BCSD Board of Education meeting 6/15/2022

001change the layout a little bit let's go you're live who is that for who's foreign oh yes [Music] okay um foreign the zoom to this isn't working so she's just zooming in that sounds creepy uh if we can reconvene our meeting to open session um with apologies for being a few minutes late um and we're i think this is only our second time in this room so we're still figuring out how it all works um the uh the board has been an executive session since 5 30 to discuss a confidential personal matter if we could all stand i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all introductions first on the agenda is it

002is recommended by the superintendent for the board of education approve the minutes from the june 1st 2022 regular board meetings second um any discussion all in favor any extensions that carries next are our meeting reports and versus our superintendent's report yep um we have some elementary students who are here from glenmont and hammagrell and laura heffernan the principal of glenmont and ian knox are here they wanted to talk a little bit about juneteenth and what their students have done so i'll turn it to them for a few minutes hi i'm laura heffernan the principal at glenmont elementary school the glenmont pta equity diversity and inclusion committee is proud to announce a partnership with hammer grill elementary school to celebrate juneteenth juneteenth is an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the united states and

003it has been celebrated by african americans since the late eighteen hundreds a retired teacher named opal lee was instrumental in getting juneteenth recognized as a federal holiday in 2021 so glenmont students were invited to participate in an art contest in honor of opal lee and her contributions to juneteenth and we had any type of visual art and these are three of our winners that we're going to be presenting in just a minute but first i would like to turn the microphone over to mr ian knox thank you just a quick couple of thank yous thank you to the hamriel pta in collaboration with glenmont pta for joining us or helping us collaborate this year this project i love books donated six gift cards to our students who are winners this month so congratulations to you

004three for being here we had over 35 submissions for this project centered around empowerment activism humanity and they were able to do anything around art writing poetry and we have three students from hammer growl we'll present first and then we'll go over to glenmott so first we have jade bailly from fifth grade we have miles wilmot from fifth grade and ava rothenberg from fourth grade so jade come on over i'll hold the mic for you and you can present your project hello my name is jade and today i'm going to be doing an acrostic poem juneteenth is also known as freedom day or emancipation day you have to wonder why texans and 250 000 slaves didn't know that slavery was illegal for more than two years on june 19 1865 major gordon granger and one

005thousands of uni union soldiers emancipation proclamation was signed confederate states did not free their slaves until after the civil war was over texas was the first state to recognize juneteenth as an official holiday even after granger became came to texas some slave owners did not tell their slaves until after the fall harvest one reason could be news did not travel very fast in the 1800s end of end of slavery is generally celebrated by festivals this holiday recognizing the end of slavery is generally celebrated by festivals the emancipation proclamation had freed slaves held in confederate states juneteenth history by ava rothenberg juneteenth is a day to honor the day when notice of emancipation got to the very last group of slaves saying that they were free at first enslaved people didn't know what to do some

006set off to find relatives and make plans with them some set off to find missing children or family and others stayed on the plantation and made deals with the owners some saying that they would still work but not for free and not in harsh conditions most of all juneteenth is a day to celebrate and not until last year was juneteenth declared a federal holiday june 10th is a day for all colors to accept and notice that we're all free and we've all broken through the chains [Applause] my name is miles wilmot and i wrote a poem called 19 about juneteenth june 19th when dreams returned when the chains were broken and hope was restored when dreams once shattered were put back together a day when slavery ended and people were free june 19th the day

007when the last people accepted they accepted the idea that all people should be free black americans were finally free from slavery they didn't have to be treated like an object for the first time in centuries they were free june 19th when one obstacle was taken down people still have to fight for their rights their voice they do even now but one obstacle had been removed freeing them letting them work letting them do what they needed to get their voice across the land june 19th a day when people were freed and slavery ended when black people had a chance at a future a day where they could use their voice a voice that had been trapped so long and to this day they still use that voice and even though it was one obstacle it was

008a big one and now people are free thank you actually just stay right here for a minute we'll probably do a picture then so i'd like to introduce dylan dalia and he's going to show us our art and tell us about the art that he did he's in kindergarten hi i am hi i am leah and i drew a picture of the hand the chains were broken and there were hearts on my picture butterfly and a bird here can you hold it this way thank you so much dylan can you stand back first lily lily come on up let's i'm going to hold yours okay this is lily thompson and she is in first grade do you want us to tell us a little bit about your picture or your poster that you made [Music]

009oppo lee taught me that um nobody's free until we all are three thank you very much thank you lily and this is ava schultz and she's in fourth grade hi my name is ava schultz and i am fourth grade at glama elementary school the butterflies around butterflies that are flying around the tree represent the slaves that were freed the big butterfly on the tree represents oppo li and how she fought for the holiday june 10 to be celebrated by the whole country i chose purple because it was her favorite color thank you and congratulations to all of our winners thank you to our our pta leader for our equity diversity and inclusion committee philip pozak at glenmon school and all of our committee members at both hammer grill and glenmon it's been a wonderful chance

010for our two schools to collaborate on this very important holiday so thank you so much to the board of ed for letting us present tonight thank you guys for coming um i love your artwork and your poems and your writings and if i could give you guys all a pin for all your hard work here um [Music] [Applause] those were all fantastic yes yes you are welcome to stay but you are also welcome to leave if you prefer thank you very much thank you thank you [Music] so we have a next uh some high school students a little bit older uh that we wanted to show a short video on the uh st rose program and then i don't know if uh ms johnson if you want to introduce any of the individuals who are

011here if you want to do that before or after the video why don't we do the video first okay [Laughter] great [Music] open these doors [Music] searching horizons for all that is [Music] i am an ego my vision is glory [Music] the higher i fly [Music] each one a [Music] cause i am an ego [Music] i am [Music] back to september [Music] take what we can [Music] will happen [Music] with changes in storms [Music] never surrender never give up on the fight [Music] keeping your friends [Music] my vision is glowing [Music] remember the laughter remember the efforts [Music] you [Music] always [Music] [Applause] [Music] y'all are killing me tonight so um last month we got the joy of experiencing this at the college of st rose but we really wanted to make sure everybody here

012back in district got to see the great work that everybody's been doing so we have little bc pins so i'm going to invite liv lauren and matthew to come up meet the board and get a pin and i really really want to thank the staff that have worked so hard over the last three years to put this program together it's growing and getting stronger so come on up [Applause] [Music] sure [Laughter] [Applause] and you all are welcome to stay or to leave too so [Laughter] let's see a mass exodus thank you congratulations and just a couple other um or uh smaller things i'm going to turn it over to judy for a quick update on bond ratings go from that willow you won't cry cry tears of joy but anyway so the um we sold

013about uh 25 million dollars in bonds today and when the financial advisors started calling me yesterday with warnings about what to expect given the volatility in the market over the last few days i was expecting something in the mid to high three percent range on these bonds and happy to report we had wonderful interest we had eight bidders on these bonds and the low bid was 2.56 so um that's a fantastic result given the current state of the stock market and the economy and we're locked in this is the permanent financing on the capital project that we completed a year ago so um we're thrilled with that result and uh holly as uh board president will sign her life away on the closing documents in about another week and a half so thank you for

014that happy information judy and also um i wanted to ask dave we've had a couple questions regarding um math rti at the elementary school in the challenge math program so i thought he would just provide the board with an update on that sure thanks so um this is sort of just a way of synthesizing and summarizing information that i provided back on december 1st when i did the academic update um january 19th when we talked about mtss and then may 4th where we specifically talked about architect math um so i'll start with our guy let me start actually with what led us to this point so prior to covet we had 84 sections at the elementary level and we had 11 rti or challenge math specialists at that time our class averages were running 22

015to 23. our intermediate levels had classroom sizes of 2627 just to give you some perspective um when kobit came with the reduction in social distancing we needed to be able to make our classrooms much smaller so we reassigned all of our specialists to classrooms so for the past two years we've actually had 96 sections which has decreased our overall class size down to an average of about so our intermediate grade levels where they were accustomed to having 26 27 students they now have 18 19 students so that's as you can imagine that allows you to do much more individualization much more time spent when you break students up into groups so first i'll touch on rti then so how do we address rti in terms of no longer having a pull out model so in

016the past again students were identified for needing some extra help with math they were pulled out of the classroom for 30 minutes a couple times a week they worked on basic skills and then they returned back to the classroom so now again because of reduced class sizes teachers are able to keep the groups they're able to have more touch points with individual students within the group setting so they're able to provide the differentiation necessary within that model now that being said we've really only been able to start to get back to teachers working individually with groups since about march right you recall all of last year and the first two thirds of this year students weren't allowed to face each other in the classroom let alone working groups right so this is definitely something that

017is just coming back on board the last two to three months all right so likewise the challenge program um so the way that existed in prior was third and fourth graders um so a handful of each building were identified to be part of the challenge program and what that was it was similar to rti it was basically a 30 minute pull out once a week and what the students worked on was basically critical thinking and problem solving so they did some coding they did some work with robots they did some logic puzzles things of that nature but it was again one day a week 30 minutes with the class sizes being what they are this can now be handled within the classroom and actually to a greater extent and i'm going to back up to

018in december when i talk about the new standards one of the new standards coming on board are computer science and digital fluency standards so our library media specialists are now going to be doing carrying a much greater larger role in this area so not just challenges but all students are going to be exposed to a much deeper and wider range of problem solving and critical thinking activities we've purchased robots for all of the buildings um so for grades k2 they have one that are appropriate for that level grades three five they have one that are appropriate for that level so students on a routine basis will now be exposed to um coding and just give an idea what it looks like in the primary level it's very very basic it's basically students are given there's

019like six different colored mats and each color represents an action right one color might mean go forward one might mean turn right you basically tell students i need you to get the robot from point a to point b and they lay these mats out in the proper sequence so they can get the robot to move there so it's not really coding in terms of what you would consider traditional kodi but it lays that foundation for building algorithms and logical thinking right and that the older grade is more of a drag and drop coding where again you're not hard coding but you're given icons on the computer that you can drag around and tell the robot what to do in a very similar fashion so we are definitely extending our enrichment program but again not just

020to the handful of students but to all students and because our class sizes are so much smaller again our teachers have more opportunity to have individual touch points with students to better differentiate now again the last two years even with the smaller class sizes that's going to challenge like i said students couldn't even face each other let alone working groups or individually with teachers so we've only really been able to start this type of work the last two months so in the fall you can expect to see a much different elementary experience for students so ways that we have to plan for that this summer we have our annual tech boot camp and there are sessions that are specifically geared to help teachers better differentiate with students not just our struggling learners but also our

021advanced learners and when i say reach our advanced learners again it's more about reaching them and providing enrichment for them without acceleration so that's kind of the third component that i want to talk about as you know the new york state learning standards recommend acceleration in seventh grade for years we did it in fifth grade we actually found that there were many challenges associated with that the greatest challenge actually was that certain buildings were kids were being left out of the accelerated process simply because there were so many kids in that building and only one section whereas at other buildings like ellsmere students were put into it just because the numbers were small enough that basically half the kids could be in accelerate so it was a very inequitable experience and we were finding that

022when students got to the middle school we had several students from some of the smaller buildings that were struggling because they probably should have never been accelerated and then we had students from the large buildings that were thriving in the regular math section because they probably should have been accelerated so by doing it now in sixth grade all students will have the opportunity to be accelerating in sixth grade based on what it should be based on right student performance and student ability um so we've rewritten our sixth grade curriculum so that it covers the sixth and seventh grade material essentially all the essential proponents of it we'll still have a double accelerated program which means students will still be able to take calculus three and linear algebra as seniors and if you couple that with

023a handful of students that take computer science and ap stats on top of that you can get 24 27 credits in math computer science without leaving right so there are huge advantages still built in for our students um so really you know the program is changing in name and that we're not going to have something called pull out rtm math we're not going to have to pull out our challenge program but the components of those programs are still going to exist they're going to exist within the classroom within the library media center because we have smaller groups of students to be able to handle this then again the acceleration removed this is something we've been considering for quite some time now and kobe sort of forced our hand in that we are now accelerating when

024it is actually appropriate to do so in middle school where every student has access to it the other recommendation the reason they suggested wait for middle school is as you know they one of the reasons they chose seventh grade is many schools case six is elementary right so seventh grade is a point where students have access to teachers that are certified in math that's what they went to school for so to be able to compress a curriculum is much more appropriate for a teacher that was specifically trained in math pedagogy to be able to handle so just trying to clear up some misconceptions again to try to say what's happening these last two years compares what we did in the past you can't our students just they couldn't work in groups they couldn't even face

025each other but i think you'll see a much different experience next year thanks for that update and just one thing that we've talked about with the board with rti and even other services pull-outs is a real challenge for teachers when kids are continuously pulled out because if they're pulled out from their classrooms they're missing instructions so it's keeping it within the classroom is allowing those students to stay in the classroom and not miss other parts of their school day judy dave um based on the two months this year and you may not be able to answer this because it's only two months and if not what are you looking at next year do you did you see or do you expect that the decreased class size will result in greater mastery of the subject matter

026and how will you measure whether or not it does yeah so all i can say is that the little test out that we do have are the i ready results right and they've essentially stayed at the same level as they were with the larger class sizes i would anticipate that as time progresses and we're able to work more closely with the smaller groups and again have a more added focus because we're also spending time rewriting our curriculum so sort of a two-step process um we are working with cap region boces to develop much more targeted prioritized curriculum we already did some preliminary work in-house but now we're working with boces to take it sort of a step further so the combination of the smaller class sizes and the prioritized curriculum with teach not just student

027learning targets but teacher teaching points if you will will help us moving forward and really the ways to assess our i mean we've got our local assessments but the air ready assessment really helps because it allows us we're able to compare to ourselves historically but we're also able to compare it to national and state norms thank you catherine did you have something yeah a couple questions thank you so much for bringing it this evening because this is a conversation that's come back to me a couple of times and so i just wanted to ask a couple clarifying questions on what you said just to make sure i'm understanding um did you say that just for accelera uh for accelerated math is it going to be sixth and seventh grade that's accelerated in sixth grade or

028seventh and eighth that's accelerated in seven so in sixth grade um about usually it's between 30 and 40 of our students will be taking a combined sixth and seventh grade curriculum will then allow based off of that cohort some of them in eighth or seventh grade we'll take algebra and some will take eighth grade math okay and then in eighth grade some will take algebra and some will take geometry perfect thank you so much that's kind of the single indulge so that part really hasn't changed that the seventh and eighth grade is where it's always been the difference is we used to combine in fifth grade some students took fifth and sixth grade simultaneously and we're just bumping that up instead of doing that we're saying okay get your solid foundation of fifth grade and

029then in sixth grade we're going to combine six and seven which is actually a more natural two grades to combine than it was fifth and sixth thank you and then you had also said next year is going to be look differently than this year and i'm wondering if you're referring to the um the curriculum that's being rewritten or just the ability to structure the classroom differently or if there's other factors a little bit of both so um the curriculum is being looked at again for math specifically we're not actually all disciplines but thank you math and ela really the heaviest lift over this summer um so the again the structure teachers have only really had a couple months to kind of work with these smaller class sizes so like i said this summer um and

030into the fall we're gonna do much more training in terms of how exactly it is that you work with smaller class sizes because if you look at the research on smaller class sizes if you simply decrease class size but don't change any teaching behaviors there's no added benefit right you can have 90 kids in the classroom you can have 10 kids in the classroom and you approach it the same exact way it doesn't matter but if you change your instructional practices where you are more differentiating because you're able to with smaller class sizes where you know we're able to more individualize instructions the students are really struggling um that's where you see the big benefit and you can't do that with 90 kids but you can with 10 right so right if your instructional practices

031don't change smaller class sizes don't build benefits so we're going to continue to work with teachers on what are the instructional changes that need to take place in order to work with smaller class sizes thank you and then for for families either on the rti or the challenge and who are frustrated um how would you advise them now in this moment i understand what you're saying that next year's gonna shift but um again i've heard from a couple of families and a bunch of pent up frustration and so i'm just wondering what are your what are your thoughts for for managing that or for working with until you actually see it in full practice i can understand why people are frustrated right because it's not it hasn't been designed it hasn't been working the way

032it's designed to work right because we haven't been able to fully implement what needs to be implemented in terms of keeping the group small individualizing work having teachers work with small groups um at a time pulling students aside one at a time right that's only been able to happen the last couple months so to expect teachers in the last couple months to sort of dramatically change their practice it's you know it's it's hard right so they probably are still somewhat trying to navigate just just even getting students to talk to one another again right um that's one of the biggest things when i talk to teachers is like what's the biggest change you've seen coming out of coburn like we're spending time just getting students to be able to have a conversation and either agree

033or disagree with one another like they don't even want to engage in conversation because it's been so long since they've had to um so there's learning not just for you know the teachers how to implement but also students how to have discourse right so that's a huge part of it um and again there's always going to be anomalies that we work with right so um we have had in the past that there are students that are just beyond being able to be handled within the classroom and we've had instances where students have in fourth grade gone to the middle school for instance for math those are rare exceptions but you know as we identify those things they happen but do we identify those in kindergarten first second grade no we need time to kind of

034evaluate where students truly are fully do things like that but we do look at students still on an individual there's always sort of the rare exceptions right so that's in terms of the acceleration piece on the rti piece we also used to hear complaints back to jody's point you know my student keeps missing all this work they're getting pulled out for math and they get pulled out for reading now they're getting pulled out for speech and all of a sudden like they're actually never in the classroom so the more we can do within the classroom the better it is so another thing we're doing k2 next year is um we're actually pushing in because you know early intervention is key right so k2 next year we're going to have sort of stations set up within

035every k2 classroom on a rotating basis where you're going to have reading teachers pushing in otp speech so that all students get sort of a base level of touch points on those areas and then hopefully that prevents them from being identified or for meeting those services in the future which again limits the need to pull students out that's the biggest disruption to a student's days constantly pulling them out right thank you for thank you for clarifying i appreciate that i would think 95 year olds would be really difficult by the way speaking of having been in two kindergarten classes in the last two days um so finally just to wrap up my report i wanted to um thank jonathan and wendy this is their last official board meeting um and i just want to say

036it's been a pleasure having both of you on the board and um i hope that you don't miss too badly these wednesday night meetings and other meetings i'm sure you'll be able to find some time but uh i really appreciate not only all the time that you've uh given to board members but all the other things that you've been a part of in the district so i just want to thank you both for your service you're right you stole the first thing i was going to say i also wanted to thank the music department for the series of concerts that have been going on the past couple weeks at the middle school and at the high school they were all tremendous and it was great to hear a lot of live music being played i

037also wanted to congratulate the ms edgar and the cast and crew of the vj cat production of midsummer night's dream that was this weekend everybody did a fabulous job and they made great use of this newly renovated space in here and then i also wanted to thank the advisors and students that put together the asian food festival that was hosted by alana on friday i'm not sure how many people had a chance to stop by but i think next year they if they do it again they might need to have even more food because i think they ran out of food pretty quickly it was very good and uh and i'm hoping that they do it again because it definitely made for a nice friday night dinner um and then the last thing that i

038have is june being pride month the board wanted to wanted to recognize the occasion and we wanted to make some book donations to all of our school buildings um and i can say the ones that are coming from me um are going to slingerlands and i have when aiden became a brother gracefully grayson and cry the story of harvey milk and the rainbow flag and then alex on behalf of christine her books are going to the middle school and she is donating the pants project heart stopper number two a graphic novel which is apparently so popular it's on backorder and small town pride i didn't know if anybody else wanted to share if they had different books that are going to some of our other buildings sure i'll be glad to start these books are

039going to go to glenmont and the first one is called mama and mommy and me in the middle and it's about a small family that experiences a little bit of trauma when a parent has to leave for a little while and they have to get get it all back together once when she returns then we have babe the cat which i'm a cat fan so i know how hard that task is and we also have the best you going to going to glenmont um and i just wanted to say i had the opportunity to march um in washington park at the capitol pride event this past weekend and there were several bethlehem students marching with me in my group and we saw several other bethlehem students along the way and outside along the um along

040the parade route and just wanted to say happy pride everybody i have the same books that wendy went through being donated to eagle elementary school but i wanted to add something so pride month is great i love pride month it's a celebration ironically it stems from something that's not at all a celebration right which is a history of systemic oppression and invisibility um so for me wanting to have this on the agenda tonight wasn't so much about pride month as much as it for me is about the way the world sort of feels like it's a little bit on fire for our lgbtq students and there's been a lot of progression in other states with laws that don't allow you to talk about yourself or your family when you're in school or put up roadblocks

041for health care if you're a transgendered youth among others so for me as we've been doing a lot of really deep self-reflection as a district about diversity and inclusion and we have right we've done a lot of self-reflection as a leadership team we've done self-reflection as a district in terms of our curriculum and what's not represented in it um our libraries and who's not represented in it um and we've hired a dei officer director chief diversity officer which is an incredible step right we passed a resolution for an anti-racist mission for the district and those are all really important i just wanted to highlight that our lgbtq staff and students are included in that and they are visible to us and we are glad that they are here okay [Applause] thank you willow for those

042words also bringing this idea um to the board but that was very very powerful so thank you we did want to show support to our students staff and community we also wanted to we thought this would become a tradition where we could also acknowledge other mods we talked about expanding our library through more book donations from the board for black history month for this history month asian pacific islander month so i hope that we can expand our libraries in that way my books are going to the high school this book is loveless by alice oseman and i believe that she is the creator of heartstopper which you said was so popular it's on backwards so i also have tash hearts tolstoy and will grayson will grayson oh that's me hi so i am super excited

043and also thank you willow that was eloquently put um so thank you um i am really excited to be expanding our libraries you know myself three books at a time um and so in uh i'm sending over pax by hannah sawyer which looks lovely i haven't read any of these yet i'm very embarrassed to say but i look forward to it all are welcomed by alexander penfold and suzanne kaufman right off the book ban list i think the more banned the better it's actually i mean again i haven't read these but flipping through this is this is focused on and talks about everybody being welcome at school and i won't keep talking reading it to you all right now but i feel like i could it'd be lovely um and then the rainbow flag by

044michelle miller fisher so super excited to send these along to ellsmere elementary and thanks to our librarians and uh thanks to everybody on the board for doing this it's really really cool um thank you definitely good words to hear and believe in i am particularly touched by the books that i have because i have melissa previously published as george when my daughter was in school here she had a student i can't remember what grade but it was in elementary where one year the student was of i don't remember which gender and they came and they come back with a different gender and my daughter was totally confused she didn't know how to ask us about it we were not really aware that it had happened because it's the kind of thing that for privacy reasons

045it's not something that's discussed but she she muddled through and now she's a second grade teacher where she is delighted that books like this exist so i am delighted to be uh giving this book uh to hammer grill um patricia polanco i had the pleasure when our daughter was about six years old going to maine and at a street fair meeting patricia palacco everything she does is just wonderful it's wonderfully illustrated it's wonderfully written and even though i haven't read this one i've read everything else at least i've read to my kids everything else she's written and there it's just a wonderful book so even without reading it i can recommend it and as the story of harvey milk and rainbow flag which i think others have also are also donating i saw not too

046long ago a an npr piece on the story a documentary and i'm delighted that it's been called down into something that's more digestible for younger folk because i think it's an important story i would be remiss if i did not say thank you to every one of you i've spent six years on the board and i can say that although people said it was a thankless job when i came into it there have been people that have said thank you along the way there was even one woman who tracked me down found my address showed up at my door around dinner time rang the bell and she wanted to talk about the turf field and i sat and we took we took our dinner outside to our new front patio and we talked with her

047and i listened to her and it was it was wonderful and getting stopped in the supermarket or wherever it was a wonderful experience i especially want to thank brittany because um no matter what we needed brittany was always there and if britney wasn't there jackie was right behind so you have a good team there when i was first elected to the board there were some people some of you here who thought i would be the uh the lab school voice on the board i think i can fairly say that i did not do that that i offended all of the communities equally i also think i've pleased most of them um so i feel very good about going out now my wife is delighted that i'll be home on wednesday nights i'll be delighted because

048i've started going to the gym and i get up at six in the morning monday wednesday friday so wednesday becomes a very long day so i wish the new board members all the luck in the world they may or may not need it depends on you know how welcoming you are and i think you all are going to be very welcoming so i have appreciated everything um even the times we've disagreed and there have been a few but i really do appreciate all the work that all my colleagues have done and i look forward to seeing good things from the school and i have to say this the continuation and continued improvement of the lab school [Applause] we do have we had invited a couple of members from our gsa to come and talk to

049us tonight and i think you should have a couple people over there there's brittany has a microphone if you guys hi i'm maggie i use she day pronouns and i am now the former president of gsa um i just finished my senior year i've been involved in gsa since i was a freshman i spent two years as treasurer and when i was in eighth grade i was one of the founding members of the pride coalition which i believe is still going on and i love gsa it's been one of my favorite clubs i just really appreciate that it's a space where people of all gender identities and sexualities can come together and um have fun and talk about their experiences maybe decompress from homophobic experiences that they've had at school or at home i notice

050a lot of our members may not feel extremely included in their school setting or their home culture and it's always nice to have a space where you can just fully be yourself use names that you don't don't feel comfortable using in anywhere else use pronouns that you don't feel comfortable using anywhere else we do a lot of education work um for the trans day of remembrance every year we um list every trans person who was killed due to anti-trans violence we also take it on the lighter side we had a valentine's day party where we watched queer focused cartoon shows um and this pride month we had two speakers we had um rajiv mahabhir here in conjunction with students for peace and survival he's a queer indo-guyanese poet and he read some of his poetry

051focused on his queer identity and coming to terms with his identity as a person of color and as a queer person we also had um shade um mercado perez here from inner own voices which is um an albany organization focused on supporting um low-income queer people of color in the capital region we did a couple activities relating to intersectionality um she talked a lot about intersectionality we learned a lot and we learned a lot about our own intersections of privilege and disadvantage um and yeah i'm gonna turn it over to erebus for who's our next gsa president as maggie said i'm going to be president of gsa next year my name is ervis pronouns are they them and i'm going to talk a little bit what we're going to do with the club next year

052next year because of covet it kind of harmed a lot of structure for the club it kind of be as maggie said it became very relaxed we still had a lot of very educated meetings and we had a lot of presentations that were incredibly informative and they were very good but um we also had some meetings where we didn't really know what to do there would be some weeks where we didn't really have a direct plan of mind so we would just have a lot of open discussion for next year i kind of i would like to turn it more into structured and have a lot of presentations on a lot more of a structured schedule where we would spend a lot more time educating but we would also still keep the club in a

053way to have it open to everyone and have it as a safe space safe space where for people who would not typically have those places and who who don't usually feel accepted or safe where they are so we would basically gsa is a place for everyone not just queer people but also everyone who feels unsafe in their environment and we would like to spend our time next year educating a lot more um yeah and one thing was that we had a lot of plans when i was like sophomore junior to bring queer centered education to the greater school environment hopefully limiting the homophobia that we sometimes face in the school environment unfortunately covid sometimes limited that and unfortunately we are only just getting back to doing um in-person events that are really beneficial to us

054as i said before the speakers that we had and so we're also not only focused on providing a safe space towards students but in the future also looking towards bringing that kind of the energy of gsa the mission of gsa to the greater school environment thank you thank you jody can i ask whether we've had provided an opportunity to allow like a listening session for administration and invite students to share those sorts of experiences that they've had in the school district to the extent that they're comfortable doing so i just wanted to sure suggest that we it sounds like that might be i mean we've done that in the past i i agree kovitz kind of limited a lot of things but sure happy too one thing that we've talked about doing in past years

055never really came to fruition was talking with elementary school students we find that a lot of the homophobia that we face as queer students comes a lot from ignorance that was never really corrected in the elementary school field i guess and now that we have these amazing books resources in the libraries we were thinking about expanding upon that um we i know a lot of queer people based homophobia in elementary school when like the idea of queerness um the idea of being gay was not even like a relevant term um but still it was thrown around like an insult um so we felt like a lot of the homophobia that we faced was just kind of residual ignorance that was never really addressed and so one of our ideas was bringing queer centered education to

056the elementary schools whether it be us as queer students going in and talking about queer identities in a very elementary focused way talking about prime month talking about queer history a little bit stuff like that that was one idea that we had you could read one of these books aloud to the kids yeah that would be a great idea um if i was if i wasn't graduating i would say that's i would be you can come back i could i could go back yeah i would be so excited to do that i'm sure aerobus would be too and all the members of gsa thank you yes thank you thank you and thank you for coming and you guys also are you're welcome to stay but if you would like to leave mr mitchell took his

057pin and he's out i'm just gonna get their stuff thank you let them get their stuff uh that is um actually wait a minute we did have two committee meetings that actually took place since our last um we had both an audit committee meeting and a false committee there's a bunch of policies on for a first read i don't know if there's anything from the audit committee that anybody wanted i mean basically we approved it it's on this they come and they on the meeting present to the full board today so great um it's riveting though update for 2021-2022 this is really high okay bernie's got me up well thank you so much everybody i'm so excited to be here to talk to you about an update on the food service program here at bethlehem

058as well as looking forward to next year and talking about the budget for 22 23 school year before we talk about the school year program i wanted to touch base on our summer food service program uh after the covid closure march 2020 we did the summer feeding program for two years so 2021 last summer was the second year that we provided a summer food service program it was a successful program we were only eligible due to usda waivers we did this program last summer for seven full weeks there was monday through friday daily pick up from 11am to one families could get for their child a lunch and a breakfast for the next day our average was higher than i would have anticipated about 225 average students a day coming to the high school to

059pick up a meal and we served over the seven weeks almost 16 or approximately 16 000 meals so very successful program definitely showed that the community was in need at that time for some meal support it was fully funded usda waivers as i said allowed us to be eligible to provide a summer feeding program which normally we are not outside of these covid waivers children any child 18 and under not having to be a bethlehem school district child in the summer program could participate and come up we also provided food support for our extended school year program and for schools outs summer programming students that were there so regular food service staff worked extra time in the summer with me managing and ordering the food and next this summer actually we are not no longer

060those waivers are discontinuing as of june 30th later this month so we will go back to before we were not eligible to provide this program however we've always advertised that there are many locations nearby in neighboring areas where there are summer feeding sites available for families that need them schools churches summer camps all provide summer feeding so we make sure that that gets out on the via district news channels to families so they know where to find those resources if they need them so that's summer feeding in order to talk about the school year program have to first cover what's happening at the federal and state level as far as funding for school meals some of you may have heard about some of this in the news recently or over the past six months it's

061been going on there are changes ahead when schools closed march 2020 usda put forth waivers making school meals free for all students have come back to attending school and those waivers have continued however they are set to expire june 30th later this month there was a lot of effort to be passed a universal school feeding program where meals would be free for all students across the country sometimes at the state level some states did pull this off the federal level usda did it was not approved did not make it into the budget nor did it happen in new york state so there's really not much there's not much of a chance that this will continue beyond this waiver expiration there could be an extension at the federal level but that has not happened at this

062point and we are not planning on that so we're planning to return to a paid meal and a need-based free meal program next year in 2022-23 school year so some families will pay and that will pay for meals in our district most of families will pay for meals based on our free and reduced rate and families that have financial need can apply or be approved via via participating in another financial assistance program in new york state for females at school this slide just updates our free and reduced current free and reduced rates as a percent of total student enrollment you'll see a slight increase this school year um 14 about 550 to 600 students district-wide just to give you an idea that that is a chunk of kids um there and i wanted based on

063the last slide and the free meal program going away i just want to touch on our program is going to make a lot of efforts in communication and reaching out to ensure that families that might have they're used to free meals for all from the past two years so we're going to do our best in august and throughout the start of school to make sure that we are not only communicating but also identifying students that may be accruing a meal balance making sure that our normal communication pathways or adding in there some support for those families if we notice we're not getting a response back reaching out and making sure that they know how they can apply for free meals and making sure that if they need help with that application process be a language

064barrier or whatever that we're providing that support to them so getting into the school year another huge piece of the puzzle this year and one that we've spent i've spent and many other school food service directors across the state and country have spent our supply chain issues they've impacted our program so greatly difficulty in getting product product and packaging issues sometimes a product like an applesauce cup was waiting because it was delayed and possibly going bad just because they didn't have the foil lid to top it and seal it with these were examples of problems happening all along the supply chain transit challenges nationwide staffing shortages and strikes there were times where we couldn't get a certain manufacturer's products and would have to had to those were products that we bid those were products we

065had good pricing on and now we've got to go and find a substitute that may not be the same quality or price that we were hope we had bid and were confirmed with um another impact the need for specific k-12 menu meal pattern um fast prep iw individually wrapped and sometimes also ovenable items in the wrapper these were items that schools across the country were trying to get their hands on because free meals for all increased meal participation students were eating in various locations lunch times did not extend so we had to get more students through the line quicker with so that they had still time to eat so that exacerbated a high demand for those specific products prices for most paper goods and supplies increased about 10 to 15 percent and a lot of

066our food items were all over the place i saw things as high as 30 percent increases on some of our price escalation clauses off of our bids more price escalation clauses i've ever seen before multiple items on a list sometimes getting multiple notices a week so sometimes a lot to stress about that the budget is not going to go as far when bid items were unavailable i touched on this sometimes having to purchase similar items off bid at higher prices or try to source them from even another distributor or manufacturer so what were our solutions to all of this we didn't want to have to be changing the menu all the time right so we did a couple of things um we doubled the length of our on-hand inventory that we held so instead of

067a week and change we kept over two weeks of inventory on hand in order to mitigate having to make menu changes or last minute substitutions as much as possible but we really could only store that week week and a half inventory so we knew we had to increase our inventory storage capacity at the high schools where we keep most of our food and supply storage for the district so we got an external dry conex box as well as a frozen storage unit to help us be able to flex and store more product sometimes bringing in buying by bulk buying five pallet orders off of a truck and skipping our distributor which is something never ever thought we would do so that allowed us to drive down the price of goods sometimes it's that is not

068something i would like to do ever again so even though the price was better that's a lot of food to bring in and we're not necessarily set up like a distributor is to receive pallet orders and break them down and then get distribute them locally as an end user and so we did that and then we also had an emergency backup distributor last summer we were doing our bid processes and noticed that a lot of distributors food and supply major distributors were not submitting bids for school contracts it was a little disheartening and a lot of food service directors started to put their heads together and say oh this is not looking good we had one distributor who was servicing a lot of schools prior to last summer and put notice out that they weren't

069going to service schools anyone like as of this moment and for further notice so we did have a small local distributor that did put forth a bid however they didn't necessarily they didn't have some of the key items that we were used to getting from the distributor that dropped out of the business so luckily and with a little thought having no this knowledge a little earlier than some other local schools we were able to make an arrangement with a distributor of springfield mass and so their warehouse is there but because of our size and our proximity to albany where they were already coming we were able to get them as an emergency backup distributor saved us 50 times this year like so um just the relationship building there has is going to continue to help

070us as we go forward um as they will be participating in our bids going going forward now so um yes it's just a lot there a lot more there but i will stop that supply chain issue recap all good okay so some of the students that worked with us and volunteered in our kitchens were here earlier which was great it was lovely to see them in that different setting and get to congratulate them we staffing challenges are of course something that are across all employment sectors we were not spared and we also had free meals for all where our demand was super high so we were not fully staffed but seeing demand where we could have been one and a half times our normal staffing would have helped us so i started to think how

071i could get creative we had worked with living resources in the college of st rose in the past and they have a program for young adults who are going to college programming and they we had three positions over the course of the year and these were students that came on as employees as and were paid a substitute rate and had shifts throughout the week so we they definitely helped us and then we also had our high school special ed services student workers four days a week we had about two to three students any given time for one to two hour shifts and mainly they helped us with our grab and go breakfast at the elementary school so they were putting the breakfast together and bagging them and then those would get packed and sent to

072our elementary schools they did a great job the collaboration between my staff showing them what they needed to do and what they what the students got out of it is something that it was amazing and i'm so looking forward to continuing the program hopefully not because we need the staffing help but just because it is a great thing for students to be able to have those experiences and we're looking at possibly having one of the students that was um a high schooler last year come on as a subs paid employee next year part time um to help us so that's a sign right there of somebody who you know it worked out for them and us i wanted to touch on locally sourced foods with um with so many supply chain issues there was a

073bit of a forced focus on going local we have two methods of doing this grant funded is using our usda commodities i wanted to touch on two programs the new york state fresh fruit and veggie pilot program which is something we've participated in for a number of years now capital roots is the vendor locally that we can utilize these funds with and they have indian ladder farm apples hydroponic lettuce that's grown locally and then some other um late summer and early spring produce that we've gotten as well so that program we've been doing we're expanding it it's it's working well second program is one that we brought on just this year so department of defense fresh fruit and veggie program it's a usda or federally awarded vendor for the region this year was a vendor

074out of new jersey so you can only get fresh unprocessed domestic u.s grown produce from them and the the produce was beautiful this year so we're looking at expanding it we had direct shipments to our middle and high school this year we're looking at getting direct shipments to all of our schools next year and expanding the cold storage at our elementary level to support that and bring more fresh produce to all of our kitchens and quickly we're hoping to bring back some of the things that were uh set aside with covid and the way we were feeding kids in the classroom we did uh element across the district the october farm to you fest and we brought in special products for the menu that day that were grown in new york and locally in the

075region so we've had to set that aside a little bit with supply chain issues and where we're feeding kids and we're looking forward to bringing that kind of thing back in the upcoming school year okay now getting into the good number stuff this is really fun because free meals for all really increased our demand um some of these numbers are are really mind-boggling so we have approximately 28 staff between 20 and 30 is our normal most of them are part-time we serve this year we serve roughly 500 breakfast meals and 2 000 lunch meals every day that brought in 10 to 11 000 in federal and state reimbursement daily this year if you look at our average daily participation chart you'll see that in 1819 which you'll find me comparing 1819 as the last full

076normal year that all students were in school but do note that there was students were paying for meals most students were paying for meals during in that year so 18 19 you have about a thousand lunch meals a day k through 12. you look at free meals for all this year and mostly the students all on site almost double that so we were doing with the same number of staff double the volume this year spotlight on breakfast we saw k-12 about a 400 percent increase in breakfast participation we brought i'll get into the specific schools briefly but we had a high school breakfast kiosk we had middle school or excuse me elementary schools had kiosks at the entrances where students could get grab and go breakfast for free access really improved our breakfast participation while

077it was free for all students okay so focusing on the high school we reopened our bc blend and our after school cafe which is open until 2 30 for students that need it or may not have a lunch period during the day our eagle snack bar in the cafeteria as i said the breakfast kiosk in the central foyer we have a cart it was a huge success 80 to 90 students a day or more we did pre-made smoothies in the colder months we did hot chocolate with their breakfast item we were testing we would like to keep the kiosk next year and see if students will pay for it so we've been menu testing a few different things to see how students like them some hot breakfast options so the kiosk was a huge success

078and we're hoping to keep that going in future years exponential growth and meal participation we had to at the high school rethink reinvent the wheel multiple times to keep up with demand it was um and it it was really something to see how quickly we got all of the students who are eating meals through the line like i think i had talked to a few administrators at one point and said there is no one feeding people faster than school food service right now i want you to know that we are feeding people faster than anyone else don't let anyone tell you different um but yes at the high school we had a 209 increase from 1819 in lunch participation sometimes over 700 lunches a day okay at the middle school so at the middle school

079lunch service looked very different at the beginning of the school year students were in the library in the gym and in the cafeteria to eat and uh they were picking up their lunch and the cafeteria in on the tray line before heading to those locations so we had to make lunch grab and go it limited our menu greatly also resulted in having to they all had to have something they could carry their lunch in and we weren't able to get back like tr we're used to using hard trays and metal flatware at the middle school so we're back to that as of june students are all eating in the cafeteria again coming through the tray line reusable trays metal flatware lots more fruit and vegetable options at the middle school and we've seen just this

080past month the meal counts increasing again that we've made that slight change and students can have a little bit more choice so at the middle school we saw the same increases in breakfast and lunch and we just look forward to next year being able to continue having students eating in the cafeteria elementary school level so students are back in the cafeteria and on the serving line as of this spring prior to that they were still eating in the classroom and meals were being delivered to the classroom return of reusable trays and recycling and composting programs that may have been put on a brief pause until fall and we are looking at bringing back metal flatware in the fall as well so same as the middle school looking forward to bringing more variety and decreasing the

081waste from the pre-packing of meals back to some menu favorites that were too challenging to package to put meals on a cart to go to the classroom or we were too worried about temperature control more fresh options and then bringing back at the middle school the snack bar which we had had closed since the coveted closure and then bringing back limited snack options at the elementary school which we haven't had back yet so we did two days a week there was a snack two days a week there was an ice cream or a popsicle choice and then fridays because pizza's so popular we would just leave it alone but spotlight on pizza fridays on that note in may 2019 797 meals and then may 2022 just recently over a thousand meals so about a 40

082increase in participation on a pizza friday lunch and grab and go breakfast at the elementary school just blew everything outside of the water a increase i mean access and the fact that it was free students took it to the classroom ate it start their day parents were happy they had a snack i'm you know they they were eating it so they didn't have to take it so it was a good um a good indicator to us that we are going to continue to work on elementary and providing some sort of breakfast option at the entrance of school for students that may want to take advantage of that so a brief facility is an equipment update in our kitchens this year we got two new combi ovens at the high school which was included as part

083of our food service budget a combi oven is a convection oven that also has the ability to be pressurized and you can add water so it can function as a steamer too so you control all those functions the thanksgiving we did this year was great we roasted our turkeys overnight um which was amazing and for all of our school we roasted all of them at the high school here in the combi ovens overnight and they came out beautifully so it's a very versatile piece of equipment that we're continuing continuing to learn how to use best to make a really quality product for students i did speak about expanding with some coolers the produce storage for elementary schools we're doing a point of sale upgrade working with our it department this summer to update all of

084our cashier stations and um there are some capital project work happening at the middle school some minor upgrades and slingerlands and hammer girl kitchens are getting almost full renovations leaving eagle is the one in elementary school that would not have a steamer so we're looking at how we can fit in the ability to make sure that all of our kitchens have that capacity because it does make a difference in the quality of something like a steamed broccoli or a fresh produce item that we're cooking okay so goals for next year for our program proper staffing to meet demand we have had staff shortages their appreciation for from our program to the district and the board for helping our staff to get an increase in their wages that matches some of the compare other comparable uh

085positions in the district that has helped us so much with retention we're looking forward to hopefully that helping with recruitment this summer um being able to provide consistent offerings because we're adequately staffed especially at the high school level going into students now having to make that choice to pay for a meal or that choice to stay here to eat instead of go off campus if they have that option that's really going to help us if we can be adequately staffed to do all of those things that we know the students come in are drawn to like having our coffee shop and snack line open resetting menu and recipes back to cafeteria style service and revamping some training for our staff so that they are up to date on best practices for cooking and meeting usda

086meal pattern getting back to our ala carte offerings as i spoke on and tightening up our cost controls so we're going to continue to keep a close eye on food and supply costs and our participation rates and make adjustments as we need to and use our usda entitlement foods as best we can to help lower the amount of money we have to spend out of our budget on food and supply challenges hiring and training of staff and getting families approved for the free meals that need the service that communication piece i talked about communicating meal prices and the meal charging policy refreshing all of our families memories about the things they haven't had to think about and and my school bucks and making those payments um managing supply chain disruptions that we're hearing will continue

087in some way shape or form and increasing food and supplies costs that we're going to have to adapt to and looking at student buying patterns as well and rapidly changing to stay competitive with all the other things that could come in so yeah so giving you this year looking historical a few years later each year has its own unique um circumstance that drives these numbers if you're looking at the actual june 2020 ending we had mostly a normal school year so in the lunch and breakfast column those are paid meal sales when the free meal program came in that number becomes zero because meals are free and we aren't receiving any funds for meals a la carte funds you know are better this year and i expect them to continue to improve next year but

088obviously this year do not match the last normal year at 1920 where we had mostly um school year normal school year uh state and federal funding underneath that is reimbursement money that we get for meals served so with free meals for all the reimbursement rate per meal has increased that is why you'll see that is the funding source that really helped us this year and why we focus so much on providing the meal to the students during this time catering and vending mostly do our catering has gone down with staffing but our vending revenue has gone up with students being back in the building briefly on the transfer frpl which is free and reduced paid lunch that is in the high school pre-march 2020 and the cove closure the high school program if you remember

089was not participating in the usda school meals program the school district general fund was providing a sort of reimbursement rate for our program to provide free meals to high school students because we weren't getting reimbursement from federal and state because we did not participate at this the high school level so that is what that means after in march 2020 we got the high school back participating in the usda school meal program and we are looking at continuing on next year and keeping the high school on program and trying our best to meet meal pattern with some of the flexibilities that are currently being offered by usda we're going to give that a trial run because there are some key benefits of keeping the high school on the usda program not just being able to get

090reimbursement rate on meals served students but we get based on how many meals we serve to students we get more entitlement money to buy usda commodity food with so there's a couple different benefits there and we aren't predicting needing a general fund transfer this year usda's generous reimbursement rate and my staff's hard work has paid off and we're looking at having a balanced a better than balanced end of the profit and loss this year expenditures looking at those you'll see that salaries have increased we did have a good increase per our staff up around between 27 30 percent benefits usually go up each year so you'll see that not too different than a normal year increase our food products have gone up we served more students the cost of food is rising and supplies we

091had to have more supplies to do things like meals in the classroom and grab and go meal service though you'll see in next year's budget i'm predicting that to go way down with students back on tray line and not using all of those extra paper and plastic goods so in summary uh if we look at the last three years in summary you'll see that we did have a little fund balance we were getting general fund transfers the last few years with so many students not attending school it was very hard for us to be able to serve them meals and help our program run but we still wanted to pay our staff just like all other district staff were so we were getting general fund transfers but this year with students being back the reimbursement

092and free meals we are able to break even and better and be um and and yes we we're happy with the turnout and hoping it can help us to maybe weather some uncertain water ahead in next year not knowing how many students will decide to pay for meals we hope a lot we'll keep okay so looking at next year recommended budget i as you can imagine there are a lot of variables going into next year that we just do not know how they will go you know fall out over time however i looked at it that we are our goal is to retain half of the increase that we have gained with free meals for all so that's how i built the budget for next year and we'll keep a very close eye on it

093and make adjustments if we need to through the year you know a waiver could come through and we could be serving free meals again next year august 15th i don't think that'll happen but i'm just making a point that there's a lot of variables to what how our program is going to have to adapt and run next year and expenditures next so salaries increasing equipment staying about the same we are going to be purchasing those coolers for our elementary schools this summer that's in there food products going down because we are expecting to serve not quite so many meals next year um and supplies as i said employee benefits going up how it about usual and uh one as you'll notice the uniforms postage and point of sale fees going down we had point of

094sale support service for our cashier stations and our record keeping for free and report free and reduced meals um our support was through boces naric and we they are kind of just continuing supporting the software we're using so we're going direct through the manufacturer which is a lot less expensive for our program so that's the change you see there you know lots of unknowns but we're using the best best knowledge we have as of today a couple of fun things to end the presentation we had a russell sage dietetic intern her name was morgan she did an amazing job she was with us for 10 weeks and one of her capstone projects was to do a menu day and she had to work with our staff she had to work with me on finding the

095product she did a ramen bar at the high school here she she did a fabulous job the students were overwhelmed us it was the highest participation day out of nowhere and she did she did great students were so happy we're looking at taking the production she did and the recipe she did and working it so that we can do it again in the fall and continue it because it was such a success so she did a nice thing on aaip aapi month too for the students a qr code to send them to more information so she was just a really great uh a great addition to us for a while and helped us do some really fun things here we think the ramen bar will give the pizza day a run for its money it

096i really it was very surprising i'm like there was she put tofu in every bowl we pre-made the bowls and then added the uh broth as they were coming through the line to keep it quick so the tofu was in there the mushrooms were in there and kids were just i went out in the cafeteria they're just devouring it i'm like okay okay we're ready for this and i just i have to end with a giant thank you to all of our food service staff because they worked so hard this year they were so passionate about feeding kids wherever they were however difficult it was how whatever cart going to the classroom might have fallen over and they had to you know or the delivery truck didn't come in time whatever it might have been

097they rose to the occasion and met the challenge adapted and you know we did not have very many menu changes and we didn't have very many complaints so it's a good good thing in our book so thank you to them and thank you to you for the presentation and for all of your hard work this year i know it has been challenging trying to navigate um especially some of the the shortages and the distribution and and all of that um and just as an aside i can say anecdotally i think if you brought the ramen bar not just in the fall but several times yeah just based on some high schoolers i know i know i recall you telling us a few years ago about sort of an automated way that the district gathers information

098on um students families that might qualify for the free and reduced lunch program um not automated it was tied to state uh some state lists and yeah this is going back pre-covered that's why i'm um i'm just wondering is that still in place yes um and is that something that we can use to flag families that might have a change in status during the school year um because i have some concerns especially given the state of the economy and i'm not sure where we're going to be next year but i want to make sure that if we have families that in halfway through the year next year are in a different position that we're finding them we get an update monthly on new families that have been approved for financial assistance through new york state

099so they can be what's called directly certified for free meals at school without them having to lift a finger so yeah yeah so we do get that information and we do have data about the dates of when that information comes into us and when students are approved that information is really confidential so because it's coming from a state and it's meant just for the purpose of the sole purpose of school meal approval um but you know we can put things out to our families about other options and we do a lot of direct uh pushes to families on the other pro like the backpack program and other things that are available the hygiene pantry at the middle school and things so there's there's definitely a lot of um i think flagging a family sometimes leads

100to can lead to prop potential problems but um you know i think the most the more you can provide access sure yeah and that's what i'm that's not you know i didn't mean flagging in a sort of like you know a public way just more i want to make sure that internally that you are able to find the people that you need to find generally i think it's sometimes language barriers but we're going to do definitely more work with that to try to make sure that we're not missing families that just don't know and can't understand what we're the communication we're putting out i think it was um slide 19 i'm not sure but you talked about the pos software was no longer being supported by boces and you were going privately and that was

101a significantly less cost i don't know how much of the difference the cost was was it the total between the two numbers you add up here it wasn't the total but it was the majority of the total that we may be able to get to that number later i'm more i'm more interested in the fact that i've always felt that boces overcharged us on a lot of stuff and my question i think it's more to judy although you're leaving you're leaving with us shortly uh is is there is there something to this that there are other things that we're buying from boces currently that we could do better on our own so boces is an option for us and we always do look at what is the pricing net of the reimbursements that we get

102from them so they have certain overhead that's built into their prices but we ultimately benefit from that overhead because there are efficiencies in how they're ordering their goods so i think the bigger reason for a change is often not so much the net cost for those services but perhaps improving the services um in responding to troubleshooting on the software so it's really a service driver more so than a price driver okay thank you it definitely depends on the service too and what you're getting yeah um first of all just thank you you all have been heroic troubleshooting meal slinging just rock stars i like that meal slinging [Laughter] i love food i love feeding people and i can hear how much you do as well and i really really appreciate that also if my kids

103heard me speaking and and not calling out miss sarah and her team at ellesmere you want to talk about like these are my sarah's salads for her staff oh yeah i mean miss sarah is is royalty to spot her out in the wild uh if you do so is a major event in your weekend um so so please pass along our continued thanks uh for for her and her team um i just wanted to ask a couple of questions um one of the things that you mentioned was that meal support if i understood you correctly i understand that we're getting free and reduced are free not just and reduced free meals um this year due to the waiver you also said at one point that there was a certain type of support per meal that

104had been increased or perhaps i misunderstood you and i was wondering if that increase was going to continue if that's another option for for advocacy for those of us who think along those lines so i if you're talking about meal reimbursement so money we're getting for meal served to child um in a in a three-tiered they call it the three-tiered system you have pay students eligible for paid free and reduced price meals those are three different reimbursement rates from usda and from new york state separately so when you went to free meals then it was everyone getting that higher free reimbursement they give you more money for a student that gets a meal for free than for a student that's paying three dollars for the meal you may only get 26 cents right for a

105student that and these are not real numbers but if you're um if the meal is free it's paying most it could be four dollars that you're getting for that meal from reimbursement so i expect to see the free meal reimbursement rate stay high but we're going to be going back to getting a lot more of those paid meal reimbursement rates so and then students that have to come and pay the most the majority of the cost of that meal got it okay thank you i appreciate that i'm super excited to hear that we're going to go back to reusables in the fall is that going to be district-wide at that point so the only school that we don't have the setup is at the high school and it's been a project but we haven't gotten

106there yet we are looking at possibly a flat cafeteria tray so it's because they have so many choices a la carte things and they're they usually have a lot of different things a flat cafeteria tray versus a more of a school lunch compartment style tray that we use at middle and elementary is what we may look at and it's easier to clean as well to stack and clean so we're looking at it it's again a project that kind of got shelved with coved and we'll pick that back up and will the going back to reusables in the fall that'll include utensils everywhere as well middle and element all elementaries awesome thank you i'm psyched to hear that too um and then if we were i don't you know i don't know how we ever could

107but what would be the cost of running a school meal program in the summer like what do you have any sense of what what the what the cost of that might have been or what it would be if we were to ever try to do something like that we could look at it but if you're going to provide it for free continually the gro it would grow over time so you just have to be careful about opening something up like that but yeah i think that it was a nice thing to provide and it could be something the district could look at right right that's neat thank you for for opening that door that's really cool to think about and thank you again for all your work okay thank you thank you next on our

108agenda is our recognition of public comment on an agenda item if we have any visitors with us tonight that would like to speak to the board on an agenda item now would be the time to come up to the microphone no thank you so earlier there was some discussion about the challenge program and we are one of the frustrated families that uh emailed david perlmutter we communicated by email and you know we when we move to this district our our oldest right now is in second grade so it was about three years ago and we talked to uh some teachers we talked to principals we want to get a feel for what the educational model was for math at young ages and what we were told was that well it's a little different than when

109you were a kid between from k through second grade we have teachers who are trained to differentiate inside the classroom so students who need extra help get extra help students who need enrichment the teachers are trying to provide that enrichment inside the classroom in a smaller group setting versus the traditional model where you know 30 years ago when we were in school they pulled a lot of kids out and you had your own challenge teacher or your own curriculum and then we were told in third grade we started with a challenge program so what we can say as parents in the district is that it's been very disappointing so our second grader who started out as a kindergartener very very excited about school is exactly the opposite now and we here on a daily basis

110how boring school is so we've had a lot of back and forth with the teachers we've gotten a lot of feedback as to what the challenges are to provide that kind of enrichment and we can tell you that it's just not happening so the disappointment from a family's perspective to hear that that enrichment's going to be pulled away from the challenge program perspective is very frustrating and it's frustrating for a couple reasons so first you know the idea that it's going to be replaced by differentiation in the classroom which is you know what we were told was going to happen from a young age in this in the elementary school setting and it hasn't been happening and we understand you know during covet the the effort just to have the kids in school was heroic

111um so for a lot of the time we didn't want to provide any pushback as parents we didn't really engage in that kind of conversation because we were just happy the kids were in school you know that was enough um and then the second part was that we were also told in addition to differentiation in the classroom that the school would use technology to supplement some of the enrichment i i think we all learned during covit that technology technology has its role but it doesn't replace teachers and it doesn't replace uh it can't substitute for a good teacher who can challenge a student and you know just talk to any student who was doing virtual education during the last couple years and you know they can or any family watching their student do virtual education

112they can provide you that same that same feedback so you know we're here tonight to implore the school district to reconsider uh whether it's the challenge program the way that it was or the accelerated math program the way that it was or how they're at least to have a conversation about how we're going to challenge students at a young age because this is a critical time for those students so to watch your own student who when we do something outside of school which we started to do and engage in some enrichment type work you see the light on you know you see the light in the eyes again whereas that doesn't happen in the classroom anymore um so we're we're struggling to see how this is going to change you know with the same model

113of differentiation inside the classroom and technology to provide enrichment to the kids and replacement for the challenge program i kind of linked this guy i'm alex perlmutter so i'm his wife but i also stand um as an individual parent and i also come representing a group of moms in the community so under 36 hours ago i posted on the bethlehem moms group which has 1400 members just you know we're gonna go and just talk about this um does anyone wanna add anything and if you do you know send me a statement i'll read it for you so in 36 hours i had 48 comments um and i want to read one which is i didn't get permission to use a student's name so i'll just say what she or she wrote so this is a

114former student of the district she um she was part of the challenge math program attended hammer girl she absolutely loved it it gave students who were strong in math a chance to challenge themselves with quote out of the box thinking for math-related problems twice a week the students in the program leave the normal classrooms to work with the instructor and to be challenged in math allowing their problem-solving skills and math tools to grow exponentially she said i know the program had a huge impact on me and really gave me a love for math after the challenge math program i went into the double accelerated program in middle school so all the feedback she's given thus far is during elementary level and now i'm going into my third year i'm sorry and then stuck with it

115in the high school now she's going to her third year as a stem double major at boston college she still has so many fond and impactful memories of the challenge math program two other statements i said i would read for these mothers who couldn't make it tonight because they were working and they did give permission to give their name so nicole zabrowski said thank you for representing us tonight at the board of ed meeting we're very disappointed to hear about the removal of the math challenge program from the elementary levels my husband and i both engineers were drawn to the bethlehem district for its academic reputation quite honestly the lack of emphasis on math has been disappointing and the removal of the math challenge program is another letdown if you need more support let me

116know and then courtney russell another parent who asked me to read this on her behalf she's working i'm concerned disappointed to learn that the bethlehem school district is considering removing both the rti and the challenge math program these programs are incredibly impactful and supportive to students on both sides of the quote learning curve it's so best beneficial to our students the alex program which i think is i've learned as an online challenge program a l e k s does not replace true learning with a teacher school district is relying too heavily on online based programs for teaching the students rti and challenge math programs should remain as options in the school district for elementary students and more students should be considered for inclusion in the challenge math program as well so and then just some

117of my own comments is um i come here tonight as um i'm a physician but i'm dual boarded so i'm a pediatrician and i also um did my master's in education so i come sort of as a double hat triple hat i'm a parent a pediatrician who thinks about mental health kids i'm a teacher and i think one point which was reflected in the comments i made is that and i completely agree with is that online learning does not replace a teacher one-on-one with the child moreover a child learning from another child right that engagement that actually david referred to tonight kids have got forgotten how to talk to one another and when it comes to exploring a math concept doing it with another child whether you're in a small group or with a teacher

118who's pushing you it could do wonders for the way the brain can be pushed um and i obviously did not want to read all comments to you guys or 48 but in summarizing them a theme that came up repeatedly was the the resist hoping that we will resist the tendency that all of us in 2022 are having to slide into this era of using apps and technology to replace one-on-one teaching um and then i'll just give you guys one little reminder because we're talking about kids between ages of 6 and 17 and the aad has a very american academy german sorry pediatrics i get my boards mixed up sometimes has a strong statement recommending two hours are left of screen time for each child each day the american academy of child adults and psychiatry which

119is also really relevant to um child development is um recommending two hours to left as well that's a new statement because of its impact more than two hours has a negative impact on adhd symptoms and also on mental health so i think more than just how our son's experience has been way more than that i think it's sort of a theme that the more we rely on iready and other apps to push a child's thinking the more we're going to see that just like virtual learning where it was really exciting for two weeks and then after a while the kids are just like ugh i need to like see a child and talk with a child explore my thoughts and read my writing in person um i think we need to remember that when it

120comes to these programs which help our children who need some extra help and help push our kids who need to be challenged a little bit um and then final comment is just that there are just so you know the summary of these 36 hours of work i did data work one mom had a great idea which was how about we provide some of this enrichment before school if it's a uh an issue with teacher accessibility or space there's six who plan to make a write a petition and two others who plan to come tonight had to back out last minute for babysitters thank you um so there's something there's something else i'd like to add because we've had a lot of back and forth with our teachers and our principal and ironically you know i

121grew up here and was a product of the school system and our principal in our elementary school was a taught advanced math in the elementary school where i went so uh it's kind of nice to see that face and be able to have that kind of conversation with someone who's been doing this for a long time and has a lot of experience in it so you know even with involvement in the principal and with involvement of the principal and we're in the i'd like to say the post coveted last few months of school where the kids are out of masks they have the opportunity to break off into groups and to do things that would be sort of in line with what we're thinking about for next year what we're hearing is is the plan

122for next year uh there was an attempt to implement some small group learning breakout sessions you know have have a classroom session that last 10 minutes and then you have a few kids that might need some enrichment break off out of a three week period it lasted for a day and a half so it worked for a day our son came home he's excited it lasted for another half day and then there are all these things that sort of break that up and and all of a sudden it's dead in the water so i know that you know it sounds to hear what the plan is sounds good but sometimes that's not what's actually happening in the classroom and when you hear from teachers and you speak to some of the teachers and we've had

123these conversations and i've had these conversations in private in an examination room where they taught you a little bit more than maybe they would tell their boss and what i hear from the teachers is we're we have to spend our extra energy focused on the kids who are struggling we have a lot of kids during covet who are struggling and so our energy has been to make sure that those kids are doing okay and that they're getting up to the minimum standards and that's that's a laudable thing that's that's great but on the other end of the spectrum we're pulling the other resources that were available to the kids who also need to be challenged need to be engaged in a different way so you know we come to you again as concerned parents in

124that realm and we hope that this is something that the district can reconsider either in the formal program the way it is or in another creative way to engage the students in a way that hasn't been happening in the classroom thank you you hi my name is jen hey um we have four boys in the district but uh three currently one's coming up from kindergarten um i'm not gonna be able to say much more than what they already said i wholeheartedly agree with that um but uh on the way here my son stopped me in the driveway and asked where i was going and i said i'm going to the school board meeting to attempt to bring back challenge math and he said oh please please please can you please get them to bring back

125math so he can be challenged um he's in third grade at hammer grill i have a second and third grader both are also sort of losing that sort of glow in their face when they're presented with work that they did two or three years ago and we just think it's really imperative at this point in their lives to foster this love of learning and challenging those students who are up to the level because once you lose that it's hard to bring it back so um i pretty much just uh echo their sentiments um we uh we also aren't fans of i ready i think all three boys who have done it so far um including a 16 year old 10th grader definitely not a fan it's very tedious i don't know if any of you

126have done it any board members have used i ready been through the program yeah it's very tedious it's a lot of busy work it's uh there's a lot of extra extraneous steps you need to do on the computer online before you can actually answer the question which many times it seems to just give you the answer so it's not actually very challenging for the for the kids and it will increase your um it will increase your depth of the challenge as you answer more questions but um so basically i just like to echo what the perlmutters stated already and probably i'm echoing the 1400 comments that you already got anyone else here thank you and next on our agenda item six action items a finance action items it is recommended by the superintendent that the

127board of education approved the following finance action items one through seven shall move any discussion [Music] fall in favor any opposed any abstentions that carries free professional personnel action items it is recommended by the superintendent the board of education approved the following professional personnel action items 1 through 18. exactly one of our new teachers who's on the agenda zoey she's been waiting patiently so i thought i should point her out thank you for did we have a motion yes i moved is there a second second second all right all in favor [Music] any opposed any abstentions that carries and c support personnel action items it is recommended by the superintendent of the board of education approve the following support staff action items 1 through 7. any discussion all in favor any opposed any abstentions that

128carries d other action items that is recommended by the superintendent that the board of education approve the following action items one through seven any discussion all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions that carries um item seven recognition of public comment on a non-agenda item i'm gonna keep going um [Music] item 8 future meetings and events on wednesday june 22nd here at the high school in the lower gym at 8 am is the 8th grade moving up ceremony on friday june 24th at the mvp arena at 6 30 is the class of 2022 graduation ceremony and then our next board meeting is on monday july 11th at seven o'clock and anticipating executive session at six o'clock beforehand we do you need to go back into executive session to discuss a confidential personnel matter it's about

129to have a motion all in favor hi any opposed all right go into executive session you