001Mhm. >> You guys ready? Catherine, you all set? All right. If we could reconvene our meeting to open session, the board has been in executive session since 6:00 to discuss tenure recommendation, three personnel matters, and two student matters. If we could please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We could have introductions. Good evening, John McPhillips. Dave Hurst. Catherine Naughton. Ernest Myer. Holly Dellenbaugh. Jody Monroe. Lauren Grasso. Claire Legayu. Uh and John and uh Yuan are unable to be here tonight. Um Bob um I think is on his way. Um and I think Rose is also on her way. Um thank you to Glenmont for
002hosting us this evening. It's always nice to be here. Um do we have any Pig or Soup West students in the audience tonight? Welcome. Thanks for coming, guys. Um you need to stay until 9:00 or the meeting is over, whichever one comes first. And uh don't leave without signing out on one of the sign-out sheets that's up here, cuz that's how you're going to get credit for coming to the meeting. Uh first up is our approval of minutes. It is recommended by the superintendent to the Board of Education approve the minutes from the March 18th, 2026 regular board meeting. I move. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That passes. Uh next item is our meeting reports, and first up is our superintendent's report. Sure. Uh thank you. Uh so, we
003do have our winter athletes here tonight, as you can see. Before we recognize them, I just want to congratulate um a couple of our other teams. And I also want to just send out a reminder about our UPK registration. Um that will open um April 6th. Uh we are partnering again with TSL. It'll open April 6th through May 1st, and then we'll be holding the lottery on May 13th. And parent notification will follow uh that. So, our program will be though entirely with TSL this year. Um also, I want to congratulate our Odyssey of the Mind teams, particularly our high school team. Uh they earned a spot uh and they will be going to the Odyssey World Finals at Iowa State University in May. Uh it's the third year in a row the high school
004team's qualified for the World Finals. We did have 11 teams compete this year in the New York State uh finals, and our high school team finished first. Uh so, congratulations to those competitors who'll be headed out to Iowa, and our coaches Rebecca Biter, Sarah Genevieve, and Lisa Peters. And I'm sure we'll hear how they made out after that competition. And also, a congratulations to our e-sports team. Uh they were named number one in the nation by USA Today. They uh if you remember, they were at the board meeting a couple months ago. Uh so, they were named the top e-sports team in the nation by USA Today. Uh the news publication ranks the top 25 high school teams. So, I'd like to congratulate them. And finally, I'm going to turn it over to our athletic
005director Len Keyes. Where is he? To recognize our winter athletes. You can see we had uh some very suc- some very successful teams this winter. So, congratulations to all of our athletes. Good evening, everyone. Uh you can always tell about the the success um of a season when we see the board meeting where we do our recognitions. And obviously, we had a historic winter season. So, with that, I'm going to start off with I'd like to introduce Carter Martin. Carter, come on up. Is he here? Carter was uh represents our varsity bowling team, coached by Todd Tyler. So, Carter was the Section 2 champion with a high series of 1466. He uh had a six-game average of 244, finished 19th at the state tournament. And he's only a freshman, so good news to see Carter
006play again. >> [applause] [applause] >> Girls indoor track and field, I'd like to bring up a familiar face, Anna Schrapawinsky, coached by Dad Tucker. Anna was a state qualifier, came in fifth place in the 1500 m run, and also set new school records in the 800, 1500, and the 3200 m. Congratulations. >> [applause] >> Our boys indoor track and field, coached by Andrew Rickert, we had three state qualifiers. I'd like to introduce Calvin Howard. Calvin made the state meet in the 1600 m. Lucas Nailbone, who was a state meet qualifier in the inter-sectional relay 200 m. And Jonathan Radcliffe, who not only was a state qualifier, but also the Section 2 champion in the 55 m dash, and he qualified in the 55 m and 300 m dash. Congratulations. >> [applause] [applause] >> Good [applause]
007job, guys. We had three gymnasts qualify for the Niskayuna championships. Gymnastics coached by Kylie Sullivan and assisted by Stephanie Cook. I'd like to introduce Caroline Crumley. Caroline was a qualifier in bars. Jade Fontaine Rosser, who was a qualifier in beam, floor, and placed eighth place in the state in vault. Congratulations. And Brin Colwell was a qualifier on the floor. Congratulations. >> [applause] [applause] >> It was a absolute historical season in our still fledgling girls wrestling program coached by Sarah Troubadour. I'd like to bring up Charlie Ike. Charlie is Bethlehem's first section champion. First section champion and uh of course qualified for states, finished the season with a record of 36 and 7, and I'd like to bring up her partner, her teammate Katie Wang. Congrats, Katie. Katie's a state qualifier and finished with an impressive
00855 and 16 record. Both girls finished in seventh place in the states. >> [applause] [applause] >> And you want to clap? I'd like to bring up a super impressive young man, another history-making season. Uh our Section 2 Division 1 champion, James Nailbone. He was our 132-lb champion. He ended a 28-year drought. 28-year drought for Bethlehem boys wrestling. And not only that, was named the Division 1 most outstanding wrestler as well. Coached by Chris Braga. And uh James finished his career with a 144 wins, all-time wins leader in Bethlehem history. So, congratulations. >> [applause] >> Congratulations, Dad. Big part of our coaching staff for years. All right. Get ready for a couple of big groups here now. We have to congratulate our boys swimming dive team. Undefeated regular season, Section 2 champions, the first undefeated season
009since 1997, and our first boys swim sectional title since 2001. We had seven qualifiers for states. By the way, we hammered Shen. They came in second. We were 388, Shen was 289, Nisky was 287. I'm spiteful like that. All right. I want to bring up a few also mention a couple of other incredible accomplishments out of this group. We had a 200 medley relay at sectionals. Uh we won. That was part of that team was Euan Izard, Bhargava Janga, Jacob Hershberg, and Eli German. I want to also mention that that was a school record when the boys performed that. Jacob also won the 100-yard butterfly and the 100-yard backstroke at sectionals and set school records in both at states. Our 200 free relay won the sectionals with Mikołaj Rulison ski. I practiced a little. I
010tried. Uh Euan Izard, Ian Savage, and Jack Keating. Jack also swam the 50 free at states. Eli German swam the 100 butterfly at states. Bhargava Janga swam the 100 breaststroke at states. Oh, and by the way, Tom Carney was the overwhelming Times Union Section 2 Coach of the Year. Extremely well deserved. And I want to bring [applause] up I know he did not hurt himself celebrating. Uh but I want to introduce and bring up the rest of the team, all of everyone. Mason Bergeron, Jack Keating, >> [applause] >> Maxwell Connolly, Victor Franco, >> [applause] >> Eli German, Levi German, Jacob Hershberg, Tahir Haque Laar, >> [applause] >> Jacob Bussard, Euan Izard, Bhargava Janga, John Keating, Ezra McElveen, Lucas Peters, Ian Savage, Alexander Scuza, Kai Rulison ski, Alexander Wang, Mikołaj Wisniewski, and Ben Zang. >> [applause]
011[applause] >> Awesome job, boys. So, you [snorts] might have heard we had a girls basketball season this year. Um it was pretty good. What a season. Uh obviously stole the hearts of not only our community, but Section 2. I actually had a Section 2 meeting today talking to a couple of colleagues, and one from a much smaller classification said, "How's it feel to to have the the team of the year?" Apparently, there's a a contest that's being run by one of the um local organizations that that sponsors many uh Section 2 events. It's it's not known yet, so I have to keep it under wraps, but apparently we are going to be the winner of that. Shh. Don't tell anybody. So, what a season. We went into sectionals with a with a record of 8
012and 11, 6 and 7 uh in our league, very very difficult league as we know. Seeded fourth in the double A's. Um took care of Mohonasen in in real easy fashion before uh facing the number one and a top five state ranking team uh in Columbia and and beat them pretty easily, 67-56, which was a an incredible victory. Uh last-second heroics to beat a really feisty Troy team, 58-56, giving Bethlehem its first sectional title since 2015. Senior Makayla McCann was named the Section 2 double A tournament MVP. Next up, we took on the Section 3 champion Oswego, and let's be honest, that game was over in the first quarter. Our girls just tire tracks, 64-41. Didn't look back, and that punched our ticket to a final four berth, where we faced Nyack, a team that's
013a very strong team from Section 1 West Chester, ranked third in the state, had one loss until they played the Eagles. And the Lady Eagles beat them 50 to 46. Um punching our ticket to the finals against a a super talented North Tonawanda team, where where our season ended. But an absolute incredible incredible season that one will be remembered forever in our in our district program. So, let's meet our girls. Sophie Bordel, Katie Ryan, >> [applause] >> Makayla McCann, Lilly Greenback, Ella McCarthy, >> [applause] >> Natalie Sherman, Elizabeth Carney, Eden Sanchez, >> [applause] >> Abby Okiki Kitchen, Macy Young, Nikki Palace, and [applause] Brin Elfeld. Team is coached by Trish Pacini and assisted by Hannah Mazio. >> [applause] >> And our team manager, Gianna Ida Smith. >> [applause] >> And Tim McDermott, our JV coach.
014He's there on the bench all the time. >> [applause] [applause] >> And finally, I just wanted to acknowledge our winter scholar-athlete teams. Those are teams that had grade averages over 90, and it's a distinction by the New York State Public High School Athletic Association. Our boys basketball, our girls basketball, our girls bowling, boys swimming dive, boys indoor track and field, girls indoor track and field, boys wrestling, girls wrestling, and gymnastics all were scholar-athlete teams this winter. So, congratulations. >> [applause] >> And I'm sure we'll have a great spring. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Thank you, Mr. Keyes, and thank you to all of our parents who support your children through all of the the hours of the winter sports and our coaches. It was really a great season, and um I know you're welcome to
015stay, but um some of you might have to go home and do homework. Unfortunately, so if you want to leave, you're welcome to. Yeah. Good to see you. Good to see you. That's all right. Next week Next one we're at Hamagrael. That's right. You didn't miss anything. I'll be needing it. I do have put all of the snacks out for you. There's snacks in the faculty room. Uh Anybody have any questions or anything for Jody? Uh next up is the Board of Ed board. Feedback for a second there. Uh and I just um quickly wanted to congratulate everybody that was involved um in the production of Legally Blonde at the high school. Um I had a chance to see it on Thursday night, and cast, crew, parents, directors, everybody I know put in a ton
016of work, and the show was phenomenal. Um and I truly enjoyed it, and I know everybody else did. I would love if we could I don't know, get them all here sometime and hand them all out pins, but we might need to get more stock in pins. >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Or a bigger space. In order to do that. Um but it but it was terrific. Um anybody have anything else they wanted to share? Um with our Oh, go ahead, Cathy. Yep. I just wanted to in addition to to thanking everybody with Legally Blonde, cuz what a what a phenomenal production. Um I also wanted to thank the teachers, parents, students all behind the Multicultural Dinner over at the middle school. That was phenomenal and delicious, and um and I know a lot of
017work and love went into that. Students were really engaged trying foods from countries from around the world. We had everybody's family there talking about the the foods that were important to them, and it was just a really wonderful community event. So, thank you to to the teachers and staff, Mr. Scott and the others who put that together. Great. Uh next is our our student reports. Yeah, so to celebrate National Women's History Month in March, I know it's April, but the History Honor Society >> [cough] >> had a school decoration contest with teachers and staff that highlighted women in history to promote awareness, and I just want to congratulate to everyone who participated and helped make this event a success. I would also like to bring to attention the work of the Spanish and French Honor
018Societies who have worked again this year to foster district unity by educating fifth graders on their options for language at the middle school and teaching them the basics of the language and what they can expect next year. Awesome. Thank you. Um and I think we have some fifth graders from Glenmont here to talk to us tonight. Can I have the fifth grade speakers please come on up? You can have the middle school too. Oh, did I skip? Well, let's do the fifth graders first, and then I'll I was so excited, I just I know. What? You did that last. I don't know, that was Mary. Yes, Mary. Monroe, Dr. Hearst, and Mr. McPhillips, and community members, my name is Liam. Welcome to Glenmont School. We like to share with you some exciting events from the
019school year. Hi, my name is Charlotte. As fifth graders, we hold special responsibilities as school leaders. This includes raising and lowering the flag every day and making the morning announcements over the loud speaker. We have looked forward to these jobs for many years. Hi, my name is Aubrey. Fifth graders can also apply to be peer leaders who assist younger students at recess. After submitting a written application, interested fifth graders were interviewed by our school counselor, psychiatrist, or social worker. Those who were selected attended three training sessions to learn how to interact and support younger students during their recess periods, both by helping them find fun things to do, and also by guiding them in social interactions with one another. Hi, my name is Lauren. Our Glenmont model is care care about yourself and care about
020the people and things around you. Our teachers, staff, even our bus drivers have recognized students from Glenmont with gold slips when they see a kid being kind and making amazing choices. Our coordinated care team also leads monthly character assemblies, during in which a student in each class is recognized for being kind, respectful, and responsible. Hi, my name is Malik. We have a goal for students in grades two through five is to master our math facts by June. In fact, we just completed March Math Madness yesterday. When we focused especially hard on practicing our facts and helping one another be successful. Hi, my name is Rosie. In October, our fifth grade classes traveled to New York City to see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. This was paid from the Connect Kids to Parks grant
021from New York State. We learned about immigration, and we also explored many sites. Hi, my name is Andrew. Our school offers opportunities for students to learn from experts in their fields. This year's speakers include environmental educator George Steele, professors from the University of Albany Mobile Air Lab, disabilities awareness advocate John Robinson, and award-winning author Stacey McAnulty. Hi, my name is Bailey. Our Glenmont PTA brings additional learning and social programs to our students and families, like the fall family picnic, Halloween Ball, STEM Night, after school enrichment classes, Field Day, and more. We are grateful to our PTA for everything they do for us. While the Board of Education is here, we thought it would be make a good time to make some special requests on behalf of our student body. For example, we think it's necessary
022for us to increase our recess to 3 hours each day. Also, can we have snack machines installed in every classroom? Finally, can we have a swimming pool, twisty slides, and a lazy river added to our school? >> [laughter] >> April Fools. Thank you again to the Board of Education for visiting Glenmont School tonight. Thank you so much. [applause] You guys want to come up here for a second? Come on up. I think you guys deserve a pin, too. Nice job. Nice job. Thank you. Yeah, I like that. Thank you. Yes. Yeah, if they would like to go, that's fine. >> [laughter] >> I don't I'll ask, but I don't see any middle schoolers. And do we have any middle schoolers here that we're waiting No? Okay. Uh in that case, next on our agenda and
023if you want to come up while they're um they're uh leaving, uh is our K through 5 Bookworms update. Good evening. While we're setting up, um Allison Hefferan is going to pass out some of the books that are part of the Bookworms program. Just some things for you all to look at while we're presenting. Hopefully some familiar favorites. Good evening. Tonight we'll provide an overview of the first year of full implementation of the Bookworms program, our ELA curriculum. One of the great parts about working as the ELA supervisor is the group of specialists that we have to help support specific tasks and needs as they arise. As a quick round of introductions, let me identify and share their roles as you'll be hearing from each of these amazing individuals as we go through our presentation.
024Laura Hefferan, our Glenmont principal and cabinet co-facilitator. Laura and I work closely together on the management pieces of the curriculum. She's our liaison to the other principals. So, as we work to bring in new curriculum, we can make sure that everyone is in the know and gather feedback from that group regarding implementation and training needs. Also here with me tonight, Allison Hefferan, our K-2 instructional coach. Allison is our amazing boots on the ground support teacher. She pulls from her years of experience with the primary grades to help think about how decisions will look and work in the classroom. She also keeps a hand on the pulse of the teaching community so that we can address concerns that may not always come directly to us. And while she's not here with us tonight, Jen Spila, our
025amazing MTSS coordinator. Jen has been instrumental in thinking about the measures that we use and data we need to collect to identify both our strengths and areas of improvement. Our goal tonight will be to take you through our process in providing materials and supporting teachers, the majority of whom are using this product for the first time. As a reminder, we did have 30 teachers take part in the pilot process. They have been an invaluable resource to support their colleagues and also have provided insight into how the second year may go for many of our teachers and what supports they may need. Um in reflecting on the process itself, uh it was important for us to take measured steps to get ready for this large-scale shift in implementation of new curriculum and products associated with it.
026We started with professional development the spring prior to our first year with the program. This was an opportunity for teachers who had already sat through a virtual overview of the program to get a hands-on experience with dedicated Bookworms trainers. Following this training, we distributed materials to teachers including the teacher manual with all lesson scripts. The goal was to allow for teachers to continue to familiarize themselves with the expectations for each module as well as gain comfort with the daily expectations. This professional development continued in the fall with another Bookworms trainer. We pushed this opportunity back into October to allow teachers to have some time to use the curriculum to better inform their specific needs and generate questions. After this event, we began using the term fidelity to encourage teachers to follow each of the scripted
027routines of the program. The formal professional development was linked to our use of monthly grade level meetings as an opportunity for teachers to meet and discuss the program with colleagues. This has been used as both an opportunity to plan as well as more directed task including scoring scoring student work together to help calibrate and support grading. Throughout this process, we have shifted our team to our term to consistency to help us keep the momentum as the year progressed. Additionally, our cabinet meetings have been used as both status checks and opportunity for us to examine how this curriculum can support both our social studies and science curriculums. While we know that this program does not meet all of their standards, we have identified a number of overlapping units and hope to find more natural ways to
028emphasize those areas within this program. Last but certainly most not least is the work our instructional coaches done this year. You'll hear more about that shortly, but it's important to note that this has had some of the greatest impact on on our instruction as Allison is able to work directly with teachers and then share those instructional tips with all of our colleagues. Listed here are the big six, which highlight key skills and competencies that support effective reading and writing. The big six were identified by NYSED to stand as the cornerstone to their literacy briefs, a part of their literacy initiative which was shared with districts to help strengthen knowledge of evidence-based literacy practices in PK through 12 education. At the end of each year, we use this framework to complete an attestation to help identify
029strengths and gaps. In doing this for the first time last year, it was a fairly easy process as our combination of programs currently fulfills each of the domains. Working through this attestation also gave us confidence that our selections are meeting the expectations of the state. Before we transition to hearing more about our instructional coaches' amazing work, it's important for us to note one of the driving forces in our decision-making process. Bookworms was selected in part due to its use of authentic texts. These are real books as opposed to excerpts, company manufactured task texts, or more simplified primers that can be found in some of the other curriculums. To note, students who start with us in kindergarten will be exposed to 265 full-length texts. These are a combination of fiction and informational titles, many of which
030are interdisciplinary, pulling exciting science and historical events as their basis. These texts are purposely diverse in terms of authors, characters, and topics. Our mission continues to promote a love of learn of love of reading and this curriculum helps us do that. So, now let me turn things over to Allison Hefferan, our instructional coach. Hi everybody. Um so my role actually expanded this year. So, uh for the first 2 years in my position, I was K-2. We expanded it to K-5 this year. Um so, my primary focus was the implementation of Bookworms. Um so, I'm going to walk you through just a little bit about Bookworms and how we approached implementation. So, the Bookworms literacy program is broken into two different parts. So, the first part is called shared reading. That's where we work on fluency
031as well as comprehension. Uh we have grade level books. We read those chorally as a class and that's where we really build a community of readers. So, every student has a copy of a book. You have some of them there you can look at. Um and we read it chorally together. So, ELA, that part has an interactive read-aloud. Those books are typically one or two grade levels above. Uh we work a lot on their vocabulary and again comprehension. Both shared reading and ELA have prompts to answer comprehension questions. Um yeah. So, as I said, I moved to K-5. So, as you can imagine, when you move to K-5, that would be 90 classroom teachers with the addition of special education teachers. So, I had to kind of figure out a plan of how I'm going
032to get into all of these classrooms in a meaningful way and share that information. So, we developed a lab classroom model. I have two classroom teachers from every grade level and that also includes special education teachers from our co-taught classrooms. Um and we represent all of our elementary buildings. So, I go in every week and I teach. In the beginning, it was more of me modeling and teaching the lessons. And then as the years progressed, we kind of have a this nice relationship where it's more of a co-teaching model with the three of us or two of us. Uh for example, today I taught a lesson in fourth grade and then right after that I taught third grade. And um we take time, we teach together. The nice part of lab classroom is we really
033can talk about the lessons. We look to see what could be a challenge for other classroom teachers. Uh we talk about the strengths of the program and then all of that information is shared out. So, um for example, if we find something that maybe is working well for us, we will email that out to a specific grade level. Or if there was maybe a problem or a challenge, we try to fix it and get that out to them as well. Uh also with the lab classroom, I meet with all of my lab classrooms um virtually as well. I try to get both partners together and we do that once a month. So, in the mornings we get together. I try to get notes from all of them and I try to share all of that,
034too. Um and it's been exciting. Um so, in a minute you're going to get to see a video. Um so, this is a 2-minute video where you'll see a snapshot of Bookworms K5. But what you don't see in this video and I really want to make sure we commend all of our teachers. What you don't see are the hours of planning and conversations they have at grade level teams. And that is not just our general education teachers. That's our special education teachers. Those are the classroom aides. Those are our reading teachers, our therapists, our building principals, supervisors. You name it. Special area teachers. It's all in. So this is truly a team approach to this. I mean, I have special area teachers working on vocabulary in their classrooms. The reading teachers also support. So I
035just want to make sure that you remember that when you see this, we teachers make things look really easy sometimes, but there's a lot of hard work that goes into that. So I just wanted to say how fortunate we are here in Bethlehem to have such a great staff. So I think I don't know if I can press it. Oh, yeah. Great. Uh-oh. So while we're waiting for volume, I can tell you what you're going to say. I can narrate. So in the beginning you you will see kindergarten. In kindergarten we don't chorally read. We call it's called dialogic reading. So you will hear a lot of talking, which you always hear in kindergarten. You're going to hear a lot of voices and that's purposeful. We want our kindergarteners talking through the text. We want
036The biggest goal of dialogic reading is to build their oral language, which will then help them become great readers and comprehend the text. I want to see the barn. Yeah. The pumpkin patch at the farm and the scarecrow is on The pumpkin patch at the farm and the scarecrow is in the pumpkin patch. So there's a pumpkin patch. Someone up front, do you know what they noticed in the picture? A barn. Yeah, I heard barn, but I also heard someone say that there was a latch in the picture. Scarecrow. I know. I heard you. You're awesome. Oh my goodness. And he wished to do big things with them. But where could he find anything big to do? Pickles lived in a barrel. The barrel was all that he had for a home. He looked at
037the empty bowl on the table. Hey, who ate the last banana? No. That's what you Judy and Rocky fell on the floor. No way. The woman and she moved along the line. Her high-heeled shoes sounding like a little firecrackers going off on the wooden floor. Shoot. She stopped at me and said, "Are you Buddy Caldwell?" I said, >> going to the part where now they're different. So I'm going to use this word called however. Say that. However. So now when I say however, I'm telling the reader, "Get ready. It's going to be something different." However, they are different because We're going to do it one more time. Turn and talk. How are they different? Go. Okay. Um so I do want to talk a little bit about that video. So you heard dialogic reading. It's
038no surprise I taught kindergarten for a long time. I kick into that gear pretty easily. But when you move to first grade, you probably noticed the pace was rather slow, right? So when we do choral reading with first graders, we have to match it to their word count per minute. So we as adults, when we read, we read at about 200 to 250 words per minute. First graders at this time of the year, they read at 60. So you can imagine we have to really slow down our pace because if I read that book, it was Firecat about Pickles, if I read that at my normal pace, the children would not be able to track the print. They wouldn't keep track of what was going on in the story and it would actually inhibit their
039comprehension. So that's why we have to slow it down. But then as you noticed after that with partner reading, you heard the second graders, oh, they're becoming more fluent. Then you saw in fifth grade, you've usually by fifth grade reached your fluency level. Then you have to work on prosody, which is your expression or tone and how you have to really take a look at the punctuation, sentence structure and syntax to make that match with expression. So the goals kind of change, but I did want to make sure um that you understood that. And then at the end, I know it was a small clip, but that was writing. Uh with Bookworms, we do much more explicit instruction not just only in the composition, but we do a lot with grammar and sentence structure. So
040that was just talking about how we can write a compare and contrast paragraph in third grade. Um Dan had mentioned before, our children read a lot of books. So in kindergarten, you can see throughout the year they will read a total of 74 books. And then you can take a look at from grades 1 to 5. And obviously you're probably wondering, "Well, wait, they have so many in grade 1 and not as many in grade 5." Well, it probably makes sense. The books in grade 5 are a lot longer and it takes us a lot longer to read those and get through those books. But I will say it's pretty amazing going into these classrooms and seeing this community because not only do the children all together in one class read the same book, but
041as a grade level, they're all reading the same book. So that also has created some nice conversations among grade levels as well. Um and I think that is that. So I'm going to turn it over to Laura Heffernan who's going to tell you a little bit more about it. Thanks, Allison, who has been instrumental in this implementation. We are just thrilled to have her leading us here with Bookworms. She's such an expert. Um so our teachers have truly embraced Bookworms. Of course, whenever you start a new curriculum, there's some growing pains and there's some things that we're still working out. But for the most part, our teachers are really pleased with with Bookworms. They found the books to be challenging and the lessons interesting. And our teachers have also added some exciting ways for the
042children to reflect on what they're reading and writing, too, along with the Bookworms lessons. But I wanted to share first a couple quotes up there from some of our Glenmont primary teachers. Carrie Lubarsky, a first grade teacher, said, "The Bookworms shared reading routines have helped grow my students' confidence and fluency as readers. They love reading the stories together and have truly fallen in love with the characters in the series." And Kristen Hughes, a kindergarten teacher, shared, "As a kindergarten teacher, my class and I love the Bookworms shared reading books. They not only promote oral language development and comprehension, but by the third day of reading the book, the kids are {quote} reading the book with me and it gets them excited as readers." Kindergarten does a book a week and by the fifth day they
043can read along with the teacher and it's just such a a wonderful um thing to see with our with our youngest readers. We also have some celebrations. Our our intermediate teachers, I wanted to share some of that, appreciate the Bookworms curriculum. Here's a glimpse of some of the fun and creative ways that our teachers are bringing this curriculum to life for our students. The fifth grade here celebrated um two different units. One of them is after reading personal narratives, um novels such as Keep On and Walk Two Moons, the fifth graders wrote their own adventure stories. You can see them reading their stories with flashlights around a campfire. Who wouldn't want to do that? And then after reading some pretty some pretty complex um science texts, animal cells and life processes, as well as plant
044cells and life processes, and the fifth grade teachers told me they had to like really reach reach deep down to their high school biology classes to understand some of these texts. Um the fifth graders completed a compare and contrast research project of animal and plant cells, including 3D models, as well as poster presentations, and we invited parents in to come and see that. And that project was a Bookworms assignment, but our teachers really brought it to life for our kids. They have fun, too. Here's our fourth grade team. They read um they were inspired by their first book, A Strong Right Arm, which and then they dressed up as the players from the women's baseball league for Halloween. So, those are all our fifth fourth grade teachers and classroom aides here at Glenmont. Some more
045teacher feedback. Shared reading provides our students with a regular routine they can count on. When we're all reading the same book together, it helps create a sense of community. The kids are excited to participate and they make great connections across subject areas with the books we are reading. From Ashley Buckland, grade two teacher. In first grade, I have found that the expectations for writing in the Book Worms curriculum are so appropriate. The children are taught all about sentences at the beginning of the year. They then spend the year practicing them and I find the students engaged and excited when writing time comes. They really do a sentence boot camp as a part of Book Worms in first grade and understand what the structure of a sentence is. Although we have our kindergarteners talking about subjects
046and predicates. So, if you stop in a kindergarten room, they understand what subject and predicates are, which I don't think our fifth graders in the past have been able to do. So, we are grateful to all of the, you know, the the things that Book Worms has included in their curriculum to help our students. And then one more share. This is from kindergarten, Rachel Juran. They read a book called Wind Flyers, which was an informational text about brave pilots who flew planes during World War II. Kindergarteners are learning about this. It's just fabulous. For their ELA lesson, first the class brainstormed ideas together and then each student wrote their opinion about the Wind Flyers. And here you can see one student's work and I think it says they were brave. Yeah. Um and then they
047there's a picture of the class sharing and celebrating. Everybody got to share what they had written about the Wind Flyers. That is a little bit about our teacher feedback. I'm going to turn it back over to Dan. Looking ahead to year two, our cabinet has worked to set goals to continue to advance this curriculum and make it our own. This work is listed here, but some highlights include managing time constraints that some teachers have expressed. We found that our pilot teachers in year two have already noted their increased comfort, which has led to their ability to fit the instruction in the time provided. More clearly identifying interdisciplinary links and providing avenues for discrete lessons in social studies and science that build directly off of our texts. And since some titles do deal with complex topics,
048including early settlers and interacting with indigenous peoples and death, we want to provide teachers and students with resources to become comfortable with these conversations. Again, a big thank you to our board, our deputy superintendent and our superintendent for supporting us through this process. It's been a long journey, but we're really excited about what year two is going to bring. Thank you. So, a couple different avenues. One, we talked about Allison's role, which is directly in the classroom. So, she's able to have conversations on an ongoing basis. We are collecting feedback after our morning meetings. So, again, we're providing continuous improvement and department meeting time to have these conversations. So, we get a flurry of emails after those. Just general questions, timelines, any of those things will come to us and also our cabinet members. So,
049we have three cabinet meetings a year. Prior to each cabinet meeting, we really push those cabinet members to reach out to their constituents, their fellow teachers at those buildings. Bring back any thoughts and concerns cuz that can help populate our agenda. Thank you. And then another question I had is that it's um it's definitely very structured. So, how do you make sure that you're maintaining engagement for your sort of higher level readers in the classroom? And how do you make sure that the students that are maybe more struggling with reading aren't falling behind? So, what's great about the answer to that question is it's inherent in the program itself. So, these books that we're reading are engaging books. They deal with real life historical topics. They deal with science topics. They create a bridge to
050any students who really want to push themselves or were interested in those topics because the units themselves might do a a cursory overview of animal and plant cells. This inspires a lot of students to continue looking at that. So, when the science units come to that building, they're already invested in that next step to have those conversations. The other piece that's interesting about the program is in the ELA component, the texts that teachers are reading are a level above the grade level. So, we're always challenging all of our learners to hear new things, to take part in things that might be beyond what the curriculum used to teach in that grade level. In terms of supporting readers who might be struggling at that grade level, the shared reading component of the program is designed to
051help support all of our readers. So, the first time that they read a chapter of a book, as Allison mentioned, they are reading it chorally with the teacher. They're all doing this together. They're reading each word with the teacher. They're going through this and listening to the teacher so they have one round of oral comprehension in that interaction. They then break off with partners and do a second reading of that same chapter. So, they have a have a chance to do another exposure to a text. They can think about any of those reading comprehension questions. They are given a directive for that second reading. Something to look for as they're reading and something to have a conversation about. So, we're really lucky that the program itself has these structures built into it to engage all
052of our learners. I have more, but if somebody else has another Do you have anything, Catherine? Thank you so much. This is it's really exciting to see even the sheer number of books that students are exposed to and reading and that's uh that's fantastic and I'm so glad to hear that it's going so well. Um I guess I have uh just a kind of a question. How does Book Worms play with Foundations, the phonics and and the reading side of things? And I'm wondering if you could speak a little to that. So, we have Foundations in grades K to 2. Uh so, that is a separate time. So, uh with Book Worms, the word study is during during shared reading. So, I have to break this apart. So, shared reading is typically 45 minutes, but
053in K2, it would be about 25 to 30 because we're not doing their word study components. We kind of subtract that time and then we put in Foundations instead. So, we have Foundations K to 2. Then when they move to third grade, that's when word study begins in the three, four, and five. They do the word study component of Book Worms. So, they do a full 45-minute lesson. And so far, it's been great. So, when students begin in third grade, they have to know syllable types. So, by the end of second grade, Foundations has taught all of these syllable types. I could talk to you for hours about that, so I'm sorry, but they they teach all of the syllable types. So, thankfully, Foundations, where they where it ends in second grade, it so beautifully
054picks up with Book Worms for third grade. So. And we did talk about the structure with our Book Worms providers. We told them that this is the idea that we're working with. We had such great experiences with Fountas and Pinnell Foundations that we wanted to keep that momentum going because we could not imagine another, "Hey, we just started something. Now we're going to stop it and then we're going to pivot." We're really making sure that we spent all this time investing in training of a program that we believe in, that we've seen effect from. We just really want to merge the two and Book Worms was open to it. It's a great program. They will really work with us. Even the professional development. They're really open to working with us to tailoring something that fits
055our needs. That's very cool. And then maybe this question might be better directed towards Dave because it kind of is a little bit beyond Book Worms, but one of the things that Dan you mentioned and then also Dave you mentioned a couple meetings back was the the the some of the challenges in in balancing with the new curriculum, how much is is going on bell to bell and so, again, open question to anybody who wants to answer, but how how are how are we thinking about that? >> Yeah, so it's as much a function of newer curriculum so as it is just time constraints in general. So, traditionally we've we've always done an hour and a half-ish of ELA block and an hour of math block. And then you have your specials, your lunch, your
056recess. So, the day is somewhat structured. So, when you're implementing a new program, I know the word that they used was trying to implement with fidelity. And when you do that the first time through, it's probably going to take you longer than it will years two, three, four, and so forth, right? So, the first year is going to feel very tight and very packed. Which I one of the slides it mentioned you know, through the course of this year they're working to update the scope and sequence to I try to provide a little bit more time. So, it really has more to do with learning to get through the program with fidelity at first to really find where are there areas that you can provide some flexibility, but then making sure that that flexibility is
057somewhat guided as well so that you don't have sort of people running off and doing all sorts of things. So, it's really about updating and the cabinets do this, updating what the what the scope and sequence documents look like at the teacher level so that they then do have flexibility to do other things, but sort of within parameters. But there's always growing pains with the new program for sure. Absolutely. And I guess if I may, what I'm hearing you say kind of When you say fidelity, I'm guessing what you mean is that like we're going to do this exactly as Bookworms and Tang have written this, and we're going to go exactly It's kind of like following a movie script, right? Like you know, beginning actors basically read everything word for word for word for
058word. And then they sort of learn to improvise. Right? So that's it's sort of having that flexibility to sort of improvise, but within the parameters so that you're not changing the program so much that you no longer have a good idea of whether the program is actually doing what it's supposed to because you're not following it close enough to fidelity, if you will. And we've set a clear wall with that, see. You know, even in our year two, some of our cabinet members who took part in the pilot process are like, "I have a really good idea. I think if we just tweak this unit a little bit or change it just here." It's really important for us that we push back and said, "Look, let's follow this for at least 3 years. If we
059can follow this for 3 years, we'll really understand why the program is written the way it is." Because that first time we go through, we're bringing in our preconceived notions of things that we've been doing for years and years, and we're saying, "It feels different than what I used to do. So, how can I maybe make it towards what I used to do?" And when you start doing that, you start breaking apart the program because it's developed for a specific reason. The other piece that we balance is how much we want to get through in this first year. While of course I want to make sure that everybody's through all four modules and every lesson is done, there the danger with that is a teacher who is doing this for the first time and trying
060their hardest the things are going slower. If they feel that the first year is painful, is a burden, is scary, is any of those things, year two is going to be that much harder. That fear of going in and saying, "I have to do this thing again, this thing that was stressful and were all these things." So we really said we want to get through three modules this year. Three of the four modules, we would love for teachers to get through all four, but we understand the timing constraints this first year through might constrain them to just getting through three modules. We did hand pick a unit from the end of module four that we want everybody to do. It's a reflection narrative writing where a student thinks about everything that they've done over the
061year and writes about themselves, um how they've grown as a reader and writer over the year. So we know that teachers are going to get into module four. We know that many teachers aren't, but we want to make sure that uh it is a pleasant experience, that teachers are getting everything that they need because we know year two is really where people start to flourish with this. Just one more right on this topic and I'll and then keep going. Um so then it with all of that, right, in mind, uh one of the things I heard that was working to adapt a little bit, in in part because we've got so uh so much fantastic content between between Bookworms and Tang. So how are we thinking about adapting beyond just like we'll work through growing
062pains? Are there any kind of structural things that we're thinking about or any ways of breaking up the day differently or that or that are other things that I'm not thinking of that might do that or Um that's I mean a little bit. I mean, in terms of um structure, I know just where we're going to be We're providing professional development actually in a couple weeks coming up that we're hoping to then spread a little bit wider. Just helping teachers um plan out their 60-minute math block because it doesn't matter what program you're using, there's certain structures that work for all programs um that are sort of research best practices. So just sort of reinforcing that, which then cuz within that, that's where teachers do are provided flexibility. We also have um small group instruction
063blocks um 40 minutes um every day. Um and those are times where you know, students that do receive PA services hopefully can be pulled out. Um but there's no new core instruction happening during that time. So that's another sort of flexible point where some days you might be like, "You know what? We're really into this book." Um it maybe some students want to do some extra work. Um and I can help students that are struggling. Students that want to push a little further can do some extra research on it. Or there might be a day where, you know what? Our students need a little bit of extra math work, so we're going to do that today. Um so there's there is that sort of 40-minute built-in small group instructional flexible block every day where they
064can be doing interventions, enrichment, other types of things that aren't directly tied to the core instruction, so the students are pulled out aren't missing the core instructional component. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. >> Yeah, our our interdisciplinary units will help with that, too. You know, we're going to try to absorb as many of these lessons um concepts into the ELA program. We know we're going to still have to have stand-alone lessons in social studies and science. It's just makes sense. It's It's great material that's out there. But if we can tie this directly to uh some of the books that we're reading, it really saves time for teachers that they can do a a double dose of them. Meredith, do you have a question? Um yeah, you were talking about um maybe how some
065teachers may find it a little uncomfortable to try something new. Um how are our older students um adjusting to this? Because I can see certainly if you start in kindergarten, this is how you do it, it makes sense. But for our fourth and fifth graders who haven't experienced this type of reading aloud or anything like that, how are they adjusting to the new curriculum? She can talk about some of those hurdles. In fact, I will say we there wasn't time that we thought about a slow roll of this program because we know that each year of the program builds some of the same terminology is used. Super sentences, for instance, if you throw the sent this concept that was uh built from second grade up on a fifth grader, there's a lot of back work
066that needs to be done. We have to teach you for the first time what super sentences are because this would have been a routine. Um we really felt that um we could provide some professional development, we could provide some resources to help get over that hump and speed up this process um and that we didn't have to do the slow roll of the program. It just would have been too many years of us getting to uh some of the core instruction that we really need to as quickly as possible. But Allison can definitely speak to this. I think in the beginning it was especially for our fourth and fifth grade, specifically shared reading because core reading was so new to them. I'll be very honest, fifth graders would say to me, "This is weird." Because
067they They're like, "We're all reading the book and I'm reading it out loud. We're all together." And now you go into them and it's just part of the routine. So part of it was just that it was something different for them that they didn't understand. Now they There are some that still need a little bit of motivation, but for the most part they're all doing beautifully with it. Um there were a couple of other things that we really needed to work on, specifically with my uh intermediate grades, super sentences. Uh that's something that we do with sentence composition. They do that every day where they have two vocabulary words and they have to graph out um to write a sentence that has verbs, adjectives, adverbs, all of that. We had never actually really done a
068lot of explicit instruction. We've always taught grammar and mechanics, but this is a much different way. So it took the students a little bit of time, but I was in a fourth grade today and they were just doing them independently. So um I think those were kind of the bumps in the road in the beginning, but they were easily uh they they made great progress with that. And as Dan said, I think if we did a slow roll out, it just would have taken too long for us to get there. That's That's great. I really do appreciate it cuz I do think um learning those structural aspects of of writing is so important. And then I just had a quick question about the lab classroom you were discussing. Are you doing that with the same
069two teachers every grade or are new teachers cycling in? >> it with the same ones. And that was purposeful because I wanted to see um progress of students from September to June. So I think it's important for me to have the same groups of students and watch their progress. So I'll talk about assessments. You know, I can see students who I was with maybe in a third grade uh in September and they're so different now in April. So I wanted to do that. I still work with other I'll go into other classrooms and I meet I've had two meetings today with teachers who are not lab classroom teachers who um that's the great thing about a coach, they'll come to me if they're confused about something or they need me to clarify something. We can
070come and have those conversations. Um but yeah, that seems to be the best way for us to do it. >> And that's underplaying how much she interacts with other teachers. She's in every building talking to every teacher. She has a hub of resources that she sends out to every teacher. Once she works on something with one of those two teachers, she sends it out to every teacher at that grade level. So while it might sound like she's only in those few classrooms, she is everywhere across the district helping everybody. But I was also a teacher a classroom teacher for 25 years, so I can anticipate something. I can say, "Ooh, they're going to need to know this." Or "Ooh, they need this." So I mean, part of that is that, too. The teachers do feel
071safe talking to Allison, too, because she's not evaluating them ever. Dan and I have two observations for formal observations, and Allison does not, and she specifically does not um come and like tattle to us about so-and-so's not doing this right because teachers need to feel safe with her. It really helps um the teachers feel confident and know they can go to her even if they're if something's not working out. With the with the lab classrooms, are other teachers Can they come in and watch what you're doing? >> They absolutely can. I've had that sometimes a classroom teacher will come in and watch, but I also videotape lessons. >> Okay. So I have a folder of all like those are just snippets, but I videotape a lot of my lessons, and I'll either send them out
072to teachers or they know where to access them. I have a link hub with all kinds of links for them, so they can just go on there and watch a lesson. Okay. >> Um yeah, I mean, it's tricky. They can't go to like every lesson, obviously, but yeah, they do they come in and they'll sit and and then typically if that happens I try to meet with them before the lesson to kind of say this is what you're going to see and here are some look for and we want you to watch [snorts] for this. And then after the lesson we get together and we talk about it and they can ask me questions about it. >> the videos are there so if they're wondering how to handle something or >> Right. Yes. And also
073it's important to know that the coaching relationship, this is really important. Um I have time to know a lot about Bookworms and learn about Bookworms but it's really a partnership. So when I'm working with teachers we truly look at it as a partnership and we're figuring things out together and that's really important for you to understand about a coaching relationship um and that's been really helpful. So when they do have questions we can sit down and and we work things out together. Rather than it would not work if I went in and said you need to do it this way, this way, and this way. I mean I go in, believe me, I have my opinions about what I want to see but it wouldn't work unless we're on the same page. Sure. Claire, did
074you have a question? Yeah, I just want to say thank you for putting this I it's really nice to see how your school and other kind of learning. Um I just have a few questions so how are you kind of maneuvering and kind of uh helping those students that are their first language to those people that don't speak English at home? Help them be part of this program that also It's it's a great question. So uh the partnership is the first thing um that really feeds into this. So we work closely with our ENL supervisor, Mr. Hassenflug, who is taking part in looking at this program and looking at those ways that we can support those learners. Um multiple exposures is our best way. Uh previewing the text with those students prior to coming to
075the classroom and then having two more exposures in the classroom allows to provide that extra extra access. Focusing on vocabulary words um prior to the lesson so that when they get in the classroom they have that extra level of confidence. They're able to take part in the conversations cuz they just know it maybe just a little bit more, they have a little bit of that background to go with it. Thank you for that answer. Um I'm just I also have another question. elementary attention programs and what kind of differentiates this Yeah, so the other two were mentioned before. So one of the ones was Foundations. So that's really a phonics program. So um really that helps support our K through two students who are learning foundational phonics of reading. The other piece is our Haggerty
076program uh which is phonemic awareness. Again, another K-1 program really learning the parts of uh what makes up a word, uh syllable types as we heard, the ability to break apart words and compose words. So this is our third program in five years uh that we've brought in. Um and really what has driven that are conversations that we've had with teachers but also as we brought up before those literacy briefs, remember that big six slide that will all student components. So the state is has an initiative with the science of reading and they have a big literacy initiative. So they are helping to guide us in the programs that we choose because the state is saying, "Look, your program has to cover these things so we need to find a program that helps cover those
077same areas." That's all. Um I was wondering if there's space for each student to put in the Bookworms reading in the classroom. And are these students across all the grades reading the same books or is it kind of tailored to each classroom? It's the really great question. So uh the first what part of your question goes towards the fidelity piece. You know, there is a potential that in the future uh we'll be able to deviate from this program, we'll be able to learn the model so well that we'll be able to make units of lessons about books that maybe we have chosen. We're not there yet. Uh so it's really important that we're following taught at that that students can make sure that they can read what's being read but they're also purposely interdisciplinary texts.
078We have science texts, social studies texts, and other types of cultural events that are really diverse in terms of the authors, the characters. So if you could imagine not only having to do daily teaching of these books but also find things and search for things and create lessons, that's a lot. Yeah. So it is standardized per grade level and we are following through at least for now, for the foreseeable future, with what the program has prescribed. Okay, thank you. Yeah, it sounds like a great program. Um how are you measuring the impact? It's a great question. So we are looking at different pieces of data. As always we lean on i-Ready um our data in the comprehension area in particular. Uh we are also able to give um to get uh partnerships prepared for a
079part of their shared reading program students have to do an individual fluency assessment. So we're able to capture that actually through i-Ready. They have a component where we can give this uh fluency assessment. Uh really really quick uh all the students go through that at the beginning. We're able to make partnerships uh keeping students relatively close together with a person uh with another student in the room and we do that three times a year. So we're actually able to track their fluency through the year which is a really good measure because with the choral reading piece which Allison was talking about before which is new, choral reading, we're all reading this together out loud with the teacher. Three times a year we're able to track their fluency growth for each student for each kid and
080each classroom. And that for example that fluency you'll have to remind me because I can't remember i-Ready. Is that something that's that's historical with the i-Ready that already exists or that's something that's new? The probe is relatively new. Um it it they came up with this uh not in a connection with Bookworms but they do this component that they previously weren't measuring. It's not something that they measure in the diagnostic test. So the diagnostic group test is really a student sitting down probably a lot of these guys remember taking i-Ready uh for for most of their uh schooling career. Um it really measures uh vocabulary uh at least for the majority of our kids vocabulary, reading comprehension fiction text, every reading comprehension of informational text. For our younger readers it does look at things like
081phonics, phonemic awareness, and high frequency words but the comprehension piece is really what we're thinking for Bookworms in particular. Um how are they taking the comprehension skills that they learn in Bookworms and how does that look when it's measured in i-Ready compared to the previous program that we had? Previous program was our kids have always done really really well. So we're just looking to maintain or grow uh from where we were before. Sure, but we will have that historical compare and contrast between the other program and even before that and what what we're doing now going forward. Correct. This is our first year. Um we have seen some great growth. Our numbers look really really good but I'm hesitant to think that the first year is where we're going to end and the second year
082when teachers are more comfortable with the program. Thank you. Any other questions? Cathy. I just um thank you for your answer around like which which books were chosen cuz one piece of feedback that I had heard is that some of the books are are kind of intense, right? Um and so I kind of have I have two uh um two questions on that. Like one, if you could just restate perhaps for me, did I hear you saying like there are just particular particular texts, particular books that are that are used per unit or or per class? And so it's not as though we're picking from pick one of these three, it is we are fourth grade is reading fifth grade is reading this book. Yeah, lessons and modules build off of each other. Future lessons
083will reference books that were read earlier in the shared reading and in the ELA modules. So all of these things are coming together. So it's really important that we're not skipping a book because you don't know whether the next lesson or two lessons down you're going to be writing a paper that might be comparing and contrasting two books. So if you remove the book that they would be comparing and contrasting or pulling research or using for research it breaks down the integrity of of those lessons. So it's really important that we're not skipping, that we're not doing those sorts of things. Um in regards to books that do have difficult topics, you know, these some of the books deal with early settlers coming into Jamestown and it was not uh it was not the best
084situation. It was really rough for those first settlers, it was really rough for the indigenous peoples who were here and those interactions were not always pretty. But I read the book along with other principals, along with a lot of our teachers. You know, these are books that are developed for uh young minds and young readers. So they are not over the top in any of these areas but we understand that some students might interact with scenes that have some violence and it might be difficult for them. What's great about the Bookworms program is it has trigger warnings before all of those sections so teachers can know what's coming up and can think about how to best navigate that section. Will there be certain paragraphs or areas that the teacher might say, "This I know something
085happened to one of the students in my classes. I know this might be triggering. I don't think there would be any problem skipping this paragraph, it won't lose the integrity of the text but maybe it'll help support that one student in my classroom." We have always been open to teachers making the best choices for students in the classroom. But we do also know that in multiple instances a teacher has read a book first before they read it with the class and they said, "I am nervous about this book." I this was some of our pilot teachers. "I don't know how this is going to go." And there was one who said he wasn't going to do it. He's like, "Look, I I just need to think about this book." He ended up doing it and
086he said he had the best conversations with his students about that book. Sometimes we're going into these books with preconceived notions. We're thinking about how our students will react to something because it's the first time we went through it. And these books were chosen by a reason. This was developed by a group of educators, people coming together and making specific decisions on these books. So so we're believing in them. We're providing some of the books to our counselors, so that our counselors can be there just in case, so that they are part of this grade level option alongside all of us. That's great. And how are we talking with parents and families about about these books or about the the topics? Yes, so really the first bit of communication that we did this year was
087a list of all the titles. So we sent out a letter to all the families with with the titles listed in there, so that they can do that research. Um Aside from that, we have been waiting to listen to things that have come up. That's probably more of a reactive way about doing it, but I would hate to do something proactively that maybe scares somebody from going through and trying something when we don't know what the reaction is going to be. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Thank you for talking about this. Yeah. If you need those, we will And thank you. And I just wanted to add that when I visited Hamagrael, Allison was gracious enough to take me into a classroom where they were doing a
088Bookworms lesson. And so I recommend reaching out if anyone is interested. Please do. If you are interested in would like to I know schedules can be busy, but you're always welcome to join. I know kindergarten can be scary, but it's also a lot of fun. But any of the grades you can come in. If you email me and we can be flexible. I have set times, but we can always be flexible. You're more than welcome. And if you can't make a lesson and you just want to sit down and chat with me, anytime. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Uh next is our second presentation this evening, uh our 2026-2027 budget presentation, the final review. Good evening, all. There's a number of action items for the board to consider relating to
089the 2026-2027 budget later this evening. Before those action items are considered, a quick summary and review of where we were and where we are today regarding the 2026-2027 Bethlehem budget development. So back in February, we started with an initial gap of roughly $4.1 million between expenditures and revenues. Over the past several meetings, there's been conversations, deliberations, presentations by department heads and division heads what their budgets look like for 2026-2027, some of the challenges they are confronting both on the programmatic and financial side, as well as the initiatives that they are pursuing for the upcoming fiscal year. For some additions in terms of expenditures, there are some reductions, the same with regard to revenue. And we wound up as of 3/8, March 18th, bringing that gap from $4.1 million down to $1.9 million representing a tax
090levy increase of roughly 2.6%. A large part of that decrease, the board elected to use roughly $1.1 million of the district's undesignated fund balance to bring expenditures in line with revenue. So a comparison here between some of the major expenditure categories for the budget between salary, fringe benefits, debt services, and various contractual services, again showing that there's roughly an increase on the expenditure side of the budget of $3.1 million or 2.7% bringing the overall appropriation total for the budget at $119.8 million. Similar presentation just broken up by subject matter area and expenditure category of the major categories of the budget. Again, the totals don't change at $119.8 million compared to the $116.6 million from the 2025-2026 budget. In terms of revenue, a comparison again between 2025-2026 where we started with our baseline budget back in
091February of 2026-2027 budget and where we ended up as of March 18th. Overall, four large revenue sources for the district, the largest being real property taxes at $75.9 million, payment in lieu of taxes at 3.9, state aid at 35.1, various other revenue streams at 3.7 million, the allocation of the undesignated fund balance of 1.1, again bringing revenues at a total of 119.8 million, which is in line with our expenditures. With regard to state aid, um I I included this slide only because the board had taken the recommendation provided with regard to foundation aid. When we first presented the budget, foundation aid had increased from 2025-2026 to 2026-2027 by 1%. That was all that was provided for in the executive budget. Over the course of deliberations thus far, both the one house bills for both the
092assembly and the senate have increased foundation aid by another 1%. That's incorporated in the column for the legislative proposal. And it actually results in a year-to-year increase of in state aid by 560,000 or 1 and 1/2%. Now, their deliberations are still ongoing. I anticipate that those those changes will go through. If they do not, we'll have to reevaluate over the course of the year to make up any revenue shortfalls. With regard to the tax cap and tax levy, a a summary of where the district's allowable tax levy was in terms of both percentage increase, the dollar value that percentage increase yielded over the course of the last four years. Um Of note in particular is in 2023-2024 and 2024-2025, the board of education determined that not to levy all of the taxes that it was
093authorized to do so. So for 2023-2024, it was roughly 534,000 and then 2024-2025, 635,000 of tax allowable authority that the district did not tax. Fast forward to 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 due to various factors including inflationary increases, relatively flat revenue from year to year, the district is proposing to use the full value of the tax cap to balance the budget for 2026-2027. That results in the tax levy increase proposed of 2.6%. Resulting in a year-to-year increase of roughly $1.9 million. How that proposed tax increase impacts the tax rate, this is always an uncomfortable conversation to have only because I do not have all have all of the data available because our budget calendar does not necessarily fall in line or fall in sync with the real property tax calendar for purposes of calculating the tax rate.
094Tax rate is influenced by a number of factors including assessed value between and amongst the towns within the school district, changes in equalization rate, and the calendar sort of working against us here in that I will not have preliminary assessment data to calculate the an accurate or a better estimated rate until May 1st. And the final assessed rate is not available until July 1st. So all of the information that I'm presenting in the next slide or two are all based on sort of old assessment data with some new information that I have, but it isn't a complete picture. So using the information I have, I can estimate that between 20 the school tax bill for 2025 compared to a proposed tax bill for 2026 for the town of Bethlehem, it'll be $22.86 per $1,000 of
095assessed value or a 2.4% increase. And for the town of New Scotland, it's a tax rate will be $23.24 or a 5.7% tax increase. Now, I I I know those numbers look different between the two. When we formally adopt the tax rates between the towns, there's a slide that shows that even though the tax percentages are are different, both towns pay the the the same amount of taxes for an equally assessed house between the towns. Overall, that results in a estimated $53 increase for $100,000 of assessed value for the town of Bethlehem and a $125 increase for the town of New Scotland. This slide here reflects the current status of the various reserves and undesignated fund balance for the district over the past several years. Again, fund balance reserves are the district's savings accounts that
096are put aside for specific purposes. As of 6:30 25, we had roughly $37.4 million in our savings accounts across the board. As of March 2026, you'll see a significant decrease to roughly $20.7 million and that's particularly associated with the commitment of our 22 capital reserve associated with the 2025 capital project that voters authorized back in February. As a result of that action, most of the district well, at least at this point in time, all the district's capital reserves have been allocated and we don't have anything as of today in our capital reserves. That being said, we do have other reserves that we can fund moving forward. There's roughly $551,000 in authority left in our 22 capital reserve, $30 million in our 25 capital reserve, and there's a $15 million maximum threshold for a bus reserve
097that we created 2 years ago. So, there's room to to increase our savings moving forward depending on where our closeout of our 25 26 fiscal year and moving on. We'll see what funding is available. A a summary of where a multi-year projection starting off 26 27 and forecasting the next 3 years, on the revenue side, again, revenue for the district is very very static and stable. There's not a lot of opportunity given the limited revenue resources at its disposal. For 27 28, I assumed a tax levy increase of 2.8% only because that is what I can calculate or forecast the maximum allowable tax levy limit for 27 28. For 28 and 29 moving forward, it's 2% and again, um just a 1% increase in state aid gets you the revenue figures in green. When you
098compare that against the forecasted expenditures, you can see that for the next 4 years with the information I have available today, there's a a deficit in funding of $1.3 million in 27 28 and then 29 30, that increases to 2.7. Same analysis, flipping the script in terms of the expenditure side. Again, in our major categories between salaries and fringe benefits, debt service, and supplies and contractual services, again, you can see that the the deficit is present for for the next 4 fiscal years. With regard to the district's capital outlay program, coordination with Nick and Sonia, our director of facilities, operations and maintenance, we'll be rolling out the door contact system. It's a security feature that we're rolling out at all the buildings. The high school and middle school have already been completed. Hammergrel is presently
099undergoing that security initiative this year. For the 26 27 school year, we're anticipating that we'll roll that security system out at the Slingerlands Elementary School and as other funding becomes available, we'll roll that out to the other elementary schools. Other than the operating budget the the ballot coming up in May, there will be a bus proposition recommended action that the business office and transportation presented to the board over the course of the process and was ultimately uh blessed by the board at our last meeting was the acquisition of nine diesel buses at roughly $1.6 million. That acquisition cost will be offset with state aid over the course of 5 years at roughly 64 and 1/2%. So, even though the proposition amount will be $1.6 million, the actual net cost to the district will be roughly
100$580,000. In terms of wording of what that proposition look like looks will look like coordination with bond counsel, this is the language that will be presented to the voters again highlighting nine large 70 72 passenger diesel buses at a not to exceed amount of $1,633,239 providing that the district can levy taxes, issue debt, or use operating dollars to to offset the acquisition acquisition costs. Also on the May 19th ballot, it will be the district operating budget, the bus proposition we just spoke about, the library operating budget, three district Board of Education seats, and one library Board of Trustees seat. For purposes of the Board of Education, there are three open seats in which Nominating petitions were first made available on February 20th and those nominating petitions petitions need to be back to the district clerk
101no later than April 20th at 5:00. And the remaining parts of our calendar for purposes of budget development, on May 8th, we have our public hearing on the proposed budget. Also on May 8th will be the public hearing associated with the Smart Bond initiative that our Chief Technology Officer, Aaron Achievers, discussed during her presentation for the roll out of roughly $317,000 of smart board and associated equipment for classrooms throughout the district. On May 13th will be the meet the candidates night and on May 19th will be the budget vote held at the high school in gym A from the hours of 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. I just had two things. First, I just wanted to let you guys know that I am intending to run again. And Meredith, I don't know if you are
102ready. >> And I'm also intending to run for re-election. And second, I just wanted to thank you, John, for all the work that you've put into putting the budget together for us this year. It's I know what a heavy lift it is. And I also want to thank your team and and all the department heads. I mean, this is a it's always hard to make a budget in a tight year. And I do appreciate the conservative approach that everybody has taken. And with respect to asks and needs across the district. And you know, I know that it's it's always hard to dig into that savings that we have, especially I know for you, it's hard to to do that, but you know, that is it's taxpayer money that we have already collected. And so, I
103think if it helps keep that tax increase lower, then I think that's a that's a good thing. But I just wanted to again say thank you for putting this together. Anybody have other comments that they want to make? I I'll second my thank you because I know that this is an awful lot of work and it what's reflected here is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the type of effort that went in by you and all the all the folks who presented over the last couple months, all the departments who have um done their best to try to keep the the budget down, to try to you know, cut where they can. And you know, obviously to help us meet meet our needs in terms of the budget. And to you you and
104your office and staff for all the work you've done. Thanks, John. Next on the agenda is our recognition of public comment on an agenda item. If we have any visitors who would like to address the board on an agenda item, now would be the time to come up to the microphone. Next, item six, action items. A, finance action items. It is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education approve the following finance action items 1 through 3. So moved. Second. Any discussion? Yes, the question from our last meeting you and we just asked for a little bit [snorts] more information about the amendment to the architect's contract. Absolutely. So, the question pertained to when the district issued request for proposals for architectural services back in January of 2025. We were not quite sure the
105size and scope of the capital project at that time. So, uh we put a proposal in the RFP of a capital project total. Various vendors had provided their cost proposal based on that amount. Ashley McGraw proposed a flat architectural fee of 7 and 1/4% applied against the construction component of the capital project. Fast forward over the course and that was based on a capital project of roughly $42 million. Fast forward over the course of the year, project takes on greater shape, more project elements were were added to the budget getting to roughly the $60 million project that the the board authorized to put in front of the voters. The voters ultimately authorized that. The construction component of that $60 million increased to $49.2 million. You take that same flat 7 and 1/4% applied against the
106larger construction budget resulted in the the change in the actual architectural cost. So, the increase in the the contract is more associated with the district's decision to put up a larger project with more elements, not so much a a change in the the proposal or the cost proposal itself. Thank you very much. Uh all in favor? I. >> I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That carries. B, professional personnel action items. It is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education approve the following professional personnel action items 1 through 9. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That carries. C, support personnel action items. It is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education approve the following support staff action items 1 through 4. So moved. Second. Any
107discussion? Uh all in favor? I. I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That carries. D, other action items. It is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education approve the following action items 1 through 3. So moved. Second. Um and I just wanted to point out, Catherine, for you that policy 5153 that is on here, um that was uh the the change to that was in response to your request that the policy committee um look at making a revision to make sure that we are looking at our um our elementary school catchment zones at least every 3 years. Thank you so much. I appreciate the policy committee and administration for taking that up. Uh all in favor? I. I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That carries. Uh E. E. Uh the 2026-2027 budget adoption and propositions. It
108is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education approve the following action items 1 through 3. So moved. Second. Uh any discussion? All in favor? I. I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That carries. Uh F, notice of 2026 annual election. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the following action item number 1 regarding the 2026 notice of annual election. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That carries. Item 7, recognition of public comment on a non-agenda item. If we have any visitors who would like to address the board on a non-agenda item, now would be the time to come up to the microphone. Item 8, future meetings and events. Um our next uh regular board meeting is on Wednesday, April 15th. Um anticipating executive session at
1096:00 and reconvening to open session at 7:00. Make a note that that is at Hamer Grain Elementary School. Um and Brittany, if you could um as usual send us a reminder, that would be terrific so that we all hopefully end up in the right place. >> Two reminders. Two reminders? Three for Rose. On Monday, April 27th at 6:00 uh in the district office, we have our next policy committee meeting. Um and then on Wednesday, May 6th, [snorts] uh we have our next our regular board meeting um after that. Uh again, anticipating executive session at 6:00 and reconvening to open session at 7:00. Uh seeing no need to go back into executive session, could I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. I. Meeting adjourned. And our