BCSD Board of Education Meeting 6/21/2023

001foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign is going to reconvene to open session we've been in executive session since six o'clock to discuss uh tenure recommendations a Personnel matter and a student matter we could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America justice for all introductions Dave Hurst Catherine Adam Robert Teigen Jody Monroe Holly Dunbar hello John McPhillips and John Walston and Christine Becker unable to be here tonight first on the agenda is our approval of minutes it is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education approved the minutes from the June 7th 2023 regular board meeting second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions that carries uh

002item three is our meeting reports and first is our superintendent's report sure thank you um it's hard to believe this is the last week of the school year I think we can all agree that this year has been much different than the past several and I'd like to thank all of our staff families and students for a wonderful year it was nice to have so many things returned to BC we were just talking about that and all the Wonder wonderful activities that are part of our schools um so tomorrow we have our eighth grade moving up celebration and Friday we have graduation and don't forget our pancake breakfast 6 A.M um uh next I want to just highlight a couple things regarding parent Square sews a few slides as you know we rolled out parent

003Square this spring this tool replaces School messenger and it's used primarily for district level communication right now but it has a lot of features to it our plan is to do a full rollout in 2023-24. eventually this will replace things that many teachers use such as remind Class Dojo seesaw and many other things it has calendar reminders RSVPs forms and more so we hopefully will get that information we're still learning the different aspects of parent Square as well so it does have we actually have a lot of people already enrolled we have a total number 5700 total users which is really high according to the representatives we work with from parent Square so all parents and Guardians and staff are receiving messages and basically they're getting the same information that they typically would have received

004via School messenger our goal is to obviously get continue to remind people if they haven't registered because you can see that not all the users actually have registered this is a good opportunity also for parents to make sure we have updated information in contacts for them sorry so there are two ways to use parent square there's a desktop version and there's also a mobile app you have to download the mobile app obviously but you can just use this on your desktop and there is a help option if you're having if there's a lot of information that you can find regarding that by clicking that help option and there also is a way to get information or help on the app as well next so I just wanted to go over this particularly because there's been

005a few questions about what type of information you'll receive so the most office in most often information that we would share is just general information about student achievements and information from the district and that would be just new in general that that would be done either through a post in the app or email and the app notifications are actually set by you so when you have any kind of app you can decide what notifications you want to receive when you push notifications or not the smart alerts are ones that are more time sensitive so for example a snow day or a closing or delay would be deemed yellow and that would be email we can also set override user preferences if this is a timely thing that we need parents to know about and then

006urgent alerts is really when time is of the essence and then you could receive messages from the district either by email text and an automated phone call similar to the same way we use School messenger so those are the different messages that you would receive via parent Square and this is just uh some images of the app notification so you can see where up in the that second image in the top left-hand Corner if you want to turn off notifications you simply tap that and the next slide shows where the notifications are and then the third one shows that you can actually inactivate those notifications if you don't want to constantly be receiving those thanks that that's the last slide okay that's what I thought a couple other things I wanted to just note regarding

007parent square is there is a portion there's a student Square our goal is to eventually roll that out to students sometime next year there's places for in in parent square that our coaches our advisors can use those components to share information with students rather than many of them use their personal texting so that is an option that will eventually have in place too so more to come with parent square but I just wanted to clarify where we are in the process we are planning to offer prior to um School beginning weekend will offer a zoom webinar for people who want to tune in to learn more about parents well Square we'll have more information at that point as well Kevin um you mentioned that excuse me um coaches and others will have the option to

008use this to get the word out is that something that we could be a bit more directive about so that we're switching away from personal Communications from coaches to students and right that way thing through here right that would be our goal once it's up and running great advisors as well perfect thank you and if parents have questions about parent square is there an email me okay thanks Joel and the last thing I wanted to follow up on Dave Hurst is going to follow up on some of the concerns that were raised by parents at our last meeting regarding the elementary math enrichment so Dave you want to sure so this kind of goes back to some of the discussions we had back in December about when I did my academic update we talked about

009some of our programming so there's a few things first I want to talk just in general about structure because the idea of gaining feedback from teachers has come up from time to time so just for those that aren't aware at the K5 level we do have a cabinet structure and what by that means each curricular area has a cabinet that makes curricular and programming decisions the cabinets are led by the associated K-12 department supervisor and a principal liaison so for math Bill Claremont is the sort of the lead of the cabinet and Diana Reagan is the principal liaison so the cabinet itself is comprised of a primary which is a K2 teacher and an intermediate which is a three five teacher from each of our five elementary buildings so there are 10 faculty Representatives on

010the cabinet these representatives are appointed by the bcta on the cabinets the main vehicle for gaining feedback from teachers and then communicating these changes back and forth with them the supervisors and principal Liaisons also meet annually with each grade level to gather additional feedback and discuss programming so that is sort of our vehicle for programmatic decisions and back and forth communication I also want to clarify some terminology as as you know in education we have a lot of acronyms and they kind of get thrown around and sometimes we confuse what these acronyms mean or what the purpose of them is so I've heard a lot of talk about RTI has been canceled and we're using mtss now so I just want to kind of clarify that so mtss stands for multi-tiered system of supports and

011that is an umbrella term that incorporates RTI which is response to intervention for academics which is reading and math as well as RTI for Behavior social emotional so rather than meeting about students and discussing just their academic struggles we now meet and then have a separate meeting about say their behavioral struggles this all it's all encompassing now right because typically when a student has academic struggles or behavioral struggles they're kind of intertwined so to have several meetings does not make a whole lot of sense so mtss really just takes academic and behavior social emotional and blends them into sort of one process so nothing's been sort of canceled it's we now have one umbrella term for two what used to be kind of siled systems so just in terms of programming there's kind of three

012programs that I'd like to talk about one is remediation one is enrichment and one is acceleration so prior to 2021 school year we had pull out services for math aimed at remediation and enrichment the enrichment service was referred to as challenge math but both of those programs were pull out programs and they were anywhere between 30 to 40 minute pull out services and the enrichment ChalleNGe Program is only for third and fourth graders and during the challenge session students worked through some non-routine word problems and during the remediation sessions they worked to sort of fill in some of the curricular gaps we also offered an accelerated program for fifth grade students at that time and then I'm just going to run through some challenges that were associated with this former model so first with for

013remedial purposes students that were being pulled out they were missing core instruction in the classroom which further contributed to their academic struggles and had other negative impacts as well so some of these were the limited exposure to Core Curriculum because they were being pulled out difficulty catching up because again they were being pulled out reduced integration and social interaction some students had multiple pullouts so now they're being separated from their grade level peers multiple times a day additional scheduling conflicts again with students with pause Services sometimes things don't line up so now you're missing multiple things or you're missing specials it leads to an increased workload so even though you're trying to remediate you've now missed other things so you sort of end up increasing the workload and then for some students there was a

014sigma and self-esteem issues because they're constantly being pulled away from their grade level peers on the enrichment side not all students that would benefit from enrichment were receiving it it was sort of you know those that were fortunate to get pulled out we're getting some enrichment and there was less differentiating happening within the classroom itself in terms of the acceleration process it was not Equitable we saw that buildings are larger buildings because each building only had the capacity to offer one section our larger buildings students that would have been successful in the accelerated program were left out and there are smaller buildings students were accelerated they were unable to be successful years later we had students down the road 9th 10th 11th 12th grade that were either withdrawing from math altogether or having to change

015levels or repeat courses because they were no longer able to keep up with the work further we had class sizes that were large and it made differentiation more difficult so during the 2021 school year covet sort of forced us to reduce the elementary level class sizes and that allowed us to learn some things right so that allowed for remedial and enrichment to occur within the classroom we also shifted our acceleration program to something called an online platform called Alex which we have since abandoned so during the 2023 school year class sizes remain reduced accelerated programs shipped it to sixth grade and as I mentioned back in December on the New York State learning standards actually are written in a way that acceleration is not recommended until seventh grade so we are still sort of a

016year ahead on that we also introduced the library Innovation lab this year for all third fourth and fifth grade students and here are some of the improvements that we've seen thus far our i-Ready data has remain consistent pre-2020 versus post 2020 and we've actually seen positive growth in the percentage of students performing two or more grade levels below prior to 2020 we had nine percent of our students performing at two or more grade levels below present the last three years we're at three percent and if we separate out the students from that three percent that are already receiving special education services that number actually drops to below one percent so to say that the pull out Services were working prior I don't those numbers do not point to that we're actually our students are actually

017performing at a higher level now without being pulled out to our students that used to receive remediation smaller class sizes have also allowed teachers to better support students individual interests and needs within the classroom eliminating the need for a student to be pulled out of the classroom for enrichment this year we are exposing students to non-routine problem solving using math Olympiad questions math in action Tangy Tuesday wordy Wednesday and First in Math over the course of this summer the math cabinet is going to be working on a summer curriculum project and a guidebook for teachers as we have identified inconsistencies from teacher to teacher building to building to use for both remediation and enrichment enrichment ensuring a more consistent approach we're also adding additional resources for enrichment next year we've recently become a member of

018the Silicon Valley math initiative and this membership provides teachers with access to a vast library of enrichment resources including performance tasks problems of the month curriculum instruction tools summative form and assessments and most importantly professional development the goal is to provide students with experiences so that they're better prepared to tackle new ambiguous and complex problems moving acceleration to sixth grade has increased the percentage of students in the accelerated program historically approximately 30 percent of students were accelerated as sixth graders and then approximately ten percent were double accelerated beginning in seventh grade next year over 40 percent of our sixth graders will be accelerated and over 15 percent will be double accelerated so this has proven to be a much more Equitable approach finally the library Innovation Labs expose students to Robotics and coding through the

019use of ozobots Dash robots Fury Indie Sphero Indy Sphero bolt quotable and code.org next year we are increasing the number of innovation lab blocks we're also going to be exposing students to some electricity lessons through the use of squishy circuits and finally so we are always in a cycle of continuous Improvement several changes to our program did occur this year this summer additional change will be developed and implemented next year it's our belief that all the changes in programmatic enhancements being made will far surpass the pull-out programs that existed prior that said should we discover over the course of the Fall that additional changes should be made we will work to develop those Solutions and I would present any necessary budget proposals to the board in March during the annual budget season you have questions

020for David could you speak a little bit about the Silicon Valley program you mentioned so and actually I should have expanded on math Olympia the other thing I'll get to both so math Olympiad um we are looking at next year participating in actual the math Olympiad competitions across our buildings so in the fall we'll be assessing students using the tomags which is a gifted and talented math assessment and students that are identified through that would be participating in the math Olympiad competitions which occur five times throughout the year so the Silicon Mount Valley math initiative is was developed out in California obviously and it is it provides teachers with sort of a platform of resources for providing non-routine problems and that there are sort of longer term tasks so one problem might take a month

021say to actually get through because each week sort of New pieces of the puzzle get unraveled and the students dig deeper and deeper and deeper into these problems so they're longer term sort of problems that students grapple with in groups and that is professional development that is also Incorporated to help teachers work through some principles of differentiation and providing enrichment within the classroom what age are the math Olympiad and math Olympiad is grades four and five really maybe grade three depending on how well where a student stands and then the Silicon Valley is K-5 no this is all with all within the day so that's one of the things that the we've discovered is we've we've talked to some other schools too this is very much able to be scheduled during the day but teachers

022need to be given sort of more concrete guidance of what this would look like so the math cabinet this summer is going to be putting together essentially a guidebook that says this is what math instruction is going to look like in terms of all of your grade level content and this is how you're going to differentiate to reach both your struggling Learners and your enriched learners okay um and I just want to say um I am grateful that the cabinet is meeting and and bringing these things on because um while district and wide our numbers have certainly improved I know that differentiation has been hard for our teachers and Harvard well I don't know if it's been hard for them but I know that there's been uneven um rollout so I am excited that we're

023going to get folks the support to to really dig in on this so thank you for that well it sounds like these are you know interesting programs um it sounded to me like a lot of the drawbacks to the pull out program where the fact that the kids were being pulled out and missing things that were going on um was is there any exploration given to sort of taking the same services that were provided in the pull out programs and just putting them either in a free period or a or maybe the last period of the day or something or even sort of a club time after school so they'd be sort of you know getting all the benefits of what they were getting in the pull out without without the negatives so I mean

024the one drawback to that is again now we're having Equity issues if you're doing things outside the scope of the school day um so um I mean the nice thing about the elementary days it's flexible in that you're not you don't have rigid periods like you do with the Miller High School level where you're traveling from classroom to classroom right the day can be structured in a much more strategic way and that's something that we're looking to provide better guidance on and training on what exactly can a day look like that provides for these different opportunities these without having to sort I mean sometimes we end up in these rigid approaches where like so one example that was given is so if you have a student that a group of students that are very strong

025readers and are always reading outside of the classroom right so I had a teacher say well those students I don't have them go sit in a corner and read for 15 minutes because I know they're going to do that outside the classroom I pull that group aside and that's when I do their math enrichment with them because I know they're going to do the reading out so just being a little bit more flexible in our thinking that like this time doesn't have to be you can only do Ela from nine to ten and you can only do math from 10 to 11. like being more flexible in the structure of your day allows you to have that flexibility to be able to sort of give students sort of the doses of what they need throughout

026the day and it's just about being a little more strategic in regards to some of the remedials services like for kids who historically were referred to as AIS or even special education services those have to happen during the school day you can't ask students or families to do it after school or before school yeah yeah and I appreciate your your I guess the point about the the freedom I guess my only concern about that would be that when you when you're that's putting a lot on on the individual teacher to sort of the less programming we have the more it is on the shoulders of each individual teacher to recognize those types of opportunities on every single day and have to sort of rise to that challenge you know unique circumstances every day in order

027to maximize the you know the the advantages which is when we recognize that which is why I think to some extent it's it's inconsistent right now so I do think that's where we need to do a better job of providing guidance and some training in terms of what exactly that looks like okay thank you yeah I have a couple um the first one just shows my ignorance because I don't have kids in the middle school yet so when you say that 40 of incoming sixth graders are accelerated in 15 are double accelerated are all of those kids in the same no class will okay oh so it's similar to high school so basically what that means is we've got a cohort of sixth graders taking sixth grade math and we've got a cohort of sixth

028graders taking seventh grade math and in seventh grade we have a cohort taking seventh grade math a cohort taking eighth grade math and a cohort taking algebra one and then in eighth grade we have cohort taking eighth grade cohort taking algebra one and cohort taking geometry and what that does that leads down the road we have when you become um if you're in that double accelerated path your senior year you're able to take calculus 3 and linear algebra we do that through the University of Albany and currently we're one of only two schools in the state that offer both of those options through Albany now there are some other colleges that offer similar options um but I can tell you in this area we're the only school that offers linear algebra deal and and there's

029only Niskayuna Shenandoah and Burnt Hills that attempt to offer calc 3 but they aren't even able to do it on a year to year basis because of numbers and with the trajectory on we're on we're actually going to have up to 40 40 to 45 students taking those classes as seniors okay but those same students when they're in fifth grade or fourth grade at all those different levels that is with one teacher differentiating and that's the difference between in enrichment and acceleration right there's a and that's something you know there's a difference between enrichment and acceleration enrichment is taking grade level content and digging much deeper and I could give um I mean I've been to some of these workshops where I I could pull questions from a fourth grade curriculum that are written in

030such a way that require you know non-routine thinking that folks that have you know taken through calculus struggle to answer that they have to take some time really grappling with it so just going faster and further ahead doesn't necessarily mean that you understand stuff at a deep enough level so we really feel like at the elementary level we want students to get the enrichment to be able to truly understand the content and to be able to dig as deep as they can in the content and the time for acceleration will come and that's in middle school and then they can further their path in high school and to be honest to you know we we have on rare occasions had students that um you know accelerate at earlier ages because they've proven to be you

031know three four five grade levels ahead which works out well for them in younger years but it creates a lot of sort of barriers come high school because what do you do when you've completely exhausted all programming in 10th Grade then we have kids struggling they're scrambling to take online courses through universities or trying to make their schedule work here so they can run to you Albany or RPI during the day and then get back here so while it's great to say that you're you know taking care of three linear algebra as a freshman it does create quite a few barriers longer than that I mean again we're one of the few schools in the state that offer calc 3 linear algebra so I think that's kind of The Sweet Spot I don't know that

032you necessarily outside of some very rare instances need students accelerating beyond that because those are both sophomore level college courses I mean if you take both of those you're essentially leaving here with 15 college credits in math plus you can take AP stats which gives you another three so now you're up to 18. some also do computer science now you're up to 21 college credits and just math and computer science so so I I purposely went to a college where I didn't have to take them so most of what you're saying to me but I'm more interested at the moment in like the K5 so but it's all tied together because the impacts of K5 transcend what happens later so I just want to make sure you're clear that I really understand what's happening so

033in that one like 40 minute math block with one math well at a minimal math blocks are 60 minutes okay and it's happening with the same sure and that's I mean that's sort of elementary teachers by trade or that's the way you're trained is to differentiate right it doesn't matter what the subject area is right if you look at an English or an Ela lesson on either reading or writing like all student if many times Ela is an hour and a half you don't have all of your students doing the same thing for an hour and a half sure right I'm just trying to so no no I know I just want to make sure that like this isn't just a math issue this is a anything that's being taught at the elementary level is

034being differentiated right there's there is no sort of one-size-fits-all but so the kids that at one point not that long ago would have received the RTI pull out I know we're saying it's not canceled but that's still that's what's happening within the classroom okay yeah um the cabinet do we have former math RTI Specialists on the cabinet yes right now out of 10 I think there's three of them okay cool was it the cat well then the cabinet's recommendation to continue with the smaller class sizes as opposed to reverting back to taking essentially six to seven Elementary sections pulling them back to RTI sections and now instead of an average class size of 18 we're back to 24 25. so that was going to be my next question was how much smaller class sizes are

035right our average class size of Elementary 11 nines right now is 18. and that's because of pulling well because we have seven more sections spread out across the K-5 than we had prior and in speaking with again other districts in the area most of them are at the 24 to 26 as an average size and we're at 18. any other questions I I just was once again curious about how the math Olympiad and the Silicon Valley math initiative how that's going to work if if we're not pulling kids out we're not doing after school so you're still pulling small groups within your classroom okay so we're not pulling them out but we're pulling them so I mean real in simple terms um you know you have your a 20-minute math lesson that's sort of on

036the grade level content for all students you now have 40 minutes give or take to pull groups aside so one group can be working on that green grade level content over here one group can be working on some remedial work and one group is working on the um enriched work right so the teachers with the enriched kids for say 15 minutes and then they say all right because they're the rich kids already have the grade level work they've already proven they can do that right so the teacher works with them for 15 minutes on enriched work and then they go off and they do their problem solving for 15 minutes and during that time now they're back working with the group that needs enrichment I mean with um remediation and you're just cycling through at

037different times to work with those so it's a mix of whole group instruction small group independent work and you're rotating through those Cycles okay so this the math Olympiad and the competitions that you're you're speaking of um is that something that they're going to be working on in that individual time so we're still working the logistics on all of that but essentially yeah so they'll be exposed to sort of old Olympiad problems within those smaller groups and then we're gonna we're trying to figure out a way like on contest day what exactly does that look like somebody's gonna have to pull you know three kids from this classroom five from this one and four from this one out so they can do the competition and then bring them back in said that was K through

038five what exactly is that is that just like it's a bank curriculum or it's not it's not really curriculum it's um again non-routine problems that are tagged with the standards you're working on so as as you're working on say you know first grade you're you're working on addition to 20. there's now Associated sort of enrichment problems that fall within that realm that sort of build over multiple days where you're digging deeper and deeper into the problem and it's kind of like almost like you're solving a story if you will okay one thing I would suggest because it might be helpful I know some usually in the fall the board is invited to go to different schools and Reserve classrooms so if you wanted to kind of observe some of this fashion a math lesson particularly

039I know some people wanted to see special ed programs then we can certainly arrange that I mean math instruction I've seen a lot of lessons this year as Dave described where there's a mini lesson and then the kids are working in groups some with the teacher sometimes just in the classroom but maybe that would be helpful for some of you to see the structure absolutely I just I you know I wanted to say that how important um I feel like math instruction is and I obviously I know that it's obviously important to you and if we do feel like we need further resources the board is very supportive of that I think and we want to know if if there's anything further you need to to move these programs forward it's very much appreciated and

040again I just want to make sure we're it's the right resources right it's not just about the dollar amount it's about are we is it the right program thank you Dave any other questions for Jody move on next on the agenda is our board report and first I just wanted to make some congratulations for all the students that participated in the Spectrum concert which was terrific and so much fun to um to be back and see one again at the high school and I also wanted to congratulate everyone who was involved with the production of Much Ado About Nothing here in this room they did they did a wonderful job and you know Shakespeare is never easy but they made it understandable and fun and engaging and did all that pretty much at the end

041of the year in the midst of finals speaking at the end of the year I wanted to just say thank you to our our faculty and staff for for a great year I can't believe that we're already up to the eighth grade ceremony tomorrow morning and then graduation on Friday um and we did have an audit committee meeting since our last board meeting and Willow was hoping that you could just give say a couple words about our audit committee meeting um I don't think we actually usually say much about the audit committee meeting because of the confidential nature that's what I'm talking about but we did um sort of preview the internal and external audit reports that'll be that's kind of an agenda in the fall so yeah that's kind of what it was um

042on some riveting topic so stay tuned okay um and then lastly um I know she um is is not here but I wanted to publicly uh thank Kathy Johnston for her service to the district on her retirement and she will be missed and I hope she enjoys the her time away from us um did anybody have anything else they'd like to share um I wanted to second your comments about the Spectrum concert so I had never been to one before next year when you guys get the chance to go do it it's my new favorite event of the year I think our music program gets sort of Forgotten sometimes and it is so strong and so impressive um it was like a concert I would spend money on so um huge kudos to that just

043watching the way that it's all orchestrated and kids move in and out of seats and the whole thing was just messed also did and the end of the year I think I said last time it's like every night there's a different performance or celebration or assembly and I don't know how everybody does it on top of like educating our students and making everything special is really really cool to see um Juneteenth I wanted to give a shout out to I'm sure every building had a thing they did but I heard in particular about Hammer Grails efforts around Juneteenth with the PTA donating a book to each classroom which was read together with students and facts of the day being announced every morning as part of the morning announcements I was just really impressed with the

044extra effort that was put into sort of educating kids about why it's a holiday and why it's important um and there was something else Dr klugman's cell phone safety class that I don't know if everybody goes I went my kids went it was really truly terrifying um at one point they put like a list of the apps that kids use up and I had heard of like two of 20 of them which was really like I think I'm pretty with it as a parent and I'm not and so I think that I know we do especially at the middle school a lot of events like that to really try to bring parents in and educate them and I thought it was particularly valuable hour thanks Willa anybody else Catherine um yeah and just on the

045kind of on the topic of end of year um I just want to share deep appreciation for all the pto's the ptas all the volunteers who go above and beyond to contributing to making the our schools really Community hubs and really these amazing amazing spaces I know that you know with a lot of the schools if not if not all of them are doing field days and Town Park days and all this stuff's just which would not happen without those parents taking time out of their day to organize to scoop popcorn to monitor bounce houses and and what have you so um just genuine appreciation for for all the people who are out there again just making our making our schools communities thanks thanks um I am I will ask but I'm assuming there's nobody

046here from student Senate given that school is over um so not officially over but I'm pretty sure for our students Senate reps it is moving on to our presentations this evening we have two and our first is on the 2023 Capital project to give a update and for purposes of discussion a proposed Capital project proposition that Bishop is considering during the fall of 2020. thank you the 2021 Capital Bond project is Will received a few weeks back and despite best efforts those bids came back significantly higher than budgeted roughly 4.3 million dollars given the fact that the voters authorized 40.7 million dollars we had to make some contingency plans in terms of how to bring the budget back in life so the hour analysis showed that the bids were over budget for a couple of

047a couple of reasons shifting supply chain challenges tight skilled labor market and lots of available work but with limited available contractors to do such work there's several school districts in the Suburban Council and the Capital District area that are also going out with Bond projects there's a lot of work out there and the contractors the availability and pool of contracts just isn't as so the district had a decision point in terms of how best to bring the bond project inline budget it could defer specific larger project elements or a larger number of smaller project elements the district had decided to go with the former by really evaluating a couple of components in the capital project you look at scope removal of four uh four components of the project including the Middle School auditorium the Slingerlands

048kitchen and cafeteria the Glenmont classroom finishes and High School main office building renovations other cost saving measures included voluntary contractor deductions value engineering items and a reduction in the overall contingency budget of the of the project those items actually brought the Kappa project in line with budget ad 40.7 million dollars the Distributors face with the what to do with the Middle School auditorium it's an instructional and Performing Arts hub for the pcsd Community it was one of the gems of the Bob project from both an instructional and Performing Arts perspective our o m team with our Architects and design team through a more thorough and thoughtful design we're able to sort of streamline construction that mean maximize the available space to better meet all of the stakeholders and that included a couple of key items

049here raising and leveling the floor which allow for additional room for the pit area that could accommodate the grand piano additional risers for concert performance and musicals it maximized seating and sight lines including Ada seating all also ensuring the historical architecture including windows and balances that beautiful or neat crown molding that's in the middle of Middle School auditorium and balcony and that will allow the space to remain true to the space in the period that we have come to love and enjoy it also includes a new state-of-the-art audio visual Visual and lighting system new ventilation including air conditioning assisted listening technology for those with hearing loss and some some other key features that will just make the VR turn a much more enjoyable space now the estimated cost for a standalone Middle School auditorium proposition

050is estimated to be no more than five million dollars and that includes project design construction your furniture fixtures and equipment for the auditorium and the outside ticket booth right in the main entrance way of the Middle School in terms of financing the fall proposition the plan that I am recommending to the board for consideration is the use of the capital reserve funds which can be likened to the district savings account the use of Reserves results in no operational impact to 23 24 or future budgets as well as minimizing any taxpayer impact from an additional Bond proposition the hope is that through a supplemental project proposition there'll be a greater opportunity for more competitive goods and interests which will ultimately result in a lower cost point it's a little bit off cycle in terms of project

051work it's isolated in terms of being in one location one project so o m and The Architects and design team are hopefully optimistic that it will yield a lower price point than the five million dollars this slide presents what the district's Capital repair Reserves were originally authorized at we have three camera repair reserves 2015 2019 and 2022 Capital reserves what their original authorized funding was what is presently available as a 621-23 what has been committed for the 2015 and 2019 Capital reserves that 13.4 million dollars is actually committed for the 40.7 million dollar 2021 Capital project and what the estimated balance will be at the end of 2023. so presently there's 1.7 million dollars in 2019 Kappa reserves 6.2 million dollars in the 2022 Capital reserves even if we were to use the full 5

052million you would still have leftover Reserve money for future Bond projects that slide does not take into consideration any additional money that will be funded into the 2022 capital reserve as part of the 2223 closeout it was a finance action item on the board agenda today authorizing an additional six million dollars into the 2022 capital reserve this is a very brief but tentative timeline in terms of what that Capital project would look like during the August Board of Education meeting board would consider a resolution authorizing the proposition September 1st would be the public notice of the capital project there is a 45-day requirement for notice prior to the actual vote the vote is tentatively scheduled to be on October 17 2023. the district kicked around a couple of days October seemed to make the best

053sense for a couple of reasons you have a general election in the first week of November any later than that you start running into the holiday seasons we need to give some time for the Board of Elections to program and have their machines available for the general election any early years still running into you know start a school and and summer vacation so October seemed to be The Sweet Spot in terms of the timing and planning for a supplemental project vote November in December we would begin the procurement and purchasing process hopefully securing um recommendations for contractors for these for the board's consideration December 2023 Board of Education would consider contract awards for any contractors and Associated subcontractors construction would begin tentatively mid-January 2024 you would be outside of the winter country schedule and performances

054and it would be estimated because it is sort of an isolated project in one location that over the the project would be complete probably the late fall of 2024. John can you remind me when the Middle School library which is immediately behind the auditorium is scheduled to begin and end construction that's not no well they're beginning right so there's a lot you're going to see a flurry of activity probably you know next Monday right so there's a lot of work being sort of run in in various parallels and tandems so the LMC for the middle school is leaving uh he started over the summer I don't have any recipe whether it's you know the first week it won't be in use in the fall um but I think they're hopefully planning to have it completed

055before the end of the year and not in conflict with this is this this was going to be used as swing space why LMC was actually in the process of being in renovation just as a large area so I just wanted we want to make sure that so October 17th isn't too close to the general election day like we're not gonna have a problem getting machines or whatever other things we need district clerk did reach out to the board of Board of Elections just to ensure that it's adequate timing to have the machine available that they can be programmed with the ballot proposition with a language that is voted and we were advised that the 17th okay and you said there's you know five million for the auditorium what about those other projects that we

056had pulled so presently what those other projects may be able to be accommodating depending on where in some portion not necessarily all of them but if there are some under expenditures or things come under budget for the other the project elements under the 2021 Capital project on some of those other projects can be considered the the other thing to keep in mind with some of those other projects is that there's also a timing Factor right so the Glenmont classrooms that were also during the school you can't do it during the school year so and you have to have the project done within a certain time frame so if it's not able to be done during the non-instructional time it really can't happen so that's part of the aside from the fact that they were the

057larger projects there also were some timing issues and can we get contractors to get that work done so I think that to John's point if there are available funds that you know were pleasantly surprised by how that process is going we could reconsider any of those either with Reserve funding or just with potentially extra funding that we have left over but it'll also come down to a timing issue so the facilities committee might come back and recommend some of the smaller items in that list of things that we already took off that would be manageable to do with any remaining funds so that could be an option too okay if you wanted to consider any of the other larger projects is part of like a vote then we would want to make sure that if

058we did do that it could actually be completed by that time frame so that would be something we'd have to go back to on Turner and our Architects about sure and just to be extra clear so let's say that five million dollars that's money that we have that's correct we do not need to we're not taking more money additional debt Services we just need permission to use it one component that I am seeking some guidance from Council is whether or not we are amending the existing Capital project for the five million dollars or if it is if it is a separate proposition as a standpoint either way it's more of a language component and I've just pointed for for Council to provide some environment okay Catherine thank you I I was interested in the other

059projects as well so thanks for walking us through that the other question I had is um with moving the timeline are we all impacting the scope or the projects that we that that the Middle School the Middle School teachers that the stakeholders wanted to have included in that middle school project are we are we changing that scope or the types of projects being done there or are we simply asking voters to approve us using the money to sh and Shifting the timeline so there was some there was some scope shift I think it was scope shift to to the better of the space betterment of the space you know there's a lot of stakeholders in in that particular location um are the district's Focus was it was instructional first and foremost we'll try to accommodate

060as much uh as we can which is why previously it was almost I don't want to say it was rush but it was a there was a lot of input in a very short time period to try to accommodate all of the interests and all the stakeholders so we did come up as a plan it wasn't necessarily the best plan from a construction perspective because we were going to level out almost like cut into a section of the floor to level it which created some other infrastructure below the auditorium for that where it's going to require some additional work so in many ways the the deferment of this allowing for some sort of unpacking of the project to begin with and really taking a full look at okay now we've lost the pressure of timing

061here a little bit let's really put together a a comprehensive package of what the auditorium will look like that's why we're actually rather than cutting into the floor we're raising and leveling which accommodates more opportunities for for the grand piano that was a big component as well trying to shift a very expensive ornate piece of musical equipment around and very isolated area prior now we have uh we'd be changing the floor we had better sidelines Confederate Ada exceeding accommodation so I think the stakeholders from the conversation that we have were pleased I mean you're really boxed in so to speak with the with the physical plant size you right now you have your left you know link width and height it's all set especially if you're trying to maintain some of the architectural um but

062the biggest change really was just that the other people thank you all these kids are remaining the same it was really the floor that was a perfect challenge we are not adding a Broadway style turntable to the state no maybe next project okay great so thank you that that was helpful and that was where I was going are we suddenly shifting to cut something to something okay great thank you appreciate that and I just wanted to clarify why can't we do this during the general election in November we don't have coding machines I mean can why can't we just ask you know like oh whether it can be part of it yeah whether it can be because it the district is a centralized moving location your general election is going to be spread across every

063library and Firehouse other community okay where you have to overlap the election district for the general election with those districts that fall into the plan Central School District I don't know if they're necessarily continuous understood thank you so is everyone comfortable moving forward with a plan to get a little more information in at the August meeting if there's any updates at the July meeting we can certainly provide that um but is that yeah the direction you want to go would look to do a vote for the Middle School auditorium for the sometime in October yeah I mean I'd love to see approved in construction well at this point in the middle the end of January because I think the timing actually is better than what would have been the original plan so it I think

064is less of an impact to the use of the building if you say this time if all of those yeah so we'll be good thank you thanks John our second presentation tonight is our food service budget update for 2022 2023. you might need a little lower than that okay see if that helps so um we're talking about end of the year and this is our first year back to traditional food service that also includes the return to the free and reduced and pay status there were no Universal School meals offered this year and it is expected that we will be staying with that three-tiered system for next year as well there is currently no movement at either the state or the federal level to enact Universal meals uh at the end of June also on

065the 30th Is the End funding we are not expecting it to be renewed it would be a pleasant surprise but we will also see a decrease in reimbursement from the federal side as a result of 40 cents for every one sold and 15 cents for every breakfast sold we're hoping that'll be offset however because the USDA just last week let us know that they are going to release another round of supply chain money sometime in the early next school year this is just a glimpse of our families rates while we're talking about that are pretty steady we have not seen a significant change pre-covered to now in those it's remained right about the same rate that it has been for the last few years and while we're talking about supply chain I was told by

066manufacturers at the very start of covid to expect a five-year plan to get back to normal and we are right in the middle of that five years so we're still seeing the same challenges that we've had over the last few getting in product getting in paper supplies it's no different than it has been for the last few years and it's coupled now with price increases which we've all seen personally and I see every day as week over week price increases continue to come in we have tried to come up with some solutions one has been multiple companies providing supplies trying to find the best lowest price that we can and the other one is also looking at local supplies so we're working on developing more locally sourced foods and we started this year branching out

067into what that looks like we were already offering a la carte milk sold in the high school and the junior high for metal roof and now we're also going into supplying all of our ground beef and other beef products hamburger shave steak all from New York State Farms so we use Government funding this year for produce that was already in place but going into next year we're also going to be sourcing more local produce as well New York state has an initiative it's called the 30 initiative so another push for doing this is the idea that we'll be able to get additional State reimbursement 19 cents per lunch sold is the promise I did get this in my last District we achieved it and they now are getting that reimbursement they just got it for

068this whole year so I'm confident we can do it here as well we have to show that we've spent 30 percent of our money for food on local New York state products we have our tracking in place we did some preliminary look this year and next year we're going to officially start tracking the goal is to apply next summer for reimbursement starting in the fall of 24. so um next year also we have a local food grant that I applied for and received this money that will be coming in is actually able to be double dipped so it's free money and it's also money that will count towards that 30 initiative which is kind of nice and we've established these Partnerships and we'll be working throughout the summer on getting things ready [Music] um Indian

069ladder Farms is one of them Meadowbrook is mentioned Issa chips comes from Western New York ZZ applesauce is made with New York State apples um Headwater food Hub is our supplier for frozen vegetables and fruits especially in those winter months and kill Point Farms is our newest day will be our new supplier for all of the beef products and they are a well-known company out of Upstate that also deals with higher end restaurants so those of you who have eaten at places like Hopper Crow or malcolms or next door kitchen they Supply them as well and it is a quality product at a decent price some reflection on this year and where we've been the high school numbers have actually come in better than expected so they dropped from pre-covet as we all expected they

070would when Universal meals were an option but they are double what they were pre-coded which is pretty impressive you've been trying to keep those numbers going by doing a few fun things we did National School Lunch week in October with the staff and we also had administrators coming in as guest servers we had a second team week halfway through the year in January taking participation going we did a food cart week which was then featured in a school nutrition National magazine publication we also returned to speed scratch and scratch cooking putting out new recipes every month and we're planning to offer more training for staff in the fall with a national instructor coming to work with us next spring to allow them to have the skills they need to keep doing this kind of cooking

071the high school also now that it's in the program had its first audit which they passed with flying colors and finally we brought in vendors who including students again in sampling food from vendors like Tyson yangs and sabrats to decide that they wanted to see in their kitchens Middle School was also doing more scratch and speed scratch cooking we did an adventure week in May with them trying out some new recipes they are still short staffed we'll talk about that challenge in a minute 50 staff right now there so we've been unable to do some of the things we would like such as opening up the snack line for additional Revenue but the numbers are holding steady there back to pre-covered figures and have not dropped and finally the elementary schools we started a new

072line of alternate meals there that will continue in the fall offering more fruits and vegetables and starting a salad once a week there is an entree option this is just a glimpse of our kitchen facilities and Equipment update we have new shelving that we brought in for the high school freezer that was very much needed we have a new oven coming for Eagle which is also going to be a welcome change there um and then we talk about our goals for next year so I touched on Staffing this is one of our biggest challenges right now I know that everyone is facing this and we are the same as everyone else trying to figure out a way to get more people in to apply with enough staff we can amp up the services we do

073bring in more revenue and be able to offer more options so we're going to be working on that over the summer offering staff the training as I talked about to be able to do the kinds of things we would like to do another goal is reopening that snack line if we can get the service there that we would like and finally tightening up cost control so we're moving to digital for all of our inventory so we'll be able to keep a Perpetual inventory which will help us keep a closer watch in our food supply and we're hoping next year with that Staffing to increase catering options and coffee shop sales challenges to all of this the flip side getting in that staff anybody knows anyone that would like to come work with me I'm happy

074to talk to you I am looking for a few good people getting families approved for the meals that need the service um we do have families that have reached out to us and we would like to continue communication to figure out how to get those meals available to anyone that will be in need of them communication and letting people know there was a lot of questions this year about Universal meals and people seem confused we did get the message out but maybe it wasn't clear it was very hard after a couple of years to get people used to the idea of painting those again and again managing those costs and then monitoring participation rates to getting people in so this is a look at our revenue streams for the coming year so we are in

075pretty good shape and hoping to get even better we have breakfast and lunch sales which have continued to increase still room for growth on the a la carte and snack sale side and adult sales as well we will see that drop in state and federal reimbursement they were at a high level with covid reimbursement rates and then we also have of course looking at the expenditures salaries which have gone up um food which continues to increase as well supplies have dropped back down due to the lack of a need for individual wrapping and more containers for those deliveries in the classroom and so looking at this we'll be dipping into our fund balance just a little bit trying to cover those unexpected expenses that we had this year and finally we're hoping that our Revenue

076will be on the upswing for next year looking at increasing as I said participation for students both in the lunch program and in the a la carte sales trying to promote adults to come in and also eat with us we have some new things happening at the high school we're hoping we'll bring in more staff members but we do see that small drop as I said that will come from the state and federal reimbursement rate and extended chairs here looking at what we're doing um the food we overestimated a little bit not really sure how that's going to go next year and supplies again it looks to be evaluated the staff worked really hard this year this was a big year for them coming back from coven and all of the changes that have been

077made and I have to say I'm really impressed with how they handled a very busy year and a very short stack and if anybody has any questions Catherine yep and thank you so much this is uh this is really wonderful and it's I always I always have fun sharing the fact that Miss Sarah from Ellesmere Elementary is a local celebrity and to find her in the wild is always a big joy for for my students um and um and the staff team that I've encountered at you know at all the schools has just been exemplary so um hats off to to everyone there I was wondering though I know if if you could help me understand I know that in the state budget that was just approved earlier this year there was additional funding put

078aside for um Universal lunches I don't know if that's something that applies to us or not but if you could just speak to that a little bit because I know there was there is a movement to um to continue that reimbursement so New York won a different route this year we weren't sure how this was going to go and they actually surprised me which I think should be able to do still but they did they went a third row so what they decided to do there's always been this option for cep if you're not familiar with CDP it's Community eligibility provision so schools that are a high need School Schenectady and Albany obviously come to mind Upstate Brian with Hudson Falls these are where you'll have a high rate of free and reduce students they

079are eligible for cep I won't worry with the long process it's a huge application but it basically gives them free meals they had this before covid along with other things the catches with cep as it stands right now the government only gives you a portion of what you need to survive the rest of it has to be built upon a la carte sales there's almost a handshake agreement with the community that the families will continue to support the program now not by paying for meals but by paying for a la carte sales for snacks and other things that's been the tradition until 2020. now what they're looking at doing and what New York State released this year is a graduated scale so those schools taking them out of the equation let's say that they are

080like 60 65 free and reduced we are 13 pre-introduced they are looking at a sweet spot in the middle if you are 25 for your reduced or greater there will be graduated versions of cep for those schools we are 500 gigs short of that of that basically that marker for us so it's a great idea but they released the list and I saw the graduated list as I'm going through and we're on the last page and I'm going oh well there there it is so there will be no Universal meals for us I think unless because of the federal level thank you for walking us through that you're very welcome any other questions yeah are we offering um any meals during the summer we are not this year because they are not Universal so we

081did put out um with Jillian I did arrange to do the same that we've always done with the mail sites that are available in the community starting July 1st the state publishes the meal sites that are available and the website will be up for families to take a look at online okay and I just wanted to compliment um you and your employees as well and say that I've you know been going through the elementary menu all year and have been really my kids have been really pleasantly surprised by all the new things that we've seen in there it's been fun seeing you know what new options are out there and I welcome you guys to come in my early great new program starting next year so not the first two weeks give us a couple

082depends maybe by Columbus Day but come on in and have lunch with us because we're pretty excited about what we have started here maybe four members can help serve meals oh yeah there you go I like how we think so yes we could figure something out sorry one other that I that I just remember now so at one point um so I I know that uh I have concerns about preparing food and Plastics I know that that's something that's shared amongst a lot of community members and at one point we were serving I think it was breakfast foods I think it may have been the waffles or something like that that were heated in the plastic film wrappers itself and I'm wondering is that something that um your office can can I don't know if

083it's still happening so first caveat there second is to the extent that it is can we start looking at other options and trying to move away from from that so breakfast is actually one of our smallest participation the rates fell from what they were at covid to the fact that for example elsewhere now sells for breakfast today so it's a very small contingent um those items that came so traditionally breakfast in the school nutrition world was sold in what's called an IW individually wrapped Packaging we're required to get Child Nutrition products to sell so we have to use those products that they're advertising in the way that they're advertising them these come individually wrapped as you suggested they are ovenable so you can put them in and they only go in the warmer for like

08430 seconds to warm the month they're not actually cooked in them for like a length of time it's just enough to make them so that they're warmer instead of Colder when you're eating a waffle so I don't know if the concern is the wrapping itself the packaging as far as waist bows and all of that because there's all of that extra waste yeah that would be individual is what you're thinking the waist and then also also just plastic bleaching there's a lot of science behind behind what that happens yeah and and um and I was thinking of breakfast for lunch days as well do those once a month and in that case again what we're restricted to so most so there's two problems here right the 90 of the Child Nutrition products are sold that

085way on purpose for ease right right it is what it is with them so that's that's how they literally sell them and then the second problem is we're going into um preparing and holding food so from a food science perspective when you take a waffle out of a box of Eggos in the house we put them in the toaster and eat them within 30 seconds in the Child Nutrition world we are batching them right before the line but you still have 40 small children 50 small children who are stretch to get through that waffle does not hold unless it's in something to keep it moist so that bag actually holds the product quality longer than if you just took a waffle out of a box and stuck it in the same pan on the table

086they turn it apart actually like bricks so I know I'm sorry yeah it happens I tried that one so there's a lot of like little pieces to this I don't love the bags myself but they actually do serve on a purpose and it is to keep that quality in instead we try the new product this year we try to get the high schoolers they were not impressed neither was I so yeah um yeah I would just love to yeah put it out there to the extent that we can move away from options that that rely on cooking and Plastics I would I would love that thank you both to say the least any other questions thank you very much thank you appreciate it I'm looking forward to seeing you all in the fall next on

087our agenda is our recognition of public comment on an agenda if we have any visitors who would like to address the board on an agenda item now be the time to come to the microphone if you could please state your name nice to see everyone again first off I want to thank you I really appreciate the engagement of the board of the issue it sounds like there's been a lot of discussion and a lot of occasion we really appreciate that and all the families who are here tonight two weeks ago and all the families who couldn't be here tonight too because we have 100 kids and it's hard to make that happen again so we all appreciate that um ultimately you know I want to say a couple things the first is what's the point

088of all this you know why are we here why are there families here why do we care so much and it's not about you know it's about creating engaged challenge and this is where the parents Feels Like We Are Family and so we were here a year ago my wife and I were here we talked a little about our experience with our elementary school students and we have been told for two years prior to us coming to run before you hear about that the model for Education was differentiation inside the classroom we had this meeting before I started kindergarten we said you know popular School principal and the school Personnel said it'll be a little different now we've trained our teachers to give kids what I mean inside the classroom so for two years you

089know we didn't have that experience despite activation with our teachers we didn't experience the differentiation that we have been told that happened inside so a year ago when we were here from the school board and we heard listen these are the changes that are going to happen we're going to make class sizes smaller we're going to do some summer training for our teachers and just waiting for the coming year happens we're going to have much better differentiation inside the classroom differences last year we were the only you know one or two families here who would kind of interactively involved up until and now the code is done in school there are a lot more families over the past here who are echoing similar frustrations and having kids who are not feeling um so it would

090be like a year later kind of in the same place and that's where we're concerned and ultimately if we summarize what's going on we've taken away three years of Elementary School programming and so three whole years third fourth and fifth grade of programming that existed at the elementary school level and yes it's given us some more student participation at the middle school level in our accelerate math in that one year accelerated in the two-year accelerated path and we're done and some other things have been great smaller class sizes are fantastic introducing robotics stuff and preschool students are fantastic but some of these things don't have to be mutually exclusive and all this would work if students were getting what they But ultimately that's not what's happening you know during that they're getting they're reading when

091they're done early they're being handed Tangy Tuesday worksheets working Wednesday worksheets they are being put on i-Ready so computer programs worksheets you know some split up group work but they're not actively engaged by their teachers um and you know something about a group of three kids together who are more talented than that that have been working on some harder problems but that doesn't replace the identification um and so parents are recognizing that this is a problem and you know this is a continued issue um you know we appreciate the Court's engagement on it um and hopefully you know it'd be great if we didn't have to come back next year and have a similar conversation um but I wanted to address a couple of the obstacles that came up because um you know there are

092surmountable obstacles and then there's it's around to mentioned I heard that we've made seven new sections of elementary school students which probably requires space in the elementary schools so if we didn't have the space to get enough students in an accelerated math we managed to Max Faith to space to make seven individual sections of Elementary is great for class sizes but you know if we needed to I'm sure we could we really wanted to make this happen we can figure out how to create enough space for enough students to be engaged and accelerated um you know there's a mention of what happens if a student finishes the math curriculum early um well yeah I was one of those students it wasn't a problem we made our first period in high school pre-period and we drove

093to RBI in the morning you know many different engineering classes at RPI you know when you want to surmount these problems it's doable we saw with the school district did during mountains so these obstacles that we're hearing don't seem all that in Mr Hospital s but when I was in training you know your job as a resident when you're working with patients you're kind of a woman to go involved and sometimes you just had to get fixed on for patients and we used to always go down to the facilities manager and say uh house person when you get X Y and Z Dot and then we've told hey you know it's after hours or like The Operators are all busy we can't make that happen and then one day the facilities manager goes out and

094we're looking for someone who might be able to help and and we found someone else and the person left it looked at me and said well you need to make that happen for the patient I said yeah okay we'll make it happen so sure enough you know they made it happen and from that point on they made it happen so when you want to make things happen when you want to implement a program like this I think we could find a little to do it in the way they're doing so I'd love to hear maybe in the future at another okay what are the options if we don't have space What would be our our potential options you know does it in another classroom does it mean outfitting part of the cafeteria during the middle

095of the morning during the first part of the morning have teachers meet there was students you know what would be the options how would we make this happen and what would that look like so thank you all very much and I hope everyone has a great summer thank you thank you [Music] hello my name is I really appreciate thank you for walking us through the history of that I am new to the district this year as a parent my fourth grade but I did attend Glenmont School in the early 90s and hated playing around school and what we did then was there were different Math teachers so everyone had math at the same time and you would go to different classes and like you'd split the classroom up and that way you sort of address

096some of the social issues that you were talking about like kids feeling like they're being pulled out so everyone who was in the enriched map was in the same class and you would just Shuffle around which was also really great for a sort of practice before going to the middle school also there's like just one little opportunity in the day to move around the school a little bit go to a different classroom and get your math education done that way so I just I I hear a lot of what you're talking about with like social concerns and I would like to Echo what David said I'm not looking for acceleration I'm looking for enrichment I'm looking for engaged Learners here like I'm in Early Childhood educator myself and my kids might not remember what I

097told them when they're in high school but they're engaged and happy in my class and that's what I care about so I just would like to present that as an option for your consideration if you have these amazing new programs happening maybe one teacher at the fourth grade level at the history level is the expert on the Olympiad program this new Silicon Valley program and there's an opportunity for you to accumulate a critical mass of students who are all working on this project together because while in my experience while small groups are amazing for ELA work for discussing books and stuff like that two or three kids in a math group is not as strong as a larger class other people's questions were you get to think about everything by yourself too so I just

098like to I know that I don't know what we do anymore like I said I've been to the district as a parent but way back when that's what we used to do for her math enrichment at the elementary school level and I'd just encourage you to think about if that's a potential option so that we can you know and also I think from a teacher's standpoint if you get to be an expert on that one thing I think it makes you a stronger educator in that as opposed to having to do remedial and enriched and all of those things at once if you get to sort of specialize a little bit more thank you thank you hey everyone my name is Pete Rose by scene and um I wanted to thank you for the opportunity

099to speak and I came here tonight first of all just to State I know that Dr Ellis Williams is leaving the district and I wanted to see how grateful I am that I've had the opportunity to work with her over the past year I was I participated in the diversity equity and inclusion or Dei working group for parents and Guardians and this was a really welcome opportunity to engage with other community members and Dr Ellis Williams in a safe space that focused on Dei priorities aimed at making sure that all people heal us on simple belonging in the Bethlehem schools super nervous but and I just wanted to remind you so I Dr Alice Williams work group aligned with the focuses of the greater Bethlehem School District Community we focused on community character and Wellness

100and some of the priority topics for discussion included thinking about professional development that supports Innovative inclusive and culturally responsive teaching and learning was hearing all of you speak about how deeply you care about students and know that this is important for you um we didn't dive too deep into this but I think something really important is recruiting and retaining and developing a diverse faculty and staff so that all of the students at the school see themselves reflected in the staff and have us have someone that they can go to who really sees and understands them and I know that a lot of students found that in Dr Ellis Williams which I think is critical and important to students while being we talked about amplifying student voices and encouraging student leadership opportunities and also providing inclusive

101programs that strengthen the emotional and physical wellness of students um in her short time at Bethlehem Dr Ellis Williams served as a welcoming and engaging leader who I know connected with many parents staff and her departure really is a tremendous loss to the community so with her departure I am curious about the school district's intentions to fill her position this is a leadership position that I firmly believe is critical to the success and well-being of all Bethlehem students so the Dei needs across our district really are extensive and Urgent and I know that Dr Ellis Williams did everything she possibly could to address these priorities during her time with us so I think it's clear that these initiatives really are needed to make Bethlehem schools a welcoming space where people can be their most authentic

102selves and really see and believe that they have in here and tell you so I'm asking all of you now to please recommit to supporting all students and ensuring that the next chief Dei officer is fully empowered to continue the tremendous work that Dr Elvis Williams started and I will ask you and hopefully hear at Future meetings and through the work that is done throughout the district how you're committed to ensuring that all Bethlehem students feel like they truly truly belong in our schools and our community thank you I'm Gianna hi it's a preparing in the district I also just want to thank Dr Ellis Williams for all of her work this year I was also a member of the parent group and it was an amazing opportunity she's one of a kind she took

103the time to get to know each and every person she worked with individually and personally she got to know the students on a personal level and the students will greatly miss her as well the parents and the district I wish her the best of luck looking forward I thank you for everything you did and it was a honor to get to know you and I also um Echo what Cabral said I look forward to the district figuring out how to move forward and continuing the work well thank you [Music] hello Cindy Ferrari here in the district I want to directly address you and thank you so much for all of your efforts I'm so sorry to see you to go uh thank you for your Excellence your commitment your expertise uh this is such an

104important position of incredibly sad to see you go um I just want you to know that there are many people who could not be here tonight who would Echo what Gianna and Kate Rose have said and they are sorry to not be here and even though I didn't have any comments I just wanted to speak from the heart and say we are incredibly sorry to see you go and there are many people that feel this way and as usual I'd like to thank all of you for your commitment for what you do on a volunteer and paid basis I hope it is not thankless work you are appreciated and I wish you the best of luck in selecting someone um I don't know if we could ever get someone as possible miss you but I

105know that we will bring someone in who will continue this very important work thank you thank you foreign um again we were asking what the plan was last year I did ask the teacher on the first day of school in September and she would be differentiate the children because we knew that our son was a little bit ahead and not really you know fourth grading math and is there anything she can do and she said no I'm not able to differentiate energy in the classroom um I didn't uh you know I sort of went along and thought things would get better last year that things would change things didn't change it wasn't a great year for him we did talk to a different people who was very kind there were a lot of people a

106few weeks ago with you I probably received clearly cares about the children and they did what they could they started an after school math Olympia group for 30 minutes on Wednesdays for about two and a half three months or so I mentioned the issues with that in my letter that not all students who are interested can attend after school activities and really the bottom line is as parents we're really looking for we're really looking for one thing which is math at our child's level during the school day so they have six hours from nine to three you know I think it's a pretty basic thing that we're looking for your subject like you know underwater basket weaving or something different is it common for subject and critical to their success in the future so I

107really appreciate I do appreciate your thoughts on potentially doing something like math Olympia during the day maybe the Silicon Valley critical or initiative anything really that puts the kids in a small group with a teacher where they can do problem solving is really what they're looking for instead of sometimes you know you have a build curve in a classroom and then instead of okay you're fine you're behaving yourself so you go do that you go stare at that screen over there or you know the next hour and really our children don't enjoy screens we don't really have screens in the home and we are really just asking for in person small group or at least at their level I think it should be like David said able to be accomplished during the school day so

108and just to address a couple other things attending through Tuesday morning Wednesday we our sons have received those since since kindergarten first grade second and you know they're they're third fourth fifth now and after years of doing hey Tuesday worksheets um you know more creative can be thought of and we do really appreciate your time and engagement on this issue thank you thank you so much hello I'm Christine Bond I'm a parent in the community and I'm also an educator thanks again I want to thank you all for a little too much of your time but I just wanted to highlight a couple you know I really appreciate that the district is taking action on this issue and looking at how to differentiate for our children um but the one thing that I want to

109keep going back to in my mind is that the smaller classroom has not changed the ability to differentiate right now and we are at the Slingerlands my son is has a phenomenal teacher who's been blown away by her and she's been able to put him in some smaller math groups this year um he still doesn't love math he's like well Mom it's warning I just have to sit with these you know and work on these problems by myself and if I have a question it's kind of hard to get the attention of the teacher rightfully so she's working with all of these other kids and so I think that differentiation although it is in theory fantastic when and when we actually can take the time to give so and that goes for both sides the

110students that you know need more in aviation and students so giving more resources to teachers is is awesome but again we're asking them to do more and I think that that's really hard those teachers have a lot on their face already and so asking them to do more within either on your curriculum or anything of that matter um I just think is unrealistic um but I'm hopeful that I'll be here again next year to follow up but again thank you for all you're doing and thank you [Music] there we go I was like I can't hear anyone my hearing's really going um I'm Alex Perlmutter I'm a parent of um two children at um eagle and I wanted to just say a couple things first um um I spoke to you guys before so you

111probably remember me I'm speaking to the math enrichment loss thereof and the also the loss of the RTI um I'm sorry if I'm not using those terms but I did um so one thing I want to say is when you gave us the statistics tonight about the sixth grade and the enrollment I guess I'm a little confused because I I think the sixth graders this year were third graders three years ago when in 20 2019 to 2020 they were still enrichment so if enrollment's up those kids were getting enrichment so I don't I'm not sure I understand the significance of that um also I just in my core I can't possibly believe that class sizes were 24 to 25 I think you said on average another 1918 in my experience I've had first second third

112came in first five um classes in my two children alone and they've all been between 20 and 21 while we were sitting here I texted like four friends and they say all their kids are in the past four years have been 20 21. that's not something that needs to be debated it can easily be fact checked so I just encourage everybody to actually look into that I just don't think the class sizes have changed that much in my own experience um I Echo what David said about or if someone said I'm sorry about not really seeing um about scene pushing children through their math enrichment to a point where they were then maxed out at our high school level as a problem I see that as a phenomenal problem one in which we can engage

113local colleges to push them to the next level it kind of makes me cringe to think that then the goal if that's the problem that what's the flip if the flip is then to sort of restrain or somehow direct so that they're not challenging the math limits at 11th and 12th grade to me feels like a real problem and actually treating the issue totally backwards um finally I guess with all of this we're talking about um some things we can measure um I'm technically I guess a scientist in that I have a medical degree so a lot of things that we do we don't really do it based on our intuition or our own narrative our own experience we do it Based on data and so in this case I think we can easily check

114not that I love i-Ready but we can look at iready scores and math over the past five years and see at Fifth Third you know third fourth fifth grades and sixth grades and see what's happened maybe I already stinks so maybe we look at the New York State scores I don't know it just seems like we shouldn't be going on our intuition or no on any one person's Intuition or even a board intuition like there's ways to look into this that's more scientific um second I think on the flip of it being science and scientific and maybe data driven these these numbers and these ideas how well are our kids doing with math there's also clearly a component of perception and opinion like what my third grader says he could just be a lazy third

115grader who doesn't want to work hard so he tells me it's boring so that could be one kid but if you survey all the parents if you survey all the teachers with those survey monkeys you might get some really useful information um interestingly you know five of us or six of us that come up and bark in your ears may actually have the opposite effect it might be annoying or maybe like ah these people what are they talking about but if you actually get the entire District teachers parents and ask these questions I mean we answer surveys about all sorts of stuff I think we I think last year the Food Services person said they put a survey at the high school level to say like what do you think about the food I mean

116why not ask kids why not ask parents like what do you think about the math because we may not we might be off we might be talking about six seven eight kids that don't like math so I encourage you to ask the community what they think about math and ask the teachers how they think math is going it can be anonymous it it just gives you all more data to work with that's all and oh most importantly thank you for your time thank you thank you thank you for all the effort you put into this thank you Dr Hurst for all of your efforts too I really appreciate it your interest and your engagement and responding to this on some of the things we brought up is super super optimistic for me thank you hello

117good evening my name is Greg Bedrosian I spoke at the last board meeting I have uh two well I only have one child left in Glenmont after today because one's moving up to the Middle School um and uh she is going to be in sixth grade she was definitely impacted by the lack of resources available to her she's a bright student and still does well but um is not as engaged as she was I do have another child who is going to be entering third grade and he had a phenomenal year um he's engaged uh from his report card teachers reports he's a model student he scores you know very high in his report cards as well as in the standardized testing through the state I ready et cetera all of those things um does

118great and what you know when I think about that you know it's a problem that the district has too many students that are Advanced and we don't know what to do with them in high school that seems like a really great problem to have just like one of the other parents said and you know I don't really think that we should be stifling it we should really be nurturing it because you know a lot of those students are pretty special and it is a pretty special district you know as you said like we're one of the only districts to have math at that level like there's there's a reason for that and it's because um of the continued you know success of this District being multi-generational bringing people back that have had success in this

119District back as well as attracting other people into this district from outside the area through its represent through its uh success and its results so you know when I think about it um you know I'm I'm not a physician or attorney as some of the other parents that came up here and it's easy to tell because if you want to know you know they'll let you know what they do but I do a very different thing and I do work for a um uh engineering and Sciences company um and one of the things that we do is when we have uh when we have data we certainly look at it and I wonder if we're looking at it the right way but we also do like there's there's a there's an objective and a subjective

120element to that and it's we start asking the five whys really to look at it and does it you know is what we're seeing does it does it make sense and then what can we change and improve and that's where I really think that we have the opportunity here to change and improve because we already have a solid foundation and and you know we do a lot across the district here and what I heard from um from Dr Hurst earlier was it sounded like what we had was we had the best of intentions but it was a program management issue where the implementation um was not even across the teacher training and then as as what was happening in the classrooms and [Applause] um you know I have a similar story of you know of

121all these other parents whether you know how many Tangy Tuesday sheets can you do you can start doing the next grades hanging Tuesdays then add more Tangy Tuesdays and when you're done with that go read a book um so really as I just really challenged the district to rethink this and what worked you know when I went to sawyerlands elementary school um you know was probably different than when my dad went to ellsmere elementary school my grandma went to well it's the town hall I don't even know what it was called then but it was used to be a school um so the solution for this generation of kids you know isn't stick a screen in their face and I think it's just it's going to have to be different and I just want to

122make sure that a couple things one the implementation plan for whatever the district sees fit is really carefully thought out and then two we level set everybody's expectations from the parents to the students to the teachers so that everybody's aligned on the same page and then we don't have to come to these meetings over and over again and take up the board's time with the same issue so thank you very much and thank you for the job that you do and volunteer for thank you thank you thank you hi my name is Lisa baranick I have a daughter in third grade in Slingerlands Elementary I'm here to talk about math enrichment first I want to thank you for the tremendous effort that you're making to bring math enrichment back into the school so I'm I'm

123I guess it's not math enrichment but math Olympiad Silicon Valley programs all sound incredibly exciting and um I trust that you're saying Dr Hurst I trust that these programs are going to really help our kids and I sincerely appreciate the effort that you put into that as you move forward with planning this I just want to share two stories about my daughter for you to consider as you implement these um my biggest concern is about the social emotional needs of gifted and talented children I guess for lack of a better description one concern is that these kids often struggle with dealing with failure right so they have not been challenged they haven't faced failures in the school when I heard some parents talk in the last school board meeting about how their kids break down

124when they face difficult problems I thought to myself well that's not my kid so I gave her some challenging math a couple days ago I got her Beast Academy we worked through an assessment she had math problems that really pushed her and she had a complete and utter meltdown it was horrible to see this is a kid who's coming home getting perfect scores on math all the time she has never faced failure before so as you implement these new programs I really ask you to make sure every kid is being challenged whatever that looks like will be so beneficial for all of our kids the second request I'd like to make for social and emotional needs for gifted and talented children is that you help them find other kids who are like them so we

125just had field day this past week kids love field day they just love it my daughter came home and said she wanted to make a cape for field day and as she was debating whether or not to make this cape she said well you know I don't know if the kids are going to make fun of me but the other everybody knows I'm a weirdo I'm kind of known as being a weirdo um and I think this is a common sentiment among gifted and talented children they they know that they're different and their peers know that they're different so um however you implement this in the fall I would just love to see that that teachers are aware of trying to make sure that every kid feels included and every kid feels that they can

126belong so that our most talented kids don't feel like they need to make a choice a very difficult Choice alone where they either choose to have friends and hide their talents and hide their creative ideas or where they feel they can find other kids who are like them and they can showcase and explore and be creative and make capes for field day thank you thank you all right I don't think I see anybody else I got your request I think would probably need pretty quickly so I think we'll be all right thanks 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 seven any discussion all in favor okay any opposed any extensions that carries be professional Personnel

127action items it is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education approve the following professional Personnel action items one through thirteen wait a minute that's actually 14 1 through 14. second any discussion uh oh you go I just wanted to Echo um the comments from a couple of community members about the departure of Dr Ellis Williams thank you for the year you spent I'm sorry it wasn't longer I appreciate jump starting a lot of English and work in the district you will certainly do this and I also wanted to um oh the 0.25 FTE music teacher I know we've talked a couple of meetings about that 0.25 leaving and then coming back and I 0.5 was caught right and we're bringing back 45. got it that makes more sense um but I I appreciate

128that I think at all I think that's a valuable change Catherine yeah and I also want to um add my thanks with everybody else's thanks for your time this year Dr Ellis Williams you'll be missed you have um your work and your talents and your dedication has helped to um move the fall ball down the field I don't know what the right metaphor here is but help to advance um bethlehem's consideration of equity inclusion and belonging issues that I really appreciate all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions that carries item D other action items it is recommended by the superintendent of the Board of Education to prove the following action items one through eight it's nine it's nine [Music] um my four dogs I'm showing this on item d I did see there's night

129on C nope we just did professional personnel for personalities all right well just in case we'll do I thought I did see but just in case we'll do it again um it is recommended by the superintendent the Board of Education approved the following support staff action items one through nine so seconding all in favor I any opposed any abstentions that carries now D other action items it is recommended by the superintendent of the Board of Education to prove the following action items one through eight so second uh any discussion all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions that carries item seven recognition of public comment on a non-agenda item if we have any visitors who would like to address the board on a non-agend item that would be the time to come to the microphone

130thank you have been sitting too long hi I'm Christine decancio for those of you that don't know me I'm here for two reasons tonight um the first I want to congratulate the class of 2023. this class started with mid-coven their years their four years here have been unremarkable these young adults have endured some of the toughest times I've ever seen imaginable especially two girls during this pandemic these students have exhibited exhibited resilience resourcefulness and quite often have become unremarkably creative young adults and it's truly inspirational to watch they've grown up as young adults with inspiring minds and quite a bit of motivation oh the Places they will go congratulations again to the class of 2023. the second reason I'm here unfortunately Christine Beck is not here and I wanted to thank her for her years

131of service here on the board she spent many nights at this table working hard for our community I truly believe the district the students the families as well as the fundamentals of Education have always been the focus of her commitment to Bethlehem School District her attention to detail her unwavering commitment to do the right thing and her loyalty the people she represented have always been met with Integrity respect and true devotion oh we have definitely had our spirited debates I think it's the name about the fundamentals of Education our Bethlehem Community the budget process special education CTE programs in the high school there wasn't much we didn't discuss however we always maintained mutual respect for each other and our differences and I thank her for that she truly was a professional I never second guessed

132her core values they were never wavered in all the time she was part of this board her values and commitments always pledged were pledged to the students and the philosophy of an excellent education for all was deserved lastly I want to publicly thank her from the bottom of my heart for standing up for the girls my girl she gave them a voice David and I will truly forever be grateful you made families feel she made families feel that they were listened to and valued as an equal member of our school and athletic community more importantly she made the girls feel validated supported advocated for and at times ultimately been Vindicated she truly made them feel like someone was practicing what they preach and not just window dressing behind the valuation validation this this doesn't happen

133in our district because it did and it does thank you Christine Beck for all you've done it has meant the world to many families for your years of service thank you my name is Justin Moe and I would like to speak on a topic that has continued to be concerned to my peers as a student in the high school through all the months since it has been announced which is the Yonder phone pouches so the first thing I would like to address on that is that um the school is implementing this policy I believe because uh has been demonstrated that phones have had a negative impact on mental health and something that I think a doctor has presented um a month ago or something and I I think I would like to address that first

134which is that there's been data showing in the past decade with vastly increased social media use that the rates of self-harm rates of anxiety depression and suicide have all increased and the first uh how I'd like to address that is that um it is that these are just showing a correlation between increased phone use and amongst teens and young adults and not establishing causation because in many other Western countries where social media use has also increased drastically like Sweden and um and Denmark uh the same uh statistics cannot be shown for example in Denmark the uh incidents of self-harm have decreased since 2008 steadily for boys and girls uh to 2016 uh while for Sweden uh the rates of self-harm for uh boys have remained consistent uh from 2011 to 2021 I could not find

135any more recent data on that and then for girls at it stayed consistent until 2020 when the pandemic started uh when it's shot up drastically so that seems to indicate that it is not necessary that the increased rates in of self-harm that we have seen in the U.S are caused by increased phone usage additionally uh these are countries which have extensive social um safety nets which can can be seen as a cause for these better results however in a country in Iceland which is very similar demographics to Denmark and Sweden uh the same results are not seen um instead for girls and uh there has been a drastic rise and for boys a moderate rise of anxiety from 2012 to 2016. so I think this is just an indication of the complex network of facts

136that can cause increases in self-harm anxiety and depression and that we should not just attribute this to um phones secondly I want to talk about the ease of communication that phones allow between parents and children it is true that let's say five or ten years back it is a lot more common to see parents and students communicating through the telephone at the main office and that served its use in the time but as phone usage among uh high schools has increased students and parents alike have gone used to using phones a lot more to communicate with each other during the school day and have seen the benefits that they allow like a month back for example I was going to get have an appointment but then it was canceled like two hours before and that

137was something that could communicate easily to me through a phone and would not requiring me for example to receive a call and then go down to the main office called down to the main office and then go back up which will just use up more class time and so as students and parents alike have discovered the benefits of easier phone communication we should not just take them away by restricting phones completely in high schools um my final point on this issue is that phone sleeves uh no uh I mean phones uh are part of our Lives now if we look at the phone usage rates in the US especially in an affluent area like this uh there near Universal and so as students most students will be moving on into college they will have to

138deal with the question of phone usage I myself take two courses have taken two courses at UAlbany and uh in my own experience with those courses there's absolutely no restriction on phone usage at all so it is it is your choice whether you you a user phone in class is your choice whether you succeed or do not or not in that class and right now there's a very nice system here at Bethlehem Central where in the Middle School phone usage is completely restricted from middle schoolers uh I believe that the current system is that they must put their phones in their lockers they have it and cannot have it during out during the school day in high school right now there are the phone sleeves which mean that students cannot have phones in class so

139what this allows is a nice transition to Freedom as students enter uh their adult lives but if we implement the Yonder pouches it would uh destroy this nice progression instead they would go from complete restrictions uh an education to no restrictions at all and I don't think that would uh be beneficial for students so even if with the implementation of pouches we see a reduction of phone usage and distractions in the high school level at the tertiary education level we may actually see that betham students are struggling even more than their peers with phone usage and that is not to say that phone usage in students is never will not disappear for any reason if you came to the library media center at the high school in this past semester you would see um several

140maybe like two or three chess games every period there because as chess has become more popular uh students will go uh gravitate to an activity like chess that does not require phone usage so what this shows to us is that reduction of phone usage cannot come from an outside a force imposing it in because it would just become an issue later on it has to come with students finding their own Hobbies as we have seen so with all this being said I just wonder if the 28 000 that is being used for your pouches is really inadequate spending of money with the supply side issues and of course the pilot funds which will disappear uh will mostly disappear soon thank you item eight future meetings and events um as mentioned on Friday at 6 30

141is the class of 2023's graduation and then our next board meeting is on July 6th that's the board's organizational meeting anticipating executive session at six and the regular board meeting starting at seven and then the meeting after that is calendar for August 16th and again anticipating executive session at six and the regular board meeting at seven I'm seeing no need to go back into executive session could I have a motion to adjourn the meeting all in favor hi meeting adjourned