001Uh if we could reconvene our meeting to open session. The board has been in executive session since 6:00 to discuss three personnel matters, a contractual matter, a student matter, and the superintendent evaluation. Uh, 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. Introductions. Dave first. Catherine, John Walston, Jody Monroe, Holly Delen, Robert Teen, Lauren Graasso, John Mc Phillips, and you and McNe is unable to be here tonight. Um, do we I'm going to think the answer is no, but just in case, do we have any pig or sua students tonight? Okay, good. Nobody cutting it super cutting it very close over there. Um,
002you need to stay until 9:00 or the meeting is over, whichever one comes first. And then there's I think a couple sign out sheets up here. So just make sure you sign out so you get credit for being here. Um so you can go to graduation. Uh first up is the approval of minutes. It is recommended by the superintendent that the board of education approve the minutes from the June 4th, 2025 regular board meeting. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? That passes. Item three, meeting reports. Uh, first is our superintendent report. Sure. Um, before we recognize our athletes, many of who are here uh tonight, some who have already been here this year. I just want to uh thank everyone. It's the end of the school year. Next
003week is the last week of school. Uh time we are going to say goodbye to our seniors. I know some who are here tonight. I want to uh extend my thanks to staff, students, and families for making this great year. Uh while we did experience a few bumps at the beginning of the year, um ultimately it was filled with a lot of successes and accomplishments. Uh some of which we're going to hear about tonight with our student athletes. I'd like to wish everyone a relaxing, enjoyable summer. Send my best to our graduating seniors. And as a reminder, next Friday morning for any of our board members who want to come and get pancakes, we have our annual pancake breakfast at the high school cafeteria. Uh we will be there, we will be there at 6:00
004a.m. starting to cook, but you guys don't have to be there till 7 or so and it lasts till about 9:30. So you're welcome to attend if you'd like. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to I believe Mr. Telli. You're here. Mr. Keys couldn't be here this evening. Uh, you have a family obligation, but I know Mr. Telli is going to introduce our um, student athletes. Should we stand up here? Yes. Um, Joan, where do you want us to come up in the front? I I tested you. We can do it right in front of So, we're going to you're going to call up the teams and coaches hopefully who can come and come on up here and we are going to take a photo and we'll give you some recognition. So,
005all right. Good evening. Uh, good evening board of education members, administrators, students, and families. My name is Zach Tacelli. I serve as the K12 fizzed supervisor here at Bethlehem. And in addition to my role in PE, I am proud to assist in athletics in a variety of capacities. This evening, I have the honor of stepping in for Mr. Keys to recognize and celebrate our outstanding accomplishments of our student athletes. Their dedication, leadership, and sportsmanship continue to reflect the best of what our school community has to offer. both on and off the field. Our first team tonight that we will honor is our girls wrestling team. Our our girls wrestling team is coached by Sarah Tromodor. In just the second year in the program's existence, the girls wrestling program produced a NISA state qualifier and a
006sophomore and a sophomore of Charlie Ike who is by the way defeated eventually the state champion and sectionals to earn her place at states. In addition to BC's sophomore, Alicia Lily also made the state team as an alternate. I am sure we'll both see these outstanding wrestlers at states again before the careers are done here at Bethlehem. So, at this time, we'd like to bring up those girls and the coaches trador to [Applause] Thank you. [Music] Why don't you guys go in the middle? Congratulations. [Applause] Okay, next on the agenda is unified basketball. Uh, our head coach for unified is Shawn Mooney. So, just a couple things about our unified basketball program. 2024 season highlights. This year marked a highly successful season for our unified basketball program with several key milestones that reflect the growth
007and impact of the team. Record participation. We had a largest roster to date with 34 total participants including both athletes and coaches. Uh the growth in numbers is a testament to the inclusive and positive culture of the programs as the as it continues to foster showcase game for the student body. A lot of people were at that game that were here today. The team played in his first ever game in front of the entire student body. Uh it was an amazing event. Uh we took on Gildlin at a 1:00 matchup. Uh the game ended in a tie, but the real win was overwhelming support from our students. Uh many described the atmosphere as one of the most exciting, inspiring events they've ever experienced here at the high school. And I can agree with that. Championship
008appearance at the MVP Arena. Another fun, exciting evening. The team advanced to the championship game against Niskayuna uh and it was held at the MVP arena. While we came up a little short in the final, the experience of competing in the professional venue made it an unforgettable opportunity for our students. Uh studentled coaching. Betham is currently the only unified program in the area where all coaching is done by high school students, which I think is awesome. And hopefully some of those high school students will want to get into uh teaching and coaching in the future. These student coaches dedicate their time on to planning practices, managing game play, um supporting the teammates both on and off the court. This year's coaches included Nick Robbins, our first year, freshman first year. Sadie Bordell, who's a junior,
009her first year, Sarah Gautano, a senior, first year. Caitlyn Robbins, a senior, who was her second year coaching, one of our outstanding basketball players. Hannah Loenstein, a senior, and this was her third year doing it. Uh we're incredibly proud of the unified team for representing our school and community with such spirit, sportsmanship, and leadership. The program continues to demonstrate the power of inclusive athletics, and the impact uh it has both on players and spectators. So, at this time, if there's any members of our unified program, now is the time to please come up and uh get a picture. Thank you. [Applause] One second. I got to get more. I can get a wide angle on here. I would just love to have a couple good. Congratulations. We're going home. Okay. Next, uh, we're going to
010be honoring our boys, track and field. Our head coach is Darnell Douglas. I would like to introduce, um, and as I call you, please come up. Um, I would like to introduce junior Jonathan Radcliffe. Jonathan was a Nispha state champion qualifier and represented the Eagles in the 200 meter dash. Congratulations, Jonathan. [Applause] What's that? Just the one and then Okay. You want to do the girls track as well? Or you want to do them separate? Do you want to do them separate? Congratulations. Okay, next on the list, we're going to honor our girls track and field team. Um, the head coach is Tucker Shrapitzky. And let's meet the girls. Uh, Sophia Crozac was a 20,000 meter steeple chase as well as a section 2 champion. Uh, Logan please come down as I call your name.
011Thank you. Logan ran the 300 meter run and was a member of the 4x 800 relay. Next is Katherine Banigan, Anna Shrapowitzki, Charlotte Omira. They were all members of the 4x 800 meter relay. And also in Middletown, New York, the same relay team captured the New York State and Federation championship. In addition to the 4x800 meter relay team winning the state and federation titles, Sophia Krozac finished third overall in class A and was fourth in federation in the 200 in the 2000 meter steeple chase. Also set new school records in the events. Congratulations ladies. [Applause] Congratulations. Okay. Uh, next we would like to recognize senior girls lacrosse player and Claire McGee. Claire is a recipient of the USA lacrosse's Jackie Pitts award. Claire was nominated by her coach, head coach Danny Blanchard, and was voted
012on by the league's coaches. This award goes to a high school senior lacrosse player who goes above and beyond in service to their team, school, and community. These athletes who truly honor the service of uh truly honor the game of lacrosse are invested in the development of the game in their town and are exemplary teammates. In addition, they must be outstanding students with high academic achievement and serve as role models within our community. There is no more deserving student athlete for this award than Claire. Congrat Congratulations, Claire. [Applause] Okay, on to boys tennis. Our head coach for boys tennis is Steve Smith and is assisted by Dylan Davis. Uh before I introduce Coach Smith and his team, I'd like to share some incredible statistics that occurred this year for his program and their program. Ian
013Jyn and Ai Aza were first named first team uh by the Times Union Allstars. And congratulations to Coach Smith. He was coach of the year uh as the headline for the times union for the 2025 season. Our all-star team, boys tennis, uh a couple of things that I'd like to add on this. Uh boys tennis were suburban council champs for their seventh consecutive season, consecutive year in a row. Section 2 classa champions for the sixth time in the last seven years. regional champions for the third time in the last four years. New York State team semi-finalists in 2022 23 24 and this year is the first time in either boys or girls tennis and everybody knows how great our tennis programs are here. Um Betham defeated Pittsford Meden uh section 5 in the state semifinals
014before losing to Sioset in the division 1 state finals. A huge accomplishment and another step closer to a New York State championship. Uh, also noteworthy is uh our senior Ian Jen finished third place in the individual section 2 tournament and qualified and competed two weeks ago in the USA center in the state individual championships round. And how about a nice round of applause for Ian Coach introduce these players. Uh first I'd like to introduce our coaches. Can you hear me? Uh Dylan Davis and David Clay. And then our players Armenbeckian heading off to Cornell University in the fall. Spencer Booy heading off to Hudson Valley Community College in the fall. Derek Clark heading off to Sunni Albany in the fall. Ian Jyn heading off to Williams College in the fall. Seth Matthews heading off to
015the University of Texas Dallas in the fall. Ai OA heading off to Carnegie Melon in the fall. Lash Rodish heading off to Syracuse University in the fall. Justin Sheerer heading off to Cornell University in the fall. Juan Sui heading off to the University of Buffalo in the fall. Our final senior senior Mahmud Samiri heading off to Northeastern University in the fall. Our underassman Rowan Chamberlain. Michael Hanland, Anise Jacametti, Arnob Jacametti, Margava Jenga, Jack Keading, Jacob Lauov, Kieran Mcn, Mu Kumar, Swami, Gabe Patterson, Henry Wang, [Applause] and Kevin Wang. [Applause] Yeah, I don't know. I might need some kneelers, but let me see. I might let me I'm able to thank Congratulations. Almost done. Just the uh scholar athlete teams and then we're done. No ma'am. Just the scholar athletes. Congratulations. [Music] Okay. And the last
016thing that I want to uh uh speak on is uh the last piece of great news here at Bethlehem is we had six NISPA designated scholar athlete teams and I think it's important to showcase them. These teams carried a 90 plus average or higher um for the Bethlehem Spring scholar athlete teams and these teams include baseball, boys tennis, flag football, girls lacrosse, girls track and field and our softball team. So, congratulations to all these programs and once again, congratulations to all these amazing student athletes and coaches. We'll see everybody in the fall. Thank you very much. So, that's my report. We'll give everyone Yeah, you you're welcome to stay, but if you would like to, they have to go study head home and study for your finals. [Music] There you go. [Music] Uh, next up
017is our board report. Um, and I just wanted to echo Jod's thanks to everybody um, for a good school year. I can't believe we are already at this point again. Um, I also um, I wanted to recognize that last night was the charter meeting of a new um, BCSD SEPTA. Um, so be look forward to communication from that group. Um, I wanted to uh recognize um again, I think I've mentioned it before, but um coming up on Saturday is the Bethlehem Pride celebration um that will be held at the um First United Methodist Church from 12:00 to 4:00. And I know a number of the district students will um be there and are participating in those celebrations. So if um any board members want to attend that's uh the information on that. Um additionally uh
018tomorrow is uh June 19th Junth um and I encourage everybody to find um a way to recognize that day as well. Um if you're looking for a uh a local um activity, there um is an evening with the author um of the book uh Integrating Delmare, which is taking place from 6:00 to 7:30 at the Delmare Reformed Church. Um and then lastly, I just wanted to report out that since our last meeting, we had a policy committee meeting. Um some of those policies that we looked at are um on the agenda tonight. Um, but I just wanted to particularly um note that there's a new policy um on handling extreme heat condition days. Um, and that was that's um mostly as a result of some changes in um in the requirements from the law. So,
019anybody have any other anything else that they want to report out on? Yeah, also echoing thanks for of course a wonderful school year. Um, and when I was, you know, looking back to to think about what I what I would want to just report out on here, I was struck by the number of events on the calendars cuz my mind is is already fuzzy because it's June and I was like, "Oh, I've been to some things. What were those things?" And you just look at the calendar and it is field days, it is dances, it is uh senior recognition events, um it is PTA meetings, it is pit parties, it is field trips, moving up days, all of the things. Um, and so to all of the teachers and the volunteers and the PTAs and
020the PTO's who put all of their time and effort into not only making Bethlehem such a fantastic um, academic experience for our kids, but also such a strong community um, that is really rooted in gatherings and creating and bringing joy. I'm just immensely grateful. Um I was at the um I went to the uh Ellmmeir um senior assembly and that was just you know pure joy as well. So thank I wanted to mention that one because I happened to be there and then looking at the calendar I was like oh man there's a lot of things to go around. So thanks Else. Uh next on our agenda is our appointment of our student board members um for next year. Um if you remember there was a um we will be having some student board members
021joining us um for the 202526 school year. Um and uh we have with us tonight uh Rose Pastori and Claire Algahu um who will be appointed as student members of the board and they will serve a one-year term uh commencing on July 1st, 2025 um and ending on June 30th, 2026. Um so if we can if you guys want to stand up and can um and we're gonna you guys want to come up. Do you want to do a picture? Yeah, we should do a picture. You definitely need a pen. And you definitely need a pen. You want that? Congratulations, guys. [Applause] So, congratulations to both of you and we all look forward to working with you in the next school year. Yes. Are we doing I don't think we need to. Um, let's see.
022Next on the agenda are is our student reports. Um, I'm gonna guess that we do have somebody senate, but if would you guys is there anything you would like to say? You don't have to. I don't have anything. Okay. All right. Just giving you the chance. Um, so we'll move on to our presentation this evening. We have two presentations. Um and the first one is on the uh Individuals with Disabilities Education Act accountability. So I'll invite Good evening. Um I Doug Morsy, director of special education. Thanks for having me. Feeling a little inadequate after all the athletes were recognized. about the most active thing I did today was that walk right there. Uh so uh so thanks for making me feel inadequate. Appreciate that. Uh and thank you President Delabah for for recognizing uh what
023was really a great event last night, the creation of our special education parent teacher association. Um some a number of those uh parents are in the room right now. We had over 60 parents involved last night. There were 35ish in a classroom right here. I'm pretty confident we broke broke some fire codes somewhere. Uh and an equal number at home uh participating remotely. This was a completely parentrun event. Uh we certainly provided logistical support, but uh it was 100% parentrun. And I I want to thank all those parents. I'd like to take a moment to just recognize the officers who were elected last night. If I tried to name everybody involved, I know I would miss someone. So, uh, so I won't even embarrass myself that way. Uh, the co-presidents are Abby Canning and Cassia
024Curry. The vice president is Kendra Meco. The secretary is Lisa McAndrew. And the treasurer is Nicole Collins. In addition to those folks, every one of our school buildings has representatives as uh in addition uh our preschool families are represented and our families who whose children are placed outside the school district are represented. These folks are energized uh and uh they're so energized that their first event is tomorrow. So they're hitting the ground running. So thank you all very much and thank you and I I hope everybody will join me in a round of applause for their efforts. I was happy to start with some celebratory comments because frankly the rest of my comments, they're disappointing, right? And I'll say that upfront, but I'll also say that it's often out of disappointment that you get your
025greatest opportunities. And I think that that's the message I want to send tonight is that while I'm going to share some some statistics that are are less than glowing, we have some great opportunities here, too. The New York State Education Department has a thousand different accountability programs. Students with special needs are no different than any of the others. Uh the information I'm going to share tonight hasn't been publicly published yet. Uh but it's not secret. Uh we expect sometime before June 30th that this information will be just very publicly available. And we we wanted to get out in front of that and share it with all of you and and the larger community. As we do in every presentation, we always uh make some kind of passing reference to our our mission statement. But tonight,
026I want to do a little more than just a passing reference. The school district's mission is to educate and prepare all students to reach their potential, discover their purpose, and be engaged community members. Unfortunately, some of the information I'll show you tonight, I think speaks to the fact that there is a component of our population that we're not reaching yet for whom we we just aren't quite reaching our goal. Uh, and again, it's an opportunity for improvement. Right? As I mentioned, the state education department has all kinds of accountability programs. Um, the special education accountability grows out of a federal requirement. If you take Washington's money to support your special education programs as a state, you have to have an accountability program. The state's had one for many years. It's changing starting on July 1st,
027uh, for the coming year. And it's changing really because Washington told Albany, "Your system doesn't work. your state year after year after year comes in in the bottom half of states in the performance of students with disabilities. Yet every year you're identifying like you know you have 700 school districts you're telling a dozen 25 of them that you have some problems and you have to fix them. There's something wrong with your system. So there's a new system and the new system looks at three things. student performance, school district compliance with state regulations, and the number of years a school district might be identified. And we're going to delve into this a little bit. Every uh by by sometime by the end of this month, every school district in the state will be given one of
028these titles. And I'd ask you to to attend really to the titles, not the definitions at this point, because just the titles tell you where you want to be, right? you want to be at the left side of the chart, the meets requirements chart uh category, of course, because that's the good place to be, but it also reflects that your programs are pretty solid. Uh sure, you have some room for improvement. Who doesn't? But overall, things are good. You definitely don't want to be at the far right end of the chart that needs substantial intervention. That means year after year after year, your students aren't performing. Your your district isn't following regulations, right? you've got a lot of problems if you're at that end of the chart. We're not at either end. At the risk
029of giving away the end of the book, while I'm still in the first chapter, I'll tell you we're in the needs assistance category. And uh we'll delve into that a little bit. We have company in that category. Uh there's 38% of schools, 270 school districts in the state are in that category. Now, the good news here is that the bulk of schools are not in that category, right? The bulk of school districts across the state, almost 53% are in the meets requirements category. When the information becomes public later this month, this might be tweaked a little bit. There was an opportunity for schools to appeal their determination. Uh, and that's why they're waiting to make these announcements because they're considering those appeals. We did not appeal our determination. We think our determination is accurate. So
030what does that mean for us? Well, we're in year one, thankfully. That means we get to call the shots at this point. We get to identify where we need to improve. We get to provide professional development ourselves. If we continue down this path, the state becomes more and more ingrained in your programs. They become more and more directive. I'm confident that a year from now, I'll be able to stand here and say, "Hey, we're not even on this list anymore, right? But for the next year, we'll be working hard uh to de deliver professional development to make some adjustments." So, I mentioned the state looks at two different things uh well, three, the the number of years, which we already talked about. They look at student performance, and they look at school district compliance. I
031want to uh review what that means before we talk about where our district came in. In the in the student performance area, school districts can receive up to 22 points. There are 11 measures used and you can receive up to two points for each measure. There's no partial points, so you get a zero, a one, or a two uh for a total of 22 possible. All the information used with two exceptions is from last school year, the 2324 school year. For some reason, the state has opted to use 2223 uh for the first two categories, graduation rate and dropout rate. Don't know why. I'm sure there is some logical reason to that. Quickly, just to give you an overview of what all these things mean. Graduation rate looks at the percentage of students with disabilities
032who start nth grade together in a particular September and have by four years later August of four years later either received a local or a regent's diploma. That's how graduation rate is calculated. Dropout rate is calculated looking at the same group of students and at the same time four years later how many have severed their relationship with the school district. So, if you're a non-graduate, you'd be accounted for in that first graduation rate measure, but if you're still enrolled, you're not considered a dropout. These are kids, students who have walked away. The four proficiency measures, grade four and 8, ELA and math, utilize the state assessments that are given every spring as a measure of proficiency. Now, why grades four and eight? Federal law requires states to measure this in grades four and eight. New
033York State does far more than that as we all know, but because that's a federal requirement, uh, the state's using the four and eight for this measure. Proficiency on those tests is measured by house kids score. You can get a one or a two, that would indicate you're not proficient in an area, or a three or a four, and that would indicate that you are proficient in an area. The school age regular class greater than 80% measure looks at the percentage of students with disabilities who are in general education settings for greater than 80% of their day. The next measure, school age regular class less than 40% looks at the percentage of students with disabilities who are in regular education settings for less than 40% of their day. So they're kind of flip sides of
034the same coin there. The school age separate measure looks at the percentage of your students with disabilities who your school district has said we cannot serve them. We have to send them somewhere else. And the final two measures look at preschool education. If you don't live in the special education world, you may not be aware that school districts have a responsibility for uh students beginning at age three who have special needs uh you know two years before they become eligible for kindergarten. The regular setting measure looks at the percentage of those students who are getting the bulk of their special education services in some kind of traditional preschool setting. Could be your district's PK program. It could be the neighborhood preschool. there. There's a lot of options there. And the special setting measure looks at
035the percentage of those students who are in standalone special education preschools. So, a district could get up to 22 points here. The second matrix looks at your district compliance with regulations. There's 10 measures here. You could get up to 23 points, but no school district will get 23 points because some of these items are only measured every several years. And so if you if it wasn't your year to be measured, it's just not applicable. It's pulled out for you. Again, all from the 2324 school district or school year, I'm sorry, with the exception of the first two measures which are from uh I'm sorry, they're all from 2324. The first two are from 2223. Suspension and expulsion looks at the percentage of students with disabilities who have been removed from their educational program for at
036least a day for some kind of disciplinary infraction. That could include in school or out of school suspension. I've been in education 27 years. I've yet to hear of a student actually expelled from school. I'm sure it happened somewhere. They wouldn't refer to it. If it didn't happen, uh we had no one expelled from school. Disproportionate representation looks at the the presence of students from different subgroups in your total special education population. So, for example, if your district's African-American population was 5%. Yet, that same group's representation in your students with disabilities population was 30%. That's pretty disproportionate, right? You wouldn't get your two full points. that difference differs from the measure right below that talks about disproportionate representation in specific disability categories. There are 13 kinds of educational disability. We're talking about things like autism,
037learning disability, health impairment, 10 others. Again, look at the same idea. Maybe you have 5% of your student body is African-American, but if 40% of your students with a learning disability are African-American, there's probably something disproportionate there. Timely evaluation looks at your school district's ability to meet the required 60-day timeline to evaluate a student uh if there if there's a request for an evaluation. Early childhood transition looks at your school district's work as kids turn three. Prior to that, if they have special needs, the the county serves them. When they become three, there's a variety of checkpoints you have to meet. Are you meeting them? Secondary transition looks at the work you do with students in the year they turn 15 and forward on preparing them to transition out of your secondary school program. Timely
038and accurate data is almost entirely my personal responsibility. This is the the data that's submitted to the state, certified as accurate, and submitted on time. Correction of non-compliance is apparently the single most important thing that happens in the special education world because the state and gives that five possible points. Everything else is two points. This is if you've been cited as having a problem of some kind, have you corrected it? And the timeliness of due process hearings looks at uh if your school has been basically sued. That's what a due process hearing is essentially. It's a lawsuit. Have you done everything according to the the required guidelines? The final measure here uh is uh if there's been an audit finding about your school in some way, have you addressed that properly? So again, you could
039get 23 possible points here. So how do they calculate a score? Pretty basic math. How many points did you earn over how many points were possible? Remember I said some things like nobody will ever really get that 23 points. They pulled some out. times that by 100 and you get a percentage. In that first chart we looked at, it talked about um were you at 80% of possible points, for example, that's what they're talking about there. So, how did we do? Well, here's our student performance matrix. And when I said there's disappointing information, this is where it is. Here are those 11 measures. And remember, you could get up to two points in each measure for a total of 22 points. We had 13 points awarded. We're going to delve into each all the ones
040that aren't green. Green obviously means good. Uh we're going to delve into each of these a little bit more deeply, but we had 13 points in the uh student performance area. Now, one bright spot is the district compliance area. We had the possibility of earning 17 points. We earned all 17 points. So our total score again basic math we earned 30 points there were 39 possible that means we got 76.92% of possible points putting us in the needs assistance category. There's that same chart again showing where we are. I show this to you a second time because I I want to highlight what I think is another positive here. This could be much worse than it is. We are disappointed. We are discouraged. It could be worse. We are far closer to the meets requirements
041category than we are to the needs intervention category. Right? So, we have work to do. There's no doubt about it. And we'll get there. Um, but I try to be a glass half full type of person. This could be much worse than it is. So, here are those areas that we didn't get the full two points on. And what you see in this chart down the left hand side are the titles of the areas. In the middle is where we scored. It's highlighted in color. And what the measure was on the far right hand side is what our results were. So, for example, in the graduation rate area in the 2223 school year, Bethlehem High School had a 64.2 29% graduation rate for the students with disabilities. That put us in the onepoint range. In
042the proficiency areas, we were primarily in the onepoint range with the exception of 8th grade math. Fourth grade ELA, just over 9% proficient. And again, this is students with disabilities only being uh looked at here. Fourth grade math just over 18% of stu uh students with disabilities were proficient and eighth grade ELA about 11 and a half percent. Eighth grade math 0% of students exhibited proficiency in the last school year. And that's not some kind of rounding error. It is literally zero students of every eighth grader who had an IEP in the 232 24 school year. none of them uh exhibited proficiency. Uh it's very disappointing to learn that our school age separate settings uh measure just about 6% of our students with disabilities last year were sent to other programs. Uh these are places
043like Wildwood Schools, Center for Disability Services, Boseies, uh places of that nature. And then finally, our preschool uh preschoolers, only 15% of them are receiving the majority of their services in some kind of general education program. So, I want to delve a little bit deeper into that because I think yeah, the story tells the the data tells a story, right? It always does. It's a story of disappointment. That's my theme. But I think there's a deeper story. So, let's look at it a little bit deeper. Look at graduation right here. Each one of these slides is going to have the same setup. At the top is our entire population. Then we break out just our general education students and then just our students with disabilities. In this area, our population overall does pretty well, right?
04495% of kids in this cohort graduated on time. They beat out the state average. Now, why do we care about the state average? It's a reference point, right? Right. It's a It's a comparison point. You could use any comparison point you want. I thought it was most appropriate to compare ourselves to the entire state since we're all held to the same uh measure. Our general education kids did fantastic. 98% of them graduated on time, well surpassing their general ed peers around the state. But look at the students with disabilities, 64%. We fell fell behind there. Now to compare yourself to a 68% graduation rate, 68% is nothing to brag about either, right? New York State should be ashamed of itself that that's the best they could do. But we did not reach that. Fourth grade
045ELA, the bars are of different sizes, but it's the same story. our general education students as who were fourth graders last year, 86% were proficient. Imagine if this was like some kind of election. The winning candidate would say, "I have a mandate to I mean, it's just such a massive disparity over the the New York State average. It It's fantastic. Our students with disabilities, only half as many were proficient as their peers around the state. Fourth grade math, it's the same story. Our general education students, they do a pretty good job, right? Eight, but four out of five of them were proficient last year. Our students with disabilities didn't even come close to to reaching the state average. Eighth grade ELA, same story, right? Almost 80% proficient. Only 12% of students with disabilities were proficient.
046And most disappointing of all is the eighth grade math. Almost twothirds of our general education students were proficient in math last year as eighth graders. Far surpassing their their peers around the state. Not a single one of our eighth graders last year was proficient, falling far behind their peers. So what does that mean? This is the same data just shown side by side. Um what we have is a story of underperformance but we have an opportunity for improvement. We have this information. We recognize that we need to do better. We This is Bethlehem Central School District, right? The the fact that our students so far underperform their their peers around the state. I I can't even explain it. This is a community that values student success. It's a faculty that values student success, families who
047value student success. But we're not getting there yet. We have to get there. We we we have to improve this. And we have to improve it not because of some title of some some accountability measure. We have to improve it because what it means for kids, right? That's what really matters. I could care less what the what the category is. It's about what what the kids need. They deserve better than this and we need to get it for them. So, how are we going to do that? Well, we have some thoughts already. First off, we're going to wait for the final notification. We don't It's not going to change. I mean, could there be some miracle where oh gez, we discovered uh some math error? Maybe. I I'd be surprised. Maybe they will. Um, tonight
048you're going to be asked to consider the addition of a of a of a new reading teacher. It's on your agenda tonight. A significant portion of that reading and should it be approved, a significant portion of that person's time will be spent working with students with disabilities. Right? So, I I really uh hope you will consider that opportunity. We're going to look at professional development that's available, figure out what's what's most useful for us and get people there. Whether it's myself, our teachers, whoever needs to be there, we're going to get them there. We are required to uh participate in at least one program provided by New York State, and they haven't put out their menu yet, so we don't even know what they're going to have, but we'll take full advantage of those. One
049thing I want to highlight is that we're bringing a group of leaders, both folks like myself and teachers who have been identified as leaders to a two-day event in October. You can see the title of it right there. Yes, we can. An unprecedented opportunity to improve special needs outcomes. Our hope is by bringing people who have been identified as leaders among their peers to an event like this, they can come back and roll out the skills they gather at that event to all of their peers. For those who have access to the electronic document, that's a link. I mean, you can see what the workshop, you can read the entire description of the event. I'm excited about it. The folks who are bringing are very excited as well. I think most importantly what we need
050to do is keep talking about this, right? We can't get our keep our take our eyes off the prize. I'd be fooling myself if I thought I knew how we got here or everything we need need to do to improve. But one thing I have learned in the time I've been here is that I think we set our expectations too low. Far too often I'm talking to teachers or faculty in general, doesn't matter what their job is, where they say, "Well, my kids can't do that." Or, "No, look, our kids in Bethlehem that they're just not going to get there. This is Bethlehem, New York. This is one of the top school districts in New York State. This is one of the very top school districts in in this region of New York State. There's
051nothing different in the air here that says our kids can't do this. So, we got to keep talking about this. We We have to keep the message out there that our kids can do this. And that's going to be my message for the next year to all of our faculty. So, I appreciate everyone's attention tonight. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have and uh look forward to continuing this good work. uh while I am discouraged, I'm I'm also excited. I think we have a great opportunity here to really bring our faculty together to make some significant improvements for our students. So, thank you. Thank you. Um I had a couple questions and I'm sure there are some other questions around the table. Um do you know going forward so like they'll be for
052next year are they using this year's data but again not for those couple categories? I assume the yes. Okay. I assume yes. And and we do know that our our graduation rate in particular last year had gone up a bit. Um where it would have placed us in that chart, hard to say because we don't know if the measures will rem the categories will remain the same. But will the way those cut off points happen be the same? There's no way to know. Um but uh the we we know our graduation rate last year was in the mid70% range. So up a bit from the year before. Um and we're confident current year it'll be even higher. So uh that's one area that I think we're already focused on. Okay. Um and then you know
053you mentioned the um addition of a reading teacher. Um do you have any thoughts at this point and if you don't that's okay. Um but about supporting the math component. Yeah, we're really focused on reading right now because what we've identified is that our students in our special class programs in particular, right? And these are kids who are not out with their mainstream peers. They haven't had adequate access to reading instruction. So, we're really focused on that in the year to come. Math is absolutely a a an issue. I look at the eighth grade. I mean, you you can't ignore that number. Uh but I think that that's something that uh we'll be looking on how to improve that. We're working with Mr. Claremont, our math supervisor, uh in the weeks to come, weeks and
054months to come. Do you want to add there's a change in Yes, we are um at the middle school next year phasing um in sort of a systematic change in the way the math program is run. Um currently we have um Excel sections of math, ongrade level sections of math and then our accelerated sections. We are phasing out the Excel sections because we are finding that that is the cohort of students that are not being successful, not just special education students, but other students um general education students in those sections are also not performing on state assessments. Um we those sections were created about 10 years ago. Um because at the time what we noticed was students we had students um in the same classrooms that were sort of um our lowest performing students matched
055with students that were like just missed out on being accelerated. And what was happening is we just in in observing classes and in looking at um test results, students on the lower end of that spectrum, they weren't participating in class, they weren't doing homework, they were disconnected because the students at the upper end of the spectrum were sort of um overshadowing them within that class environment. So that's why we sort of created this Excel program about 10 years ago now. And what we found is yes, the students are being more successful in terms of they're participating more. Um they are finding more success, but it's because we the curriculum itself has been watered down to the point that it's not meeting the state standards at a rigorous enough level. Um so we are phasing that
056back out. Um so we should see returns on that just from the standpoint that we are going to be exposing all students to the appropriate grade level curriculum at a more rigorous level. Um, and we've already begun doing that at the elementary level over the last few years. Um, as you know, we've made several changes to our math curriculum at the elementary level. Um, ensuring that all students are exposed to grade level curriculum. We've had a lot of conversations recently about the difference between um, accommodations and modifications. Um, and in looking at just not just math, but in some other areas, we've sort of tipped the scales a little bit too much on the modification side as opposed to the accommodation side. The difference being accommodation might be you know a student needs a little
057bit more time to perform a task right but that task is still at the appropriate grade level. A modification is where you start scaling back the content itself. So in looking at some of our curriculum we have seen that we've sort of tipp the scale a little bit too much on a modification side which does allow students to be successful but they're not being successful at a rigorous grade level curricular standpoint. They're being successful because the curriculum has been scaled back. we need to push our thumb harder on the accommodation side so that we're providing students with the necessary supports to be successful in the rigorous grade level curriculum. Um, and that's what we've been doing the last couple of years. So, as over time we should see improvements solely based on that. Thank you.
058Other questions for Doug? Doug, quick question for you. the graduation rate was at a much higher percentage than the proficiency rate. What What that doesn't doesn't really make perfect sense. Well, it doesn't make sense and and it's really uh I I think speaks to a problem with the state's assessment system, right? That there there are standards from grade 3 through 8 to to be considered proficient in these areas. Yet, you can come to high school and do fairly well on a regent exam, right? And it, you know, one thing they didn't measure and we didn't show you tonight is our students with disabilities passing rate on regions exams. It's really pretty solid overall. And in fact, in in some years, it's like 100%. Right? That so it's this weird dichotomy between these two systems, right?
059how you do on a sixth grade, eighth grade math test really does not directly correlate to whether you graduate from high school or not. If you if you look at that just for for all of our students, you will find obviously in the 3 through eight assessments, their proficiency results are much lower than the region's results and don't align with the um graduation percentages as well. It's not it's not just here. I mean it everywhere it so I guess my question would be like are there are there greater supports and services in at the high school level that we could potentially utilize in the lower level or is it is it a maturity thing or I guess um where's all that growth happening in the high school that doesn't happen in the well again I
060think there's some something to be said about the the graduation requirements that are different than showing proficiency so it's not necessarily mature thing. They're much different structured processes. Um I don't think we have more support at the high school than at the other levels. I I I think it's really pretty equally distributed. Um and and I have to say, you know, I've been in almost every classroom we have with with students with disabilities. Our teachers are hardworking people, right? They want their students to do well. Uh, I think we have to reframe the narrative that there's something different about our kids that they, oh, you know, it's what Dave just said. This idea of modification. Well, we need to modify what we're doing with them. No, we need to accommodate their needs, but not modify
061what the expectations are. That that's the narrative I'm trying to share with our faculty that that's where I think we're missing the boat here. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. And I'm by no means questioning the efforts. Oh, no. I didn't take it that way. I think Yeah, I think working as any educator. It's It's pretty amazing person, but um yeah, I just wanted to understand. So, it's almost you're not necessarily comparing apples to apples 100% versus graduation rate. No. Okay. Thank you. Um first and foremost, thank you for your cander. Um it is not easy to stand up and um and speak um to the challenges that our programs face and I appreciate you doing so very very much. Um and your your clear invitation to keep the conversation going because it's clearly a conversation that is
062incredibly important to continue. um and to the to the SEPTA folks who have stood up a parent teacher association to start bringing these conversations to a structured place where we can work forward. So um my thanks for all of that. One of the things I want to kind of there's a couple numbers I want to dive beneath and then there's a couple kind of concepts I want to dig into and so if you want to break it up, yep, by all means do. Um, I think the first question I have, one thing that really jumped out to me is when we went back, if we were Hold on a second and I want to thank everybody for the numbers on the slides. Um, because if we were going to um, go back to slide four,
063right, this is the um, state which is seven of 26, but anyway, perfect. Thank you. Um, the the state ed interventions. So we're in needs assistance year one. Yes. And it seems as though is it is it the emphasis is on delivering professional development or that is what the state identifies as the solution in this that is case the identified solution. I see figure out what your problem is figure out how to fix it and fix it and through and through professional development. Do we have the same assessment that it is professional development that's going to guide us through these challenges? Yes. Uh but professional development takes a lot of forms, right? It's not just going to a conference or something. Uh it is peer coaching. It is um going to other school districts and
064see how they do things. I mean, there's a lot of ways professional development happens. Okay? But certainly most of us think of it as, yeah, I'm going to go off to this event. I'm going to learn. I'm maybe I'll share the info with my friends when I come back. Maybe I won't. Um it's more than that. Okay. Um so as we look at as we look at some of the the challenges in proficiency that we're that we're facing, how are we approaching developing what types of professional development we need to to start meeting some of these challenges? Well, the first step we're taking is waiting to see what's available from the powers that be. there will be a menu of things for us to select from that just hasn't been released yet. Um, so that
065so that's really step one. Hey, what are you doing? You're telling us to pick from your list. What's your list? What do we got? But we're also communicating with our peers in neighboring districts. Uh, for example, re haven't done this yet. I don't want to paint a picture that uh but uh Laura Rosa, my my assistant director and I have talked a lot about reaching out to places like Gilderland, Niskauna, Shen that that are performing at a higher rate than us. Let's get some folks up to these places to meet with their their peers. Who knows, maybe spend a day or two in their classroom, see how they do things. Um that you know, that's something we're we're definitely uh trying to to build a plan around. That's what Can I just add something to
066that related to kind of our MTSS process when we're looking at which is really more K through eight. When Doug talked about adding a reading teacher, one of the things that came up as part of shifting some of the processes so that we're making sure that MTSS is encompassing not just general education but special education and that reading teachers have been pushing into our K classes offering support even our K co-taught classes but they've never pushed into our classes um at Hammigril that are the um foundations classes and So that's the point of adding we we consolidated some elementary sections because of enrollment. And so in part of looking at some of our data, how are our kids performing? Where are the shortfalls in um looking at that? Why haven't read why isn't a reading
067teacher who had is trained in literacy instruction generally has far more background in literacy compared to special education teachers pushing in and offering that level of support. So, that's the reason that we added that position on here. Part of that is looking at data and making sure that not just general education um students are part of the MTSS process, but special education is too. And I feel like in some of some of what Doug said is a cultural shift in that, you know, general education is here and special education is here. I mean um instead of looking at what does the whole child need, we also I think are looking at data, we do have a lot of different services. Every time you're adding a service to a for a child, they generally are missing
068core instruction. And the more they miss core instruction, ELA and math, the harder it is for them. It's a it's a catch-up game, right? So, how do we provide those services through our MTSS process where students are one, what's the priority? Meaning, is is the reading instruction more important than a counseling session or can we offer a counseling within the classroom so they're not missing core instruction. So I think that that is definitely an area that is certainly one we've been having discussions about adding all a lot of services is yes we add add but ultimately kids miss court instruction and so where's the balance there and that all aligns with the MTSS process so I think that data piece and looking at how much time are kids actually missing class instruction is a big
069component of this that makes a lot of sense um as we I mean one of the things that that I'm wondering kind of what your assessment is when we went into this year and then I think it was last year there were a lot of shifts made around what's now called the foundations program at Hammerrail and we wound up consolidating classrooms and as I understand it we wound up initially um working to put some students into coach classrooms that had to go back into the foundations classrooms which I think created a lot of um in continuity for those students for for all of the students involved. Um and I'm wondering to what extent you think that's being reflected in what you see here. Um and what are what are some of the pathways forward? Well,
070first I think in continuity is a very polite term to describe what went on in those programs this year and and thanks for being polite. It was messy uh this year there. I don't know that that though is directly reflected in in some of this data because it it you know all this data is from 2324 where where that messiness happened in 2425. Got it. But I one thing uh that I've really picked up on is somewhere along the line we lost track of what the purpose of some of these programs is and who they are best designed to serve. So, we really have to get back to a point where where we're clearly defining the characteristics of students who are appropriate in our different programs so that we're serving kids with similar needs in
071similar programs. I don't think that's what's happened at Hammock this year. Um I I think that with the best of intentions there are students with very vastly different needs in in both those classrooms there. Um concurrently there are students with vastly different age levels in those programs there too. Um you can have students up to 36 months difference in age. uh in in the younger class right now there's a 48-month difference there. Uh so imagine the challenge of teaching kids that wide in age grade level subject matter. You could be the best teacher on the planet. How do you do that? You still only have seven hours in the day, right? You just can't get to it all. So we we really have to look at that too. How are we splitting up those classrooms?
072uh the um and the characteristics of the students in the classrooms looking to looking ahead to next year as we all start planning now um how is the foundation's program going to be addressed what are some of the the I mean solutions to some of the challenges that you just identified uh in several ways uh first there's a very clear delineation next year as far as grade level okay uh the younger class will be K12. The older class will be three. Well, it'll actually only be four or five because just coincidentally there's no third graders and someone could move in over the summer. Things could happen, but at this moment it's only fourth and fifth graders. Um, we're hoping on the infusion of the of the reading support will be a huge help. in the
073older classroom. We've insisted that every student there who's a fifth grader is getting pushed out to a mainstream classroom for math instruction next year. Going along with the changes uh Dave has put in place at the middle school for math. We want these kids exposed to grade level instruction that'll then allow the teacher, the other half of the class is fourth graders. Well, she can focus with them. It's not that we don't want them getting grade level instruction, but again, this concept of multiple grade year levels in the same classroom, teacher only has so many minutes to do things. So, she'll focus on this. Um, our ultimate goal in those programs is to get all those students kindergarten on up mainstreamed more. Okay. Are there specific steps being taken in September in the younger classroom?
074No, there aren't. But that is the ultimate goal in those programs moving forward. And we had a waiver for Elmir's program as well. And we had Yeah, we did have a waiver. Um even though I'm saying, yeah, there's this four-year gap, we did have a waiver for that. Like we we were okayed for it, but it's still not good practice, right? Well, I guess I was my my question the underlying question there um was will we be seeing changes in the um connections program over at Ellir as well? Oh, absolutely. Um in fact we're adding a section there. Uh currently there is one classroom there and there are students from kindergarten through fourth grade in that classroom. Now the students who are in this classroom are are quite literally our our most needy learners in
075the district. Um and yet we've got I think there's 10 students there but I I could be off by one or two. um with this wide range of ages. Again, how can a any person address all their needs? So, we're splitting that in half next year. There'll be a K12 a 345 section there uh next year and we've and I can't remember if we've approved additional teachers for that. We've got the No, we didn't need to do that. um you know just in the shifting needs of students as we were looking at our projections for the coming year had an extra body. Okay. It's like okay what are we going to do with this body but it could do a million things right and very early on Laura and I had identified that as as
076a really critical area that that needed to be addressed. And so that was the decision we made was to assign that body to and remember last year the board did approve additional special education staff. Yes, we hired five special ed teachers last year. So, that gave us more flexibility for planning for this coming year. Great. And then how are we doing on aids? I know at one point we were talking about are we, you know, do we have the right number of aids? Do we staffing needs and we have the right FTE budgeted for? We have to hire people to fill those spots. So, we're having trouble. So, when I was here, I forget when it was February, I think, talking about budget. Um I hopefully I'm not off in the numbers. We had requested
077budgeting for 75 aids for students with disabilities. And at that point we were anticipating a need for in the mid60 range. Well, since then in the course of of annual reviews, we think we need 74 people next year. Okay. Right. So we're still within budget. So that doesn't give us a heck of a lot of flexibility. Something comes up during the year. Um, and to to be a little flippant, if you know somebody looking for a job, we got to hire like 12 or 13 aids. Uh, so, uh, please, uh, you know, send them my way. Unless they have a CDL license and then Well, then we certainly, uh, they could drive in the morning and then we would get them in a classroom in the afternoon. Be good. Um, thank you. I I really
078appreciate you taking my questions. I know that I know that's a lot. This is one of the um you know this has been an ongoing conversation of how do we serve these students and how do we do it well and I appreciate um again your cander and and kind of um guiding us through some of what you're thinking as we look forward just Dave on the Excel part of things just a quick question there um as we phase that out how are we working to you know you identified we've got we had an academic need for those students but then there's also more of a support need um as we as we phase those programs out, how are we also working to well I mean that support so the similar structure has been in place
079at the elementary level for quite a few years now um and because we are with the shifts in the math program at the elementary level where there's much more need for students to participate and engage in discourse that's part of their culture now coming out of the elementary level that piece will take care of itself whereas that really isn't the the way math was taught 10 years ago. Yeah. Cool. Mary, do you have a question? Um, yeah, just a couple. I think Katherine, you covered um a lot. Um, again, I wanted to say thank you for um this honest presentation. Um, because it's important that we have um the facts here. Um, so this is kind of the first time that we've been presented um with this information in this way. Um so have you
080collected this data in this way in the past or is this a new new way of looking at it? It's a new way of looking at it. U must have been about 2 years ago. Uh the state education department said look we're changing our accountability methods. Um actually in an earlier version of this presentation I talked about what that old process was and I was like it'll be a late night if we get into that. Uh but so we've known for about twoish years what the process would be, but it's really only been since I think it was the week where on spring break we got the information um that what our status was. And uh what they sent was literally a spreadsheet with one line. It it was with I don't know was there
081maybe a hundred columns on it. And I I I sat home that spring break on a couple days just trying to sort through it. I really thought at one point we had grounds for an appeal because as I'm Look, I was a history major. Math is not my thing. Okay, I'm doing the math. I'm like, they're off here. I think I I honestly had an email drafted to Jod to say, "We're appealing this." And then I thought, "Don't put your foot in your mouth. Go back and check this again." And no, they were right. The numbers were right. uh but I guess an answer to your question uh it's it is a new way of looking at it but I think what they've done is really highlight some key measures right proficiency at the elementary
082level not just elementary and middle and then ultimately graduation rate right sure they could include any number of other secondary measures but isn't graduation rate really the final product of the organization right that is the ultimate goal of the organization So it makes sense to me to use that measure. But um you know some of the information you know say the the 0% efficiency did you know about that or was that was that number just not something that had filtered up before? Like I'm just trying to get an idea of have we been tracking this and have these numbers been red flags? I can I can speak to that. So, I mean, if you look at um the data b dashboard that we've now has as a live dashboard, but as part of our strategic
083plan and our goals, um the achievement gap has been a measure that we've been looking at since the inception of the strategic plan about seven years ago now. Um so, we've been tracking not just special education data in terms of proficiency rate, but we're also looking at economically disadvantaged data, ENL data. Um so you know our subgroups that have typ traditionally underperformed um the non- subgroup. Um so these are numbers that have been on our radar. Um especially the and and as you know the math 8 has been tricky not just for special education students but for all of our students for a number of reasons. Um one of which being only 40 40% of our students even take that assessment because 40% take the regent exam and 20% opt out as a as a
084general rule. Um, so our scores, if you look at our math proficiency for grade 8, it is in general is much much lower than any other grade level. And sort of back to John's point, like if if 70% of our students are proficient in grade six and again in grade seven and then overall it drops to 60% in grade grade 8, like our students didn't forget all this math in a year, right? So there there's a lot of confounding factors in terms of why that happens. Um you I mean our numbers in general in middle school sort of progressively go down a little bit. We see that not just with the state test but with I ready testing. Um I think students in middle school just are sort of fatigued out of testing and I'm
085not sure that they see the purpose directly to them because at the end of the day it doesn't really impact them at all. Right. And then when you get back to reg exams now these are things that they know they have to pass to graduate. Um so our numbers go way up again. Um because there's definitely a discrepancy. I mean, how can only 66% of our students overall be proficient in ELA and 100% of our students pass the regions exam every year? Like you're not making those kind of gains in three years. Um, so there is a a discrepancy amongst the thing and these are um these proficiency measures we've been talking about for a long time. I don't know really what the fix is because I there's there there is a discrepancy between what's
086happening on these tests versus what's happening in high school. Um, I mean, we have a greater percentage of students taking and passing AP exams than we do some of our proficiency rates. That that just doesn't those things don't they don't jive, right? Um, but yes, these are all measures that we've been looking at on a larger scale, not just four through eight. We're looking at three through eight testing, regions testing, um, graduation rate. These are all measures that we are tracking um, against different subgroups. And we also do that um if you recall from some of the prior presentations we do that for our attendance rates for students um different subgroups of students where we see higher rates of absenteeism. We look at it for discipline the number of in school suspensions out of school
087suspension that's all on the data dashboard currently. So that is available but hasn't been easy access because of the way we were tracking it in the past. Yeah. And then Dave, the changes you were talking about making to um middle school math classrooms, is that going to be next year? So next year, sixth grade um the Excel is being phased out because right I mean currently we have it in sixth, seventh, and eighth. So to take that sixth grade cohort that's currently in an Excel and next year say you're no longer in it would do a disservice to those students because of the structure. So it'll take three years to be totally phased out. Okay? But next year sixth grade will not have that structure. also recognizing that seventh and eighth grade, those courses need
088to sort of revamp the rigor um to to kind of catch students back up to where they need to be. And then I would just say um Doug, if in um the year as the year progresses, if it does turn out that you feel like you need um more people in your budget, I'd ask you to, you know, come to us and let us know because that's something I think is very important. Um and just that I would love to have an update, um you know, maybe in January or something like that, this full presentation. Um, obviously we're not going to have the the new data, but at that point, but I I really do want to stay on top of this, so we could have presentation on the the type of professional development um
089you've been doing and just any of the changes that we've been making and where we're at, what we what we are seeing. Um, I would appreciate that. Yeah, we'll absolutely build that in. Happy to. We we may be able to provide some data at that point. Uh, for example, we'll know those proficiency scores typically August. You never know really when they're going to come, but normally mid August, mid to late August. Um, but of course they'll be measured on the year we're just completing, right? And so any thing we're doing hasn't happened yet. Uh, so, you know, I I am concerned about the what this measure will be next year. uh because yeah we can try and fix things but you can't change what happened right in the last 10 months. Yes. First of all,
090thanks so much for taking this seriously and for for your cand um just a couple quick questions. The the size of the eighth grade cohort that this represents, do you know what that was? I don't know that off the top of my head, but I could get it for you pretty quickly. I just don't have it. The other thing is one of the the the points or the the performance matrix for the students that you talked about was the the school age separate setting. Um is is that a is that the points differential? Is that is that a percentage of the of the students? So it's a percentage of your students with disabilities sent to other places and it was it's not up here but I think it was just under 6%. Okay. And then
091I guess my question is I mean I assume that it's appropriate in some citations to send a student to to a separate setting that can better assess their needs. So do you have any comment on whether why you know that's a it's sort of treated as a penalty the larger your percentage? Is it an assumption that the state's making that you should that the percentage should be, you know, at some lower than some rate or, you know, I guess I'm trying to figure out how that's being used in in a situation where I mean, obviously proficiency, you always are going to want a higher proficiency, but in that particular category, it seems like because there's appropriate situations for outside settings, how is that being measured almost as a as a penalty? I think my answer
092is based on probably my own opinion without I I I would be hardressed to back it up with data. But with that said, I think it's the measure is being used as a way to pressure school districts to open up some programming because the opportunity for these out out of district programs, we're there's not a lot here in the Albony area, but we're pretty fortunate. you get to some other places in the state, there's nothing. Right? So, I I suspect that there's some pressure being applied here to say, "Look, school districts, figure something out here because you're sending too many kids to other places." And too often, kids are just sitting at home. Now, we don't have a single kid in that situation, but that happens in a lot of places where kids are s
093sitting at home and a teacher's going there an hour or two a day and providing some tutoring. Uh, I suspect that's a piece of it. Thank you. And then I'll I'll I'll just echo what was said in terms of either the new programs. I know the reading teacher I think is on our our agenda tonight, but to the extent that there are are things or resources that you think you need, please please let us know. Thank you. That's very generous. I appreciate it. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you very much. Thank you everyone. Hope everyone has a good summer. Thank you. Uh our second presentation this evening is on our potential facilities improvement project. Uh followup from Nick. Thank you and good evening. Um as the board president said, this is a followup to
094provide some more information on the uh potential 2025 capital uh improvement project. Um, this is followup specifically to uh some of the uh information that was requested at the uh May 21st Board of Education meeting. I need to get myself in order here real quick. Okay. So, the first first update is uh I'm pleased to uh add Turner Construction as our construction managing firm for our pre-referendum uh services uh as we near or work our way toward our uh capital project public vote. Um uh the board approved Turner as our construction manager on uh at the June 4th uh meeting and Turner will be supporting uh the project team with estimating, scheduling and phasing recommendations. Uh again they have a an entire team dedicated to providing cost estimates for the scope elements that we provided
095to them. Um this is an updated capital project timeline based on our conversation on the May 21st meeting. Um we have come to the conclusion that we'll have a December 2025 uh public vote. Uh with a anticipated uh April or spring 2027, we will begin construction. Uh the project team has refined the scope elements and updated our cost estimates as a result of uh several meetings uh uh recently as most recent as today and uh we've re revised our scope elements and paired them down substantially. Um you may recall at the May 21st discussion uh we had a total of 307 uh total project scope elements. Um we continue to have 307. However, uh based on the direction from the board, we've paired that down and are proceeding with high priority elements only. Um one
096thing I'd like to bring to light here quickly is our total total estimated cost at the time for the 307 was 86.1 million. after uh re refining our pricing and uh going through our scope elements, it currently stands at 97.1 million in today's environment. So, um I'm we're very fortunate that we're proceeding with our high elements at uh right now. Um parched. Okay. So by uh working with our project team, we've refined the scope elements down to 139 at the at this time. Again, the board has uh we present this to you. Um we can add or subtract as as necessary. The uh the biggest thing that we did was uh and I'll get to budget in a moment, but uh taking the high priority, ensuring that we included everything that we believe is necessary
097for to support our our mission statement and our and our students. Um we were able to revise our roofing scope. Um as we poured through this document, we realized that um we have a budget of 60 million. We were at that time I reported 86 million um $20 million of it was just roofs throughout the district. Okay. We we have a comprehensive list that includes everything that we could possibly need based on our BCS and and our experience here uh in the operations and maintenance department. So, we decided to recommend revising our roofing scope and then based on the board's input, uh, phasing in our air conditioning. And that's, uh, brought our estimated budget down to the current of 57.7 million, which aligns with our $60 million, um, objective. Uh we continue our our our
098project team again that's our administrative team our architectural um folks our stakeholders and operations and maintenance and now our construction management team. We continue to refine the proposed scope and estimated cost. Um we're keeping in in tune to what's going on out in uh the I I'll say the world but the the market uh what what the trends are as far as you know is roofing high, is steel high? uh will tariffs impact our our uh estimating. Um so we're keeping uh attuned to that as as we proceed along. So we have the 139 elements. Uh you've seen this slide before. However, it's been revised showing uh the total 139. They're broken out by how many elements are per school building. As you can see, and I I mentioned before, the high school has the
099most uh at 34, followed by the middle school, which is 29 because they're the two largest building with the largest populations. Um, you know, so the percentages they they moved a little bit, but um overall it's very comparable to the last uh uh presentation. Here's where we we take a look at again a revised slide that shows the $57.7 million and how it's broken out between the buildings um for each one of the uh scope elements and again the high school and middle school are the bulk um and the elementary schools or uh are you know comparable uh and then we have transportation and operations and maintenance. Again, um most of this didn't change. A few things did. Uh the the high school had roughly 10 million of the $21 million in roof or $20
100million in roofing. Um so that changed substantially. Oops, that's backward. Okay, so we talked about phasing in our air conditioning. Um we've had much discussion uh internally with uh you know operations maintenance our our uh engineers and our architects and um we recommended that we phase this in. Um we would recommend that we do the second floors at our three buildings that have second floors and our known hotspots Ellir Middle School and High School. And then we talked about the gymnasiums, cafeterias, and LMC's for uh places to go for alternate classrooms or cooling stations if we do experience uh hot weather events. This is a a slide showing our um what the costs associated with air conditioning those elements. So again, second floor, gym, cafeteria, and two of our buildings do need electrical upgrades being
101Slingerlands and Ellir uh in order to do air conditioning in any way, shape, or form at that building. And then, as you can see, the gray shows a future project. So, we would um defer the gray areas to our next capital project unless we decide to do something in between. But we're going to keep uh proceeding with our second floors, cafeterias, gyms, and LMC's uh for this project unless otherwise uh directed. Again, this shows the cost for doing the high school and middle school uh areas. um we have some you know decisions to make down the road if we find that our budget is unfavorable as we go through the uh finite estimating. Um we I would possibly for example make a recommendation that maybe we don't do gym A and C at the high
102school and maybe the lower gym at the middle school and so on. So we we we still have that opportunity to change but we're pricing it all for equity across the district at this time. Um, and as you can see, we went from about $20 million, and when you add these two together, we're talking about 6 million in in um air conditioning to really get large parts of our buildings and our hotspots. So the as with any project we are faced with many variables and challenges and um this slide shows some of the things that um really are our schedule and and budget. Okay, we have you know the referendum date is it the best time to go out or to go to public vote so that we can get the bid. Our economic uh
103environment right now we've got you know potential inflation tariffs. um is anything going to happen with state aid? So, we're we're monitoring these things and um making some assumptions and those assumptions would be in the form of a escalation factor or contingency factor until we have good information to provide to the board. Um you know, again, the calendar and the schedule. Um again, right now we're early on. I can't say what it'll be in a year when we do go out to bid. Are we going to have skilled labor available? Um what's the market like? And how many contractors are willing to take take on our bids? As we experienced in the uh 21 bond, we didn't have too many general contractors that bidded bidded that bid. Um, so we had to go back out
104for the middle school so that we could get a competitive bid and it and it was in our fa uh had a positive effect on our ability to get the uh middle school auditorium completed. Um, the other thing that we have is uh you know scope creep for those not familiar uh a scope creep would be well we planned on doing these two classrooms but as we got into it well gez if we're going to do that one we might as well do this one or something comparable to that. So that's known as scope creep or as we go someone has an epiphany and says hey why don't we do this. So there's that potential and again that would be up to uh the board and and district administration to make those decisions whether we
105would consider those or not and then again the rep prioritization of the project elements over the course of the timeline. though if we are favorable um we have the opportunity to add things back and what I mean by things are some of our medium priorities we would make a recommendation to the board that would fit within the budget that that we determined um and then we have the opposite of that if it's unfavorable we may come back and say I think we may need to either not consider doing some of this work um an an example would be um you know a floor or a gym but We're we're trying to hold together our our main theme and get our classroom work done that's been uh required for several years now. Additionally, we have the
106opportunity to do alternates in the budget as well. Um an alternate would be we we design it and we put it in there as an alternate. If our base bid comes in favorable, then we could select the board could select to entertain alternates one through X so that we could include that work and uh which is typical in a capital bond project because you you really don't know until we open the bids where we're going to be at. We can speculate all we want and uh do all the research we want, but until we open the bids, we won't know whether we're positive or negative. Um when we get to our estimate um we're we're expecting u the construction management team is working on it as we speak. It's been the the data has been
107provided to them. That was an accident. Somebody didn't look before they started to come in. Uh so uh I lost my train of thought. So we are working on uh the cost estimate. Now again, this is a large project, you know, um $60 million with even though we reduced it to 139, we have some uh serious challenges on trying to make sure that our estimate is right. Okay. So, we need to give our construction management team and our architect team a little bit of time here to be able to review all this data, have the estimating department uh provide us with a what I'll say accurate or most accurate that we can get. Um, and we expect that around August of uh 2025, which should give us time. We can do our board presentations and
108then we can make decisions then. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself and say it's going to be positive or negative. Again, I mentioned it it may go up before it comes back down, but I think we're in a good place right now. We've spent a lot of time ensuring that we have a good scope elements list. Um, we have spoken with our stakeholders and our principles and and building administrators to make sure that we have captured what what they need. Um and and on and m has made sure that we're going to cover the roofs that we need and and the air conditioning that's been requested and so on. Um our speaking of uh our classroom challenges which is a big one. Um, you know, we have our budget and our
109workforce challenges that I mentioned before, but our classrooms in our specifically our elementary classrooms are in need of renovation. As in the past, you know, it's not that we didn't want to or um didn't consider it, but it's it's really challenging trying to take a wing, and I'll use um Hammerrell as an example. There's 16 classrooms in a wing. How do we do 16 classrooms in addition to the hallway in two months over summer recess? So, that's kind of why it hasn't been addressed in the past few cycles of our bond projects. Um, we've been proceeding. They're not in uh, you know, such disarray that they're not safe. They're not uh unt untenable. However, it's time that we focus on our classrooms uh and especially at the elementary schools. So, that being said, we have
110u a huge challenge ahead of us uh with trying to perform all this in this capital bomb project. Okay? Not just a a summer or two summers. Um we're working on that to provide is this just a two-year project or is this a 2 and 1/2 year or three-year project. I kind of mentioned that before. Um, it depends on some of the things that we're showing up here. We don't have a lot of swing space. Uh, and I'll use hammer again. We can't just take that whole wing and move them somewhere. We have no place to put them, you know, at this moment. So, we're working on ideas. We're talking about ideas. There's lots that we can do. Could we um utilize gymnasiums, cafeterias for a temporary? Um, can we do the work in if
111if it's not just the summer, can we start early and and and move these students in the within the building to an an appropriate location? Again, gyms and cafeterias are large. They can be split in halves or fourths so that we can provide classrooms. Um, do we move them to other buildings for a period of time? And um forgive me, but I wanted to say that, you know, do we start early or do we end later than summer? For example, if we can start as soon as school lets out in June, and can we get it done in 3 months or 4 months? So, can we survive the impact within the elementary building by giving the the classrooms back in let's say October instead of uh end of August. So, we're we're coming up with
112all these ideas, but that we are challenged with that. We have a lot of classroom work scheduled. Um not sure if we're going to be able to fit it all and and that's what we're working on now trying to figure that out. So, up we provided some alternate alternative solutions. Um second shift construction or double shifts. Um we we talked to our construction manager. Um you know, second shift that's fine. we have the ability to say, "Hey, all this work has to be done on second shift." Yes, we pay a little more of a premium. Um, but sometime we can negotiate that because it is one shift. A shift is a shift. You know, unlike our school district, we have a first shift and second shift. If we spec all this work that it's going
113to be from 2:30 to 11 p.m., we don't pay a premium on that. When we get to doing double shifts, we may pay the premium. Um the challenge is right now nobody wants to do that. Um u we're hearing that, you know, it's they're having difficulty getting people to work, you know, 12-hour shifts or 10-hour shifts. So, um that may change by the time we get to that. Uh we could extend our project schedule. As I said, it could be a 2 and a half or a three-year. Um working with um our financial consultant and and and John, you know, that will have an impact over time. Obviously, the longer we do this, the more it costs um because there is an escalation. And then, you know, uh it's on the bottom of the list
114on purpose. You know, portable classrooms are an option. Um you know, we're trying not to do that. Uh they're extremely expensive and they are held to the utmost highest standard by state education department. All right? And and there's no equity when we're done. So, um, we will be presenting and and providing recommendations to the board when we get a little further along in this. Um, as I explained in a meeting today, um, Turner Construction will take these elements, they plug them into a program and it spits out a Gance chart. Okay? Then they take that Gant chart and we start um going over it piece by piece and then it's like a slide puzzle and they start putting it together and see what classrooms we can do, when, where, and how. And they need time
115to do that. So, um, August, I'm I'm hoping that, uh, we'll have good information to provide and some recommendations that, you know, if there's no way, then we're going to provide recommendations on how we would either phase that or defer the uh the classrooms. And again, there's there's many ideas floating. I don't want to scare anyone. um we know which classrooms are the most uh are in most need and that would be and I I can say that it would be Hamigril and Glenmont they really you know their casework is original from when the building was built um and there's challenges associated with that um so we have ideas and uh we don't want to expose those yet because I wouldn't want to stir everybody up um and what I mean by expose it's nothing
116earthshattering it would be hey we may not do uh sling Ingerland's classrooms, you know, they're they're adequate. The whole purpose of renovating Slingerland's classrooms was if we were going to do the air conditioning in there because they have the 14t high ceilings. So, if we decide that we can't we could fit everything but those, that may be a recommendation. There would be an example. There's no, you know, again, these are all ideas and as we go, each person has been keeping a log on thoughts that pop up. there would be a way to solve some of our problem of of doing that and then they get diverted to the next project. Um they are modernized, their floors are um new VCT uh their windows are new, things like that. They just need some upgrade. So
117there's an example. Um so this slide shows our future meetings or how we're going to progress internally um until we get to the December vote. um you know the additional discussion and refinement of the scope uh August 13th board meeting I plan on doing a presentation here um again I plan on having good data uh or sub substantial data um September 3rd again additional discussion we may have to make some decisions at the August 13th and September 3rd meeting and when I say decisions uh they would be decisions based um on favorable or unfavorable bud estimate. Uh September 17th is where we would uh have made those decisions, have our final discussions and confirm the amount and the financing. October 8th board meeting, uh the board would adopt the resolution. October 17th, we put out
118our public notice and then the the public vote would be on December 2nd and if approved, then we get the ball rolling and um go to the design of the project. And when I say the design, that's where we start getting down into the details. Um just a reminder to anybody um listening that uh all the board meetings begin at 7 o'clock. They'll be here at the high school in D122, which is the space we're in. And that is what I have for this evening. Um, um, I'm sure there are a couple questions for you, but before we take questions, um, I'm mindful of the time. Um, if we have any our pig or super students who would like to leave, you're welcome to stay, but if you would like to leave, you can do
119so now. You just have to put you on the spot. But do we have time? They just have you just have to come up and sign out. Um and um oh yeah and Claire and Rose you guys could all if you also need to go um that's okay you're welcome to stay again but it's final exam time and where do you want me to you don't Bob you can sign it but they need to make sure they sign in that sheet yeah make sure you sign on the sheet You here for supa too? No. What? You have to sign in that sheet too. Over there. Wait. Over here. Over here as well. Frame that. Thanks for coming, guys. Squeezing it in. Do you even know what you're talking about? Did you read? You must look
120super official. It looks super official. That's right. Absolutely. Getting it done. Wait for the last minute. No, you should just have to sign out on the shouldine. You didn't write any notes. I got Oh, this is bad form. He may just put all sorts of stuff on that sign. No, this is You just decided the title to your car. It's going to be an A July 4th picnic for you guys. Who's excited to not have school tomorrow? Happy Junth. Bye. Thanks for coming. Um, so the one question I had is that maybe I don't know if you can elaborate at all on when you say classroom renovations. Okay. Like what kinds of like are we talking just painting? Are we talking like what are we talking about? Uh it depends on which building. So I
121can I can elaborate. Uh again the ones that would take more than two months to do. Glenmont. Um and that's why if you recall we did have that in the 21 bond and we had to back it out because we couldn't fit it in the schedule and and the cost went up. So um what I mean by a renovation and I'll give you two examples. So Glenmont um they have this material on the walls. Um it's not sheetrock. It's not um a solid uh material. It's it's kind of like a vinyl and it's all peeling off. And when we expose that, there's nothing behind it. So, at Glenmount, we have to take the room the walls down to the bare studs and redo the walls. Additionally, uh we have a a a code issue that
122the cubbies are in the hallway and they need to be moved into the classroom. So, it's pretty substantial at Glenmont. Uh, additionally, there's some hazardous material that needs to be dealt with at Glenmont. Um, and Hammerrell with the the casework or the sinks and and um all the countertops. Uh, only the sink has hazardous material and it's not fryable. It's it's a spray-on uh material that keeps the uh sink from sweating and condensing underneath. So, um, at Glenmont, that would be what we would term as a gut renovation. Um, we're not changing the footprint of the space. The classroom is the same size when we when we start. It'll be the same size when we're done. But we have to take the walls down to the bare studs and start over. Now, conversely, at Hammer,
123excuse me. And then we would do the ceiling, the lights, the floors if required, and the case work and the cubbies. So, that's really our classroom renovation. So, we have to uh uh vacate that classroom and and those depending on how many we do in a group um all at once so that the contractors could get in there and do their work. Um we're again we're kicking around ideas. Okay, what do we put back? If we put uh drywall, you've got a, you know, weeks worth of taping and painting. Is there another material, not vinyl, that we can put on those walls? Is there something more modern that we can, you know, lessen the amount of time that they're in there? Because that is what takes up the most time is you got to hang
124the drywall, then you've got to tape it, and then you got to put three coats of uh joint compound on it, then you got to sand it, then you got to paint, prime it, and then paint it. So, that that pushes out into weeks. So, we're looking at that. Now, let's move over to hammerrell. Hammer really it's lighting because we can't really do anything with the ceilings because it's got the metal um uh ceiling joists that are exposed. So what we can do there is we can do lighting, put in sound dampening materials and and spruce it up. Then we paint the walls. We do the tech uh I don't want to say technology accommodations for technologies, whiteboards, marker boards, etc. Window treatments which would be new blinds. Um, and again, they have cubbies, but
125cubbies, but they're not in the hallway. They're inside. They just need to be replaced. Um, and and then the floors if required. Now, the good news is the majority of all our classrooms, with the exception of Slingerlands, has two classrooms that need the floors done. Okay? We would preserve the floors that are there. And um because it is our I don't want to say a district standard, but it's it's a standard uh VCT or vinyl composite tile that we use throughout the district and we can match it up. Um we don't have to pull the floors out and there is no uh abatement associated with that. Only Slingerlands has floors that need to be abated for the classrooms. Um at elementary schools, okay, at the high school, I just want to share that we don't
126have to displace any classes or anything like that. What comes to mind quickly is our fax room that's on the docket to obey the the VAT floor and put a new floor in. Okay. So, at the elementaryaries, um these renovations I went, you know, full circle. Glenmont is our most challenging followed by Hammerrell. Um uh Slingerlands. Um again, those are relatively easy. One has H or two have h has the other three do not. Um there are none at Eagle and who am I missing? Ellir. Ellir is uh does have hazardous material. It depends on how we approach and how we want to approach. Uh second floors have the high ceilings. The hazardous material is from the 8ft point up. So we would have to do a gut rena there also, but it's uh much
127less number of rooms. We have a lot less. Um, we did do uh one of the classrooms, actually two of the classrooms in a 2016 bond. So, um, you know, the rest of them are relatively uh, and I don't want to use the term simple, uh, you know, overall, we're not reinventing the wheel, uh, but we're renovating the space in its entirety. Did that answer your question? Yeah. Okay, great. Other questions? Yeah, just um just one. Thank you so much, Nick. I wanted to um raise because I I'm sorry I wasn't here for the meeting in May. Just as we move forward with um with looking to install air conditioning, which I think makes perfect sense. Our students, our faculty, our staff, they deserve to work and learn in in um classrooms that are conducive
128to working and learning. Um, I just want to make sure that we are also doing a really thorough investigation of what kind of non uh non like AC systems changes and improvements we can make. I know there is a whole world whether we're talking about cool roofs where we're putting on roofs that are reflective or white instead of black to make sure we're absorbing less heat, whether it's looking at outdoor vegetation, how close it is to the buildings are far so that we're picking up some of the, you know, natural coolness that comes from having trees and whatnot. Like there are and there's a whole universe of of these kind of um of nonAC design elements that we could be considering. And I just really want to encourage your team um and you to make
129sure that we are considering those as we move forward because there's one set of costs that come with putting these systems in and then there's a whole different world of costs that come with operating and maintaining them until you know in perpetuity. And the more we can reduce the need to have these running you know every the best the best cleanest cheapest electron is the one we don't use. So every time we're able to, you know, reduce the need in in smaller pla in smaller ways in smaller places, it's it's shown to add up to make a very big difference. Absolutely. And and I hope that, you know, again, we when even before we the the law or the legislation came out, um we have taken steps, you know, we've kind of, you know, put
130our heads down and said, what can we do to try to mitigate? Okay, you know, again, we mentioned we have our solar film. Um, we've tried some things such as ceiling fans, um, that really had no effect with with good data that that said, geez, it really didn't do anything other than moved hot air and actually created heat. So, um, the the psychological effect may be there that, hey, of course, sitting in a stagnant room, stagnant room is horrible, right? Having that air flow is a good thing. So, you know, we we talked about we established the pedestal fans. again it's not as efficient as it could be. Um but we are looking at that our architects and our engineers um both have components of lead certification. Um one of the challenges though is when
131we take a building for example Ellir which is the oldest building we have the building is not conducive to accepting some of these technologies. Right. All right. So um it would cost it may be cost prohibitive certainly. I just want to I want to do diligence in understanding what the range of options are. I don't want to I'm not proposing we pursue something that I I just you know again we are considering that but like to try to make um take an Elves Mir building as it sits and make it and I I know a lot of folks don't know what lead Yeah. Yeah. Like it would be millions and millions and millions of dollars. So, what can we do? And I hear you. Um, you know, windows are a huge, you know, in both
132directions, heat and cool. Um, and that's why we're focusing a lot on our roofs so that we can expand our R value. Um, you know, again, there it's up for debate on, you know, the white roof. You know, white roofs are uh they're not reflective, but they do reject um the solar gain. Um but it also has its disadvantages in the northeast in the winter we freeze thaw freeze thaw and then we have this much snow on the roof and it finds its way into the building. So um we have had these discussions what else can we do? Um, one thing that I do want to tell you is that uh the the uh air conditioning that we are proposing is um you know for the lack of a better term energy star we're picking
133the best sear and eer ratings and coming up with the best solution. The variable refrigerant uh heat pumps right now are the most efficient that we can do. Um, you know, we could go back and say, yes, we could put a a 500 ton chilled water chiller, centrifugal chiller or screw chiller. Um, again, that's cost prohibited prohibitive to us. So, we're approaching this um with our our eyes wide open. Is there something that we can do? Wonderful. Great. Thank you. you know, unfortunately, you know, today, you know, I'm surprised we don't have a thunderstorm at this door because when you walk out, you it hits you, the air is so thick. So, um, we are challenged. Um, I don't know what the future holds with that, but we are going to provide, um, the most
134logical solution and and we are considering uh, we talked about it today. Uh, for example, at Ellir, um, we're proposing to do the second floor. Now, if we do the first floor, we're going to put if we need to put the pipe chases and everything in now while we have the room. Um, and and get that so that when we do and if we do the first floor, our pipe chase is already there. We don't have to go back in to a place that we've already renovated and disturb it and then start over. Great. Um, so that's all be all being taken into consideration. Some of the other things that I want to mention, the pricing that we've provided is uh for the most part new units. All right, we do have some options to
135utilize uh equipment. For example, Jim B here. Um we could put uh regular DX coils or direct expansion coils, regular refrigerant coils in these units. Um however right now we're proposing as new so that we have the highest energy rating that we can get because again we did talk about that we're at we haven't been lowering our electrical use right you know when we did the energy um performance contract several years back we had a substantial drop off um I will say without data but the majority of it was lighting because that's the easiest thing to leave on. we put controls on, but we saw a substantial dip in our electrical usage, but as time goes by, our technology, you know, there's a Vonic in every classroom. There's, you know, we have to add lights
136for security, um, air conditioning and so on. So, we're we're going back up and I'm trying to get that to to level off because, uh, I am concerned about that. Um, I think a comedian said it or somebody said it that, you know, we we have all our Energy Star appliances, we're using LED bulbs and everything, but our Nimo bill is not going down. So, you know, it's there's truth to that. So, I don't think we're ever going to be able to go in and in and any lower as far as the cost, but I think we need to manage that cost and and be smart about how we proceed in the future. um the the heat pump again right now that technology uh pro would also provide us that first stage heating during the
137fall shoulder month. So we may not have to start our boilers as early which is a substantial of course you know the fossil fuel of natural gas but that that could be substantial if we can heat our classrooms using our heat pumps. Again heat pumps we're not generating heat and we're not generating cooling we're transferring that energy. Okay. Yes, it costs money to run the fans and so on, but um that's what we're looking at. Um and and you know, I'm I'm optimistic that we can uh I don't know, but we're right on quue right now because you know, it's testing and now it's going to be like 1,000 degrees next week. So, I can't figure it out. It's been fine. Yesterday it was 70 and raining. So, um you know, will this suffice for
138a period of time? um what what their recommendations are. We're going to um speculate that yes, this should meet our needs. Um I knew it was coming. I didn't know when and I predicted it like you know 15 years ago that I can see as the future that because it is hard uh the the the students are and teachers are both challenged. You know the curriculum is harder. Um these um the buildings haven't changed though that's the one thing. So to try to make them, you know, tenable. Yeah. Comfortable. And that's what we're striving to do. Okay. Um well, thank you very much. And I guess we will hear from you in August. Yeah. Um and and if I may, um so talking to the superintendent and our administrative team. If there's something that comes
139up, um we plan on communicating it. you know, if something just bizarre comes up that or we find that um our initial run on the estimate is just either way too high or way too low, we we agreed that we would communicate that and they could get it to the board for consideration. Great. Thank you. Just to verify everyone's comfortable with us moving forward with the December that December vote frame. Okay. Yeah, it sounds like it makes sense. Okay. Okay. Thanks, Nick. Thank you. Uh, next on our agenda is the recognition of public comment on the agenda item. If we would have any visitors that would like to make a statement to the board, now would be the time to come to the microphone. [Music] And if you could state your name. Sure. Uh, my
140name is Lisa McAndrew. Uh my daughter Evie will soon be 10 years old and she can't read. She is in the foundations program at Hammerrail and as we heard today um what I understand is we think it's a driver of a lot of the numbers that you saw today. Uh you also heard today that Bethlehem tried to sunset the program to address it and bring K and one into co-taught. And in October, we learned uh probably the same time you did that that was not successful and our daughter's 34 class would be a K3 class. We learned that instead of focusing on complex site words that she would spend her time tracing letters, that instead of learning double-digit addition and math, she would be focused on learning how to be quiet at circle time. when
141instead of having the opportunity to provide an enriching environment, her teacher would be tasked with teaching four grade levels to a large class with really diverse needs. So, we met with the school um and we talked to the teacher uh and they asked us to hold on that this was a band-aid and we understood this was a crisis and this was a year and to bear with them. And so we did. We worked with Evie as she came home every day to tell us which child had a hard day because the classroom was disregulated and it was too large with too diverse needs. As she came home weekly to tell us which child led to the class being evacuated because it was no longer safe. and monthly as she introduced and told us about the
142new child that was brought into the classroom. The teachers and staff were amazing and they really tried to work with us. They came up with innovative solutions to make sure that the children could learn. They pushed in resources. They pulled children out. They had special third grade sections to try to make it so that kids could access the learning. But there's no amount of pushing in or pulling out that can lead to a conducive learning environment when you have a classroom that is so disregulated because the needs are so great and the classroom size is too large. In May, we learned that there was not a plan to substantially change the classrooms for next year. So, the teachers are still being expected to teach three grades and that it'll still be at essentially the maximum
143class size for these children. And I just want to pause for a minute with you and reflect on the numbers we heard today. Numbers that came from children who came out of this program when it was optimally f uh performing. the program that drove these numbers. And now I want us to think about what these numbers are going to look like in a few years for the 30 children 30 children who are coming out of this program that has been crippled for two years in a row. We can't change the last 10 months, but we can change the next 12 months for these children. I am actually excited about the future of special education here at Bethlehem. Um Doug has been so kind and met with me multiple times about this and I really appreciate
144his enthusiasm and innovation and transparency. I'm excited about the enthusiasm for parents and I and I think there is a bright future and that we're going to work together and fix things. But we won't fix this classroom for next year, right? There's not a plan to fix it for the next year. It'll be coming up and there's no amount um I want to say is I'm also very happy that we're bringing in reading support for this classroom. But what we really learned is that pushing in reading, pulling kids out is not going to fix this for next year. And so I am here today to ask you to please consider putting in a third classroom back at Hammerrail for next year to reduce the class size and make it so it can be a safe
145environment that's conducive to learning. I am not suggesting this should be the long-term solution to the special education program. I think there are better solutions that have been brought up. But these children can't have two years in this environment. Um, thank you. Uh, next on our agenda, 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 one through five. So move seven. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any extensions? 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 one through 30. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? That carries. C. Support personnel action items. It is
146recommended by the superintendent that the board of education approve the following support staff action items one through seven. So move second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any extensions? That carries. D. Other action items? It is recommended by the superintendent that the board of education approve following action items one through three. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? That carries. Uh item seven, recognition of public comment on a non-aggenda item. If we have any visitors who would like to make a statement to the board on a non-aggenda item, now is the time to come up to the microphone. Item eight, uh, future meetings and events. On, um, Thursday, June 26th, uh, 2025 at 8:30 in the morning, we have the eighth grade moving up ceremony here at
147the high school in Jim B. Um, and then at, uh, 2 o'clock, um, at the MVP Arena, we have the class of 2025 graduation. Um on Tuesday, July 1st, uh here at the high school, we have our organizational board of education meeting, anticipating executive session at 6 and reconvening to open session at 7. And then, um we are meeting after that is on Wednesday, August 13th. Um and again, um anticipating executive session at 6, weekend meeting to open session at 7. Um and our um with the goal at that meeting of setting the tax rate. Uh, seeing no need to go back into executive session, could I have a motion to adjurnn the meeting? Second. All in favor? Meeting adjourned.