001To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Good evening. So, we're going to start this uh board meeting off with a very quick quick presentation. um is required for this particular um grant. It's called what we call an easy grant. It's from the um federal government is for the uh grant that we received for our ind Indian education um programs that we offer in the district. Um so as a result we have to present it out to the community what we're doing with these funds uh the programs that we're running so that they go ahead and apply for the grant to continue supporting our Indian education programs going forward. So what we're going to go through is what
002is the brand itself, the purpose, the funding, the process and the actual budget for this grant. Um so as I said it is um offered by the federal government um the US department of education, office of Indian education, uh the Indian education grant programs. They offer all a whole bunch of different programming out there um for schools that have uh Indian education Indian population. Um, and we work closely with the reservation in order to come up with the programming that we offer them through these grants. And these are just to supplement the programs that we offer in-house with our um tuition monies that we receive from the state education department. So it supports uh school districts, Indian tribes and and organizations and other entities to develop uh elementary and secondary programs. We develop comprehensive programs
003to meet uh the unique cultural and language programs offered um to our Indian American Indian students and ensure that they can meet the uh state requirements of our testing and and their um as well as bringing forward some of their cultural um resources into our programs. It supports a lot of our programs in the classrooms to expose all of our students to understand what the American Indian uh population is about, what their culture is so that we can um really broaden everybody's horizon. The information that we also gather is uh submitted to the state on both the grant uh the offerings that we have and the successes of our students uh with regards to this grant that we offer. So it does serve all of our students grades prek prek through 12. We have about
00498 students um from the Akachub nation that we do service and the total grant is for about $44,000 for the 2526 school year. We haven't been seeing a decline in this funding. We do utilize it all um but we have been seeing a decline in the funding um for the programs. So the first part is we have to apply for a application um to give them just general information of what the school district is, what our um enrollment is districtwide as well as what our American Indian population is. Then is to hold this hearing uh present this information out to the public and then we finalize that application with what is our budget based on this information that I'm providing tonight. We send out to the um US Department of Education for approval for the
005programs. So, this is just a quick summary of what the budget is. Again, $44,000. We do have personnel about $30,000 that we expend. And that's for tutoring services both here on site in the district as well as offsite at the reservation at their community center. Um, we also use that for cultural resources when we bring some programs inhouse. Sometimes, uh, as you are aware, we have the fourth grade cultural programs, uh, middle school and high school exhibitions as well. So, this grant helps support some of those. Um the travel budget and that's more so for any teaching staff or reservation leaison who is traveling between um the district and to other programs or to conferences in order to cover their mileage expenses. Uh supplies again that is for tutoring supplies uh both on site as
006well as down community center for the uh reservation. And then the other budget is things such as field trips. Um, so each year they do go on field trips to um the American Indian um show shows I guess it's museum in Brooklyn. Yeah. No, this year we went to the New York Historical Society um in Manhattan. So um last year the kids and it's first come first serve. So they go on uncharted bus and we take care of everything with them and stuff like that. And we have the fifth grade who's right now, right girls? Um, so and a nice part of that is that I believe the Okach Nation does have a display in that in those museums as well. So our students are exposed to see what the um nation here in Sear
007Bridges has as well as other nations around um the country are offering and their cultures as well. So um like I said this grant while it's not a lot of money we do make it go a long way and try to support our students um from the upper nation as well as expose our students um right here at center riches to what their culture is and make sure they're aware and that they can um be part of those celebrations that they have. Um any questions or specifics on this you can contact myself or Miss Amy Ballis who is our reservation liaison in the district. Um our emails are there and that is it. Any questions from the board? Thank you. All right. Good evening everyone. As you can see, we have a pretty packed house
008tonight. There's still six available seats in the quad. It's so interesting. You watch a crowd, no one sits in the front, even in school. So, um, but we do have quite a few things to celebrate tonight. So, I'm not going to say a lot because we have a lot going on tonight. I'm going to invite Mr. Richie, our elementary principal, and Miss Jackson, our elementary assistant principal, to present um on these people. And I am going to ask Miss Halter, is she here? Nope. Miss Lopez. All right. Um well, thank you both for coming. Uh, every year at Clayton Huey, um, every year at Clayton Hueie, you know that we have our spelling be an annual competition between all of our students. Um, we this year had a very interesting finale. So, we'll tell you
009about that in a second. We have the winning words for you as well, but it was an unbelievable competition. The students did an amazing job. They really were a very competitive group this year. So, it's our third, fourth, and fifth or just fourth, fourth and fifth, just fourth and fifth grade students. The event was hosted by Miss Lopez and Mrs. Halter. Uh, Miss Halter actually soon to be Mrs. Julian. Julian. Um, so our winner with runners up. So, we have our runners up. I'll start with them. Um, they say they fought hard. They fought hard to get these words. Um, so it's a big congratulations to the three students. one of two of our club who is in [Applause] [Music] [Applause] staff [Applause] and our spelling be winner who has moved on to the next
010round of the study as a line. [Applause] Yeah. Do you guys remember your winning words? Rebuke. All right. Anybody? Do you remember how to spell it? Okay. E. Very good. What was it? That was the one that you got right. No. Wrong. Okay. You remember it now? No. We'll put you on the spot. Let's come on into the middle here. We'll take a picture. Thank you all for coming down. Congratulations. [Applause] Thank you, Mr. M. Jackson. Great job, boys and girls. Uh, no obligation to say. We have a lot of presentations. So, I know that this is a school night, so don't feel obligated to stay beyond your presentation. But our next presentation is the robotics team. So, I'm going to ask Miss to come up. Mr. Where is James? This is robotics land. That's
011where we have everybody right now. So, the robot team had a great year and Miss Bangon and Mr. Spaner is going to kind of highlight some of the great things that they did together as a team. All right. few of our few of our presenters, those of you that are going to speak to here, this will be our Okay. Um, so first of all, for those of you who don't know, my name is Marissa Mangonia. I am the proud principal of San M High School. And these are our amazing robotics kids. I don't know how they do what they did. I will tell you that I've spent a lot of time with them, right? We bonded Hopstrom Albany, we went through it. I learned so much. I learned a lot. Um, Mr. Spanis and Miss
012Hoffer, the dedication. If any of you have not known much about the robotics world, you don't understand how long and late the nights go and how you have to work on this robot for so long to get it to do these. You have to, you know, code over here. So over there things are happening and it's just it's amazing and to see the ownership that these kids take is really profound to see the uh advisorship that especially Miss Haver is awesome. She is an awesome cheerleader. She will help them with whatever but Mr. Spin is like the braids behind it and really is able to help guide them. He has been he was in robotics in first robotics as a student. So, it's like full circle now for him that he's back and doing this
013for our kids, which I'm just so thankful. Um, so on behalf of everyone here, our whole community, I want to um give everybody a round of hand [Applause] there. So, I'm a numbers person. I like to know like things like that. Um, our kids did phenomenal. They ranked at the Long Island Regional. they ranked sixth um at the New York Tech Valley which was phenomenal um in Albany they ranked fifth and what was again learning I didn't realize this they don't get to just play like against the other teams they have to form an alliance with two other teams and then go head-to-head with another alliance of three teams so what I thought was so interesting and I I will tell you this I was a coach they let me be a coach it was
014practice. It was like a script. It It couldn't have counted. Wouldn't have let me go out there with it. I had the thing on. It said I was a coach. And then it was very scary because someone came up to me and was like, "What's your strategy?" And I said, "Trinity, tell them our strategy." And I was so nervous. But it is such an amazing thing to see our kids who have to like you have no choice. You have to socialize with these other teams. You have to make it work. you had a team from India from India that they were paired up with like these things I don't think everybody realizes it happens and so I think that moments like this when we have a few minutes I know we have so much going
015on tonight but I just think it's important to recognize not only the hard work that our kids and our coaches are doing but the opportunities that we're giving our kids not every school has a robotics club not every school is able to you know work so hard to fund it and get sponsorships we have parents and family members members that are very big sponsors that, you know, bring the the Wendy's food up to practice so they don't have to go anywhere and do the driveins and drive up to Albany and it just really really showed. You guys did an amazing job. Um, I was very proud. I actually felt like I I learned about the driving team. There's there's the driver. There's the technician. There's a a human player. I always just want to say
016a player, but it is a human player and a coach. There's all these different things that the kids really take ownership in and the scouting, which I think is so cool. So, our students really need to know what it is that they're doing because other teams will come up to them and say like, "Tell me about your robot." And they have to Somebody was saying like it's like an elevator pitch. You have to you have to pitch your robot. And then you, our scouts, go to each other's tents. What are they called? Pets. Pets. and they say tell me about your robot and then they have to do it and that's how they then come back and strategize and see who would we work well with who are we going to work it it it
017and then it was like March Madness right with the tournament up there with the that was it was very cool so for those of you who have not experienced a robotics event I will let you know when we're having them again because they're awesome and the one in Hopster was um close enough where we were able to really um see a lot more of like our community members there so that was great. I don't usually look at these. Um, Trinity, you want to say a few things about Mr. Ben? So, um, we're going to give this talk, but I'm specifically going to talk not about my experience, but about Mr. and that is because he has completely changed, um, our team. So, uh, we've gone through a lot of changes over the last few years
018and he is our first steady met here and has helped us really succeed. So um as you may said he started robotics team at hot pog when he was a student and he came back and the first day first day I met him I immediately asked him are you going to be our mentor for our robotics team and he was immediately on board which was amazing because we had trouble mentors and since then he's taught us so much he's made sure that every single kid on the team has got to build a piece of raw which is really hard cuz you come to the team you're like I don't know how to use a single machine in this room I never touched a piece of metal and I actually cut it and he teaches you
019all of that. Um along with that, as she said, he was really dedicated. So last year, he was one of our only mentors and he had to stay every night until 600, seven or eight during Bill season, which is about two two months long to build our robot almost 5 days a week. So it's it's a big commitment. He was there every night. So that's all I want to say. Um, I'm Andrew. Um, so we're freshman this year, me and him. And we joined robotics because we thought it it was cool. We got to learn how to use all the different machines and stuff. We learned a lot of new things. It was really fun to be involved in all. Good job, guys. [Applause] Hi, I'm K. Um, this room is my first year robotics
020and I'm from East Marches and I was really nervous because I didn't know how to do anything and spend Mrs. Ferris took it like step by step and taught me everything and it was just really great. I love the experience we had. We made like great relationships. We have a lot of inside jokes that nobody gets. Good job. Yes. Thank you guys. You did a great job kind of get up in front of everybody and speak. Um they really love you. Yeah. They're an amazing team. They did it all on their own. I couldn't be more proud. Um I think we ended at like 400 in the world, which is a great number. Uh I think we bubbled out just by eight or seven spots. I mean, we we did really well. It's it's all
021because of them. Crazy. Good job. Thank you everyone. Thank you James. Thank you Madison for spending the time and I know that it it is a tremendous amount of time that they have to dedicate to students. Uh I know that they meet almost every single night. It's a grueling process but you do it because you love the process and you love students. So both I mean Thank you James. Thank you Madison. Thank you students for all the hard work your dedication to this process and seeing how you excel at the various competitions is very impressive. So congratulations and thank you for coming. [Applause] Now I'm going to say the same thing I said a moment ago. Everyone I know that you have school. You're more than welcome to stay for the various presentations we have.
022But if you have other things that you have to tend to, please be my guest to just, you know, quietly exit out. Thank you again everyone. Now the next presentation is the new argument I know. Okay. So, um it is my pleasure tonight to introduce some of the representatives from our elementary report card um today to share um essentially what they did um in order they were charged with developing an elementary report card. Um and we would like to share a lot about our process and our product um the rationale behind it. Um, and truly, um, I would be remiss if I I didn't thank this group for their dedication to, um, creating a fantastic tool, um, to help us communicate students level of mastery across the standards uh, for our new students. So as
023a QP school um we are reflective and we are communicators and those were the driving forces behind us creating this elementary report. And when we began this journey, we really defined what we wanted to do together as a committee. And that was to assess students level of mastery, provide feedback for teaching and learning as well as for parents and families. Um and we developed some essential agreements for bringing which is to be aligned with our mission and vision statement to support our culture of care and bias resistant equitable practices to reward behaviors and academics separately to prioritize communicating accurate measures of learning and to clearly communicate student levels with a consistent scale. So I'm going to let the committee now talk about their No, I'm not. Um, so this is our journey. Uh, you can
024see we started in the winter of 2023 with this work and it was a very long and arduous process, but we are finally nearing the finish line. So, we formed a subcommittee of our curriculum committee. Um, we engaged in lots of professional development about equitable practices and these folks are going to talk a little bit more about that. We began our report card res renovations this fall. Um, and we went through a series of feedback where our committee members were the liaison between the grade levels and the departments to make sure that what we were thinking as a committee was truly the will of the building. And finally, um, next fall, we hope to adopt this new report card. Now, we're hold um, so our report card is really important about from feedback. Um, one
025of the first things that we did to start this journey is the curriculum committee met and they did an activity called compost point reflection. So basically they talked about suggestions, they talked about what they were excited about, their worries um and also what they need to know while we um created this new report card. And then the report card committee did the same thing. So we did the same activity and then we started dissecting it. So we started aligning the report card with New York State standards. Um, we've re reviewed about 10 plus report cards from all schools in Long Island and we thought about what we liked from them, what we didn't like, and that kind of helped us create and get started. Um, and then we also spent a lot of time creating
026a single scale. Um, and we basically just started using language that was simple, simple and clear. So these are some uh key features of our report card. It is aligned to New York State standards. Um, we are keeping in mind a growth mindset, so emphasize progress and improvement. Um, we are leaving room for detailed feedback, so we're going to have individualized um, canned comments for each student. Um, it's in a friendly format, so it provides clear, concise language. Um, and we're going to include one scale sheet. Um, it is based on evidence learning. So, we're going to use formatives and summit with assessments to help us with the, you know, um, filling out the report card and then also keeping in mind a holistic view of each student. Um, it follows a continuum, so we'll
027be able to see the knowledge and the progress, you know, through a progression from K all the way to fifth. And it's accessible, so we'll utilize it online. Um, and it will be translated. And the journey is just beginning. So, there's going to be resources and materials provided to us. Um there's already written guides for teacher supports and rubrics that we've been writing um creating to be able to use. There's going to be support and professional development so we do know how to implement this report card. Um and then ongoing evaluation for improvement. So about every five years we're going to really take a look at this and see um what we can add, what we can take out just to keep everything aligned. Um and it also gives opportunities for teachers to share their
028input as well, what's working, what's not working. Um, and then also family education resources just so that the families know how to understand these report cards. Um, and just there's going to be tips and this is all going to be updated for parents teachers at home. Hi, I'm Katie Phillips. I'm the art teacher in the special area representative for this committee. So um like L said we did look at 10 plus report cards and what we saw that we really liked was the um the report cards that have fewer scales for grading. So we had a professional developer come and she said to all of us um the whole faculty she said if you could divide your class into four groups 1 2 3 or four how easy would that be? Fairly easy. Now, if
029you have three plus, three minus, two plus, two minus, it gets a little bit there's some gray areas. So, we decided that having the one scale was more clear, easier for parents to understand, easier for students to understand. Um, it left those areas out because now that we're grading on the standards, we were able to take those pluses and minuses and put them as grading standards. Um along with the four scale we changed it from 1 2 3 4 to letters. So the letters um we felt as a committee that it took a lot of the anxiety out of um the students at such a young age in elementary school especially um and also the parents. So is Dakota three level two is um so if we took that out there was more room for
030discussion about having a growth mindset being able to achieve goals further along in the year rather than being stuck at a certain level and special areas performance. So, I collaborated with all of the other special area teachers and the classroom teachers and we decided that um if we're going to grade as standard base for general, we should be also doing that for special areas. So, for parents, I'm parent and I report card. Yes, my son is a pleasure to have in music class. That's great. But is he making music? Is he able to understand music? Is he able to draw something more? So by having those standards on the report card, parents can see where their students maybe they have a talent that they didn't know they had or maybe they could use some extra
031help in something like that or music. So um in addition we have our foundational language early start our flex program um which has never been reported on our report card. So, one of the exciting things is that we're going to report not only on the academic side, but also on the behavioral side of all of our special areas, including FL. So, parents will have more information about language proficiency and acquisition as their child progresses through continuing. And then I'm Jessica. I teach kindergarten. And these are examples of the changes. So, you can see to the left, that's our choreographer card. is more broad, not as many bullet points. And then the new report card will now have standards based information and it's moreformational for parents to understand what their child is learning. So these are
032the reading and signs for studying history. And nonetheless, it's just more information to know where your child falls as opposed to just three bullets. And then the continuing learning for five. This is a great tool to understand the foundational skills at each grade level coming at each level. So for example, a K does one thing and then it progresses along grade levels and that ensures there's no overlap in curriculum too. So it's another great tool that we have developed. And then the habits of lifelong learning and citizenship. We used this on the council framework. And as you can see the current report card again it's not too many bullets more broad but what's great about the new report card there's more categories and with STL being so important the categories gives more opportunities for students
033to shine and it shows more areas of growth more areas where they are shining and it experienced more information of understanding where their student can work on social emotional and behavioral wise problem I teach fourth grade do. Um, so some of the challenges that we faced uh throughout to develop the support card were striking a balance between comprehensive assessment and specific feedback that would be actionable for students and their families so that they can take that and do something with it to uh help contribute towards their success. Um, with that came the standardization versus personalization um debate. So, we wanted something that was standard enough where parents that had students in kindergarten, third grade, fifth grade could um understand it and there wasn't too much of a learning curve as students move through the elementary
034school. Um but also was able to be specific enough where students with different um needs were able to be it was able to be communicated to them. Um the technology cost that comes with overhauling the report card was a challenge that we had to address. um addressing like I said different needs of different learners. Um we wanted something that was able to be updated every 3, four, five years and not um needed to be overhauled again. So we wanted something that uh could evolve with education as the standards change as uh you know the education world as a whole changes over time and we want to be able to capture growth which is really a difficult thing to do with a report card. That's typically a snapshot in time. We want to be able to
035communicate that even though a student might not be um at the grade level standard at that time, they have grown both academically and in the other areas that contribute to learning over time. Um so as we approach the finish line this winter we've been like they mentioned earlier working with our grade levels to make sure that each grade knows what success is going to look like um with the report card and that no matter what teacher you have all teachers are kind of on the same page about what the different report card items success look like looks like um staff start draft which then has led us to sharing our report card facility curriculum committee here tonight. So, as we go through, we'll continue to update and fine-tune things as we approach September where we'll
036put out the updated parent guide, communicate to parents via parent square, and then eventually that open house where teachers will be able to in person delve into it a little bit deeper uh until November where teachers will have kind of their last early look at the report card and we finally present it digitally at the end of November for the first time. [Music] And before we wrap, I know that this is like a snapshot of an immense amount of work. I once again just kind of want to reiterate the efforts that not only the committee but all of our teachers, the amount of granular detail that they went into with not just the report card itself. The report card is only one piece of this puzzle. The report card, the continuum, the rubrics that are
037going to align with all of this work. everything all in the vein of trying to make sure that they are normed consistent across grades and vertically aligned across the grades. The continuum helped to do that. All of the different things, the facets that they themselves came up with. This was feedback that came from their teams, feedback that came from within the things that they've experienced. even often feedback as parents having received report cards from different uh you know school districts and things and having like the trials and tribulations of that as well. um and the feedback of their colleagues of the community and the feedback that the confusion that has come with report cards of the past and the historical context that came with that. they that it's not an easy task to go back
038to your colleagues and say we're going to change your entire approach to assessment and they were tasked with doing just that and then to come back and say all right is everybody okay and but they really took it with instruct they realized that it wasn't going to be an easy task but it's something that they did with grace and I really just want to thank all of thank all of our teachers for all their work [Applause] Thank you everyone. Looking forward to seeing the new and being part of that process. Very exciting work. I just wanted to ask a question. I don't know who you addressed it to, but um I just I didn't want to have the um burden up on the teachers too fully to have to explain to the parents that like
039how to evaluate how the report card works and how to evaluate it. Um so I just wanted to make sure that we fully support that process. So dig videos or explainer videos or communications or take that. So to dig a little deeper into that during the finish line side um part of the process is to uh rework our parent guide so that there's literature out there for parents but also at open house the building principal will um have a piece when you you gather in the APR before you go off to teachers. Um so there'll be information there. We'll do a lot of parent square messaging. Um so that no it is not just on the teachers. This is going to be a team approach. The beauty of that too is that it's not just
040something that has to be done come September, right? So we have September, October, November until that report card comes out. So there's that a little bit more breathing room to start the school year to say like all right everybody got through the first couple of weeks. Now let's catch our breath and let's review all of the things that we said we were going to. we promised the community right now. We have to hold true to that. So there's time, you know, startling work on those things as well. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you. All right. Our next presentation is the literacy program. [Music] Um, so again I get the pleasure of introducing another subcommittee of our curriculum. committee. Um this is our elementary literacy committee. Um this is a very passionate and funky group
041of educators and you'll see that passion come through in this presentation. Um if we're being completely transparent, this was something when the teachers came to us and said we need to do this. Mr. Richie and I said we're changing our report card. We just became a PYP school. We have a new math program. like maybe we don't do this so we don't drive you really crazy. Um and they said no, we know there's a better way to do literacy at Clayton and Qi and we really want to dig in and figure that out. It was a problem of practice. Um and boy did they dig in. I think the hours they spent with colleagues from other districts and on podcasts and digging into the research and professional development and all of the books and everything
042else. Um, this truly is a very passionate group. So, I'm going to turn it over to them. Hi. Um, I'm Elizabeth. I'm one of the reading specialists over at Payton Huey. Um, this evening, you will all gain some insight into our thoughtful process that the committee used to select the best programs that we thought would suit our kids. You'll learn about the rubric we used to score the programs that we did pilot and the recommendation that we're making that we feel would most benefit our students. So the science of reading right is the big buzz. It is not a singular program or a single approach. It is the science based on how kids learn how to read. Um so it guides us in best practice. This is a great illustration to show the science of
043reading. It's called Scarboro's rope and it takes two strands and it looks at a person's ability to read as something that becomes intertwined and goes together. Um so in your first strand you have language comprehension where we work with students on their background knowledge, building their vocabulary, understanding language structure, um understanding verbal reasoning and um their literacy knowledge. And for the word recognition on the lower strand um we work with phological awareness, decoding and site recognition of familiar words. And as students practice these more and more, their ropes become a little bit tighter and they become more intertwined, which leads to a more skilled reader definitely. So we started this, as Amy mentioned, in spring of 2023 after a conference we went to. We were lucky enough to go to the live conference, which is
044a literacy conference. And a lot of us that are on the committee were at the conference and we demanded a change. And I have to say thank you to where I don't know where Dennis is. She down there. Oh, there he is. Dennis and Amy because we truly couldn't have done this without you. You guided us the entire way, but let us have our own voice and you allowed us to do what we wanted and what was important for kids. That's how we started. And then we, this is a really small slide, but this took a really long time to do this. We spent hours and hours um figuring out what was important to us for our literacy program. Uh we brainstormed, we re- brainstormed, we deleted, we added and most important are the things
045up there most scope and sequence alignment horizontally and vertically across grade levels. Um we wanted it to be flexible um for new teachers to be able to do it and for students that were coming into it. We needed a virtual piece because that's the way our world is going. We need to have that virtual piece for kids to be able to function on their own on computers. Uh engaging of course for our kids and it has to be aligned with our standards and appropriate for developmentally along each grade level. Hello, my name is Austin. I teach English as a new language. Um to go along with what Michelle said, at this point in the process during the spring of 2024, New York State uh released literacy groups. So it was all about science [Music] reading.
046So Amy created this great document with all the hyperlinks, but we reviewed the briefs. Dennis and Amy had us task us with taking a look at the briefs. Um reviewing them, understanding what the science of reading was, how it pertained to our task of trying to find a cohesive program for all the grades. And I think one of the great things we found was that there was a lot of great work happening in Clinton County. Even though we didn't necessarily have the best program we felt at the time. Um we did feel a lot of reassurance that we were doing great things. Our classrooms were packed with a lot of the recommendations. A lot of the science community while it wasn't one particular program, we were doing a lot of a lot of great things
047in the classroom. This was a really reaffirming moment for the committee. As Austin said, you know, we spent days building those um essential pieces of literacy instruction and then about two weeks later, New York State released the briefs and we were like, "Oh, we could have just used the briefs." But it was very reaffirming to know that the work that we did was very much in alignment with New York State's recommendations. So, it was kind of like a nice way to say, "Okay, we're on the right track and we're and we're thinking the right things. here. I'm Ohio. I'm I'm a second grade teacher and as we continued our process um we began exploring as we said then we saw the literacy group and then we started reviewing products. So our committee met and we
048reviewed so many different products. Um you know immediately we saw things we liked, we didn't like um lots of conversation. Um we then in the winter we of this winter we started our product pilots of integrating benchmark and magnetic. Um so as we you know throughout that process we checked in with one another. We had meetings um countless. Um and then um we started seeing common um yes common thoughts and themes within each other. Um and that was comforting. And then in the spring we started um we used a rubric to begin really hashing out what we liked, what we didn't like and um grading our two programs that really were the parameters. Next slide. Um, I thought this was so interesting because it was just an overwhelming um, decision for us. Magnetic Daily um,
049was the winner um, in all areas and it was also interesting to see that K to2 and met separately 3 to 5 and our numbers were almost um, the same. So it's rare to find something that makes K35 happy and my really was um you know she was shocking to see that we all were in agreement on which program entering. So uh this was the I was able to pilot this program and I'm so thankful that I did. Did you want to? Didn't want to. Uh I have trouble with programs sometimes. I like to do what I think is best for kids. And guess what? It turned out that it was. So magnetic reading foundations was verified by tons of independent evidence reviewed programs. Uh they were also rated which we came and said we
050loved it and then found out that they were rated 202 out of 202 on supporting students in building foundational skills. So another happy serendipitous accident and a wedding for us because we ended up loving it and then we learned that so it kept going. So uh our foundation for recommendations. So this is what we've done where we're going uh our instructional resource adoption goals. So we had countless conversations meetings Mary and I both did it. We talked about it every week like did you like this? Did you like this? Did you not like this? uh coming to our grade levels, sharing. I must have walked around with my with my my what do we call them? Teachers the teachers guys constantly and they're very small and light and easy to uh bring around which it
051was not the same as the other program. Um and then um we were able to do actually inter visitations with the pilot classroom. So my colleagues were allowed to come in watch me teach it. We were able to debrief and meet. We're actually planning to do it again um to see both parts of the program. Um and then we have a goal to visit more schools that are actually embarking on the program as well just to get feedback from other educators and other districts. Um we also had we ended up doing a lot of our observations with our administrators with magnetic because we just wanted them to see it. So Danielle came in and saw I know a bunch. So um we just wanted to show them what we were doing engaged in just because
052we were so happy with it. Um, student feedback. My I can only speak for my firsties, but they love it. They love it. They love it. Second grade. There you go. They absolutely love it. It's very engaging. It's very developmentally appropriate, which was a big thing for me teaching first grade. I needed to make sure that some developmentally appropriate. Some of these programs are way too cumbersome and it's just too much for little kids and we need them to be excited about it. Um, and then of course it incorporates the science of reading which is an extra daily bonus along with all of the foundational skills that we need to teach beginning readers. Hi, I'm Leah Conto. I teach reading for K through five. Um, so when our literacy committee first started, um, we did
053a lot of reflecting on best practices for our students and what would elevate our, um, literacy programs within our school. And these were the big takeaways um, from those meetings. and we really wanted to find a program that pulled all of that out. Um, so this program will improve literacy instruction. We're shifting from balance literacy and headed towards the science of reading which is the big six. So we've got awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and listening comprehension. And this program supports all of that. It is evidence-based and has writing embedded into the program. So the students aren't only advancing in reading, but they're also advancing in writing. uh it promotes student engagement um and it has interactive learning experiences for our students and it ensures that all students can thrive including our English language learners
054and students with disabilities. And this here um I was excited to show it to you because I I think it really shows the growth um that our students have had over the past four years. Um these are our winter assessments using the star um star reading and it shows the strong progress that our students have made over the last four years and over the past few years we've seen a steady increase in the percentage of the students performing at or above the benchmark reading level and at the same time intervention has um decreased significantly. So this reflects the passion that our teachers have um by creatively piecing together uh different programs like foundations, heard and other structured literacy um tools that bring in the big six but with magnetic reading that will do all of
055the work for us and really support our students um instead of doing that peace meal approach and we'll be able to close more gaps uh more effectively. So Leah did a great job with the slide, but this is like my favorite slide presentation. So talk a little I know that um so this is what's happening because of the passion of our teachers. We really need to highlight that when you empower the teachers to dig in and to supplement when they feel they really need to, this is what it translates to. So this winter, the STAR assessment that we just gave, 62 nearing 62% of our students have already met the grade level benchmark that they're supposed to reach in June in the winter. And we see those intervention bars are are starting to really decrease
056significantly, especially the students with the largest gaps, right? So, our teachers have been peacemealing programs together to make this happen, and we're excited to propose an adoption that gives them a little bit of time back and a little bit of ease with which to do that. And this is mine. So, when we started looking at all the millions of programs, this wasn't really even on our radar because I think everybody's heard about Iratney and you hear good things, not so good things. It's just diagram. We could like do a quick Google search and it's all over the place. Um, but Amy actually came to us and was like, "No, there's more to it. Like, look at this program." And when we sat down with it, we actually couldn't believe how far they've come. So, you
057can see like the journey of curriculum associates. 2011 is when I Ready um when they came out with their I Ready personalized instruction online. And following all the way over, we're now headed to we're currently um using the program where we have all of the magnetic reading foundations. The writing component is separate from the reading component based on the trial right now. They're still working on it and making better making it better and combining it. So in 2026, magnetic literacy is going to come out and we've been told that as updates are made to the program, we will also be receiving those updates. So even if we decide to implement like now rolling into next year, we're also going to be able to get all the new materials as they come out and all of
058the all of the online component pieces that they're still building. And this is just a look at the components. you could see the K to 5 continuum and this is something that I know we fought really hard for as a committee and um I I feel so happy to actually see this here because this is the hardest part like as a fifth grade teacher you see some gaps that are missing and that's always going to happen sometimes for some students but now we have a place where we're going to be able to go to put those pieces back together again to support them and help them and we have alignment and K to five giving students all the parts of the smart road that we know they need to be um to be great readers
059and writers and and thank you Amy and Dennis for this by the way. We are so grateful to have been able to have this program and have you guys so thank you. All right, this is my I'm Caitlyn Weber. I'm a fourth teacher. Um, it's been said already, but I just sort of want to reiterate the conversations that have been had are extremely collegial and productive. And you can all imagine, I'm sure there's something that you this topic you can like geek out where this is our we just like great conversations. And so going into this, we had a list of non-negotiables and also a wish list. And we also knew that we weren't going to agree on everything. We put that on the table, too. We were agreeing with that. Um, and so kind
060of going into it, we did have a rubric that if it doesn't meet this, it's automatically out. So we did do a lot of research. This is sort of the highlight reel of magnetic. It's a dissolation of our favorite things. Um there's more but this is the stuff that I think is most relevant. So it's aligned with the standards which is really important. Obviously it's research based. So everything I've been talking about with the science of reading is aligned with science of reading and right now we know that's best practice. So that's what we need. Um there's strong foundational skills. Um and the continuum that Enri just said is so important. the fact that we're on the same team and moving together and aligned is is so important and honestly is best for kids. Um
061explicit instruction with phonics again that goes back to science of reading that is best practice. Um learning path targeted instruction. So I actually did benchmark as losing but I mean honestly I love magnetic and I was rooting for benchmark. So I hope that says a lot too like I even believe in this program. Um, and the targeted instruction is just phenomenal that the kids take the Ready general assessment and then it pushes out specific skills that they need to work on, which is exactly what we need for the wide range of learners that we have. Um, engaging texts, everyone said, I haven't heard any kids not like it. Um, when I went into my college classroom to observe, the kids came up to me in the back room was like, are you the one like,
062you know, asking about this program? We love it. like they wanted to make it known like as if I was assessing like they wanted that it was really good. Um it's there's differentiation um and it does create robust options for different learners that we have it it it gives us the ability to help all different types of kids which is again what we're looking for um for our MTSS program too. So even like the philosopher reading they will be aligned with our program. So it's no longer just peacemealing things which is a big wish list for us too. Um pure collaboration it's it's aligned with our inquiry uh and all our values. Um their personal development again I was on benchmark not great but the support that they got in implementing the program was phenomenal
063and we hope that it continues. Obviously uh they're very responsive. It was again Comparatively to the other programs that we piloted and looked into it, the application was very streamlined. It was very easy. You could still put your own spin on things, but it's not like you have to reinvent the wheel just to implement this program, which is important when you're trying to onboard an entire school, right? So, it's definitely easy for people to get on board with. Um, and it is a complete solution. So, again, we're not having to go and get accessories. It's all here and it's all it's all one program. We're all in one team. So this the best action press and this is our timeline started way back um before I was here [Music] actually and so we had all
064these conversations we did the product reviews um we did the pilots um which was honestly very enlightening. I'm so glad I had the opportunity opportunity to do that because like I said on paper benchmarks are shining and you actually live that and you're like oh my gosh this is a so different than what we thought it was. So, it was so good that we got to be able to do that. Um, we checked in all the time and here's then we had this rating day. We saw the rubric where we all sat down and independently like the different grade levels filled out this rubric of what we thought and we were like within five like we were all on the same page which is pretty incredible. Like you were in the room the first meeting
065when we were totally different like we were not on the same page in terms of like some people didn't want to program at all. some people, you know, didn't believe in XYZ and then suddenly we're like falling, which I think is pretty much a miracle. Um, and so in the best way, like you want people pushing back because that's how you're the best thing. And we did it was so bad. Uh, and so in the fall we're going to launch it. Hopefully. Yeah, hopefully. Um, yeah, that's got one more trying to blame. All right. So, um implementation plan, you've actually heard it. I'm just summarizing here, but um we're building a continuum K through five. We are investing a fiveyear adoption and this is so that everyone can invest in it. So like we can
066know that this is going to be here for five years. We can invest our time and even with benchmark piloting it, you're creating all these materials knowing it's not even going to be used. So for us as teachers to know that we're going to be in it together for 5 years, we can give our whole selves to it um without the worry that it's going to go away soon. Um we're going to define an agree on the implementation on fidelity. We did this with math last year and I can honestly say the growth from last year's district in math was amazing. Um seeing our kids are crushing it. Our kids are crushing it this year and it it feels so good to see that. Um and we want to get on the same page with
067that too. that we're not doing our own thing and we're not getting the reason we're adopting this is all on the same page. We want to make sure that we're all doing the same thing when we implement it. Um and we want to integrating I mentioned this with our MTSS program too. So all the support staff is is on the same page. Um we are doing yeah inter visitation within the school to kind of you know observe each other and also professional development day they said sorry which would be good for us um and then professional development next year we have three QP days which will probably a large part will go towards our report card finding things like that and then we'll also have three literacy days curriculum writing um so we want it
068to align with our IB program of inquiry that's very important to us program organization This is also really important to teachers. I'm sure parents, kids, everyone too. Um, as teachers, you have these like projects that you hold dear to your heart and you don't want to have to, you know, forget those just because we're adopting a new curriculum. I even had a conversation with Ellie the other day. She's she has beautiful bullet boards and she's putting stuff on the blowboard and she's like, "Is this something we're going to have to give up?" And I'm like, "No, like we can still do it all." So the program organization is really just like us picking the things that really mean a lot to us that we think is impactful to kids and things that they remember and
069making sure that's integrated into this curriculum. Um update parent guides. I know you're saying, you know, make sure everyone's on the same page. Um K through two, they do secret stories and morning meetings. That's something that we want to develop in curriculum writing on fourth grade. I don't know too much about that, but I know it's important to them. Um and we also want to explore if and how SNP is still how we want to assess reading up until this point. it is how we've been assessing reading. Research is showing it's not the best right now. So, we want to see what this program offers and we do believe it has what we need to assess reading in a better way um to get a better picture of where it is at. Um sorry, my
070all right so right now we use star. The kids don't like it. Um, but we have to we have to set together. You need to know where they're at. I Ready we believe is a good substitute for that. Um, I think you know financially that will also be beneficial for everybody and the kids actually like well there's mixed reviews but something has really a lot better too. Uh, and then instructional support in terms of esport things like that I Ready will replace that for us. So it's all again aligned in one program. It's the one package with everything. And then of course we want to talk to the middle school and see what we can bring to them in terms of this. I just want to highlight one piece about the universal standard because new
071to some merches this year was we started um distributing the star reports to parents via parents square. And the rationale behind that was because we really want to give parents the tools to advocate for their child and to understand where their strengths and challenges are. um what are teachers, you know, again, Dennis and I had a lot of conversations about we're going to adopt a new literacy program. Do we really want to shift our screener and all those other things at the same time? Um and resoundingly the answer was yes, change it all at once because the information that the teachers are able to glean from the I Ready instrument compared to STAR is just so much more impactful. Um, and the other nice piece, while it's not the only solution, when it identifies gaps
072for students, the instructional component is actually something that you could do at home for extra practice and it completely aligns with what the assessment is telling you. It's not required. We um have very passionate opinions about not overusing the technology and putting kids on screens for too often. Um but for the parent who's looking for that little bit extra to support their child in closing gaps or enriching um you know high levels in in literacy and math, this is um kind of the now what we finally have with I Ready. Oh yes. Well, Andy's gonna talk about it too. Um probably will be a good segue from what I was about to say. So the I ready diagnostic since I piloted I was able to do it. Uh so we did the diagnostic first. I
073also did the star assessment with my cliff. Um we then moved on to the I Ready diagnostic. My own children use the I Ready diagnostic and that was my big reason why I didn't want to do it because I didn't like the way that their district rolled it out and they only used the online component. It seems now that I know everything that I know about this program so silly not to use the whole thing. Once I was able to see the results of the diagnostic, it is broken apart into every single skill of a good reader. I know so much more clear and concise measurements of what my kids are able to do rather than the star assessment that really just shows where they fall within our class group. Um, are they a red?
074Are they a green? Are they a yellow? Do they need more intervention? The I Ready diagnostic actually is driving my instruction and it's also building a path for each child to go on like Amy said at home in the classroom not an exorbitant amount of time because I was one of those people that said no computer all the time. Um and it's actually building their going when they log on. Every child's path is different and it totally supports their learning and where they are in that moment. So I found so much so much about that. One more thing before I ask Annie probably said most of the things on your side I'm sorry. Um but when we were talking about finding um a new way to do FMP so there's a a running record. We
075kind of figure out grade levels based on an older product FMP. Um, we had very, we'll call it passionate conversations again about um, really ensuring that I Ready isn't the only measure for our students, right? Our teachers know our students. Um, I Ready is one piece of the puzzle and that was very important to build into our implementation plan. So, we're not going to rely on this instructional component only. We're not going to rely only on these test scores. It is our professionals and their professional judgment understanding our kids um in a very personalized way um putting all the pieces together and sharing them with families. Okay, I'm warm. I'm one of the learning specialists at um so when it comes to family support resources, one of the things that magnetic reading offers are family
076letters and these are intended um to let families know what's going on in the classroom. Then there comes seasonal family literacy challenges which are for the upper grades 3 through five. Um these are activities to help students grow their learning in literacy at home. Um and some of the materials even include hands-on approach so it's more engaging interactive in the home setting. Um and then my last two bullets I Ready data and I Ready personalized instruction. Um Heather and Amy did touch on it, but um three times throughout the year, um students take a diagnostic assessment and that creates a personalized learning path for each student and they are a the reason why the family support resources is because just like in the classroom, they're able to take that personalized path and like do it
077at home as well. Excellent. Um, so Curriculum Associates has been amazing with their level of support. We've had um tons of PD um that we've gotten to do because we piloted, but also anytime you email them, I get an answer immediately and if they don't know the answer, they refer me as someone who does. So to a teacher who's struggling with something or who needs something on the fly, I like that. Uh but it's really their mantra is that they believe that all students can become skilled readers. This is the best way to get them there. It is explicit. It's systematic and there it's evidence-based literacy instruction. Um it's the body of research. We could go on and on about it, but it is grounded in that reading is a science and kids learn how
078to read through these measures. And the beliefs of the magnetic reading is that it's designed to take every student from foundational skills to reading fluency. When my colleagues came in, they asked they asked my kids, "What are you doing? Why do you like it?" Um, you know, and they wanted to show all the things that they were learning. I taught first graders things. I have never taught first graders and I've been teaching first grade for a long time. So, it's it's robust without being overwhelming. The kids just love it. So, um, you want to talk to us a little bit about the efficiencies that you found? Oh my god. Yes. So, as everybody's been saying, we have had peace meal roast for a little while now. Um, luckily, we worked with a lot of amazing
079educators who don't stop until they find what works best for their kids. So with that being said, we also knew that we needed something that was going to be collaborative across the grade levels and that everybody could use that was friendly and also not overwhelming to a new teacher. I mean, I can go in with my 20 years of experience and in whatever I think is best because I can do that. But a new teacher can also follow the program and have it be just as effortless and have the same results that I would after teaching for 20 years. Um we also did wait where was I going with that? You you because um the word work is in sorry so our our um the kids don't have a ton of big books. They have
080one little book that they use. Um there's two. So, in my first grade, there's a foundational book uh which works on phonics and early literacy instruction. And then there's another book called Ready Reading where we're doing comprehension, vocabulary development, grammar. My kids learned about Elizabeth Katie Stanton last week, and it was amazing. Um, but we also the ease of it. I'm getting in, I'm getting out, and I'm not doing three different things to meet their needs. So when we're learning that we're using we were using integrity secret stories um science of reading word work foundations you know kind of anything that we were reading about we were let's try this let's try this and luckily Dennis made me go all right and they just kind of let us go with it um but we finally
081got to a place where this has everything all in one place and the amount of time it's actually freed up during my instructional day is wonderful because then I'm adding things like I said that I might want to do or special projects like Caitlyn mentioned that we can now fit in and work on more of our PYP um things like that and those projects and that all that project based learning that we love to do anyway there's more time for that because everything is so concise and consistent within the program that's great and that saves money too like with the edtech committee I was wanting to look for what we're spending on efficiency or redundancy and that's a perfect example so much sense to use diagnostic and program together. It doesn't, you know, it's all
082there for us. So, these are some young learners from Mr. Ego's class and they are taking an instructional diagnostic and it's so short but so sweet and [Music] and good. too much. What do you mean when you said it was too much? Um, it's because I keep clicking on the right things and um I don't think that there's any What happened? Do you like this one? Tell me more. She can't. I'm winning. Do you like winning? Yeah. Um, so that's them sitting down for a standardized test. I have a question. Do you have a handwriting program that goes along with it? Is there it has hand I mean kindergarten can probably speak to it a little bit more because they have a little bit more it's more robust than in first grade. Um there is
083we did talk about adding the boundaries that we use for for foundations with the um the skyline the grow line because they do have the dotted lines that are developmentally appropriate for young kids um but they didn't have the specific boundary lines. So we thought about getting that but handwriting is part of it. Yes. And first grade has the steady review as kindergarten and short approaches it so much more. Right. Foundations or does have their own? It replaces foundations. Yes. And it's more integrated. So the sounds that are practicing are found in the reading or found in the rating. And so it there's a lot of efficiency there. This is this is the last slide so don't take that. Um so a few things really quick. I just want to point out two of our
084other members of our committees are present in the uh the audience notary and Mary gave us more perspective at the beginning. I mean we really when we tell you we had this throughout the entire building it was being like we were breathing it together. Um, ENL was part of it, special education was part of it. Our special area teachers were familiar with the components of it and starting to hear more about it. Uh, Donna with the the diversity lens that she brought from her committee and Maryanne from speech and trying to really get a robust holistic view to determine because from from the start and Heather was the one that probably fought me the most on this. She said, "Just to be clear a thousand times, if we don't find the perfect thing, we stay
085the course with what we have right now because what we have is not broken." And I want that to be clear to the parents. We're not failing your kids right now. Our group has done all of the heavy lifting to learn what really best practice literacy instruction is to be able to take on a heavy lift like this and know at the end of the day that it truly is the right thing for kids. Okay, that was the first thing I want to point out. Second thing really for the community when we did our math program year one implementation it's a grind for parents it's a grind for kids year two alone year two alone and and for teachers absolutely year two alone you're already starting to feel that breath of fresh air where you're
086familiar with the program. It may not be perfect but you're there's that comfortability. So just understand that come year one there is that possibility that there's going to be hiccups along the way. That is a very natural organic part of the process when you're implementing the program. So just wanted to put that out there as a caveat. Um and that comes with the learning of the connection between the literacy program and the new report card. So those go hand in hand as well. We're all going to learn through that process and fine-tune as we go. Right. Uh next thing I Where was I? Oh, the last one. Okay, this group, I can't speak enough about the dedication of both of the groups that presented tonight. The fact that they were so passionate about this that
087we said you're working too hard and they said we want to do more is ridiculous in the world of education. You don't find that anywhere. So, I really can't thank them enough for their work because it wasn't just the things that were happening when we were here in the room together. They were at home finding their own resources on their networks of social media and all of these things and verifying and like validating things that they're saying, not to just say, "I saw this on Facebook, so it's got to be true." No, we didn't hold true to that. They were truly unbelievable throughout the entire process. so dedicated to make sure that it was the right thing. And we're confident that we're saying that because we know that what we have is solid, it is
088strong, but we feel like this next step is a very necessary part of the process. It's a really strong opinion that we feel like is best for our kids. And thank you and Mr. Richie, Miss Jackson, and I just want to thank the board for your willingness to empower the teachers to make these decisions and bring these recommendations for you for number one, the adoption of a bright and shiny new elementary report card as well as a very comprehensive program for literacy K through five. So, thank you. Well, any questions? For me, I think it's it's nice to see like how one passionate everybody is. You can't, you know, you can openly walk in a room and feel like people are like this, right? And for a school to be committed to that improvement, I
089think you guys should be for which is awesome. On our end, it's like how do we fit it in and make sure we're financially fitted in appropriately so that it's built in for five years so that our academic goals grow, you know? So, for me, I'm pretty excited to hear the excitement from the universes. And I just have like one question. I really want to geek out with you all my language writing notes. So I wish I could come and like hang out with respectful of everybody here. Um but like my one concern I guess um is I know um you might be testing it with uh teachers who have lots and lots of experience and you might be testing it with teachers have very minimal experience and you also been teaching um testing it
090with teachers who may not have lots and lots of digital literacy experience too and what kind of level of support I heard you say that they're very receptive and are is it a tiered approach um with their customer support and and just what are we purchasing in terms of that and making sure that they're going to provide the level of support we need for all of those pedagogically and also from a technical standpoint. So should the board support the these recommendations? Um the plan is this spring um to um professionally develop the entire faculty on just the pedigogy and the feel of the program um and to send them home with their teacher guides. And we hope they never open them because it's summer vacation, but they just feel better that they're in the corner
091of the room somewhere and they have them just in case there's a risky emergency. So everybody's also come and looked at them anyway. I have they've come into our room to the pilot and they all look at them that way and my my boys are both there would come in again and I'm like next week. So they're all excited. Yes. And I think you know it's really hard to start in the fall anticipating something new. So it's very important to us that in the spring we familiarize our staff. We don't give them too much because it is a very busy time of year, but just enough so that they feel comfortable that when they walk in in the fall, it's not going to be this enormous lift. Um, and then there are tiered levels of
092professional development. Um, there's um in the fall the where to click to find is very important and we need to do that very close to when instruction starts. Um, and then it's followed by like model coaching days. So um a professional developer comes in, they meet with our grade level, they teach a lesson for our grade level, our grade level observes that lesson, and then they debrief and they really understand the intricacies of the program. In addition, we have the PD, so I can speak to it a little bit, but it's broken up in a way that is very teacher friendly. So, we had one P on just the diagnostic alone and what to expect and how to look at the results and what to do with it. Um, like testing environment, what's the state
093of the children? They even give you slides and videos that go with it that you can play beforehand so the kids know what they're about to do. Super cute. There's characters. Anyway, um, and then we had a whole day of just the ready reading portion and then a whole day of the foundation. And then we were able, like you said, outdoors, which is always something we can talk to each other. But they they really scaffold it in a way that's very easy for us to unpack. It never felt overwhelming to me. And I have about a 10 minute response time. I was going to say there was actually a technical issue and someone was able to figure it out and realize other people were having the same issue and they contacted the company and they
094were able to fix the problem for them and help them get and the fact that we did the pilots the way that we did them as well. There is currently at least one we'll call it a quote expert in the field on a degree who has experienced it lived it themselves and from I don't know if this is unanimous but we also gave the teachers the grace that if you had the program that whether you piloted either program you had the autonomy as a teacher to be able to continue your pilot throughout the remainder of this school year if you were that competent so you could continue to grow it and be more knowledgeable about the program. So going into next year, you're going to have at least one person on a degree. That person
095might change. Just saying. Just saying. No guarantee that you're going to it gives us a little bit more confidence going into knowing that there's there's experts in the building you can tap into if you do have as well as in special ed, right? We had some classes pretty much 11 Does it go up to seventh grade? Is that middle school? It currently goes up to sixth grade for um the literacy program and um K through 8 and even into the high school uh for the instructional diagnos diagnostic and and the instructional component. Yeah, because we still have those kids on that STAR assessment that below grade reading level. So, we can kind of still work that. So, thank you for bringing that up. Um the one piece that we may have missed in this because
096we have all elementary colleagues here is now we have to share with middle school right so we have star K through 8 and we're suggesting we switch to I ready K through five um and we wanted and we've been collaborating with Dr. Reio um to find a day where our passionate educators from Clayton Huey can talk with the middle school educators and really articulate what they're excited about um and afford the middle school colleagues the opportunity to also see if they would like to trans uh transition immediately if we want to kind of hold the transition and maybe do it over time. Um but that is in the data would transfer grade level to grade level right so that's the beautiful part that we always lose and that would help Scott with special ed we
097have gaps identify it's kind of cool it's actually really good to see that this process was so engaging and rewarding for everyone involved and it looks like it involved a lot of people and and you know the results really improved outcomes for our kids That's wonderful. Um, one thing that that kind of puzzles me a little bit not being an educator. So, we're going from star to I see with STAR already some good evidence that things are improving moving in the right direction. Um, but now with this transition, there'll be this discontinuity of the results. So what does it mean or how do you interpret um a year from now let's say or whenever we've been how do you compare to where we were a year ago with star um what does that mean for
098the people that so in addition to our screeners individually we do subscribe to a product called right reason technology and it's a data warehouse on each of our students and so um back when we were doing our social emotional learning screeners when we have reading levels when we have the STAR assessment, the I Ready assessment. It's sort of the state assessments. Thank you. It lists the students name and all of those individual data points. And we also set cuts so that it color codes the data so that a teacher can open that up and at a glance kind of see, you know, Marcus is all in the green, so he's probably okay. Maybe I should recommend him for like an enrichment group, you know, when we're doing that. um oh I see that this student's
099really struggling here but they're kind of okay here and it it allows them to have like a more holistic picture um and really inform our MTSS process. So I guess the the short answer is that that star information will still be valuable. It will be phased out over time for much more valuable information but it's it's not a a waste. It will follow the students um and be helpful in the upcoming years and Sorry, they're both similar. They're both diagnostics. I don't feel like phasing out the star and putting in the I Ready would give any change to me as the educator. I actually get more information from the I already diagnostic than the star. Um anyway, so and it actually my instruction more than the star does. Um and it also goes with the
100path of learning for each individual child. is I actually think it's going to be better in the long run as over the start. And going back to A's point about the RRT. So not only can you see your whole class at a glance, but if you wanted to, if you're a fifth grade teacher, let's say, you can go and click on one individual student and it will pull up their historical profile over years. So that way you can see not only to compare the star versus the unready historical data, but you can also compare all of their other academic metrics to see like well it seemed like their FEP scores were increasing but their they were really low on the star and then all of a sudden they're soaring on the I Ready. When we
101look at that data too, it's just important to know all that does is give us a moment of pause to reflect. It doesn't necessarily change immediately our approach. It just says that's curious. is what do I want to do with that information and then we figure out the next steps or h that's not what I'm seeing in class like let me dig deeper into that am I paying a close enough attention to that child or is the assessment being a little off and can't just rush through there's also actually metrics built into my face planning if a kid is just abacaba going through the whole thing it'll send the teacher an alert to say that you might want to reassess this because it's not it also sends flags if they're on their individual adult cat
102and they had trouble with something, it could pass to go on to the next activity, it lets us know, too. So, we can go on with them and actually troubleshoot and figure it out. So, if they were home working on on a pathway and they continually struggled, there's an alert sense of the teacher, they know that they were struggling at home and they immediately help with those challenges. Thank you so much. All right, we have one more presentation which is the budget presentation number four that will be delivered by teachers. Don't hesitate if you don't want to. I'm not trying to everyone leaving because the budget is very important. Um this is a very important uh topic that we have tonight and I will move these quick visualiz just a recap of our budget process
103that we've been doing over the past few months now. Um but it was you know the ability to show the support for what all of you guys have been working on the past couple years um and how we'll be supporting it in the budget for next year. So, um, we'll quick go over the 2526 revenue, the 2526 expenditures, and then just again recap the capital reserve proposition that we have moving forward on the on the, um, ballot for May. So, with regards to uh, revenue, our state aid is getting a 2% increase as of now. The governor has not released um the updated budget. It is not on time. It was due April 1st. There was an extender through today. They will be meeting again to extend it again tomorrow. Um, and there really is
104no end in sight. We're not sure when we're going to get that, but budget must be adopted by Friday. Um, so we're kind of at a point we have to go with what we have. Um, and that's the 2% increase on foundation aid and our maximum levy uh with all exclusions is 2.95%. Our total budgettobudget increase is just over 2%. So with regard to expenses, this is just showing a comparative of where we are in the 2425 cycle versus the budget for next year. As you can see, salaries is our biggest component um of our budget and they are increasing and that's just based on contractual increases for everybody's um collective bargaining agreements. Transportation is remaining fairly steady as CPI has leveled out. Our contract for that increases by CPI in May. So, we don't
105know what it is until June. So, we have to budget off of what the trend of CPI has been over the past like six or seven months. Um but we are at pretty much at a steady point with where we believe that will come in. Um again benefits fairly steady and that was briefly because in January our night rates did not increase um for our active employees. So that was I think for the first time at least ever in my career um that that has happened and we're not sure though what will happen in the future. So we do account for an increase but because of that flatness in six months time our benefits are seeing a little bit of a decline from what we budgeted in the current year. Our debt again remains steady.
106that's approved debt from prior years that the um voters have approved for capital projects we've done in the past. Our Boseies expenditures are going up. That's cash obligations. Boseies sets their budget. Um and the programs that we use from them fees just go up by certain percentages as well as our enrollment for our um students with special needs population will fluctuate and drive some of that budget as well. And then our contractual and our supplies lines are going down again just based on the programs that we're using, changes that we're making. Um, and some cost savings that we're seeing in various areas. Yes. It's a little hard to read off the bar. I know I I'm never satisfied. Say I want to see pictures and then give you pictures and I want numbers. Um, can
107you give us a feel for the salary increase? How big that is? The increase itself. Yes. Um, off the top of my head, I don't have that number. I'm playing with a lot of numbers today. Um, but I can certainly put it into the budget hearing. I actually have a a pie chart that we'll share out in the budget hearing to show what percentages of it is and we can show the exact increase on that as well. Right. Right. I'm just noticing that it looks bigger than the numbers on the previous page. Two and 3%. Yeah. Salaries do tend to go up about 3%ish or so because it's the conglomerate of the entire district. So it's not just one collective bargaining group teachers which is our largest group. This also includes our custodial staff. We
108have our professional staff our office staff administrators as well as our other expenditures that regard to salary. So um extra period pay or chaperoning our security staff we did pull back into that line also keep that in mind. Um that was in the contractual line prior. So that is now in there as well. Um as and then you know sharing all of those things are all part of that hasually increase as well. So that last year was a tractional supply and that should that shift back to the line. So this is what's called the three-part budget. Back if you look at the first presentation we did budget workshop one we spoke about what the three parts are. Administrative, instructional capital. Um, and this is just showing you again that almost 80% is our instructional component
109of our budget. That is what we're here for, to educate children. Um, and that's where most of our money is spent. Capital is in regards to our buildings, our facilities, our utilities, our debt. Um, and then administrative is all those other things that are not directly related to teaching our children. Um, not just administrative staff, but it is our insurance for the district. It's all the benefits that relate to our um administrative staff as well as all our clerical staff falls into that line. Any supplies and contractual items that are not educational related such as our software programs that we use for the um administration or for running the district or for some of our teachers involved fall into those components. So um again just a quick breakdown of the three components of the budget.
110So our total budget proposed for 55,257,281 and again this is a budget that is within our allowable tax levy limit. So then the last piece is the use of capital reserve. We've been talking about this since day one that we started the budget process. Um in fact we've been talking about this I feel like for the past year and a half since we've been talking about a bond. Um it is we established in May of 2022 a capital reserve. Thank you to the voters for helping us establish that. Um where we're the total reserve can go up to $5 million and that money is used by surplus at the end of each school year. So it is not a budgeted line item. It is not an expense in the budget. Um it is once that
111we close our books at the end of the year if we have revenues over expenditures. We and then we hit our 4% of u unallocated fund balance we then can put money into other reserves. And this is now one of those reserves to help us do work within our facilities. And by doing this, this allows us to go back to our voters and say, "Hey, we now have money that we've set aside due to savings and we need to do some capital improvements within the building." Voters, can we please use this amount of money for this specific project at no cost to you? And in addition, we'll now receive building aid. So our building aid ratio is about 78%. So once we spend money from that capital reserve over 15 years we'll get 78% of
112that spread out over the course of 15 years. Um and again no cost to the taxpayers though. So it's money is already put into a savings account. The caveat is voters have to approve us to create the account. Voters have to approve us to spend the account. So we do have the proposition coming forward and again it is for the auditorium. Um I don't think especially in this room much explanation is needed as to why um we need to do money put money into the auditorium but this is so back in the bonds we had put in a proposal proposal cut and replacement of the auditorium millions of dollars um we now are back to the drawing board saying okay bonds weren't successful what is another option we have money in capital reserve how can
113we give the auditorium a facelift here's another way to do that um and we've been peacemailing I work with a lot of the vendors over um the summer and the fall to come up with a budget to get cost estimates of what we're looking at in order to um brighten up the auditorium and fix a lot of things that are broken in there. So, it's about a $1.2 million project. There are some contingencies in there. Um sometimes you start doing projects and you don't know what you're going to uncover. This budget is from the fall. Prices from the fall until when we actually do the project project can go up. So, we wanted to give ourselves a little bit of room in there for that. We um if we are approved in May by our
114voters, we would be submitting this to SED through a third-party review which expedites that process so that we can hopefully have a permit in hand in July and get that one done in August. No guarantees on any of that, but that is what our timeline and our goal is going forward. So, our vote is on May 20th uh at from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and will be held at the high school library. Um, our budget hearing is on May 7th. Um, I believe you're here in this building at 7 PM. Um, where we'll kind of a lot of this and a lot of thing you've seen in past presentations at that meeting. We'll also go through a little bit more detail exactly what those additions are into the budget such as the literacy program,
115some maintenance work that we're doing, um, machinery that we need to be buying and replacing, and any other um, exciting programs that we're offering into next year. So, um, questions from the board as we are closing our budget process. So, we do not have 5 million in the bank right now, but we can correct 5 million. Yes, we can put up to 5 million um over the course of about 10 years. We have just over two million with the anticipation of putting some additional funds at the end of this school year. Thank you very much, but I hope It's hard from just a few presentations that we put up. I hope the community understands the challenge in generating budgets. So, you know, you look at it, you say, well, we got 2% increase in state
116aid and our enrollment is not increasing and yet we're asking for 2.95% more taxes. Um, you know, that that's hard. That's a difficult pill for this community to swallow. I've mentioned things like the combined wealth ratio, which is this number that the state generates. property values, family incomes, and factors were we're way down on that list. You know, we're just above William Floyd. We're above district, right? Right. And that's about it in every other district and county is doing better than us. So, that gives you an idea of the financial challenges that a lot of our families are having to deal with. Um, but if you look at the budget, you know, there's nothing extravagant in here and It's just a very challenging situation to come up with something that meets the educational needs of
117our students and is still respectful of communities. I hope you know people look at this with an open mind and tell us that this is the way because we're in a tight spot. We are and you know with the um state aid being only 2% um so there was a whole revenue study that was done and um thankfully we're getting 2% because there was a point where we were going to be frozen and not to get that 600,000 would be detrimental to our programs because we do rely on our taxpayers. Um we you know for a little bit of time there we were on the up because we started we got our foundation aid reinstated. So we were getting a lot of money. We were able to continue and sustain program and build that fiscal
118stability going forward and that's been through you know the past couple of years of our long-term financial planning that we've been working towards. Um we also had a lot of the co money that came to us that helped us add programs add supports for our students. With that planning that we've done the past five years, we've been able to also sustain those programs and those those positions um by adding them into the budget slowly and making sure we're using our monies and doing our finances to the best that we can, but being mindful of our taxpayers. We are, you know, I want to say I think probably the highest funding request since I've been here um at the 2.95% but it really is needed in order to continue to maintain our programs and the best
119services for our students. So, you know, just talking about a great literacy program. They're not cheap. It certainly is not cheap to run and implement these programs. We did a MAP program that was two-year implementation of costs. Same thing will be with literacy program. You know, the vendors are working with us. Dr. Myers done a great job of negotiating with the vendors to get the price down and and to see how we spread out the cost. Um the things she's been wheeling dealing and trying to get for free for these teachers and the you know, the uh the demos and the trials that they've been doing. um they're it's important, but we also have to maintain them now going forward. And having that fiscal plan that we've been developing over the past five years and
120showing to the community, this this is what we're doing. We're really doing the best we can to be mindful of the taxpayer and the tax dollar. Um but we're coming to a point where we really need to go to that maximum. We've not in the past and we've left money on the table by doing that. And that money then compounds year after year. So we really have to make sure continuing to be recruited but keep continuing to maintain the program for our students not increasing our elementary class sizes to 30 students per class. You know we really have um really put a focus on focus on those things and you know working together as a team building these budgets. It's hard. It's not easy. I am grateful this has been probably one of our easiest
121budget cycles but because we've worked so hard the past four years to get to this point. can't say in the future it will be still just as easy. There's, you know, you're always going to have hiccups along the way of things that will happen. Um, but we we've been fortunate in the planning that we've done in the past four years to get to a fairly easy cycle, but we do need to, you know, be mindful of the taxpayers going forward as well. So, yes, to your point, you know, there's there's an ask there. Um but it's an important ask in order to continue and sustain the program and then also continue to improve our facilities where there's quite a bit pieces in there. Yeah, we have a lot of buildings are desperate renovations, right? We
122had a couple of votes where people can't spend that much. So, you know, through this process now and you know, as you know, through facilities committee, we've been trying to get creative. What can we do? How can we work this out with our five-year capital plan? And, you know, we're starting to build more of our into our general fund budget as a result of the fail. So, um, you know, trying to maintain our our facilities just for health and safety purposes. Um, never mind improvement. You know, the capital reserve is going to help improve the auditorium, but that's also becoming now a health and safety issue. Um, it is in disrepair. So it and that's just one one area um that we have to be aware of. Thank you. Thank you. Questions and comments regarding
123tonight's agenda only. This is the opportunity for persons who wish to speak or who have written letters to the board regarding topics that are included on this agenda. Speakers are asked to sign in with the district clerk prior to approaching the board. Indicate your topic for public comment. Keep comments brief and to speak for no longer than three minutes. Members of the public will have the opportunity to speak about any topic at the end of the meeting. Is there anybody that say regarding this agenda? There's a lot [Music] of forgies admin budget is voted upon by all board members throughout Suffach County. um on one night. So tonight, our board is asked to vote on their admin budget. So um the recommended action, the board of education authorizes the district clerk to dis to record
124the outcome of the vote and notify Eastern Suffach Boseies of the results of the vote for the adoption of the Bosey's admin budget. Um be it resolved to approve or not to approve the 2526 Eastern Suffach Bose seats admin budget. Do we approve or not approve? motion to approve. Okay. So motion that was unanimous. Um uh there were five vacancies available in East Sosia's board of education for the 2526 school year. Therefore be it resolved the board of education of San Union school district hereby cast one vote for each of the following candidates to fill a vacancy seat on the Eastern South Bosey's board of education and authorizes the district clerk to record the outcome. the five candidates. I'll name them out loud right now and then um we'll go ahead and decide if we
125would like to make a motion to elect all five of them. Linda Goldsmith, Voice of Palms, William Sang of Riverhead, Lisa Israel of Greenport, Kelly and Jennings of Patrick Medford, John White of Bridgeampton. Thank you. Consent agenda items. Be a resolve for a motion to approve the consent agenda items 9A through 16B. Motion. Okay. Discussion. I would like to say so with us tonight we have Mrs. Marissa Nigel and I have to give your family a tremendous amount of credit. exactly almost two hours of presentations. I know I'm very sleepy, but they're very well named. So, I've known Marissa now for 12 years. Marissa came to us back in 2013 as a math teacher and I still remember being part of that interview process. I think from the beginning, Marissa, we were all amazed by
126your dedication, your confidence in the classroom, your knowledge of math, and your true love for students in and outside of the classroom. I remember you being the advisor for four consecutive years and everything that we needed whether whether it was assistance with regious examinations, AP exams, whatever we needed, you were always there for us. So it was very difficult for us to see you leave the classroom because you were such an amazing teacher. I still remember back in 2019, my son took three captains. my son Nelson who was a secondy year law student there and he wasn't really doing too well at all. Math wasn't necessarily his um greatest subject, but the care and time that you dedicated to them and you pushed them through to the point that he did okay. He didn't go
127to AP calculus, but you you showed them such patience and warmth that I never forgot that experience. So for that and for every everything else that you've done for students, I am eternally grateful. So as administrators, we have two very very important things that we do. One is that we hire the next generation of teachers. So we go through this arduous process of conducting interview processes um vetting through resumeumés alling references. The other thing that we do is is recommending tenure for individuals that we believe have done a stellar job and without hesitation I think that you have grown tremendously not just as a teacher but now as administrator. You have great compassion for students. You have a great collaborative spirit when working with teachers. You want to see the district move forward. You want
128to see your building move forward. You are at every event that the high school host. You are there from the beginning. You're there to the end. That means a tremendous amount to me. It means a tremendous amount to a board, to the community, to parents, and you are in it for all the right reasons. So, it is without hesitation that I strongly recommend your tenure as a high school principal at St. Richard School District. [Applause] Can I take a picture? Congratulations. [Applause] Yes. And it's not officially yet because the board actually has to accept my recommendation. You can motion. [Music] We actually have two more. We have other [Music] So, we also have tonight two pallets that are retiring from the district. There's Donna Ferna and Patricia Stewart. So, I'm going to say a few
129things about the two individuals. Donna Fern began a career with us in September of 1994 as a batch key leader, which was at the time CH. Sorry, I didn't didn't realize that's what we call the best. From there, she moved into both the in the champ program and as a breakfast monitor and eventually worked in nearly every capacity as a par professional from kindergarten classes, our middle and high school populations and even alongside our nurses, offering care and comfort whenever it was needed. Donna described as colleagues as the ultimate professional known for her warm smile, gentle demeanor, and the quiet strength she brought to every room. She has been a steady, compassionate presence for students and staff alike for over 30 years. As she retires at the end of this school year, we thank her
130for a career walk of grace, kindness, and deep commitment. She will be greatly missed but the impact she made will remain with us for many years to come. So congratulations Donna. And the next individual that is retiring is Patrick Patricia Stewart. join uh Miss Stewart joined our district in 2007 and has been a valued member of our path team ever since. She has also contributed her time and energy to our extended school year program each summer supporting students with dedication and care. Patricia is known as someone who is flexible and always willing to go above and beyond. a true team player who could always be counted on to step in whenever she was needed. Patricia's positivity, reliability, and willingness to adopt has made her an asset to our school community. Her retirement marks the close
131of a chapter filled with generosity, professionalism, and a genuine passion for working with children. To Donna and Patricia, thank you for your years of service, your commitment to our students, and the example you've set for all of us. We wish you both health, happiness, and and plenty of well earned relaxation in your retirement. [Applause] One final thing, we would like to thank the PTO for their very generous donation of a gaga pit and basketball net for the elementary school. So, thank you so much. Now we can make official. All in favor? Congratulations. [Music] You ever see how many times people adjusted digits? Everybody. Thank you guys. Yes. I was like public comments. Members of the public who desire to address or question the board on any topic related to board work are welcome to do
132so at this time. Speakers are requested to sign with prior to the board. Indicate your question of comment. Keep your comments brief and to speak for no longer than three minutes. To appoint a spokesperson if the concern is a group concern and to supplement verbal presentations with written reports if necessary or desired. [Music] informationational items. The next board of education meeting and budget hearing and action meeting is Wednesday, May 7th. We had to change that meeting. So, it's on Wednesday, May 7th. Um executive session at 6 p.m. and action uh meeting approximately 700 p.m. here at district office. The school budget vote and election is Tuesday, May 20th in the high school library. The full hours are from 7:00 a.m. to 7 to 9:00 p.m. School will be closed on Friday, May 23rd. No emergency
133facilities were used in the winter of 2425. So that is why we have the additional um data. The PTO and community connections committee meeting is going to be on Wednesday, April 30th at 6:30 p.m. in the Clayton QE cafeteria. So anybody would like to attend that, please feel free. And one last thing, on Saturday, the high school classes are also 5:30 open. It's a very big deal. 5:30 p.m. open the doors. Thank you. And in the back of the room, we do have flyers uh for the upcoming capital reserve proposition that will appear on the ballot. So, it is just like anformational um brochure. So, please take it as Thank you everyone. Thank you guys. Motion to adjurnn the meeting. Motion second. All in favor? Thank you everybody for coming. [Music]