement in all areas of our operations despite the challenges that we Face we will continue to build back from the pandemic I'm confident that we have put the systems and structures in place that will allow us to continue to meet our challenges together both as a district and in partnership with our diverse community the city school district of Albany is and will continue to be an exceptional place for students to learn and grow and for each member of our faculty and staff to continue to our Student Success I challenge you to remember that negative things happen and

018negative things will happen however it is our responsibility to address the negative learn from it and move forward in a more positive direction it is important for our organization not to perseverate on the negative as it prevents and stifles growth and opportunity as an organization when we accentuate the positive we provide opportunities for our Scholars to dream and to dream big to Aspire to Greatness and to see the difference that they can make in the positive change that they can be in our schools in our community and in our world when we accentuate the positive we provide hope for a stronger better and brighter future it has been an honor to be a part of this team and I am grateful to all who have worked so hard to move our district forward I would

019like to take a moment to acknowledge the Board of Education as a whole collectively you have been supportive in the work and the belief and the possibilities of all of our Scholars I encourage you to do the right thing in the face of adversity and choose courage over Comfort even when the decisions are not easy even when you need to have the difficult conversations to stand for what is right and just among themselves and the families you represent doing what is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right I thank and acknowledge the power of greatness and service among our dedicated faculty support staff and administrators continue to be collaborative in the work and be focused on those of whom we serve our students because without them none of us

020would be here none of this is about us but it is always about our Scholars our children finally I thank our cabinet members no one is effective or Successful by themselves it has been a very meaningful experience over the past six years I am deeply appreciative of cabinet support of the Innovation kooky ideas sometimes and Equitable opportunities that we have been able to create and deliver for our Scholars Mr Karis welcome to the team miss these welcome to the team thank you to Dr Wilson Turner Miss Laura McKenna Mr Kent Baker miss Karen Bechtel Mr Ron lesko and Eileen Lefler you have been outstanding in your leadership in your respective divisions I think our amazing superintendent's office dating back to Mary Bryan Paula Tibbetts Michelle Santiago I'm sorry Senate I'm sorry sayonato I don't know

021why I'm hesitating over that name but Michelle cyanato who were in our offices from the very beginning when I started here I thank Sierra Sturdivant Tanya Bowie who were our previous board clerks and currently our team consists of Miss Jennifer Woodson who has stepped in as the superintendent secretary without missing a beat kala reinstrom and Brittany Pierce who are the secretaries for elementary and secondary instruction and our interim board clerk Nakaya Timmons who works diligently to ensure that our office runs as smoothly and effectively as possible let's give our support team a round of applause within our respective divisions there are numerous people that we can thank and I will collectively thank all of our support staff our faculty and our administrators again for all of the work that they do with boots on the

022ground with our students thank you to the entire organization and the Albany Community for this awesome opportunity to serve as your superintendent there are three people that I would like to call out at this particular time and it is our union leaders um I thank Michelle Bridgewater Laura Franz and Bridget Dolan for being supportive for always willing to push and challenge us to bring the concerns of our teachers support staff and administrators to the Forefront but also keeping in mind that we do this on behalf of our Scholars and our families I would like to extend another personal thank you this is a gentleman that all of you have gotten to know really really well um and I always have to announce this because I'm so very very proud of him and all of the

023support that he has given me um in this role and it is my husband Mr Eric Adams senior I always keep track of the years because I don't want to ever forget uh in September of this year we will have known each other for 41 years in June of this year we will have been married for 35 of those 41 years so thanks for hanging out with me it's been a lot of fun and here's to 35 more so thank you so very much and of course I have to thank Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority you welcome me when I came here and I didn't know anyone and you have been sisters with me through this entire journey and I thank you so much because without you this work could not have been done so thank

024you very much to the ladies of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority Incorporated Delta Mu Omega chapter under the leadership of Miss Andrea West who is our chapter president thank you now for the moment that we all wait for and we are so excited about at this time we have two of our school leaders here to talk to us this evening and tell us about the great things that are happening at their schools it is my pleasure to introduce Jody Comfort who is the principal at Albany High School and also Dr Stacy Dobbs who is the principal at Delaware Community School and so we'll start with Miss Comerford thank you everyone good evening superintendent board president and members we are very grateful to be here tonight to represent Albany High School joining me this evening is our

025class of 2023 valedictorian and salutatorian we have Neil tatore and Kevin camp we will be hearing from them a little later in tonight's presentation so next we have on the district's vision mission and goals in which Albany high schools are aligned with and you can see that Albany High School's vision is to have all of our stakeholders Empower our students to graduate as the creators innovators Civic and global leaders of our future and that is in alignment with our Academy our four Academy model at the high school we provide Pathways to meet our student needs both academic and social and by providing Equitable Pathways for college career and Civic readiness um I was able to visit the middle schools in both November and December for uh Lottery visits and then to already start scheduling for

026their freshman year um and this was a big part of the conversation that we had there really talking about when you get to high school and that college or career pathway um we just completed this month uh Tuesday our uh course offerings for our Juniors and again talking to them about that you know preparing for their their senior year and you know what pathway are we sending them out of the high school prepared for uh we are also really um trying to integrate that into the work that all of our teachers and staff are doing at the high school our school goals are on directly aligned with our sep plan uh to increase our student achievement um our delivery of quality instruction our leadership capacity and accountability Empower our families to support our students and

027then partner with our diverse community the next three slides are our um just our school administration um our operations principal is Dr Joe slicko uh joining us new this year our Emily lawyer as our CTE principal and Marilyn Jones Oliver at our attendance principal another new addition to our team this year is our assistant Academy principal for citizenship Mr Charmaine Moore bowaki uh we have Mike Lopez for Discovery Kenneth Klein for Innovation and Alexandria Lacoste for the leadership academy and our Academy principals uh new this year as well is Jordan Goldman our Discovery Academy principal and Michaela Miranda our Leadership Academy principal and Candy antonetti one of our District Veterans for citizenship and Mr Richard Shay who has returned to Albany next we have our demographic slide here okay good I have to put my

028readers on I'm sorry you can see our total demographics for the high school which this was on beds day actually includes the Albany International Center and the Clement Center at 26th um over just over 2600 students almost 2 700 students we are maintaining that 2600 it's been a few years we were really at that 22 2300 Mark for for years and we have finally seen that increased projected enrollment at the high school um so here you can see our students with disabilities we are at 382 which is typically the average number of students since probably I know the last 10 years since I started um and then our L students around the same number we have about 312 actual L students but of those there are 99 former elves who still receive services for two

029years and then we do have um that small number that has tested out that's I am sorry transitioning to readers everyone and I'm still getting the hang of this the um we have about 54 um students who have tested out um and then as usual our male to female ratio is about even at 50 um in our economically disadvantaged students is about 60 percent um you really can see though the diversity at the high school here and you'll you'll hear from our students tonight that this is really what makes Albany High School special um I I know as a graduate of Albany High myself I would had a very different trajectory um going to uh Catholic School through eighth grade and when I get to Albany High School it was we go to college you

030know so um that I think everyone having that college or career pathway at Albany High School and meeting so many different um students from so many different backgrounds and ethnicities is really what um gives our kids the stamina and the um student voice that they need in such a large High School in the area to succeed right next is our sap um focus I'm gonna cover some of these later on in other slides but I'm going to focus here on the graduation rate our four year has been over 80 percent for the last three years um we're really um happy with that even after um you know covid we do have an increase in that due to some of the waivers from the Regents exams which I'm very happy that state head is starting to

031to look at differently so our projected um was even there for the um I'm sorry from the 82 percent for all three years projected from last year that's not um released yet and then our goal for next year to stay at that 82 percent um we do monitor our four-year not only our four-year grads but our five and six year grads um very closely we're starting another data they got on them next week with our administrative team um of the remaining graduates that we have um that have not made it in that for or um for four-year cohort there are very small numbers there I'm talking like dozen nine um and a lot of those are our nicest students who some have graduated and remain with us to until they're 21. um and then there's

032a couple of small numbers and the five and six year graduates that we can't track um they've moved and haven't registered somewhere else um we do have um for the four year this year approximately 59 students in that same situation so um we're starting that third data cycle with them so we do that at the end of um the previous school year so we do that in June we do that again in August um actually four times I'm sorry then through our ft for our failed to enter process and now the second semester process um so we really know who those students are intimately and constantly trying to re-engage them and you would be surprised students who say no they're not coming back in September in January like oh this has been so fun without

033a high school diploma and we get them back in and a lot of that work there is um due to our night school staff who really um do yeoman's work there getting students in supporting them wrapping arms around them um and you know it's very there was such a stigma with night school years ago at the high school and I have to say in you know once students visit or a parent visits it's more of a college atmosphere um you know everybody's structured we do have very small class sizes and we're able to to get those students through so um we we are exactly um in a good place right now and we continue to monitor all of our seniors on a weekly basis through our mtss process and that is really what has helped

034us increase the graduation rate um in addition to the common planning teams at our school which I'm going to talk about a little later too and the work that they do there because they're doing that individual focus on our students as well all right our next focus is on our two um content area indicators for ELA and math um you have our uh Trends here you can see in English we've been at that 80 plus Mark 77 I think that was really um due to the covet and then you can see the kids with the waiver who still were able to get through there so um we'll have that this year as well still working on algebra we know that exam is a little much more difficult um so we have that 50 plus at

03573 last year so um we do know the impacts of covid there so we did not make that goal as high but we are hoping to exceed that uh 50 goal for this year um these teams are our English uh 11 team and our um ninth grade algebra team um in addition to all of our club and planning teams the high school uh but the the English and math in particular work very closely with our content area supervisors um they are aware of who these students are um drilling down to what those students need to learn using um the data from our Benchmark exams to being able to specifically design instruction for students to ensure that they can pass that exam attendance I think has really been our toughest recovery from covid we have had

036a very difficult time with getting our attendance rates up at the high school we have implemented a number of supports this year in addition to ones that we've done in years past to try to get our attendance increased so you can see here our goal for this year in the First Column and then our 20 our last year chronic absenteeism rates that is broken down by ethnicity for you as well and then that half virtual half in person year for the students who did return you can really see the dip there and then what we also provided you here was our um absenteeism rate for December and then compare that to the two years previous so you can see it's interesting even though um we have the rates there um at this time of year

037a lot of students do recover so as of today we have seven eight and 789 students who can still get out of that chronic absenteeism so those are the kids we're focusing on right now um and just I didn't put it on this live but just to note um our period by period of tendons is ranging between and it's all periods between 76 to 80 so um there is a glimmer of of light there so it's it's getting those students who aren't attending um into um the school or into classrooms uh you can see on the next slide our action steps for attendance um we do a lot of interventions here um our weekly attendance team meetings um we have um that team with Miss Maryland Jones Oliver now our attendance principal on the attendance

038teachers that we have in place and then some mtss social workers that we are afforded this year to assist in that work um that team is also reporting out at the Academy um mtss teams and they they push into those bi-weekly so you have a focus one week on your academics and then the focus the following week on attendance and that's those really overlooked because usually our students not attending our the academic students but we we get to know those attendance and eventions at that point um there's a lot of initiatives within the school I want to read those all to you but um you know with our announcements daily um and then um Communications with families so we do uh quarterly attendance uh letters home we're doing a daily restorative fourth pulse week where

039those social workers and attendance teachers are in the room that students are swept to so we can in the moment find out what's going on with them and then our weekly attendance home visits uh you know those are really a lot of the pluses that are happening right now on some of the Deltas there um you know we're really we haven't been able to secure staff for the um you know the the um issues with um getting staff right now so we are very close to having that team fully staffed um and that will give each Academy better support at this time so they're sharing that responsibility right now all right next are our school highlights um you know our four academies uh and um really this work that the academies do and that social

040support team there so that's your Academy principal your assistant Academy principal uh the guidance counselors social worker psychologist and homeschool coordinator all attend those meetings and Report out on students there um so they're each assigned students and they will cycle in and out as students improve and then we cycle new students into that our teachers all have five caseload students as well that they're monitoring through their CPT time on a weekly basis we also have our special ed and ell monthly mtss teams they need to monitor those indicators um and ensure that we are keeping our special ed and L students on track um we have our uh honorable celebrations quarterly and then um we actually do interim and quarterly student intervention meetings um those are administered in different ways we we do kind of

041um larger brief where about social support teams in the um cafeteria and they are called down and met with um that way we also do smaller interventions and uh conference room with five to six students who maybe are failing the same number of classes and do goal setting setting sheets um in addition to to one-on-one interventions our highlights for our Career and Technical Center um we have a ever-growing CTE program as many of you know our new facilities we're already outgrowing some of these these spaces and making accommodations for um very exciting that we have students leaving certified in these career areas at the high school cosmetology and Health Sciences has been um the highest growing uh programs we're doing a lot of work to um in our course offerings right now to increase the

042enrollment in the others but they are all fully fully enrolled at this point and we are up to three Health Science teachers at the high school that is about 24 students leaving certified for per year um this year we had a big um ask from our CTE teachers to read about Revitalize those USA that's been generally done by a culinary Department they're holding hands this year to have all of our programs participate in spills USA um so that's great um our business Alliance with our new principle coming in we are doing a little bit of realignment there but that those meetings have been up and and going this year only starting the next one um later this month and you know a lot of our events that we've had um a lot of increased um

043participation in our um not only our CTE events but our other school events and I'm hoping that um continues to grow as our new facilities grow our Advanced course offerings um we really have had a lot uh and I have to um thank our our apib coordinator I'm here for a lot of the work done with our Advanced courses our advanced placement courses um our AP courses have increased over a hundred students from last year to this year which is really um phenomenal work in addition to the number of students we're choosing to take those exams from 576 to 769. University and the high school we have maintained the same number of students um in that programming that's a around six 700 students um as well our IB program we are struggling to increase enrollment

044there we do have two seniors for full diploma this year um six Juniors 25 exams being taken by 14 students um the issue with IB is it restricts what our students can take because they have to follow that pathway um so we are actually investigating there's um actually an ibcte pathway that would fit in um very nicely so we're seeing um if that is an option for us but very excited about the rowing with ap and UHS our challenges and next steps um you know as I stated it's that engagement and attendance um post covid um you know we're continuing with that mtss process increasing academic supports um we do I have to say you know a big struggle right now is our um you know inability to be able to fill positions right now

045so a lot of our AIS teachers are being pulled um that would be giving further support in our um core classes to substitute um but we are able to then have certified teachers in classrooms so um we're still but we're still making that um and then our operation graduation initiatives so our Academy principles monitor them very closely with their two guidance counselors our increase in family and Community engagement I could not be more excited um I the new facilities has really brought a different overall feel um in our our culture and climate we usually average around 200 students that open um families at open house the auditorium on the first floor holds um about 800 plus um persons and we had a full house um that was a first um I got goosebumps talking about

046that and we know like the ribbon cutting our spa days all that enrollment's point going up so we're just um hoping that we'll all continue to um flourish um you can also see too there's a different um Vibe with our students and um staff at the high school we just had a um our teacher leader meeting today and um especially in Old construction but the old library we've named the Falcon Center which we're hoping to continue in phase four and um you know there's a student lounge in there and students can access that and work on there in a lab in addition to being able to do all of that in the library um students have more places to have alternative locations in the school now and it really has um just changed the entire

047culture um you could see that too like our spirit weeks uh the pep rally this year um we had not had that large of a number of of folks in a space um you know and it was a huge success and the students had a great time you know so you're talking over you know 2500 people in our gym and um it was a full-on party and then um we've been doing our Equity PD um it was great for our faculty opening faculty meetings but all of our staff there including our Hall monitors and um support staff um and then we've been doing um the follow-up we're trying to find some additional ways to continue to get the whole group together so some of the PD days will allow us to facilitate that um our

048connections with students we said China I'm going in person personally to the middle schools um it was great to like see the kids recognize me when I came back for the course offering um I just really think that's going to build a better um relationship there and you know having those conversations about what high school is going to be like we had our top 10 meeting uh the last uh the week before break um they did a beautiful display of a door decorating for the main office how the top 10 is slaying uh 2020 to 23 school year and um our Student Government meetings the participation and student government is in the library now and that number has grown significantly and um I didn't put this in the slide but our after school programming um

049is up 17.6 attendance so um and that is only including our brand funded program it's not including all of the other clubs that we have that's about half a dozen clubs um and I know all of those numbers are up so I hope to have further data on that um this is just some of the work here that our student government is doing and some of our other um courses at the high school that are that highlights our student voice um this year we really transformed we used to be Falcon Council we wanted this title Student Government um this year so students really knew what the vision mission is and they have created their vision and Mission and bylaws this year and they're running their own meetings with an agenda and following um the protocols

050that they have created we are in process with our no hate uh place for hate pledge I think for about five years into the no place for hate um we're at 200 right now and that is growing they're working on their first activity of the wall and then um they've got a few another few activities in the in the works right now on the they also plan our spirit work um Spirit weeks we have Sienna coming in at the end of the month um they want to do a connection for um student Advocates with their college students the youth Summit with um some of our social studies our teachers are participating in um and then we're going to start doing our um I'm going to start holding topic um related uh meetings with students for

051them to come in and be able to have a small group conversations all right and without further Ado we have our valedictorian who is going to talk about his experience at Albany High School the altitude thank you principal thomasford good evening everyone as principal commerford stated my name is Neil satore I am honored to be the valedictorian of the class of 2023 at Albany High School Albany High School has set me on a path to success throughout my high school years I've been fortunate to take a vast amount of AP courses offered by the school which has built my worth ethic and the responsibilities I have in my day-to-day life outstanding teachers and other faculty at the high school have made my classes entertaining and easy to understand as they work hard to make sure

052every kid has an equal opportunity to attain a valuable education the high school also offers numerous Sports and other activities as a member of the cross-country and track and field teams as well as the student help desk I've been able to develop leadership skills as well as collaboration skills that I'll be able to use in my future endeavors my peers and classmates have also made my time at Albany High School enjoyable other students who come to class ready to learn every day motivate me to work harder and raise my morale Albany High School made me realize my passion for mathematics and I will be studying Applied Mathematics in statistics at Stony Brook University hopefully in the Honors College I will also be running thank you I will also be running division one cross-country and track

053and field at the University none of this would have been possible without the Albany High School environment and at Albany High School I've developed my falcon wings and I'm prepared to soar to my next destination thank you now we have our salutatorian Kevin camp thank you Miss cummerford uh as it's been said my name is uh Kevin Kam um with my experience at the high school it's been a great time personally I've been able to have like many friends and pursuit of many interests um personally the way I like looked at high school is a way to just try a bunch of new things um and the way I did that is I took a class every period which means I skipped lunch but I still eight of course but um just so I could

054just try something of everything and at Albany High School there are kids there is a bit of everything like there's many sports programs um I myself was part of cross-country and track um I tried bowling for a little bit um there's also like clubs there's gaming clubs there's um I was part of student government or class of 2023 Student Government there's mock trial for people who want new towards so there's just a ton of great programs that for like there's something for everyone basically is what I'm trying to say um and yeah but yeah I mean yeah and it's also like there's there's a ton of diversity also especially in um one of the programs I'm heavily invested in therapy c um or a major typically it has everyone introduce themselves like whenever we meet

055by a new person like he says by your language where you're from and um your name and to tell them that we're from Albany High because um many people think that like when they see the uniform from like CDA or salary but um he wants many people to know that like Albany High is a diverse tool because when you get an answer from a fair DC student they typically just don't send America they say things like Jamaica Britain I know someone just filmed like Uganda and it's just incredibly creative program for yourself and I am honored to be the Italian commander of that great job gentlemen I thank you both for being here this evening with us and I thank you for having all the high school today thank you very much Miss Comerford and

056thank you Kevin and Neil we are so very proud of you and proud of your accomplishments and we look to see you doing great things as you move forward in the next phase of your careers um and now we will have Liz Dr Stacy Dobbs who is the principal at Delaware Community School so welcome thank you good evening superintendent Adams members of cabinet and Board of Education thank you for having me here this evening again my name is Dr Stacy Jada Dobbs and I'm the proud principal of Delaware Community School often known as DCs our vision our building vision mission and goals directly aligned with the district's vision mission and goals currently we have 262 students raised today by four so that's exciting I increase School through fifth grade we have two classrooms of each

057grade level and an additional preschool we gained this year and new also are two autistic support special classes we welcome them thank you our sap focus is on in ela is data focused based on student voice students keep track of their own data and are able to understand what that means fourth grade um works on assessments and understanding what the assessment means I had a conversation with them today to talk about what assessments uh the definition of it what it means to them how they keep track of their data and they know exactly what they're doing tier one plan are we are focused on how we provide core instruction to every student as well as providing them with differentiated instruction needed in order to close those learning gaps building wide professional development we are also

058offering building wide professional development such as cpts that are focused on scaffolding and text dependent questions in math we are focused on RTI and the three-phase instructional model which is launch explore debrief you know more commonly known as led uh we're also offering additional professional development opportunities that focus on data and instructional strategies and we're offering these before school after school and as embedded professional development throughout the year Equity our goals for Equity this year include working to support students social emotional well-being and increasing our school and family connection we have also implemented ruler this year with our faculty and staff and are just now working on implementing our with our individual classrooms they are currently working on completing their classroom Charters as an example we asked our students during their SEL time to share

059how they feel using the mood meter which is right behind you for example right now I feel optimistic and energized attendance our attendance is also included stories no worries our attendance is also included as part of our step and our main goal is to increase student attendance by excuse me increase of student attendance um our chronic absenteeism has gone down and so by a year in 2022 it was 40 now it's 39 and by month it was 30 percent in 2022 and now it's 28 um on average though our attendance is about 89 to 90 percent um so we're very proud of that as we've put a lot of things in place this year in order to improve our overall attendance we have continued to focus on our parental involvement we have invited parents in

060to meet with them to discuss the various barriers and figure out how to support them we are implementing fourth family program in the morning this year to help support attendance it's our mentoring program we continue to build relationships with students in order to understand those barriers and we're also hosting and holding attendance recognitions monthly and yearly for grade attendance for our students and that is something new that we're doing this year I just want to give a kudos to our homeschool coordinator Mr Ken Griffin who has been um instrumental in supporting our attendance efforts this year as well school highlights what makes your school unique so um as you know I I have been here for about a year and a half and prior to me coming we had the Dual language at DCS and

061that's kind of what DCS was known for um and as we decide you know talked about how we are reshaping last year that was one of the big questions what makes our school unique and so one of them is that we are developing our school as a community we're not identified as a community school per se but we are definitely a community school we are excuse me sorry we are continuing to focus on including more of the community in our efforts and the majority of our students actually walk to school now or their car riders that is a big difference even from last year um we have increased our attendance in our community events so our open house and our welcome back celebration was attended by an enormous amount of community members and we had

062and invited a lot of community members to have a table at that event and offer a lot of support for our families we also now have a basketball team through pal after school very excited about that stem activities are also being offered after school during our boys and girls club and we've increased tutoring we actually have five teachers staff members that are tutoring after school or before school and our students are actively engaged in leading if you recall last year I introduced the cheetah Channel which is our at Daily News Channel where students are the broadcasters every day they're also behind the scenes running the cheetah Channel and also are PBIS assemblies that we are now back to having every single month that is hosted by a grade level and led by the students at

063the end of my presentation you'll be able to see um the product of one of those assemblies that was student-led and our student leadership teams which has now been named the cheetah Coalition this year all of these things are possible by our amazing faculty and staff they're dedicated to making sure that our students are experiencing and our community and parents are experiencing all of these activities I also want to say thank you to our PTA who when we talk about the split started brand new um and we have back again all of the activities that we had so our welcome back celebration was hosted by our PTA they were out there cooking and handing um out freebies we also had the police department come and bring their therapy dogs it was just a absolutely wonderful

064evening we just recently had a movie night and we haven't had those things in a really long time so I want to say thank you to them but all of these things make DCS a community invested in supporting our students become to become the best that they can be so our school highlights our NWA data so our spring nwea data in both Ela and math show a decline from 2021 to 2022. it is worth noting that in the spring of 2021 50 of our students took the test in school and 50 were virtually taking it and in the summer of 2021 the school was divided almost in half in addition we've had concerns with Staffing and as a small school we feel the impact greatly last year and I I want to give kudos to

065my faculty and staff we had staff our Tas were covering our other teachers such as our reading teachers and our enl teachers were covering classes and so the lack of Tas and teacher coverage has had an impact however we know what our data says right now we know what it looks like and we've been implementing steps in order to achieve our growth and I'm confident that we are going to get there our easy CBM data from Fall 2021 to 22 shows a growth from 31 to 33 percent so our challenge is the next steps so our challenge is utilizing data as a tool in order to make educational decisions and support student growth through changes in practice and that is our Focus this year is how do we utilize the data that we're seeing in

066order to create student growth and to get us to that 80 to 100 percent that we so want to to achieve so part of that is students tracking their progress using data are building leadership team our BLT is focused on using school-wide data to identify Trends and solutions for growth so we're examining the data and not just of our school but of the district data as well we're utilizing formative assessments to inform practice and that is the word of the the words of the year are formative assessments so how do we know before we actually get to that final assessment what the assessment is going to look like we know that that shouldn't be a surprise and so we're going to be utilizing and focusing more on formative assessment practices in our daily practice in

067order to understand where students are and then we're going to utilize that formative assessment data in order to close those gaps in poor curriculum in real time and utilize RTI to help make up we have professional development opportunities that are focused on data and how to support teaching and learning and as I mentioned prior that those development opportunities have increased this year tremendously and also our challenge is Staffing we continue to be faced with challenges with Staffing and I will be honest that changes almost every single day but I also would like to go back and say that I really appreciate the faculty and staff of DCs for always supporting where we're needed help support the students so some of our successes are providing multiple opportunities for student tutoring and activities before and after school

068that helps with attendance and getting our students to school and it also helps with filling the gaps our parent a garden guardian attendance at school events has increased tremendously I do think that comes from part of being that community school that I spoke about earlier we have a lot of our parents and students that are walking to school or driving to school last year and in continuing to this year we give out umbrellas or ponchos as needed to help support our community so that when it rains that they have some coverage increased opportunities for professional development based on our sep Focus we had seven DCS members attend Unbound Ed conference in Orlando Florida last year and that was phenomenal I attended that with them and we came that as the glean team so glean stands

069for grade level or grade level Equity affirming and meaningful and those are all the things that we want to focus on in our education are we teaching the kids on grade level our students is it Equitable is it affirming and is it meaningful in our practice and our team came back and they presented to the rest of our building and we'll continue to present through the rest of the year we're looking forward to this coming summer it's in Washington DC and we already have some teachers on board who are looking forward to participating in the planning portion of that conference PTA activities I mentioned are welcome back um celebration our Trunk or Treat our movie night and the volunteer activities and opportunities which I know that our our parents were missing so we're so glad

070to have them back in the bill building and might I add that we are also looking forward to having a yearbook this year something we have not had but just getting all of those things back that make a school a school a PBIS initiative Define defining what it means to be a DTS student so um one of our major successes is our PBIS and last year we were focused on reinvigorating it because it had kind of um not been exactly where we wanted it to be and so we really focused on that as a team we have a strong team that is now called the sub team because it's also connected with the ruler team as ruler implementation implementing implementation team as well and so we have focused on the past few years of what

071does defining um a DCS student look like what would a student from DCS look like not only in school but outside of our building and in the community and so I think that if you would need a DCS student outside you would know that they know how to follow the Three B's they know how to be safe they know how to be respectful and they know how to be responsible they also know how to focus on that most important word which is the B which is the action word of actually doing it so it's great that we know what those three b's are but are we actually putting that into place and I am so proud of our students every single day because I think if you stop by DCS you will see exactly what

072I mean and our progress on post-assessment data so when we're talking about data and where we want to go this is where we're seeing some of that progress especially in math we recently took our post assessment data and in two grade levels we saw 80 percent and 76 percent um in two grade levels and so we are making progress in those areas student invoice is so important and we have the student Coalition team and that meets weekly to work on implementing the no place for hate the team of students is taking on the initiative of going around to the classrooms and talking to each one and explaining what that means and having the students sign the pledge and so they do have um a wonderful advisor Mr Jim Kinney who's our fifth grade teacher but

073he really has the students leading the initiative the students in that Coalition team also help to organize the DCS Spirit weeks throughout the year and we also do surveys through the for the whole building so that everybody has feedback and input into what we're doing students lead the daily operation of the cheetah Channel both in front and behind the camera and students also lead their Data Tracking that also includes attendance tracking so academics and math and Ela and also their daily attendance okay so what you're you're in for a treat what you're gonna see right now is a group of students in Miss canto's fourth grade class so as I mentioned earlier every month this year except for two months December and April um we have a grade level lead of PBIS assembly which is

074wonderful to have that back in our school and so the students come up with their own ideas they plan it um and then they put it on in front of the entire school as a celebration we also how and look at how many Cheetah tickets we've earned um throughout the year and then we also have a big celebration for our students when they've earned it to fill the container um but this is a snippet of a wrap that the students created um so fourth grade right now is focusing on the Three B's but they're also focusing on a kindness campaign and really focusing on the fact that kindness matters and so they worked with the teacher and another another Hall Monitor in our building to create this threat this is class 301 and we made

075a restaurant all the time me always be safe in the whole life [Music] be careful responsible at all times B always be safe in the whole lives [Music] famous so I stopped by today they were so excited to be able to share that for with you so thank you and perform that thank you very much for allowing me to share all the wonderful things that are growing at DCS have a great evening thank you so very much Dr Dobbs what a great video but it's also great to see um the focus on looking at the achievement of our students and those action steps that you put in place to make meaningful differences uh in the lives of our children not just in the classroom but also beyond that incorporation of the community means a lot

076because it looks at the whole child so thank you so very much for all that you're doing on behalf of our Scholars I'd also like to say thank you for both uh Miss Comerford and Dr Dr Dobbs uh thank you with the leadership provided from Dr Wilson Turner at the elementary level and also miss McKenna at the secondary level we thank them for their leadership and support of the schools that they supervise so thank you again at this time Madam president I will move straight through to the district update okay through our district update we know that we always start with our guiding principles these are the principles that guide everything that we do in keeping us focused on our vision our mission and our goals because this is what grounds us and sets the

077stage for all of our decision making our discussion topics tonight will be the covid-19 update health and wellness wintry weather reminders Staffing and hiring day automation update District surveys and the faculty concert update that's coming up when we start with our covid-19 health and wellness please look at where we are with regard to the number of cases the first four days of January we have 30 cases this includes all of the cases reported through December 23rd to January 4th in December for the whole month we had 60 cases so we're watching this very carefully again Mass may not be mandated however we are seeing an update taking people wearing masks because it is flu season Etc and so we need people to make sure that they are following guidelines as well as following all of

078the health and wellness precautions if you are not feeling well we encourage you to stay at home and then please make sure that you're practicing proper hand hygiene and making sure that if you are choosing to wear a mask that you are wearing a well-fitted mask at the time wintry weather reminders we know that when the weather is bad we have to make sure that we are focused on how our students will get to school or if we're calling an emergency weather day or whatever the case may be just a reminder to our families that please be prepared with alternative plans stay tuned to our multiple sources for information so that you can stay abreast with the most current information we use all of our social media Outlets as well as we use our radio

079and TV stations with regard to what is necessary with regard to school closures or not you've heard quite a bit about Staffing we've heard that over the past few weeks and you also heard that from both of our presenters uh today talking about Staffing and these are the numbers and this is where we are uh one of the issues that we're facing as a district is across the board we don't have people in the coffers to hire we are trying to process those people who are in in the queue as quickly as possible we have a number of positions at a number of our schools that have vacancies and what makes it difficult would be those unique positions for example you've heard about um at the Dual language program where there's special certification that's needed

080our AIC program you hear that from Dr Dobbs as well as brothers Comerford with regard to filling those positions it's one of the things that I know our HR division has been working just constantly on different ways of finding those folks to come and work for us so I'll add to that not only do we see those challenges on the faculty side which would be our licensed Personnel I want you to pay attention to that number 85 absu these are the folks who are supporting our teachers in the classroom and supporting our buildings we have a high number of vacancies in our support staff ranks and so that is also an area where HR is focusing to make sure that we are trying to bring in the best and the brightest in the shortest amount

081of time possible our energy performance contract I'm going to shift gears here and we have Mr Jeff day with us you've heard about this around budget season when we talked about having an energy performance contract so that we could be more proactive in what we're looking at as well as how we can be more conservative and saving a few dollars and so at this time Mr day I'm going to turn it over to you he is joining us virtually hi Mr day hi thank you very much to everyone you're me okay yeah yes you're a little broken up a second let me see if I can correct that for you real quickly then we'll get going I apologize how's that is that any better that is much better thank you is that better yes here's

082what I found yes that is much better okay thank you very much thank you very much well listen it's a great pleasure thank you very much for having me in this evening um uh I'll let you go on to the next slide uh we just wanted to give you a brief update on the energy performance contract just to give you a brief reminder again this particular project is one uh where it is really funded by the Energy savings and the uh reimbursement from State Education Department uh really ends up being a net zero uh project to the district um next slide please uh this is a project is going to be affecting uh uh the Myers building Ash Hackett and Arbor Hill um a large portion of the project is really surrounding mechanical equipment updates

083which were items that were on the building condition surveys for those buildings uh and it includes things like some boiler Replacements uh some domestic hot water Replacements a chiller replacement and also a pool air handling unit much of the project from an energy savings perspective revolves around the new Energy Efficiency Savings of that Equipment Plus all new LED lighting in the building so basically we're doing a lot of uh bulb Replacements to to again generate those savings um next slide please um where we're really going uh and kind of what's upcoming is uh we're in the process of reviewing all the project design documents and are working on Final pricing for the contractors and we're preparing for SED submission and uh to put a little bit more detail to that what we're working on right

084now is we've actually added a little bit to our project schedule uh we're we're actually doing a very high level technical due diligence at this point and we're in some excellent conversations with the uh with the district and and their personnel uh with Tetra Tech and also with Turner Construction and I wanted to really acknowledge uh Mr opperman's efforts that he's really been just outstanding uh helping us lead this project at this stage and uh really helping to really speak as the voice of the district to help us understand um how we can best choose the right equipment we're also going through a very exhaustive review of the design documents because uh we are actually through the design process at this point so really we're going through and making sure that uh that that design

085is fully vetted out and we're also in conversations right now with all the contractors to again understand uh who would be the very not only the best fit but who has the best solution for that project um some other considerations will soon be uh getting ready for the SED approval process and SED submission process um again that particular process that I'm sure is not surprising to any of you who've been involved with uh construction projects but SCD approval time can be a little bit variable uh we personally have seen a number of projects that could take upwards of six months six months to get through that process so we're monitoring that very closely uh the time frames on those have been kind of trending that that direction um as soon as we do receive SCD

086approval we will be able to begin uh the process of construction uh one of the big pieces that we're keeping our eye on very closely in particular is the Arbor Hill uh Chiller replacement that particular one has a linkage to the capital work that's been taking place over at Arbor Hill um and uh you know obviously one thing that we're monitoring very closely is the delivery dates of that particular piece of equipment and the other components that surround it as you can imagine a supply chain does come into effect with that a little bit so we're watching that very closely but so far we seem to be in a pretty decent shape what we're thinking with construction especially at Arbor Hill for our project more than likely will be into the fall 2023 time frame

087um and again we're coordinating very closely right now uh with the district and even with the staff and the building to make sure they're aware of uh well um you know into any potential interruptions or or such uh to any of the mechanical systems uh so really it's it's a situation to where it's a work in progress but we're very pleased with how it's going uh like I said we're working uh very hard with all the district's partners and the district's representatives to make sure that this goes off very very smoothly but we'll be reaching back out to this group soon as we really complete the documentation process and vetting process and so you'll be hearing back from us very shortly as we begin that submission process um as I kind of close out my

088report for today I just wanted to take a moment uh to personally thank Mrs Adams I just I have to tell you I think the world of you as do the people here at our organization you're an absolutely marvelous person and and so is your uh wonderful wonderful husband and um I have to just tell you we feel blessed to know you and and uh blessed to have had a chance to work with you here at the district and uh are just are so so um thankful to see uh you prospering and and we congratulate you on um your next chapter so again thank you very much I appreciate you giving us a few moments to update everyone thank you Mr day um what I would like to add to that is um at our

089facilities committees meeting I'm president Savage you will receive additional updates but they will be back I'm sorry president Smith I'm looking right at you president Smith I'm so very sorry um but at our facilities committee meetings uh Mr day will present ongoing updates so you will get that information firsthand so that you can share that out with the board and also Mr day will be back in March that's when we're looking that's our timeline right now when we are looking at a follow-up which would be more detailed than what you received tonight but tonight was just to kind of give you a heads up so that you can hear what's happening because it's been a minute since we have reported out on our um EPC and we wanted to make sure that you were kept

090up to speed um so thank you very much and Mr day I do want to say thank you for addressing the issues at Arbor Hill Dominos for we really appreciate that and also Mr Cara is providing that backup information to the board with regard to where we are with regard to some of the concerns that are happening at Arbor Hill and then also with some of our other buildings with our with our HVAC and providing that update of where we are and you'll hear a little bit more about that later on tonight in our district priorities update you'll get to see that moving forward we have three surveys that we are looking at and we're asking our families to please complete those surveys by January 6th and January 13th we have our annual consent forms

091that need to be completed we have our American Rescue plan survey that needs to be completed as well as our annual District climate and sep survey that needs to be completed and finally we have our 2023 faculty music concert and we are so very excited they will be making music from Mayhem and so this concert will be Tuesday January 24th at 7 pm Albany High School auditorium and it features performances from the music teachers throughout the city school district of Albany it is free to the public however we always accept donations to support the Albany friends of Music this concludes the district update and I'll open the floor for questions thank you thank you superintendent Adams uh colleagues we'll take a few questions and I'm going to have you uh move them along pretty quickly

092tonight um any questions comments disposal please but we're going to give Miss Wilson a minute um Dr chaturb please so I just had a couple of comments I mean thank you so much thank you so much I've grown so much and gone so far from where we started and it's just the beginning of the journey from what you've told us and what we know but I'm glad to be on that path you know what we saw today uh that could not happen that could not happen with your mother the efforts that you did yeah lead me up things on the way but you showed it what we needed right so thank you for that today was a Bittersweet problem I mean this is your last presentation the lion printer P was my my son as

093an auditorian it's a proud moment but it's also a sad moment so thank you but congratulations to you um because we know that what we see in Neil as well as in Kevin it doesn't happen by accident and it doesn't happen alone and so thank you for all that you've done not only with your son but what you have done with other scholars in our district I know Kevin from the from the cross country in the track and the GRTC you know so it's like you see these kids that you've dealt with other separations sitting in front of you as in achieved something and and all the other kids can do that too we believe in them they need to know that we believe thank you Dr Stewart Ms Wilson are you uh ready I

094am I'm sorry about that and thank you like Dr um said it's been emotional um you definitely arrive and like shortly after I arrive so as a young um not so young but yet wet behind the ear sort of individual and I've definitely watched through your tenure so many people look up to you be inspired by you the service that you put into our district it's very well appreciated and Dr katore said so much and congratulations to Neil congratulations to Kevin and thank you to both presenters but as um Jody alluded to going to Albany High and does make you horribly I would say you know maybe we're not New York City but we have a lot going on and that's always been a legacy even when I was at Albany High School was um

095you know the diversity and it helps students flourish in so many ways so a big school small town there's a lot going about there so do appreciate you um I wanted to ask about the HR and whether there's I know you were saying as far as like declaring people to come on there's I don't want to call it a backlog but like you said there's a process to it is there any support we can get from other entities like civil service and I also if you can speak to this was curious where are people coming from are they like former employees are they like new graduates like what is the demographics of people that are coming on board right now so I'm going to say all of the above uh because we have folks that

096are coming from different walks of life who are looking at second careers we have been advertising in different forms of media but also in different venues nationally looking at areas just National magazines in different careers so teachers and support staff staff and administrators just that broad net I'm trying to see if Tate thesis on the line and if there's anything that she would like to add with regard to that we are still conducting uh interviews on the spot we still have people coming in for different positions and so with that we are just casting our net far and wide one of the things that we have seen is an uptick and a shorter turnaround with regard to the fingerprint uh clearance and that's largely because it's a different time of year when those things are

097being held up they're being held up because there's just you know beginning of the year over the summer the volume is huge but we are seeing quicker turnarounds at this particular time with regard to our fingerprinting so we're seeing people come in a little bit faster we are still working with some of the challenges of communication and cycling back to people once they've had an interview getting back to them in a very timely manner so that they're not taking other jobs I will say one of the things that we're seeing is that people are looking for work and it doesn't mean that they're just looking for your job they're looking for multiple jobs So the faster that we can do that turn around with getting back to them the better off that we will be

098and so we're working on those kinds of turnarounds one of the things that we see that may slow us down is looking at the reference checks because um I'm I'm going to say I get reference checks and I know I really try to get them done quickly but it doesn't always happen and so we know that that can be an area that slows us down when we're trying to get reference checks completed because those folks are busy as well and so then they're completing those reference checks when they have time to do that and we do make we not only send emails we do phone calls out we try to do that Personal Touch to make sure that we're getting those back in a timely manner at this time I I'll see if Miss these

099has anything that she wanted to add to that yeah hopefully everyone can hear me I just wanted to add that I think another huge hurdle that we have right now is the paper process that we're using to do all of this and we are looking into online applicant tracking systems which will streamline the process and free us up in many ways to do more of that Personal Touch uh and just speed things along so we are currently looking at those systems and should have something up and running in the not too distant future thank you very much Mrs any other comments uh Mr Helen yawi please make this brief um just wanted to recognize Ms Adams for her six years with the district um I came in roughly three years ago and I've learned so

100much in that time I've seen you work your tail off you know be in 20 different places that you know the same time and um it's it's sad to see you though but I mean six years was a decent amount of time and uh it's significant and we all appreciate your level headedness and your work towards all the things that you've done towards equity and raising uh regulation rates and trying to unify the school especially during such a hard time that is covered you know past two or three years so you've been very visible you've been really um putting yourself out there and thank you thank you so very much all right I think uh superintendent that concludes our questions and comments for uh you on this section tonight thank you very much um and

101uh now we're going to uh Madam president if I also have a hot announcement that is hot off the press right now just so that you know our girls basketball team is still undefeated 62-48 they wanna so thank you president Smith oh that's fantastic uh and this Governor if you wouldn't mind just expressing it to your team there at Albany High that we're all cheering for them tonight and very happy and congratulate them thank you oh great okay my blood just like went up to like excitement here um okay I think this is the time that we set aside oh my gosh excuse me my apologies yes I get so excited there we go okay uh this is the time that we set aside uh time to hear from members of the public the board

102always welcomes input from the community about the decisions that we're making and I'm going to stop for just a moment and uh ask that uh our first two speakers come up and um this is Miss Andrea West Alpha Catherine for sorority and uh Miss Anna I'm so sorry patara cool yes and I know you miss Anna um and if you uh just let yourself get settled down just to finish a couple of remarks here uh per our long-standing policy the board sets aside up to 30 minutes of each meeting to hear from District residents parents students and other members of our community if there are more comments then can be accommodated in 30 minutes and it may choose to extend the length of the public comment period or alternatively to establish a second public comment

103period later in the meeting for our new public comment policy we also accept comments in writing virtual live participation and by voicemail comments that are not in person must be made at least six hours prior to the meeting to give us time to collect and verify those comments as needed written comments must be limited to 400 words and voicemail comments to three minutes all comments must include the commenter's name and place of residence we do not accept Anonymous comments if you would like to submit a voicemail or a written comment for future meeting we encourage you to review the addressing the board information at Albany schools dot org forward slash VOE as well as the instructions on how to sign up for virtual live comment we ask all the commenters to keep in mind that

104information about individual students and specific District staff cannot be shared not only is that a violation of privacy but every student and every staff member deserves to know the concerns about them will not be aired in public we do have tonight uh three members of the public signed up and we also have uh two uh comments that came in writing and we'll deal with those after uh the public comment um please let me know and I appreciate that you you did correct me on your pronunciation of your name uh as we try to get everyone's name correct um but we do appreciate um being uh you know letting us know when you've made an era uh when I recognize you please state your name and city of residence statements are restricted to a maximum of

105three minutes Dr chatur D board secretary will give you a one-minute notice and a 10 second notice and I will notify you if your time has expired it's a good idea to look up occasionally to see those notices so that you won't be surprised at the end of your three minutes also please note that the board's policy is not to respond during public comment period if you need a response please contact us by email phone or Postal mail our contact information is available at Albany schools.org forward slash peony and I will respond on behalf of the board so with that um Christmas welcome thank you good evening president Smith and members of the Board of Education I'm Andrea West president of the Kappa Alpha sorority Incorporated Delta me omega chapter and an Albany resident in

106July of 2017 Board of Education president Sue Adler stated the following Coweta Adams is an exceptionally strong academic leader with a proven track record of success in every position she has held she also has an ability to bring people together we believe she is the ideal superintendent to lead our school district forward in the critical work that lies ahead of us with that statement kawita G Adams was appointed superintendent for the city school district of Albany since then superintendent Adams has embodied all in for Albany by spearheading the creation and implementation of a district-wide diversity equity and inclusion policy having the foresight to Pivot shut the district down and home deliver meals to students three days prior to the New York State shutdown during the covid-19 pandemic and throughout leading the way in Statewide education

107as an appointee to the New York State reimagine education advisory Council actualizing the 179.9 million dollar construction project to renovate and expand Albany High School it is important to note that phases one through three a have already been completed and included 12 000 square foot academic building a historic art Wing and music Wing Career and Technical education or CTE spaces a new library and an expanded Auditorium with 839 total seats including a 241 seat balcony and control room the renovation of North Albany Middle School and last but certainly not least achieving an 82 percent High School graduation rate of pause for your thoughts additionally superintendent Adams has increased District Community Partnerships by establishing and cultivating relationships with the University at Albany College of Saint Rose Albany Medical Center Hospital the Albany Public Library girls Beyond

108My Brother's Keeper Omega Sci-Fi fraternity Incorporated Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated the George bittel Kelly foundation and Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority Incorporated at this time I invite all members of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority Incorporated to please stand on behalf of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority Incorporated Delta me omega chapter I would like to present superintendent kawida G Adams with these flowers in support of the difference you have made in this community and in the lives of the students and families of the city school district of Albany you have truly been all in for Albany foreign thank you Miss Anna um thank you and well thank you thank you president Smith and I want to um my name is Anna kuabara I'm a resident of April Park um I want to start by saying thank you to

109the the board for your dedication and service and I would like to say to superintendent Adams on behalf of the Albany Symphony Orchestra thank you for your leadership and your the true inspiration that you have provided to all of us with the clarity even during such challenging times your commitment to serve not only all the students in the district but the whole student you kept at the Forefront for us that each young person has individual ways to express themselves and reach their potential and that they need a wide range of opportunities to do so we are grateful for your partnership I don't know how many of you you remember the commercial which says when uh when Coweta Adams speaks people listen and not only do people listen but they come away respected inspired and energized

110to move forward together so the Albany Symphony Orchestra will are we are all of us we are and will continue to be the number one Quita Adams fan club so thank you so much for everything and for your leadership fantastic and just uh like to zoomington I'll give you just a second but just wanted to acknowledge that both these organizations uh not only have a personal connection to you but are also um very committed to the district and we thank you so much for that on behalf of our students okay and Mr Green is that correct welcome all right thank you all righty thank you um I would just before we get going I would just request that I get you know a beloved amount of time that's um absolutely maybe we added the beginning

111there because I've got a lot to say okay thank you thank you um my name is Lauren Green I've worked in this district for almost 30 years so like I've drawn a lot of experience around here I started as a substitute teacher and then I was a home auditor and eventually I was an English teacher at Hackett for 12 years and I've been at Albany High School for the last 16 years where I teach AP Literature um probably the most challenging course that we offer in English Department and I also teach five classes of English 11 to the students who take the Regents exam so I I would like to applaud all of our celebrations for our students there is no question in my mind that albany's opportunity and education for students is unparalleled and

112and I would put us up against anywhere in the country for our students who have success and they have parents and families and supports behind them our statistics show that that we're able to do this my concern are not those students which are likely your children right my children successful my concern is that we are shortchanging the kids who are on the brink the kids who are the most challenged I got into this profession I learned to read at 11. I now teach AP Literature so I I've had quite a journey myself um so I know I know what I'm talking about here uh we have students that are roaming the Halls at Albany High School you could ask for footage from the uh video footage of the high school and you would see that

113it is more like a mall than it is like a high school um you could see that these absenteeism rates are way beyond what the statistics that we see here uh report we have um students that with this attendance policy which you know I mean when we were growing up attendance was compulsory you went to school you went to class if you didn't you got in trouble and that was the bottom line we have taken that away and I and I think we we look at holding people accountable for links to students accountable that we look at that as removing barriers and and that is not the case and I think that's a prejudicial thought and I think that our current attendance policy which let me just um explain that if a student attends at

114least one minute of a class two classes a day they are reported reported as attending school we have nine periods they can miss seven periods of class and still be counted as in attendance so my recommendation would be to ask to see the statistics about attendance per student per period per day let me give you just a brief example I have 150 students on my roster um there are 72 days of school so far as of today six students so far have never set foot in my classroom and they're in the building 13. of my students have attended fewer than 10 days I you're gonna cut me off no okay because this is important you know uh 13 have fewer than 10 days they've been in class 22 of my students have missed over 30

115days of class of 72 so far that's 40 students out of 150 with extreme chronic absence issues and I think our attendance policy tells them that it's okay if you ask the students at Albany High School do you have to go to class no they don't right they show up for two they get and everybody's fine with that because we get the funding I think we're selling out our kids and it makes me very very sad and it's not the kid's fault none of this is the kid's fault this is policy this is leadership and and I apologize it's been great leadership in most regards there are two issues that are confounding us and I really think you need to take a close look at them not the end of the year data that you

116get look at the per day per student data that you get look at our failure rates right we have a new grading policy by the way past without shared decision making this is the second time now our previous principal did the same Fandango and shoved through a grading policy that no one in in in the staff or uh teachers would have agreed with and it now happened a second time this year uh and when the grading committee questioned it they were told it was too late it already been put through so we are we're using an invalid in my opinion grading policy that that gives 55 free points to students who have no accountability who don't do assignments Etc so I've again 150 students quarter two right now I've only had six assignments so far

117which is abysmally you know very very low expectations um we're seven weeks in we have three weeks to go and only 51 including IAP kids right 26 of them and 51 have turned in all their assignments look at the failure rates of her student per day per course don't look at the graduation rate because you know what happens at the end I'm sorry this is Passion I'm not angry no I'm it's not what I'm it's the time I I need to just say this one last thing and then I'll be done and you gotta let me finish there's nothing more important sorry I'm listening to both years if the board is seven of us do so I'll allow you to finish sir thank you very much um at the end of the year we are

118encouraged as a staff to pass students who have not been in our classrooms done our assignments Etc et cetera Etc this inflates these graduation rates that we all celebrate in laud and send to the state et cetera et cetera but it's a lie we are selling out our most at-risk students we are not serving them I've heard a lot of conversation today about how we're lifting everybody up we are not I'm sorry we are fantastic school for the most accomplished for kids who have supports at home we are not doing our job for the kids at the bottom we are not and you need to fix it please I this is an opportunity on flooring we have to fix this attendance policy we used to have one 28 days you had to repeat the course

119okay get them in the seats so we can give them lessons so they can do the work so they can learn so we can be confident that we're sending them out into the world prepared please thank you Mr greenton that concludes our oh I'm sorry Mr almanyawi has two letters also to read thank you first letter I'm going to read is from Pastor David train him good afternoon on behalf of the Board of Trustees and task force of alert partnership Inc we want to extend our sincere thanks to Dr Coweta Adams for her leadership and support of our community and law enforcement bridge building efforts in order in honoring her in November for her support at our appreciation ceremony the words we expressed were only a token of the great things she did in strengthening

120police and Resident relationships from her position as school superintendent she let our children boldly through the pandemic and increase the graduation rates while overseeing one of the largest building programs in Albany School of History she is built upon the foundation that others have laid and is leaving Albany in a better place that will be built upon by her replacement we wish her the best in all her Endeavors we also convey the fact that she is in our thoughts and prayers as she assumes her new responsibilities best always Pastor David train him the next letter I'm about to read is from Brenda episcopo Chief Executive Officer of the Girl Scouts of Northeastern New York okay no worries um dear Board of Education building girls of Courage confidence and character is the mission of Girl Scouts and

121it is and it also describes a small part of coweta's impact on the greater Albany Community as a member of the board of directors and the diversity equity and inclusion task force of Girl Scouts of Northeastern New York Coweta has impacted thousands of girls across Upstate New York and Beyond or approach or insights our passion for youth is evident in everything she does we cannot wait to watch her soar to new heights having an even greater impact upon the education of young people Rita thank you for your service to Girl Scouts Albany students and so far beyond Brenda Episcopal thank you Mr gentleman uh we do appreciate all public comments and we find hearing from the community so valuable and again our contact information for both public comment and routine correspondence is at Albany schools.org

122forward slash Boe we now move to a part of the meeting we call routine consent during this portion of the meeting we approve routine matters for the district these include items like contracts field trips Personnel matters and the like each board member reviews each item carefully but we vote on them as a group with no discussion that allows us to use our meeting time more efficiently nonetheless each board member has the opportunity to set aside any routine consent item in order to require a separate discussion and vote on that item with that introduction I now entertain a motion to adopt the routine consent agenda do I have a motion Dr shatour do you have a second Miss Wilson all in favor excuse me did he set aside uh may I have those set aside now

123if you have any anyone and this man I do it's a brief one it's uh set aside for I'm not sure what the number is that to go to the agenda okay tell me what Jordan Hill oh and um the continuation Equity Building leadership okay so I'm sorry that's number 13 um I apologize no no that's fine you said 12 and 13. um if 12 is capital learning I'm sorry 13 is Jordan and the other one has to do with the cream okay 13 Jordan Taylor heel Hill 15. yes Dr Jones Bianca Jones okay yeah okay all right all of in favor of adopting the routine consent agenda minus items 13. Jordan Taylor Hill LLC and 15 Dr Bianca Jones um yes all in favor of that minus those two okay that's everyone unanimous okay

124um any discussion so to my comment was um in regards to what we're doing with our community schools where we continue to do with our community schools focusing on um uh children who um and their families who can really benefit from encouragement and support um I I appreciate that from these programs and um like I'm sure across my my book colleagues I well I fully support them and again appreciate the diversity of the programs that we offer throughout the district that's with regarding both of those items yes so that I did that wrong let me just help me all right I'll work out in the end okay so any other discussion on these items all in favor of adopting this time I can say all of these items okay these two items and that those

125two items have passed yes okay um I believe that's it for routine consent so I want to get out of that spider web that I was building for myself okay I'm showing it I'm sort of being bad I need to remember this is a public meeting um okay so we are now on the table here or action items and our first action item is policy and I'll turn that over to Dr shakuru thank you madam president members of the board uh what we have in front of us today are for policies for adoption uh these are the policies that we discussed last time uh first one is 8630 Computer Resources and data management the next one is 6000 fiscal management goals 6410 is out by signatures and 6640s accounting of fixed assets um in addition

126to that we also have the uh the board uh chapters welcome to the board operations panel that we will talk with um vice president Savage doctor stressed what the new process is going to be with you know as we're building this new board operations manual portion software that relevant to the policies we dealt with in policy committee and we'll be coming to the board and eventually manual as such will be adopted so you may have a motion to adopt these or policies and Mr sections this man is Nelson Hayward thank you um next up we have a discussion item and uh that will be uh led by superintendent Adams and staff in that regarding the 2324 School in your family yes thank you so very much Madam president and I will turn the time over

127to our favorite person for the responsibility of our calendar and so Mrs Bechtel the discussion with regard to our 2324 school year calendar I know this is the most exciting time of year for you and um I will turn it over to you so thank you very much I I'm so glad that you're here for this meeting superintendent Adams the calendar meeting okay let me pull up um our PowerPoint for today uh just give me one minute should not be out of practice here but screened there we go okay and I'm hoping that you can see this at this point yes we can awesome okay so um let's talk about 23 24 um calendar the committee met um this every person here met on Tuesday to actually discuss the calendar I wanted to wait until

128the BOCES calendar had been approved and that was approved uh very late in December and so we pulled the group together on Tuesday and had a really great discussion um we had our two parent representatives and I just do want to say that I'm I'm very uh grateful and appreciative of Becky Zimmer Zimmerman and Marissa Roberts for joining us really for several years so um they're a great addition to the group our charge is to provide the Board of Education with a proposed calendar for the 23-24 school year that best meets the needs of students and staff and effectively addresses issues of teaching continuity we have a process and I know that the board members have heard this many times but I do think it's important to reiterate these pieces we must schedule 187 days

129three of those days are snow days which will either be off emergency days I should have called them either off in the context of the school year or they are planned into the schedule usually in May uh we schedule more days than most districts which is why our calendar is um possibly a bit more challenging we must schedule um to a teacher PD Days by the apps to contract uh we have four superintendent conference days that are allowed by SED and they count as student attendance days or um yeah student attendance days we have to schedule 16 days off as per the absu contract 13 of those days are prescribed by that contract um last year we added we had to add on Juneteenth we were happy to add Juneteenth um but that became then

13014 prescribed days out of the 16 um days off that we schedule as per that contract we need to be in session for State Testing and scoring days and we always consider the BOCES calendar for days off and we really must consider both calendar for the long breaks both for our out of District students and also because many of our staff come from outside the district and those long vacations everyone is is off and those uh folks if they have children would be responsible for taking care of them in that period of time so we have a few priorities that we set several years ago that we just try to keep as our um in our mind and in our consideration no student attendance on election days for Safety and Security reasons uh the staff

131PD day prior to first day of school and that would be in addition to the apps to teacher preparation day which is by contract needs to occur before student attendance we try to avoid end-of-year PD days um for the most part but have a good reason for planting one in May and then we consider any discretionary days which this year we had two with these parameters in mind the labor contracts the calendar priorities listed above academic needs of students the maintenance of appropriate levels of Staffing so that brings me to my needy slide I am really excited to tell the board that this calendar looks like we will start after Labor Day and I actually cannot remember the last year that that happened um I actually meant to check and see how long ago it

132was but it has been many years that um we have uh we have not seen that so I think that's um a nice aspect of this calendar so uh Labor day is September 4th um we would have September 5th convocation and then uh building days where the building leaders will do much of the mandated uh PD around Dasa um and some of those items the sixth would become an actual real PD day I tend to split that with the content areas a half day and then the buildings have a half day to work on their set goals and then the seventh would be that teacher prep day that brings us to and I do think the draft calendar is in board docs if you want to pull it up I can pull it up myself

133too after I get done with this Slide the eighth September 8th is a Friday we would have that be a student orientation day we never did K-12 um orientation day or days uh prior to covid we began that in the covid era um with a whole lot of days in September of 2020 since everything had changed so radically we've reduced those days um to two and now this uh this coming year we would be looking at one all students would come in and attend perhaps for a shortened period of time so that we could go through that orientation process before covid we used to have um a freshman first day and whereas 10 through 12 wouldn't come until the following school day we would have sixth graders and new students at the middle schools and

134I know that at the elementary buildings that they did some work with you know Pre-K kindergarten so uh but we we do want to and continue to include that one orientation day and that is a Friday too which I think is helpful so I mentioned that we had um two of the 16 discretionary days we had four days to consider uh one is is Yom Kippur uh which is late September and then uh the Eid holiday that falls on April 10th 2024 the other two holidays would be good Friday and then also the second of the Eid holidays we had a lot of discussion about that we um I've done a little bit of a little bit of research around the Eid holidays and trying to determine uh how we would look at them the

135other one is at the end of June it's June 17th it's in the middle of Regents week the state has actually come out and um decided that June 17th would be an additional rating Day added to the regions week in addition to the last day which is always a reading day as we have to you know finish up that last the last of the scoring and and packaging everything up but they've made June 17th um uh a rating day and that means that no students at the high school level 9 through 12 and then any of the eighth graders that might be taking an ex well they would be in school though actually sorry the high school would be uh closed um for student attendance staff of course would be at school unless they chose

136to um exercise uh their right to take that day as a religious holiday we had a discussion about what those two days meant um and to the best of our knowledge as a committee what we believe is that the um Eid al-fitra is a day and that ends Ramadan it's a great day of celebration for the Muslim Community I my understanding is is that um the second of the two holidays Eid al-addra if I'm saying that correctly is a day that um is uh it's a very holy day um and a Day of Prayer so we um discuss those two dimensions and did decide to um put forward the Yom Kippur and Eid al-fitra as the two holidays that we would um have off one of our reasons for that would be that the second

137of the holidays on June 17th there would be no high school kids um in school on that day and as it's the end of the day it would be perhaps more palatable to our families to uh take their children out of school that day for religious observance given that it is that last week or so of school so that was our thinking um election day is November 7th uh that the only school that's still impacted and appears will continue to be impacted is Montessori I know we had spoken last year about doing something virtual but we did not do that um this year and basically we would just carry on with that entry into the library which I believe was the solution we had a very robust discussion about emergency days and virtual days and

138a lot of that had to do with um we we have a great takeaway and actually I wrote some notes so forgive me if I just read this so um what the teachers the admins the parents they they spoke about um not minding a virtual day in Louisville snow day as not knowing what as much as not knowing what to expect beforehand they suggested that there's there should be an instructional plan framework for um at for each level um crafted for that virtual day that could be um you know posted on the website so that people so that parents would know what the day would look like prior now in the event that something happens a month from now say for example whether how much of the day is synchronous how much is asynchronous what

139would um what would need live instruction and who would need just some guided um instruction present to support students while they were doing asynchronous work so we have really some ideas to work on outside of the calendar process as a result of talking through the day through those days the committee did also note that sometimes the snow day or emergency emergency day is simply necessary due to the volume of snow power outages the possibility of power outages and we want to be able to exercise um that possibility as well and which we have um then let me see and then the last day of school if we're going to have a late start we're going to have a late end so we go well uh we go in Wednesday June 26th which is very late

140um and for us uh traditionally that would mean that the uh Albany High uh graduation would land on I think it's a Sunday June 30th so I know that principal come afford uh we had a discussion about that and she is uh ready to have that discussion further with my colleague um Miss McKenna uh to talk through what um that June uh graduation June 2024 graduation um might look like so that is another outcome of doing the look at the calendar and then the Parent-Teacher conferences a day before Thanksgiving that is pending the new an ongoing negotiation with the union and we really want to do our February 9 9th and 10th which is the second part of the pilot and the Moa around how that worked we want to do we want to collect

141that final data that final survey um and uh in order to make an informed decision about where we're going so I'm going to come back in because I believe that's the end of my presentation and I'm happy to pull the calendar up if you need me to oh there was one other thing I did want to mention uh that was interesting um and that was the ELA testing for uh three through eight is on April 10th uh it's April 10th through 12th and so I discussed with um Mr Baker and Trisha in that office about um how that would work now the way that it works is the state gives us three days to test but there are only two days of testing so you have a three-day window but you can choose the two

142days that you want to conduct testing we have always traditionally chosen the first two days of that window and then the following um following them formal official um uh testing there is a period for makeups but subsequent to um all this calendar information that I initially gotten out and I think in the sbu a couple weeks ago uh what I learned is that state Ed has said that if a school is closed on April 10th for religious observance then their official window will actually be the 11th 12th and then Monday the 15th and then the makeup days would follow um there's will be more computer-based testing that year and the computer-based testing actually has a much wider window um so it's it it's not an obstacle in in other words for both of those um

143both of the the state made it not a created it uh to be not an obstacle and also um just the computer-based testing also so then I can open it up for questions and I think I covered all the the key points that were um on this calendar great thank you Miss Bechtel uh superintendent anything to add here or okay no we don't have anything to add I just wanted to thank respecto for all of her work with the calendar and uh over the years I just appreciate everything that she's done with all the different committees with regard to our calendar and really taking the time to engage our community in this process and get the feedback from various groups and demographics to ensure that you know while nothing is perfect we have the best

144possible calendar to represent who we are as a district and the students that we serve so thank you very much Mrs Bechtel thank you again miss Bechtel and colleagues uh any questions yes member creature who is by the way a member of the calendar I wanted to thank you for the work you've done putting into this and apologize for asking this question now I actually couldn't see the Excel very well and I told him when I was participating in the meeting so my one question is why would we I'm looking at the May schedule where we normally schedule those uh potential snow days emergency days I'm wondering why we would well what is the rationale for doing Friday May 24th rather than maybe Monday May 20th uh so that we avoid that like one day

145off in the middle is that due to AP exams or some other exams uh thank you um thank you Ellen for bringing that up I meant to make a note of why we had those three days on the count I think is it March 29th I think it's March 29th yeah so um sorry I'm not talking about much I'm talking about Mike what's up we talked oh we talked about March a lot during the meeting because that was Good Friday but I'm talking about the two other days in May that that they are right now Tuesday May 28th and then Friday May 24th yes that is correct so um we have normally put those days around the Memorial Day holiday um last year or uh perhaps even the year before we um when we've done

146this had the virtual um opportunity um we've also talked about um we did talk about that in the committee but we put uh the emergency day on that March 29th um because that's in the BOCES calendar the BOCES calendar the spring break starts on that Friday March 29th and goes through the next week so what we're saying is that if the district continues to be committed to shifting to a virtual um school day um if possible and we have done it it has it works um we have certainly have some tweaking to do really appreciated the input from the committee about that little plan ahead um that we could do that could help ease some stress um that we we could do that and then we could have that benefit of uh having that day

147that March 29th day off um along with all of our other um or other the other schools in the in the district which tend to follow the BOCES calendar very religiously so the reason I put it in the middle to return is because I also don't want to get stuck with um not having uh that March 29th which we could still have a snowstorm um and not being in a situation where uh I mean it's not likely especially if we're off the first week in April but it has happened um so I think it just gives us a little bit of safety to take away uh the make a day of instruction I think we that day of instruction would be the Tuesday is the first one and then the March one and then um

148the third give back would be that Friday before Memorial Day so there was just sort of hedging um in the event of snow uh using up all the snow gaze to follow your logic and I think that's a fantastic idea in terms of what what you planned for March I think I was just trying to suggest that we moved that third day from Friday May 24th to Monday May 20th so that instead of having that loan day off or the budget vote um in the middle of the week we could potentially have two three day weekends because I know we don't like to have that uh disruption to the student's schedule where there's the one day off nuclear week so that was just as testing as a possibility I'm sorry I'm sorry um Ellen I

149misunderstood you then um yeah we we had that discussion a couple years ago because we did do that we had done that and what the discussion was really I think from our uh our parents um was yes we do have sort of this hanging day this hanging Tuesday but to have those two sort of weekends in a row that it just it it didn't make a lot of sense to um parents on the committee to have one four day weekend here and then another three day weekend here or a four day weekend here let's just put this on this Memorial Day piece and we'll deal with the budget vote day uh singly I think that that was we did not have that discussion at all this time it didn't come up in the committee but

150um uh it had come up I want to say a few years ago because we did do that once and um and chose not to the following year thank you for refreshing my memory I really appreciate it thank you Miss man yes I was going to say thank you thank you Ms Bechtel um for that response because that is um I I attended a calendar meeting once and and that came up it was maybe like you know three years ago and so I I do appreciate that there was a lot of um communication from many of our parents um that were saying it's not really going to work that doesn't really work um so I I certainly appreciate that and I do appreciate your work on this activity as I always say I went to

151one meeting and that was enough for me um but but also and I and thank you um the board member Craig um also serving on serving obviously it is very complex but this is again year two we have a very second year second or third year that we've had a very inclusive calendar and that really speaks to our entire community so um that's uh that's uh that's that's no easy task so thank you said anyone else yes Dr chateur common I mean this could be on the GRE test you know as an analytical problem out to the calendar um I I'm just I'm just happy to be in this place where after years where we were trying to fit in one Eid holiday here we're sitting here and saying there's already two holidays there for

152both beans you know so it's like it's it's nice to be in that position where now you're actively thinking in that direction and trying to include all the other religious holidays and and we we consider it of all our students so thank you all right colleagues I think uh I see you know further questions on this topic so again respectful thank you and all who are involved in the planning committee work calendar committee work excuse me and uh we're grateful so thank you all right I'm sorry I'm sorry Miss Smith could I just ask for one clarifying thing so I have us approve the calendar at our next meeting if if that's what we want to do but I want to reserve the right to do all the printing and get things out until after

153that February 9th and 10th so that I can have my final it doesn't um it doesn't impact the calendar to uh move the conference day from before the day the day before Thanksgiving to those two half days that we would schedule as we did this year there's no change in days there's no change in anything it's really just a shift of the conference day and so I I do want to um honor the pilot that we have in the Moa that we have and and run the data and really make that informed decision and in that negotiation so if that's what we can do that's great if you want to wait on holy to um completely to just approve after that time that's fine too but I just wanted to point out that that's a

154little a little piece a little piece of Unfinished Business this picture let me just check in colleagues Ms Wilson you had a comment but I would believe that would make the we would vote potentially and the conference day would be TBD like yeah yes Wilson I'm sorry uh that didn't actually come through it so everyone's not here but I think go ahead I was summarizing essentially we could potentially vote and thus the conference day everything would remain the same and the conference day would be a TBD like to be determined and that would be the only thing that would be variable but we know what they would potentially be anyway dispatch um many compliments to the calendar committee as usual I also admire so much the way the process has improved um over the years

155it used to be quite a contentious conversation every year and it just seems like now the process is so well structured before it comes to us that the contentions part has gone away so I really appreciate all of your efforts to make sure that that happens um and I do know that parents truly truly appreciate knowing when the first day of school is as much and as early as possible so I guess while it does mean the board would ultimately end up voting twice I would be in support of voting um on the calendar with the TVD and again and I would appreciate anything we could do to share that information out we'd have to share the calendar right because the calendar won't be complete but we could share orientation day on September 8th first

156day of school on September 11th because parents really need to know that and this is the time of year that they need to know that because they're trying to figure out what they're doing for this online yes that was my thought as well great thank you colleagues any other thoughts on this and hopefully we don't have to do anything until next time okay uh so miss Bechtel I think um I'm seeing some successful we'll go ahead with your uh suggestion there um and we will vote at our next meeting on the calendar thank you so much okay uh next up we have on our agenda item uh I which is District priorities superintendent thank you very much Madam president and um I just wanted to say that um this year we do not have 65

157slides that we will be reviewing for our district priorities and I am going to move pretty quickly through them because this is just a mid-year update and it's not even the mid-year update it's really a quarterly update because the mid-year update won't happen until around March um and then you'll have the end of the year update so I'm going to move pretty quickly through this information but just to give you an idea of where we are with some of the formative I love how Dr Dobbs brought that to the Forefront the formative assessments and the formative information that we're using so that at the end of the day it's not a surprise where we are and you can have that update to see where we are at this particular time as you know we start

158with our vision mission and goals always so that our decision making is grounded within our vision mission and goals bringing back to the Forefront our educational design and looking at the core of our work is the instructional framework and we of course have seen how critically important the social emotional and well-being of our students would be and that is the wraparound piece and then all of our divisions work to support that instructional framework and the social emotional well-being of our of our young people tonight's discussion we'll look at our district priorities Safety and Security social emotional and mental health supports educational technology HVAC and accelerated learning and academic support if you recall these priorities were developed when we did our first survey back in 2021 with regard to the ARP use of funds we have

159morphed this into our district private authorities because it helps us make those decisions about how we support what our Community Values it is important to note that we have done three surveys and we know that this for the December 2022 that survey does not close until Friday and so we will update that information in the next update you'll see that in the mid-year report what those final results would be the top three categories have remained the same Safety and Security social emotional mental health supports and HVAC I think what is also interesting to note is the decline in priority for educational technology but that would be due to the fact that in 2021 we were looking at becoming a one-to-one district and we were looking at becoming um really being able to support our families

160with hot spots we've been able to do that moving forward and so we see that educational technology is roughly in uh there's 40 percent of the people who deem that as a priority our accelerated learning and academic support um I think because we are moving forward in the pandemic that we are seeing that a lot of the supports that we put in place are absolutely addressing some of those gaps that we have and I'll talk about that a little bit later in the presentation when we get to that section after school programming has increased and I think that's because with people going back to work and things like that we know that our students not only need after-school engagement so that they're you know not at home alone but they're engaged in activities we've also

161increased our mentoring and our tutoring after school to address some of those academic gaps that our students may be experiencing and so when you look at the total of our academic learning supports and after school programming we are in the 90 percent of that being important to our families and so as we address The Accelerated learning the learning laws closing the gaps those sorts of items that really impact instruction boats on the ground in the classroom we know that we still have to be concerned with that 71.5 priority of social emotional and mental health supports because we know that that is also tied to attendance and other things that contribute to the full development of our children I'd like to highlight that facility repairs that's also been an area that has surfaced within the 50

162percent as a priority last year it was at a 56 percent it's now at 51 and I think you'll see why that is dropping because you'll see later on in the presentation of the items that have been addressed with regard to facility repairs when we look at our first priority with regard to Safety and Security I won't read each of these to you but these are the things that we have done in order to enhance Safety and Security throughout our school district um we're looking at about 20 positions that have been absorbed into the general fund that means they are part of the base funding and so now as we look to determine how much of the positions that we have in our ARP funding what can we absorb and what are those positions that

163for the 23 24 school year we may have to look at dissolving those positions right now we're good within this year but next year when those funds are going away by the September of 2024 next year is the year that we're going to have to really look at those positions that have to be discontinued when we look at social emotional mental health supports we look at our multitude system of support and then the Staffing to support social emotional learning with regard to implementing ruler the Yale University program uh continuing with trauma-informed care and of course PBIS and then looking at the tcis we are still moving forward with restorative practices and our comprehensive attendance plan we're especially at the high school we have a prince assistant principal on special assignment that is dedicated to addressing

164those attendance concerns that we have and we know that chronic absenteeism is an issue it has been brought up in every single sip plan it's something that every school is looking at addressing and each school has a plan to address that we that was one of the reasons that we did fund the position at the high school with regard to the students that are not attending class the students that may have chronic absentees and so that is moving forward is it a struggle with students not attending school is it a struggle with students who may be cutting class absolutely but that's why we have the supports in place many times when you're meeting with students with regard to those concerns that is where that social emotional and mental health support comes into play Because as

165we've stated numerous times in numerous presentations with addressing attendance there's always something else that is the impetus of for attendance some students will say that you know they're bored in class but then why are they bored in class we look at how our teachers are engaging students in the learning process and making lessons deliverable in a way that engages students in Hands-On learning it engages them in the activity so that students have a want to be there and those are the things that we work on with our faculty and our staff and then we have the components that the school district has no control over all of the ancillary things that happen in a child's life and when you look at that list we have students that um have trauma that happen in their lives

166and that prohibits them from coming to school and so not only do we have to abide by state regulations we also have to look at the whole child and what are those reasons behind students attending school or not attending school and the difference that we can make I will say that Staffing is a huge component with that because we have some of our attendance teachers you know that when we looked at our budget last year we were looking at Staffing more attendance teachers so that we can work with our students with regard to developing good habits for attendance our home school coordinators our community school coordinators work with our families to create that homeschool connection so that they can understand how important attendance is for our students to be in school and to be in

167class chronic absenteeism is not something that our state as well as our State Department of Education does not know it is not something that we don't know we are fully aware that there are issues in various buildings with regard to Chronic absenteeism thus from the needs assessment that was conducted last year and the year before you've seen those plans come forward with regard to addressing attendance in each of our buildings and so I want to make sure that that point is captured because those comprehensive attendance plans we work with Staffing we work with understanding the why behind students are not going to school and we work to build those relationships to help students and families understand the importance of being in school as well as looking at the instructional delivery and creating learning environments that

168create be want and the will to be in class so that instruction is viewed as valuable and meaningful throughout the instructional day as we move forward with educational technology you can see the classroom upgrades that have happened the support upgrades and also the infrastructure upgrades that we have been looking at throughout our educational technology when we look at our HVAC we've seen a lot of work happen within our Five-Year Plan and um working with what we call the group three in our facilities world with ensuring that we are looking at those systems that they are being inspected and tested so that we can be as proactive as possible with our HVAC systems and facility repairs I just want to take an opportunity to thank our Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy for donating the 1785 air

169purifiers for our classrooms our large learning spaces and offices throughout the city school district of Albany and pardon me the next few slides I'm going to just go through we provided you with the information with regard to the work that's been done with regard to HVAC our ventilation and our air filtration process and then those things that are scheduled for 23.24 at the schools that were identified so you have Delaware gift and toast Pine Hills Sheridan prep O'Neill and Montessori those are the schools that we have significant work that needed to be done and so this is the progress that we have and then a more detailed report is in that Five-Year Plan because that's the work that we're doing with our HVAC facility repairs this contributes to that decline in from 56 percent importance

170to 51. we look at the number of work orders that we've had over the past three years as you can see the number dipped in 2122 but it is on the rise again because now we're able to address many more of those routine repairs that need to happen but I'm pleased to say that thank you to Mr Caris and thank you to Mr Kiefer and Mr Johnson who are the leaders in that area as well as our foreman and our entire maintenance staff we are looking at an 84 completion rate with regard to the work orders that are put in and just so that you know that 964 takes it it takes into account duplicates voids and numbers that we needed to pull out because I think the original number was somewhere in the thousands

171like 1064 but once we aggregated out the duplicates items that were not valid then this is where we are with 964 and this just is a reflection from July 1 through December 29 so um keeping at this rate we are doing much better this year than we have been over the past few years but I also think that's due to our leadership as well as due to a consistent Staffing piece that we have even though we may be down we have consistent Staffing showing up to work so that we can get the jobs done with regards to our accelerated learning and academic support you can see the list of items that we have implemented one of the things that we see tremendous value in the before and after school tutoring and mentoring and the support

172for social emotional learning of our students those two things are extremely important and we see the difference in the support of our students providing that support for our students so that they can be successful and then you have a list of our print resources the digital resources content digital resources instructional digital tools and then of course we must talk about the professional development to address those learning strategies and program implementation because the more that we can stay in that dok3 dok-4 realm of deliberative instruction the more that we are looking at project-based learning and meeting the students where they are increasing the interest of them being in school which then increases their attendance and I I think as an organization we have to understand the power that we all have in encouraging students to want

173to be a part of education and to get an education no matter where they fall with regard to accelerated classes or non-accelerated classes what is the value of what they are getting in the classroom that motivates them to come to school to come to class and to be a part an active part of their own learning when we talk about Equity is action this is the part where we love to make that connection within our categories of our Equity metrics and the indicators and how those indicators and categories align with our district priorities again we did the demo at the last board meeting so that you could see how those Equity metrics categories are being rolled out we will be over the next few weeks making them live with data as it comes about and

174so those updates will be provided at the mid-year update so that you can see those particular areas go live with the items that we have ready and those resources that we have ready and so the rest of the slides look at each category and it looks at the indicators and aligning them with our district priorities all the way through to category seven and with that I will conclude with Equity is action and as we have seen there is no passive path to ensuring Equity it's more than changing policies and adopting new practices it's about systemic change and the stress and the stages of the systemic change over time and this is a quote from Ken Williams who is the author of Ruthless equity which is the book study that we have done with our district

175administrators with that I will open the floor for questions with regard to our district priorities great thank you superintendent um and uh I just wanna if this is probably an order sometimes I like to my colleagues speak and then I'd go back but I just wanted to uh thank you for this your leadership around equity which I believe and I think we all believe is the work that we should be doing um I am grateful for your leadership on that path and uh it is now going to be in staff and our hands to ensure that we continue to advance this work so very grateful thank you Miss Wilson thank you for your presentation and um I want to hone in on the discussion you had around attendance and students motivation um two sort of

176questions slash comments and all this preface with I was watching something a woman had inherited like a company um her family was the foremost black architecture company in the country actually post reconstruction they were the first to be certified at the black architect it was handed down through their family long story short she's you know naturally very successful organization in New York City millions in contracts and architecture and everything and she was talking about her daughter and how like basically you would think that she would be influential over her daughter and there's she's there's no competition with social media and internet right now so just to sort of frame for people that when we're trying to engage our students what we're up against culturally socially um you know the influence for them and into the

177hallway remark I remember remember that being characteristic of even myself in high school at Albany High that's like a perennial issue I think probably in all schools right and so much to the point that the person who was sort of like the Takeover principal at the time their original background was in like prison you know and the the I think it's a huge contrast with Jody obviously in a positive way I mean that in that you know naturally she it doesn't feel or feel Draconian and what my concept with that is like I'm wondering with yes we want we want to do both we want to have our students succeed and we don't want to be Draconian because with the to me with the Advent of saying you must uh you know be be a

178certain type of student or achieve certain um you know grades or things are we ineffective will we see like more dropouts then you know so that's like that's where I'm going with the logic like ultimately it's like what will be the unforeseen consequences of taking some steps that people feel like we should just do to sort of like put people into shape and then secondly as you stated um my other question was is there a correlation with where you mentioned um you know things will be falling off with ARP funding thank God for that support and things will be absorbed and falling off will we be right-sized initially and will there be a necessary like aspect of right sizing Hall monitors and that support towards absenteeism if that made sense sorry for rambling not a

179problem thank you so very much Madam president and member Wilson so I'll start with um the first part with regard to um the attendance fees and and the culture and the climate with regard to that and I'm going to go back to what my statements were before in that it's not a simple answer and unfortunately people want an elixir that's going to just quickly solve it and make it not happen anymore and that's not anywhere in human development and so if we go back to and and I hate to do the education moment but I'm going to take that time to do the education moment if we go back to the classes that we took in school as Educators with regard to adolescent psychology and the individual that we're dealing with and we look at

180child psychology and what is going through that adolescence mind with regard to how they're developing and growing and what are the things that they deem in sporting then we have to look at how times have changed and what does motivate students to be there so when we look at classes that they have a high attendance rate and students are going to those classes what are the things that we hear by far the number one thing that we hear my teacher cares about me they motivate me the class is interesting it's challenging students don't say I like this class because it's easy that's not it they like classes that are challenging and they also believe it or not they know that discipline is love and that if you let me just do anything that hurts me

181I know internally that you don't care about me but when you put those boundaries in place and you challenge me to be better than what I am and you treat me where I need to be versus what I bring to the table you will find that that is where the children are more successful because they know that inherently and innately that they are cared about by that individual now that's not just the classroom teacher that's everyone in the building and so when students have a sense of belonging when they have a sense of Challenge and caring about them and they are connected to the work that they are doing they will be successful I will use my own example I'm an English major I love Shakespeare I'm going to tell you when I taught senior

182young men they did not like Shakespeare but they love Shakespeare because of the energy that I brought to the room and they even said it Mrs Adams we really don't like Shakespeare but because you're so excited about it every day and you wear these funny costumes and you bring us into that Shakespearean world we really do like Shakespeare so it's about what you do to make the classroom interesting for your children to want to be there and to what to love those are the things that help us with regard to attendance I'm not telling you that they're not traumas that happen to our students that forbid them or keep them or challenge them from being in school or being in class absolutely that happens but that's the group that we do need to work with

183and that we have programs in place to find out what are those things beyond the school walls that prevent that child from being successful or prevent the child from going into the classroom or coming to school and so we do have um concerns where our attendance teachers our homeschool coordinators our community school coordinators are busy trying to work with our children and our families to find out what wraparound services are needed for them to be successful so it's not a simple answer it's not going to be a simple answer because we are working with human dynamics and when humans are involved there's no Elixir every situation is different every story is different therefore the results and what we use in terms of strategies to meet the needs of our students it is going to be

184different I hope I've answered all of both of your questions in that response no that was very helpful and exactly elaborate some of my concern is I don't we don't want to shift we don't want to Pivot or um pendulum swing in One Direction or the other exactly thank you so much I think one of the things that I also need to add to that is we have to look at um when we talk about restorative justice practices and working with our students and families there is a punitive nature in some of the discussions that are happening with regard to Chronic absenteeism and there's also and I'll leave and tie grading into that there's a punitive nature that we have to really resist and understand that those while there may be consequences for our actions

185and for the actions of our students if we cross that line and it becomes a punitive mentality then the very students that we are trying to bring back into the fold are the very students that we are going going to lose and so as we work with families yes there are consequences for the actions that our students engage in but to do it in a punitive way alienates our students it alienates our families and the Very students and families that we are trying to engage in support become the ones that we are alienating because of a punitive mentality versus a restorative mentality and we of course advocate for a restorative mentality there's a superintendent if I might just follow up a little bit on this thread um is um is this a also a systems

186related uh concern like do do we have do you feel that we have everything in place are those things that are in place uh do we have we supported those things enough sufficiently um again I know I I totally agree with you that there is no answer this is complicated for many many reasons but I I um what I and what I heard from the gentleman uh was more of a policy kind of a need and I heard uh we I mean not we we as the board need to fix it and I'm thinking well what about we as as a greater Collective which then made me think about um does there need to be a bit of a you know I know what they're doing at the high school doesn't need to be a

187sort of like little panel that kind of comes together that really looks at this and takes action on this I'm I'm I'm just trying to I'm looking for uh your your Notions about this and I know we'll have continued discussion around the you know around the district about this but just kind of wanted to get a sense of I absolutely hear you but how do how do we take this you know where do we find what what can we do to make sure we're not part of a problem or increasing a problem but rather opening up those opportunities you know for youngsters to be back in school engaged in school so president Smith I think you bring up a very good point and it is the collective week I'm I'm going to start with that

188when we say all in for Albany it is all in for Albany and none of us can abdicate our responsibility for it none of us and so versus you know many times what happens in organizations all of the thinkors point out and and I go back to what my mother said when you point one finger out you got three fingers pointing back and so we all have to own our own responsibility with regard to how do we address the problem and so in doing that do let me let me answer it this way as a system our district has the proper infrastructure in place with all the programs and services that we provide and that we have in place structurally to address chronic absenteeism what the challenge is is the challenge that just about every

189organization is facing and it is Staffing for social workers Staffing for behavioral specialists counselors all of those support services are down in staff we had a meeting the other day when we were looking at um students that may be just as involved and what are the supports that we have for them excuse me and it's not that the structure doesn't exist it's the fact that not only is our entity Sans employees but so Social Services they they are Sans employees as well our court system they are struggling with all of the probation officers and people that they need in place to do checks and balances on students and families and so the problem is bigger and one thing as a board um there's not anything that a board can do individually to you you can't

190pass one more rule create one more policy if you don't have enough people to do the work you can create as many policies as you want but if they're not people to take the positions or if we are not look at restructuring the roles and responsibilities of those that exist in those roles there's not anything that a board will be able to do to resolve that issue as a system the structures are in place one and I hate to keep coming back to Staffing but people are working um double time and triple time with some of our high needs cases I often talked about and we are looking at working on this and this is something that I am going to continue even though I will not be with the school district working with the

191universities to see how social students who are engaged in social work and getting their degrees in social work and Behavioral Management how can we get them engaged with our schools to work with in practicums or whatever they need to do at lower levels so that our trained professionals with the proper certification can deal with some of those High needs cases because we have to look at how we free up the caseloads it's great to sit and say what the problem is it's it's great to do that we can all do that but when we talk about and get to the nitty-gritty of what those challenges and barriers are many of those if you look at our system are beyond what we are capable of addressing because we need more of the Staffing to do that

192now if we want to say and I'm not going to say this that this is it but where we have control is ensuring the accountability process of the folks who already have that charge making sure that they are doing the job that they have been assigned or prescribed to do so that holding people accountable for what their roles and responsibilities are absolutely that's something that we can control uh Ms Wilson go ahead on this thread you're right I just wanted to double check if anybody else I decided yeah I just wanted to make sure anyone else I have comments just um following on that thread of where you mentioned Miss Adams of pointing out problems and nothing against the gentleman's book actually appreciated his comments and I very much concur with the passion aspects of

193things when you are if you care enough to come speak to a board about something it's evident you're passionate but it just kind of hearkens to for example when people are just strictly pointing out problems they're saying oh well you've got ARP money our taxes shouldn't be raised but you have ARP money you shouldn't you should do this you should hire these folks if you have it's the same money you know we can't keep like we can't utilize this money beyond the scope of what we had before so yes reporting out the issues we have but then you're actually what you when you point out one problem you actually to Vicki's point highlight a systemic issue which is evidently we need support and the ways that you've mentioned already so I just feel like that

194had to be sort of a liquid you know sort of like extracted out of the conversation is that we have more systemic issues and naturally like these follow our students home they follow it typical and all of these other things so yes people continually Point problems to us or parking on where where's where they see areas where they see us as lacking and it's not from a deliberate aspect no one showed up today did not do the right thing so I just wanted to you know if I can add to that remember Wilson one of the things that I am increasingly aware of is the number of after-school programs we have and at the same time the number of community members that will come and say you don't have enough after school programs but when

195you look at our enrollment as you know this is part of our Equity metrics you look at our enrollment of the 2600 students that are engaged in after school activities there are quite a few of them and if you are at the school after school you will see a lot of students there after school and so it's one of those things I'm just using that as an example to say that yes we value and respect after school programming and we know that it is great for kids but to say that we don't have enough after school programming for students means that you're not actually paying attention to the data and so when we talk about what are those things within the infrastructure which is why I think we have been so deliberate about making sure

196that the board is aware of all the things that we have in place within the infrastructure to address an issue doesn't mean that it's perfect and it doesn't mean that we can't fine tune it but to say that our infrastructure is not there is not an accurate statement we have the infrastructure but there are challenges with seeing that infrastructure manifest to its full potential because of some of the challenges that are beyond our control doesn't mean that we're going to stop trying either but there are things that we do have to recognize that come into play anything else yes Mr Alman Young I don't want to take up too much time about this but um during High School I was a decent student but not particularly uh always in my seat if you're desperate to

197put it simply um it doesn't mean that I didn't care I had other things going on I did and um I count myself lucky because a lot of people never gave up on me and just to put it into per second perspective there is no Silver Bullet it is work to fix lots of issues in the background for one child is a tremendous amount of work you have as he was saved 50 students that all need this tremendous amount of work it is not a policy it is not a line it is not us or him or you know it is going to require everyone to coordinate and have a plan and part of the plan is to keep them in school and as far as I see it we're being successful in keeping the

198kids at school instead of out of school and on the streets and um getting themselves into further issues so I appreciate the educational lesson and I wanted to say I've been there so thank you thank you so very much member Alvin Yahweh I think one of the things that I'd like to add with that is uh for every story there are different solutions and that's where the system becomes taxed because what works for one child doesn't necessarily work for every child it's not a cookie cutter approach it becomes individualized for each student that is experiencing that trauma or going through whatever they're going through and I think those are things that have to be recognized I want to extend the conversation just a quick minute about partnering and working with the mayor's office with our

199County Executive looking at Social Services looking at Northern rivers and you know Trinity Alliance and all of these partners that we have to work with our children we know that they are taxed as well because we have our community Roundtable where representatives are there and we're sharing and lamenting about some of the same things but I think what's really important especially about what you said about no one gave up on you or there were those folks who didn't give up on you when we meet no one's giving up we're looking at those challenges we're looking at what those barriers are and we are working strategically to see what it is that we need to do to think outside the box to think what's the one more thing that we could do that we haven't thought

200about so that we can reach yet one more child and so is it is it frustrating absolutely is it exhausting absolutely but at the end of the day we can't give up on our children let's move okay comments I think we're good on that super nintendent thank you for that and uh next up of the week is uh Mr Karis and we're excuse me discussing uh the budget process so Mr cares is going to do his presentation from uh his seat here and I believe you are sharing your own screen okay thank you read the wrong thing yeah so this is a very quick update it's going to continue as we go through the budget ceiling um and as uh so as we're going through the process as we have in the conversations of how

201do we provide every tool that we can as a district to reach our students and to provide them the support to succeed this is the budget present or the budget process um that's a common theme it's a common thought and that's a way I've always worked on my budgets is to figure out what can we provide within the parameters of our community members and what can we provide for our students no matter where they're at um well this is a quick update that's gonna as we go on it's gonna get bigger and bigger um so it's going to go along with their vision mission and goals this is the same calendar that I showed in the last one as we move forward I will start adding more and more dates uh this is the same

202key terms the budget rollover the modified rollover as we are looking at the ARP funding and trying to make sure that we don't have a cliff in a year and a half as we're doing the budget season we want to make sure that We Gather what we can in the budget so that we don't have that as well as provide every opportunity for our students um again we want to continue our existing programs and services our contractual obligations our operations our staffing and benefits on the labor contracts uh we are all monitoring to overtime and related work but looking at districts uh goals that we just saw at the presentation we have to put that into perspective of the budget as well going forward um making sure the school safety is there making sure that

203we have ample applies for school safety make sure that our maintenance because we don't want to have bigger projects we want to be able to maintain what we have and then do smaller projects going forward so that it's not a big project at once um and maintain what the new product new machinery and HVAC systems that we have you know we have five different buildings that we're updating HVAC or maintaining them that that's uh you'll see in a later slide that we want to make sure that we have our maintenance contracts so we have preventative maintenance instead of a uh oh something happened we need to fix it right now um on this slide our staffing ratios I've included the ratios to what our actual um Staffing numbers are for 2223 so you can see

204that we're pretty level as we are going with uh the students to staff ratio the biggest one I see is you see as a teacher at the apsa is a 7.9 lack of the eight it actually went down from 9.5 a couple years ago so that's 9.5 students per student per uh future now we're down to 7.9 again we're trying to provide what we can to our staff and our students so that we provide opportunities um here I added our legislative priorities and budgetary impacts we want to make sure we have Equitable appreciate funding that will impact our budget by 1.26 million dollars support for Teacher pipelines or your own initiatives that's about three hundred thousand dollars uh social emotional mental health supports as we keep talking about that's about six hundred thousand dollars very

205slow over saturation if they have a different Plumbing Source way calculation that will impact our budget support for enl and Refugee students three million dollars so that is a you have to build that into your budget as we want to make sure that we provide these opportunities again HVAC they maintain what we have that's why we have preventative maintenance contracts um same thing with the pools our enhance our technology make sure that we have the best technology and opportunities for staff and students and work with our Grants Department to subtract our our funding so that we don't have a clip in a year and yet um the variables we still say eight is very early on health insurance increases we're starting to have some talking about that but there's nothing set in concrete Tech calculation

206which is late February as a March first due date the tax levy that we will be discussing as we go further on in the budget process uh what will be the Comfort level for three members as well the school district and the impact of in retirements uh any breakage that we would have as employees that have been here for 30 years and when we hire a younger younger or less seasoned employees um what the difference in the philosophy uh we're still reviewing the budget requests we pretty much tried to narrow it down to supplies that we want to be able to provide back to 100 that was a few years ago so that we again right every tool we possibly can just priorities that we just went through and we'll move on to the next

207one uh the we had to have multiple more applications for our budget advisory committee I was going to go to them tomorrow so that would begin the process so that the January 25th meeting we're going to be on track so that we hear from community members of what their thought process is and have their input into the process that's not it I'll accept any questions for Mr Karis Savage I know we're still very early in the budget process so we're really on practices all process conversation still um I think based on the budget calendar we were hoping to look at a rollover budget of some kind on the expense side as soon as the next meeting is that likely to happen or do you think we're looking at the February meeting for that I'm trying

208for the next meeting but it might be for the early February meeting I have a more realistic number it's fine at least it's time for me as a one board member I know that often it's all hypothetical until we know what our state aid is anyway so it's like the stretching out of it to me is not there's not a lot of value there um but the only other question I wanted to ask is um we've been in an unusually high inflationary period um this last year obviously that is not specifically impact our the large portion of our expenses that's contractually um specified right for for staff but it would likely have some impact on the non-staffing portion of our budget and are you planning to factor that into the rollover budget or would that

209be something that would come later no I'm actually going to try to budget that prior to um there's a trend in this current school year where a lot of the contracts that we have actually our mid-year are bumping up we talked about where um Food Service you'll see a contract coming up for that where mid-year they're trying to raise it up just because of uh Nook you know milk cost is going up some substantially so it's a mid-year increase yes it's warranted it's needed I think we like food service wise we have provided bigger menus more students are eating again as students are healthier or sums are full it's easier to learn they're not daydreaming through school they're actually focused it helps and every little bit will help so whatever we could do to provide

210for our students be focused and determined that's what we're going to do so you'll see contracts coming up it's a decent increase in it for this uh School launch they're providing a great service but it's wanted so it's going to be built then is this crazy Mr cares thanks for the presentation I have a quick question and I apologize if you mentioned this when I was briefly out of the room I remember at our last meeting you said you've gotten two applications for the community budget committee and I wondered if you had gotten any last committed people who wanted to join since then I have um yeah so that I was excited to see more emails come through with their resumes so I was going to go through them tomorrow and start the process for

211the next budget or I'm sorry for the January 25th so that we have our budget advisory committee on that date so that they'll be there for that that's such excellent news I remember going I think that was one of the first district level thing I went to um eight or nine years ago so thank you thank you very good thank you Mr or Dr shatur did I see your hand go up I'm so sorry I was imagining things okay okay oh Hassan I'm sorry go ahead I put my hand up when your head was turned um so slide eight um no it's more of a facilities question but the rule maintenance contract just refresh my memory so like the pool is not functional until we get that through is that right yeah so it's functional

212it's just again we want to be preventative more than uh like Eon or AIC that was a lot of work to get to pull back to where it needed to be um it caused it it's costing more to fix it than to maintain it so make sure the filters are running right make sure the seals are running right make sure the sand in the filters are just right and the pumps are working properly it's I'd rather do that and it's real maintenance the reason why I'm asking is because specifically with North Albany um you know we used to I mean maybe we still do but um do we still have like Community swim programs or like outside entities can use the pool then somebody came up to me the other day and was like oh

213I hope we're going to be able to use the North albany's Pool soon or something like that it's going to happen uh they I think uh we have the company that we have now they're going to the system we had a filtering problem again there in the heating problem and it went along with the capital projects so we're hoping that it's going to be more later spring at that pool will be back up and running and then it's going to be just like the AIC pool you have the community members that will have access to what after hours and certain days after those contracts and agreements that we have so the community can use those pools at different times is it just a Nissan one second so I think uh I I don't know that

214I want to date it's kind of like you were kind of going that way I think what we're saying is that in response to your question we will have uh Community opportunity for Community swim so I think that's the real question there and we will keep yeah and we will keep folks posted on time frames uh Miss Savage thank you Sandy he was in that same vein I was just trying to understand whether this conversation around Community swim is for all of our pools whether we're going to rotating pools like and and you don't have to answer these questions now I just I know it is something that comes up fairly often people want to know it was traditionally a Myers thing there was always swimming at Myers and I think we haven't been doing

215it originally because of covid not because of pool maintenance issues but because of covid and not having a lot of people in buildings Simpson I don't really know where we are in any of that and I don't need the answer right now but some days I think the other the other thing is with um North Albany it was the why so it was a community you know opportunity and so those folks are hoping to have that same opportunity yes I'm sorry superintendent that's okay I'm Madam president I'm Madam vice president so each pool almost has its own story and its own identity and its own challenges and so we can't give you an answer that will be comprehensive for all five pools because each one of them has a different circumstance so some of them

216uh we're looking at how do we get lifeguards and all of those kinds of things so how do you get training and then how many of our maintenance staff are trained to upkeep the pool so there there are a lot of complexities again not just a simple answer but down the line do we want to get back to having our community be able to use our pools the answer to that is yes we do when that's going to happen that's going to be when all of these other pieces are in place that we would be able to do that do anyone else I think uh that's it for the questions for you Mr Harris thank you very much yeah okay so I believe that brings us uh to uh our committee reports um and let

217me just check in with each group here uh Miss Karachi just I'm always I know you've made like kind of quarterly so I did we did have a calendar committee meeting but we've definitely covered that so I have not had any other uh I believe I will have a wellness committee meeting in the next week or two before our next board meeting and then audit is a another order yeah if it's another quarterly so we'll meet we'll do that again and I believe it's December okay so we'll get posted on that then okay thank you very much and uh Dr shatura on policy policy meets next week on Wednesday I see and uh the Savage government relations uh government relations will be meeting I do not have that date um we are you know moving

218through to that part of the Year where we speak with our legislators Etc we had a a very effective meeting with the governor's education staff um one week before Christmas which was um I think helpful um and a good meeting where we were able to establish our priorities and once again um folks really appreciate the way our priorities align well with the priorities of the various Statewide organizations so that was good and I will also mention that we are um formally meeting the ad hoc uh committee on the team operations manual meeting at the end of January which thanks to miss Timmons is on the calendar um and so we are underway there um as well so you'll start seeing more and more of those sections coming in very good and in terms of facilities

219we are meeting on January 10th at 5 45 here in Harriet Gibbons um and we're looking forward to that and we have we know there's some work a lot of work going on and so we anticipate a good update at that time so um let's see any other business yes Mr amanawi I know I mentioned this last time but I feel like I need to mention it again to whoever is listening um New York State Thruway is looking for uh basically they are offering a skilled scholarship for students who are pursuing career and trades AKA carpentry electrical HVAC and plumbing and there's a thousand dollar scholarship towards their education and uh if I may say so a really good opportunity to get in with a great organization that [Music] didn't have a career so that's

220not as The Madam president I'd like to during routine consent there was an announcement that we need to make and it is it is also a Bittersweet announcement um Eileen Leffler who is our director of Grants and program development uh is going to retire from the school district and we just want to thank her for her service and just the tremendous amount of work that she's done to ensure that we have the proper grants in place that extend the support that we can provide for our students engaging our community and providing those grants and opportunities so that we know that it takes more than our foundation Aid to educate our children and to provide Equitable opportunities and one of the key things that I think is important much like member Mann addressed today when you

221look at routine consent and you see the different contracts that come about and they are Grant funded um and through her report you can see that there's over 20 million dollars that we have in grant money to provide for our children and that's 20 plus million dollars above our foundation Aid just to make sure that our students have those Equitable opportunities and so to miss Leffler we want to say thank you so very much for all that you do on behalf of the scholars of the city school district of Albany and our families so we are going to miss you but congratulations on your retirement that's fabulous and did you say at the end of the year yes her retirement is effective uh at the end of the year that's great uh and also I

222don't know if Mrs is Miss Lester on the line or she's no okay well we will certainly uh send her our regards as well through you as well as directly um and I know it's a tremendous amount of work uh that she has done and I think she's really in office of one a three okay but she is the primary uh you know go-getter of these funds and Grant funds so we're very grateful for that um so I'm I'm gonna uh wish her well when we get to that date um but I want to thank her now for what she's has been doing with us for many many years so thank you superintendent for that okay any other business colleagues Miss Mann well this is a little Bittersweet but I think I I think your

223next um agenda item was to see if there was a motion but okay so I'm just going to say it's bittersweet because I'm going to to make the motion for the last time with with our superintendent here okay so I let me State the motion if there's nothing else no nothing else um okay um so I will entertain a motion to enter uh into exact session uh for the purpose of um discussing with our Council uh the superintendent search consultant Narcissus and that includes procurement and also to review uh proposals so may I get a motion I I will make the motion knowing if um very heavy-hearted knowing it's the last time that I'm making the motion um with the superintendent present so motioned by this man a second by Miss Wilson all in favor

224of a journey to returning to execution that's great thank you it passes unanimous and uh to all a very good night thank you very much