001uh for you to speak first one will be about agenda items only and then at the end of the meeting there's a public session where you can speak about anything you want if you do plan on speaking the sign in book is right over there on the corner of the table you just fill that out we would appreciate right Dr all right thank you Mr Maxwell well a great night this evening to recognize um some students and staff that have done wonderful things I hope everyone had an opportunity to do a little gallery walk um some of our middle school students are here that did some extraordinary work um with our middle years uh program um you know gallery and Community Showcase um we had um some dignitaries come in and I have to say
002you know it's um it's unusual for a politici to come to an event and stay for two hours it really is usually it's kind of come in and maybe like you know get a you know photo off and then usually will go but they were so impressed I have to say assemblyman deal um Senator Murray um all of all of the um uh all of the dignitaries that came were so impressed with the work that our students the passion that they brought uh talking about their project um in some cases we moving us almost the teers um as we did the gallery walk um and so just an overall congratulations for all of our students that did their middle years program projects um and I'm going to give it to miss baby and who's going
003to talk a little bit more about that and some other Middle School recognition uh but just I wanted to personally congratul great thank you I hope I'm loud enough everybody um so we do hope you had a chance to enjoy our mini Gallery you weren able to join us on April 5th we're always inide law of the work that our students do and how they support our community I just want to give a second to recognize all the in creators that are here tonight so if you are seated please stand if you're there please step forward Round of Applause for your and your support the showc really is such a special day for us in Middle School truly highlights what it to be midle and I really just want to their commitment to our students
004the philosophy of program and our Middle School Shin through their work our showcase is just one example of how incredible teachers are our they work with our students on understanding what the project means our community how to research and network and connect with different organizations they work through barriers and they build their skills on exec they coordinate perfect matches and mentors who our passions are shared this year Miss Ag and Mrs held individual with our students this was a really great idea and it led to confident e graders presenting on the day of the gallery right so thank you all for coming all the students that we invited here tonight um all showed up which was awesome they were great with their presentations um we had 59 projects and that is a lot we also
005have a lot of projects out there so please take some time to really go and see what they did um we had projects from all different areas from Sports from veterans from you know the natural Community like the beaches and things like that um Collections and drives and really if you start talking to the student um they were all super passionate about um their idea and also serving the community and that was really the process of the project not just to um do a project and help the community which is an awesome awesome thing but to really find something that you're passionate about and use that passion to really help the community so we are super super proud of them and all of the hard work that they have done um we can recognize them
006enough we'll let them know who wom are MVP of the at moving up ceremony and some other Awards but for now we just all right so we want to extend our heartfelt congratulations to each and every one of our students for their hard work perseverance and indignation throughout this journey your dedication to making a difference in the world is truly inspiring we have no doubt that you'll continue to do great things in the future we also want to express our gratitude to the teachers mentors parents building Administration and community members who have supported our students every step of the way your guidance and encouragement have an instrumental helping our students turn their ideas into reality so once again congratulations to our eth grade class on our outstanding presentation we just really wanted to talk about
007to how our MIT projects are display of the in that's part of our middle year program um through every discipline we try to help our students make meaningful connections between M Force work these projects bring together those skills connect those Concepts and demonstrate an understanding of our Global World another opportunity though that we wanted to highlight tonight is our greef Festival on the board like us um activities throughout the day um this is a really great activity in six grade that we chose to highlight tonight because it brings the great um learning that they do in English and social stud um Miss Glenn is The Mastermind behind this had a sixth grader who G through our program um so after the studentet Cy Jackson and they study hent grease in social studies she coordinates these
008efforts with our sixth grade team and from a Living Museum to aing games to a lunch the students are exposed to a great day of fun learning and really meaningful connections are made um some of the projects have included collaborating with M um for Creative brief project um they designed fashion and armor and so many fun um live projects that the students are able to like look at and touch and view it's really a very fun day um all the projects that are made by our students bring from writing and performance and they create original plays and other Hands-On GS for their CEST to enjoy so I had to here toize super you can game in are her favorite because there was a marathon game that she loves and Ari Bryan who with us also
009he um talked about how they were able to contribute to making prods where the Pu and he made a GRE cabin good J all right and now we're gonna move over to our high school presentation so good evening um so I love every part of board meetings I do but this is my favorite I love it when we get to brate about the kids and really talk about all the great things that they're doing um so we're going to touch upon a few things for high school we are going to talk about um our student sented stem day so if any of you have kids that were in for Vi um hopefully your kids be home and talk about how much they love stem day um masth con Robotics and the Long Island uh so
010I will be quick because I can talk forever about how awesome they are and I have a crew back there too um that literally drove a robot in here to show it off because that's how you know excited we are about all of this um so the first thing that I want to talk about is stem day so just a little bit of background stem day is like near and dear my heart I feel like it's my baby because um when I was a teacher in 2016 2017 I students who were very um I'll use the word persistent with me and got me to the point where they brought up we don't have a math Society we need to do something so we made one and then they said I want to go down to
011the elementary school and Infuse this love of stem and Science and all this stuff and I said all right so let's do it and we did and that next year in 2018 we had our first them day Downy and I saw a lot of it here seen it Grow from our first year to where it is now so fast forward six years and we definitely made adjustments um science on society is a huge part of this and we are really growing it the kids come up here the elementary school kids come up here adment and so I just kind of want to highlight them we have like a short um clip and it's fun because it gives the high school and the elementary school perspective of the day it's in the St sign I embedded
012it you got it I'm sorry I'm telling I was just trying to show off that I got it so somay um y the down we have the fourth gr come in and then fifth come in when the come in they go each table and each table had two high schoolers and they they prepared a little experiment or project for the the students to do ahead of time and then they kind of show the four and graders what the sci behind it and how that translated it's on schoolers just learn about a bunch of different things that may they wouldn't be able to do hands on in the classroom I love going uh just the trip to the uh high school and my favorite station was um making the Play-Doh and um [Music] robot I like
013[Music] watching basketball St new things and and we chat about high school and other things and learn new [Music] stations inter the schoolers was interesting for at least for me for and I'm assuming the rest schol just to to have to put take what they know and what they're learning in school and find a way to translate that did a a great job so we could just give around okay the next thing that I would like to um note is we have done this four years also it's called mathon it's an online math competition that our students who are in the maon society for uh it is it is designed to kind of like Groll up for for stem and kind of um give our students an idea of all the different fields out there
014and things like that uh there were over 26,000 participants from grade 4 through 12 um across the United States and Canada and they chose 628 finalists and from set marous high school we had two finals um yes so I'm not sure okay so Stephen G Stephen you're here come on Sten are you here yet no he's on a zoom with hisle right now so when he comes I'm just probably gonna say love it I also wanted to give a shout out for S um thank you to miss miss and all the teachers that were involved there were a lot there was a lot of work to do um and also for maton miss dtz and miss berety for guiding our students and making sure that they um took part in this awesome opportunity okay robotics
015robotics has had an amazing year so far uh their first competition they not only ranked number 10 at the South fla Regional but they also received the autonomous award which celebrates the team that has demonstrated consistent reliable high performance robot operation during autonomously managed action evaluation is based on the robots ability to sense it surroundings position itself on or on board mechanism toly execute tasks right is that what you guys did nice job awesome uh then they went to the fingerlakes regional competition they ranked third which placed them as the number one team on so Mr sparis who literally ran off of the um flag football field come here and then he's gonna run back coach um k Mr Roy has also been a big part of the robotics group uh so I just want
016to say thank you to them for like leading and I think a few of our are you going to show it off for a sec are you going to you got something okay so take it away for [Music] [Applause] a little Rob okay we have I have one more this was added today um because we had a group of students who went to Long Island in Von and we had two teams and um let me give you a little so the way that clubs most clubs are created here is that students all use the word again are very persistent right where Robert um so Robert really wanted to start an environmental sustainability club and so he just kept on ask him and filling out the prop paperwork and getting her on on board and um
017he really started to like build this program and tied together with Miss we now have not just clubs we have uh courses and curriculum and we're sending our more students to do these um Environmental Studies and and CH and programs was great um so today they went and I found out that team ospre won right I just want to give a shout out to those students Alexian matd ches Conelly jackow Daniel Jurgens and Robert Sim we also had a team wild turkey who attended um that was K wber emilyn Alo DK May Molly Mur and R who all also did a great job have another round awesome St awesome kids again I can be up here allight nobody wants me to do that um but great job to all of my high schoolers who are
018here and I'll thank you so all right I I have some students that I'd like to recognize as well um this year we had our superintendent's Council um and we had uh representatives from the elementary school the middle school and the high school uh we did recognize our all school students previously so I'd like to uh at this meeting since we had middle school and high school here recognize those middle school students and those high school students that participated in our superintendence Council um I'll start with the Middle School um and again just a wonderful experience for me as a superintendent to engage with students and talk about things that are really important to them we talk a lot about student voice and engagement um and really to to hear from the students the things
019that are important to them um is really important to all of us and they actually help us um really to to get the pulse and and make decisions and inform our decision they in the school um the Middle School group um we talked about things uh you know really of course it's ways to improve the school you know we start out about this idea of um things that we like things that we think could be improved things that um we should add to our school and then of course things we should get rid of um so those are like the four things that we we start with um but our our kids talked of course you know middle school kids are going to talk about that lunch week and and what we can do to
020improve our lunches uh but we also talked about some other things um like 10 period and ways to improve the the 10 period in the Middle School um but you know the most recent conversation a pretty robust one that we had which was really neat talking about the impact of artificial intelligence um and how kids interact with it and and what we could be doing as a school to you know embrace the technology um and really you know harness it for the good that it can do um and you know not sit on the sideline while we watch this um this new technology um you know really um change the landscape in every field um and teach our kids how to really interact very smartly with it and it's just such a cool conversation to
021meet school kids and talk about that so I'm I'm just gonna again I'm talk too much here but I'm gonna invite them up um so I'll just read their names and then we can get a picture and we a SK before them I'm not sure exactly who's here I know orie's here so um ory Bryant is here Ethan ches my this left I know London Evans I don't think could make it but kayy Hayes of course was here and Chase [Applause] all right thank you guys should my sheet over all right um and then we had our high school students and our high school students of course those a pleasure engage with them uh talked about a lot of things about the school um of course you know one of the Hot Topics this year
022on high school um was the idea of you know the scholarship and the smart pass um and again smart pass being one of those things that when we first brought in kind oh um you know Big Brothers got are watching and then it turned out um in talking with with the kids that turned out to actually be a really good thing and something that um not only enhanced accountability from an administrative standpoint and safety and but the kids kind of felt really good about it in the end so that was neat U we also talked about clubs um and some of the impacts of some of the Poli do the impact clubs and and what we can do with that um cell phone use in the classrooms and in the school in general um but
023just really a great conversation and I'm sure the kids will tell you the things that that were a little bit more important to them uh but that's some of the feedback that we got um so I will um welcome up and I know I saw Destiny here Desy Blackwood Chris here as well CH bracket Gabby d'angeles she isn't here okay oh okay gab's playing football Austin Austin's at the cross Austin Dante Dante he's that but I did see Eric um so Eric is here so these are U four of our members of our our high school or three members of our high school superintendent Council thank you guys for being here thank you for everything you guys yes I know I'm sorry come around but I just feel like if you have these things on
024come on show [Applause] off I know was [Applause] so congratulations to everybody I I got the opportunity to walk through the lobby and see some of the projects really spectacular work you guys are doing and miss m I couldn't agree with you more that is by far the best part of every single board so very nicely done thank you so much for coming out to all right you know just the last mention um you know uh there's a push in New York state to recognize students of military families um you know kids who have family members who are in the military you on other winners so um as I was saying there is a um in New York state there's push from our governor and through all our schools to recognize students um whose families
025are in the military um so it's called and I sent a letter just before the beginning of the month uh it's purple up to military kids um and again you know kids who's whose families are um whose parents are in the military or family members in the military often time there are long absences um where where the kids families are separated um and they face many challenges sometimes they're more transient they move to different locations um and they face unique challenges that that often times um families who don't have military families don't really understand um so there is time set aside for this month to think about those kids um and one of the things that that we're being asked to do is to have everyone wear purple on Friday so we wearing purple um
026purple up on Friday for kids from military family so um if we can do that that would be great love to see a SE of purple and and that's all um we do have and and I know it is a school night and I'm looking at my watch um we have uh a lot of kids here who probably um would like of course you may want to sit through a budget presentation and a cre presentation U but you certainly don't need to if you'd like to excuse yourselves um you can do that at this time thank you so much for being here it's always a pleasure to have you here [Music] let she all right guys time [Music] ready all right we're going to move ahead with the budget presentation thank you so tonight is
027the um budget adoption the board has on the agenda to adopt the final budget that we've been working through for the past few months um so we're going to go through where we were last meeting when we talked about um the bulk of the budget which was our program curriculums and where we stood at that point in time with our um shortfall within revenues versus expenditures and then um we'll go into um a little bit more followup on the federal funding for our programs that we have those three-year grants that we've had um since the start um of the pandemic that are all coming to an end at the end of this year so with regards to the revenue the um we are within our maximum allowable Levy which is 2.47% we are having um
028put back in the budget the state aid that the governor had cut when she put her proposal out in January Foundation Aid was cut P Harless was removed as well as the um inflation Factor was adjusted there is if you've been following the news there was a um message put out the other evening that there is a conceptual agreement in place however then there was some scuttlebutt about that maybe there isn't but based on conversations we've had um with the leaders of the state as well as um our organizations both the superintendent and the school business officials it is um we are getting back what the original runs back in November showed so we are confident that we'll be getting back that 283,000 that we're cut in the January run so we're putting that back
029in um we're also increasing the Reliance on the teachers retirement Reserve we've increased that just under $200,000 to balance the budget um so our overall budget to budget increase is 4.56% um this is just to show where we are with fund balance so fund balance is all of our money that we have in our savings account it's what we call a rainy day fund um we have unappropriated fund balance which is allowed to be 4% of your next year's budget that you can have um you also then have What's called the reserves uh in various categories so we have a bunch of different reserves our Reserve plan is up on the website we've talked about them at VAR various meetings uh the reserves that we've been using within our budget each year are the Employee
030Retirement System the teachers retirement system unemployment as well as debt Reserve so these are categories that we have expenditures every year that we're seeing we're using the reserve to support those expenditures and then at the end of the year when we have any surplus funds we put that same money back into them or if not addition funds in order to continue them so you can see from 20156 our total fund balance has grown significantly um and that's due to our fiscal Prudence that we've been working through we have a four-year financial plan we've been monitoring our spending um and and just growing that savings account we created a capital reserve where funding our Reserves at healthy levels at this point in time and then you can see where we've been pretty steady with what we
031use as far as the appropriated fund balance which was about 1 2 million when I started six years ago we're down to 800,000 that we have appropriated to the budget each year now um but we are relying on those other reserves where we have expenses occurring so as you can see the dip dips and flows of that we're in 2425 we are reaching into them a little bit deeper than we have in the past and that is just because of some things we've been seeing on the expenditure side that is causing us to kind of backfill that budget so that we don't hurt program within the district so for instance we have a drop in tuition um students that are coming into the district we have an influx of costs with regards to our students
032with special needs um with classifications or placement needs that they have as well as Transportation costs have gone up quite high with regards to CPI so in order to balance the budget and not hurt program we are um touching the reserves with the intent to fund them back at the end of the year so where we are with expenses as you can see by this chart salaries and benefits are the largest part of our budget um that is the bulk of what we do here is the employ staff to educate our students there are benefits that we lead to everybody um there's collective bargaining agreements that we that everybody is a part of within the district um our Bose's expenses um as well as our contractual supplies are also fairly High trans there are uh
033obligations we have uh Transportation goes up by What's called the Consumer Price Index and that's established in May of each year that's given to us based on the transportation CPI um so right now we have to kind of guesstimate based on where inflation is and where the numbers are as to what we think that rate will be in future in the next year um our bosis expenses so we contract with bosis for a lot of services it is aidable expenses with bosis we have about a 65% Aid ratio with regards to expenses we pay bosis we get that Aid back in the following school year um so it does uh benefit the district to use Bose's as much as possible um bosis also educates our students for their CTE programs as well as a lot
034of our students with special needs um our transportation as I mentioned and then debt is what we have on the books currently for past capital projects that are obligations that to district has to pay back so we've talked about through this whole process we look at the budget in three parts we have the administrative component our Capital component and then our program um of which program is just that the instructional budget capital is our buildings and grounds our debt our Insurance Administration is kind of just all other umbrella type expens to the budget so you can see again instructional budget being the highest percent um of the budget overall just under 80% so how did we get to a balanced budget from where we were last meeting back in uh March I believe it was
035to how we are now again we restored the state aid of $286,000 from that meeting through now we did receive some additional retirements um so that resulted in savings to the budget our Bo's administrative Services we took a look at all those Services we're receiving it said where else can we cut so we reduce some Services we have um again not impacting program it's more at the administrative support level that we decided to pull back on some things that we use um such as our deas and support we have um an enhanced version of that we're going down to a basic Service as we already have established the past couple years we have a liaison in each building now we've been working on curriculum and working on program we have a robust committee so we're
036just kind of peeling back the layer and kind of start to go grow on our own without so much intense bosy support in that area and then we have an analytical software that we use in district office to do some comparative analytics with regards what you'll see soon in the data presentation that Dr Meyer is going to give some presentations that we use here with the budget um again just peel back the layer on that because we can get the information elsewhere it just takes a little bit more time so that software we're going to reduce and then again we just kind of refined expenses we looked again at the whole budget um we had some changes that did occur with students with special needs the floor and the APR room we're going to hold
037off on at this point in time as we're finishing up this year we are doing fund balance projections each month we're just finishing up March's projection um and if we have some monies left in our repair codes from this year for buildings and grounds um we will try to get that floor done before um July 1st with this year's money so that is forthcoming and then 559 Main Street as we've discussed in the past as well potentially moving the house off property there would be a bid process for that there would be a potential cost we don't know that's been estimated so we are going to be getting that bid out late May early June and with that we'll be able to actually obligate if there's any cost to the district it would be able
038to be obligated this year instead of next year's money so we pulled that out of next year's budget as well so overall the total budget is 54,1 132 914 that we're recommending to the board this evening again it is within the maximum allowable Levy limit that we've calculated um back in February so just to piggy back from our conversation last time also on our federal spending programs the three-year grants so we had cursa funding and what's called ARP funding um the what these charts are showing is just the three we have four different categories within ARP all these categories had to focus on learning loss social emotional learning as well as focus on enl students our students with special needs and really most our most vulnerable populations so what we've done again all the uh
039budgets and amendments that we've done to those grants are on our website um but with regards to learning loss it supported our reading teachers and our learning Specialists which we've now rolled into the general fund so that we can continue those programs going forward and we've been doing that over the past couple years um our 90% which was kind of like an umbrella number it wasn't so restrictive there were some restrictions but a little bit more lenient um we had an enl teacher we hired a social worker and it also supported our enl summer program down at the elementary building with regards to Summer learning um this has supported our summer enrichment programs and as well as the enl program down at the elementary building so the summer enrichment that happens at elementary as well
040as up at the middle school high school which we talked about last time so we bring scope in at down at the elementary school and we've been phasing in the costs um for parents to be paying for this knowing that this money was going to be running out so year one I think parents paid $50 uh per session then last year we increased so we've been increasing the cost knowing that we were not going to have the money but we still want to offer the program because we got great feedback and enrollment was really high last year so um in order to keep Equity between buildings and because of the way this money was rolled out we received notice I think it was in March and it said okay implement the program in July that's
041a lot of work to do in a very short period of time get enrollment going get interest so mostly summer middle schools really didn't run many programs that summer they then picked it up in the last two years as well as this coming summer so that they can offer Equitable Services to our high school kids as we did to the elementary kids and then after school program supported it had to be just that what can we do after school to help children get them back involved in school when they came back from the pandemic um how do we get their interest again and really get them you know socializing with each other so we had offered Wellness programs we had the High School Credit Recovery trying to help kids get across the line and graduate
042those that may have fallen behind due to covid um we've been offering extra tutoring Services up at the high school we have additional clubs that we had added K12 between all all grades um that were added over the past couple years as well as we have a great program that Mrs slifstein runs the Secretary of high school it's the enl transitional program where each night once a week she has enl families come here to this building and she kind of just gives them updates on what's going on in the school what is available to their children helps them with college applications financial aid they do a Christmas party and it's really kind of been bringing um the enl population and Community to get them informed and get them more involved within the district it's really
043been a successful program that we are looking forward to continuing in the future so we are at the end of our budget timeline as we will be adopting budget this evening um the next meet meeting for budget is the actual budget hearing which will be May 8th down in District office um where it is strictly a budget hearing meeting there no action items at that meeting it's just to go over kind of a broad span of the budget and the requirements that we have to provide to the public there will be um a budget brochure going out in the coming weeks as well that kind of summarizes all of this there's a yellow postcard um available to pick up at the front desk if you haven't received it in the mail already um just to
044remind you that the budget vote changed location we will be doing it here in this library in state instead of down at Main Street Gym um and that is primarily because we have been um significantly interrupting educational programs down at the elementary building when we have to shut the entire gym down no class can have gym on a rainy day they have to do it in the classroom and restructure having it here that is less of an impact on the students so and it's easier to pull up and the entrance is right here it's a better security uh for the district as well so um the information is also in the district calendar that was printed back in August in case anybody asks um the yellow card were mailed out earlier it will be reiterated
045again in the budget brochure as well as on the six day notice that we put out six days prior to the budget um the vote is on the 21st from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. absentee ballots will be available in The District Clerk's office if you are not able to be here on the site to vote questions from the sorry I'm talking really fast on that we have a lot thats res allation the teachers retirement Reserve so we pay um for all teachers as well as we have the Employee Retirement um system we have to pay a a portion into the pension system so that Reserve is what we're using to help balance the budget sorry about that and then the APR room floor is going to be put on um what are our expected
046things that we planning for rep with the so those um are we're working on getting quotes for they really can't be repaired they have to be replaced um what we are looking at is the parking lot in the back to use a repair Reserve potentially for that we're getting quotes on that to get gauge with what that looks like so there may be a hearing coming forward in probably around June about using repair Reserve money to do that project um we are currently so next week which was already in this year this week this year's budget the high school gym floors are getting um just kind of updated it's an annual maintenance work that gets done each year it hadn't get wasn't able to get done over the summer due to the use of the
047gym so the gym next week is closed down to do that floor um we're doing the vessel view floor here in the middle school we are also doing um the fencing around the tennis courts we are waiting on quotes for the tennis courts because they themselves are in Fairly bad shape um so the engineers had come out and did um what's called scorings to see what the surface level looks like on that to see what the extent is it a complete redo or can we just do some repairs there as well so we're doing a lot of investigative work to see what we can do with repair Reserve money the capital Outlet project that's allotted for next year is um bathrooms at clayon Hy um no we don't have a legislative budget so we don't
048know if that number goes up at all so right now it's just $100,000 again so we are looking at you know a little bit lesser cost projects that we can start tackling on our list to start doing some repairs and but the bigger cost items are not in the budget as they're just it's just too costly one last question onart budget under Capal budget I heard you say the word um administrative and then a separate no capital is just uh buildings and grounds um Debt Service um utilities and such and then there's the administrative budget yeah anything else thank you we do want to thank you and Ron and the rest of the cabinet everybody work on the budget for putting together such a responsible one that allows us to maintain programs District than okay
049uh we also have our annual data presentation so Dr marer is going to be uh all right so um we're approaching our data presentation this year as we did last year as a bit of a story um as a district um We are continuing to reflect on our annually set goals by the Board of Education um they're listed here but in the data presentation specifically we're focusing on supporting agency and academic success so in all the things that we do in all of our professional development plans our district plans across the board we're using the goals and all of the subcomponents of these goals to guide our conversations and decisions um and in addition we know that we're a Continuum District um for International baloria so we are inquirers we're reflectors we're communicators and so
050we're asking these questions tonight in relationship to our data and that is what are the things that are we are celebrating um what is the data telling us and then what actions are we taking as a result of the story that we have learned so our chapters tonight and I promise their short chapters are our Rich history diversity resilience points of Pride reflection practices and then what's to come in our next chapter um we engaged in a lot of um Community feedback activities this year related to our strategic planning uh we distributed a climate survey for our faculty and students this year um we had multiple thought exchanges related to the Strategic plan the um the the bonds proposals and a lot of our history came through in in those um exchanges with community and
051we've sort of um this is catching on I think of it uh everyone kind of describes hes as this small town with deep roots and a global mindset right we honor our history um we appreciate the small town feel and the very supportive nature of our school system um and IB and the education that we're providing um is really getting our students to think globally we saw that with our myp projects and kids Thinking Beyond um their individual lives um and contributing to our our Global Society so then we look at our diversity and this is the 10year trends um so we're becoming a more diverse District um to honor that you know we honor our long-standing relationship with the ug Nation we are no place for hate across all buildings we have activities that
052are planned um to provide welcoming and affirming activities um and to to continue the conversation about the importance of diversity equity and inclusivity um in addition we have our parent child plus program which helps parents and um students prior to kindergarten um to really learn about different things to support children in getting School ready so um because of our changing diversity and all of these programs um we're really able to be enriched by our diversity um and then we talk about our resilience some of the challenges that we have in our district um this is a fiveyear look back but we are seeing that our students with disabilities are increasing the students um that um qualify for free and reduced lunch are increasing um and our English language learner population is increasing steadily but increasing
053also the um variety of languages home languages spoken um is diversifying as well so a lot of things that our educators are grappling with and learning and trying to work to support our um our students with all of this diversity um additionally our combined wealth ratio as um it did rebounce a little bit from last year to this year um we're at a 0708 the combined Walsh ratio is really a measurement of the the wealth in the District we're the ninth lowest in suffa County currently um as a result we're doing a lot of activities in professional development with teachers around Mental Health First Aid um we conducted our first ever P poverty simulation this year um to really build empathy and and talk about all of the things that the children in our district
054come to our doors with um in addition to poverty and any other sort of um traumas that they could be experiencing so with all of those challenges and um points we do have quite a lot to celebrate um our enrollment is just over 1500 students we are a onetoone district employing um over 1,400 mobile devices for learning um we have 43 ibap college level courses offered um Career and Technical education students we've increased this dramatically it used to be capped historically um and our board and administrative team have made the decision to support all students that are interested in those Career and Technical education um Pathways to be able to um to to challenge that coursework at Bose um Miss Lan spoke about our club offerings um the Myriad of students who are in our
055musical programs our athletic teams um and again truly enriched by our English language learners um these are some of the numbers that we talk about when we're looking at uh the data as a whole so some reflective practices we're looking at the Timeline um of of of our story what has happened in our recent history so back in um 1920 we were identified by New York State as a targeted support and improvement district in two buildings um and that's really important we were able to apply for um a waiver for one and um that was accepted the other was denied so we were at the middle school identified as a targeted support building um and of course the thing nobody wants to talk about anymore right in 2020 the pandemic hit as well um so
056in 2020 2021 our students were dealing with distance learning um in December of 2020 Dr Mah and Miss angoria delivered a presentation on the pandemic effects to the Board of Education um and we really began to uh hyperfocus on the impacts to learning and what were the things that we were going to do to support our students so in 2122 um we began to get very explicit and clear about our comprehensive guidance plan we developed along with that a social emotional learning Continuum uh we have the uh Dr Soto's work with the diversity equity and inclusion plan and the committee and liaison um related to that as we continue to celebrate our diversity um we administer pair for our students across the school district uh we dig into that information on a regular basis and
057we're trying to refine and support our students and understanding not only the portrait of our school and what our strengths and challenges are but also their individual portraits so a piece of reflection for them in that area um 100% of I I should say nearly 100% of our mental of our staff this year have um become Mental Health First Aid training uh trains um and then we continue to support our onetoone initiative uh in 2223 we took this a step further we did some restructuring of the administrative team at the high school um we developed a robust professional development plan around some of these topics that we're talking about with the pandemic we expanded navian which is the program that we use through the counseling program to support students with setting their postsecondary goals and
058exploring their career paths and interests um we developed a school to community program which has um grown tremendously over the past two years we're we're asking um you know it kind of the concept of it take the village so we have Community organizations coming in to support our students with things such as mock interviews um networking events elevator spe speeches those sort of things uh We've also implemented restorative practices more um across our buildings um which means we are getting creative and res and restorative in consequences when students are perhaps making um poor decisions I'm sorry about that uh and then finally in 2223 a a very big curricular lift is that we adopted an elementary math program this year um or at the end of last year and the beginning of this year we
059implemented an mtss plan which looks at the balance of not only individualizing supports in academics for students but also in social emotional learning and mental health um the high school implemented a smart path system which is holding students more account accountable uh for their time in class um take removing some of the traffic in our hallways and and really um we'll share a little bit more about this St later but um really showing some great improvements in our high school culture we engaged in a strategic planning um committee an equitable Greening practices committee and we have a uh literacy committee going all around topics related to this data um and then also this year we've engaged in some pretty intense professional development for the 10 region courses so when we're reflecting on the data itself
060what is the data that we're looking at and and people tend to look at our exam scores on the regions or the AP or the IB exams but we're also looking at some internal assessments like our star assessment um we do use our pair which is our holistic student assessment um that's more towards social emotional learning so there are multiple measures that we're looking at as we're reflecting on our story um one of the struggles or one of the potentially available points for us would be the New York City Testing um but we have such a low participation rate so one of the things that we've been trying to do is each year over the past few um we've encouraged folks to opt into testing um we still leave it up to the parents um
061but we do share with them all the things that have Chang it changed with um three through eight testing over time the responsiveness of the state um the lower Stakes the removal of these scores related to teacher evaluation we share all of those things um and and we kind of share it as kind of like a checkup right so if students were to sit for this exam there are much Kinder experience than they perhaps were previously um and they do yield some some helpful data if we were to get a representative sample of students taking it so we are seeing very very very slight um increases in our participation rate um the ELA was just administered so this is hot off the presses 43% participation in the state exams um and that is some grades
062are participating at a rate of like 56% all the way down to I think our lowest was 11% so in what makes it difficult to use this data is that the the pop the the pool of students that you're looking at um is sometimes a very small percentage of the actual grade level um but also it is um maybe not representative of all the subcategories um SC so you're to buy a house in town you scroll down the AFF our values I think it's a continued conversation and like I said that's one of the reasons we're putting out this kind of consider opting your your child back in um to the testing um because it it's a valid point that this information is out there about the community and sometimes you know when you're looking
063at that number that number isn't representative of the full story right when you have a participation rate of 43% it's not a representative sample of the students in the district that enced uh well so we we distribute that that material through the district um and and our teachers essentially leave it up to the the parents to make that decision we don't encourage opting out um and we're and we're trying to start to encourage higher participation rates it's not tied to teer it's no longer yes to be clear it's no longer tied to teacher evaluations New York State um kind of took the feedback of New York State Educators um they listened they made the exam shorter they're they're more appropriate they're less a lower States environment for students um so yeah they they did take
064a lot of feedback into consideration so those are our participation rates we do have um the results here so this is for the ELA we don't have the results obviously of the assessment that our students just sat for recently um but you can see that um we're kind of all over the map some of that is like 84% looks really great um I tried to remember to write some of these down hang on one second so the 84% proficiency was only 52% of our students taking the assessment in that in third grade where in sixth grade um 11% proficiency was but only 30 37% of our students participated so it's really it's really difficult to make apples and oranges um or or to to to The Cypher between this I will assure you that the
065information that we do get we look at um one of the things that we're uh continually interested in is supporting students with disabilities or supporting students that are English language Learners um those those groups we do look at and we try to um ascertain if if the assessment's telling us anything about that um but it is really difficult to draw broad conclusions based on the participation rate and then the same thing here for mathematics again I picked third and sixth grade because it was the from the last slide 26% for proficiency for third grade um but 54% of the grade level participated um and then in sixth grade 24% participated and it was 53% proficiency so again a little bit difficult to deci what's going on and the fluctuations year to year really um are
066difficult to determine Trends so what do we use uh we have an internal assessment called star um star breaks into K2 early literacy then we use it 3 through eight in literacy and 3 through eight in mathematics and one of the things that we are continually interested in is if our students are making um typical or above uh typical growth what we're noticing over the past three years since we've been using um star so this is below typical growth here so if you're Quick Glance you want the orange to increase uh to decrease and you want the green to be going up so 63% of our students scored at or above typical growth um from the fall to the winter this year um and that's a 2% increase over previous years 2 through eight literacy
067um 69% of our students are scoring at or above typical growth this is up 4% from the fall of or and winter of um 23 24 so again we're seeing slowly the students rebounding and making typical growth and progress in an academic year this happens to be just from fall to winter we don't have the spring to report yet they take that assessment at the end of May um but we um we're comparing different at the same time of year for mathematics uh we had a little bit of an interesting story last year last year um was the first year that we were really digging deeply into adopting an elementary mathematics program um and we're seeing that the mathematics program in the first year is hopefully doing it's it's hard to draw that conclusion in
068one year but um is hopefully doing what it should be by creating this Continuum we have more students making typical growth um from the fall to winter and the administration of Scar all right so the June 2003 regions proficiency rates this is the passing scores across the 10 exams um it's on this graph the red is Cent mares the green is suffet County so we're comparing our our results to the average in suff County as well as the average in New York state um and typically um we're around average to New York State um in some exams were a little bit lower uh than sub County and some were much higher and we're a little bit you know there there's no consistent parent uh uh pattern across the 10 exams but we are noticing patterns
069within the exams and we're talking about them at the department level so here are our Mastery rates same story um CES is red sub County and then New York State um what we've done as a result of looking at this data not only just at this year but across the years um is we've started to have we've started to get back to um some really deep conversations around curriculum instruction and and the tests themselves so um our our uh core academic areas at the high school level all engaged in Next Generation professional development um they had release time from class where they number one reviewed last year's Regents exam looked at um the differences between proficiency and Mastery and what were the things that we could do as a department to push those students that
070were so close to Mastery over the line or the same thing between just just not being successful and being proficient at a region exam what were those things and conversations that we could do as a department um to make those tweaks to the curriculum to to further support our students um so we looked at Ela one of the things that um Ela decided um was that um to focus on student centered learning but also to build literacy and the essay writing another major shift and I'll share the results of that for um Ela is they decided that um our students could handle a January administration of the ELA assessment and one of the things that does is it kind of takes one of the exams off of off of the plates of our 11th graders
071when they are um it's a pretty heavy regions testing year um and and I'll show you those results moment entirely in mathematics we did one and a half days they're focusing on three act math tasks uh more explicit calculator instruction and reviewing standards and spiraling throughout the sequence of mathematics in the high school in science we um have some major shifts coming in the New York State science learning standards um in the pedagogy and in the way we assess students so we we engaged heavily in conversations about that this year um in social studies we looked at content specific terms and really support the supporting students um with that second half of the exam exam across the exams one of the things that were noted by all of the Departments is that is really where
072our students needed the support is in that part two of the assessment where they're asked to um read and provide evidence to answer a question and those sort of things so we've really been engaged in a lot of conversations about that um world languages um received two days they reworked the new checkpoints related to the new standards um and then additional planning time school's been working on rubric and and and lots of things have been happening um around PR instruction one of the things that we've really been talking about as a team is supporting literacy across the content areas and that's strategies for the classrooms to support giving kids those skills on those part twos of the exams so um now some of the um fun things that we get to share about the ELA
073assessment so the ELA assessment this is going back to 2011 you see the big ugly Co bar in the middle um postco we saw a dip in the proficiency uh for our students so the high school Ela Department banded together they really worked on refining lessons to focus on the skills needed to um achieve proficiency and Mastery on this assessment um and we administered in January which we had done previously and was um we kind of brought it back um and here are the January 24 results so to be clear these are all June exams we just readministered and we just administered in January and we saw our score as rebound so a concerted effort by your department who really dug in and took the time to work on the standards um and and we
074saw some immediate results for our students and so what that does is it allows our students to have one less assessment to take this June or the ability to retake the assessment because they didn't quite achieve Mastery and want to do so or for those students who weren't successful they have another um chance to do so so then when we look at um our assessments not only are we looking at our region assessments but we're looking at our diploma program exams so our diploma program exams uh we have here this is just this last year was just the second year of administering exams the number of students taking the exam and the exam scores um and we also have the number of certificate students and one of the things that we always note about these
075programs in IB and AP is our open enrollment policy and so um when you're looking at scores and perhaps you're seeing well some of the lower scores it is sometimes explained by students who um might not be your top student but is really willing to challenge themsel in an area um and so they're they're attempting the cour work they're attempting the exam score and uh their exam and maybe their scores aren't at that High Caliber um but they're getting the threes and the fours that are replacing college credits for them as undergraduates those sort of things um one of the things that was really important to the system that we have to note about IB is that IB at the high school is not just these exams it's not just these 10 courses it's really
076what we do in the fabric of of teaching and learning across our program K through 12 we're even working at the upk level to embed it um so all of our students are IB students all of our students are being challenged by the IB program and then some of our students just as with ap choose to challenge themselves and take a course and perhaps earn a certificate in a particular content area or they take a um a sequence of courses and a few exams and the Community Action project and are able to achieve um diploma candidacy for graduation so those are the highest honors with International baloran but we want to be cautious to say that all of our students or IB students um they're working really hard at that and I think those transdisciplinary
077units that the Middle School Shar this evening um the nyp projects are all great illustrations of how every student is um engaged in ID learning and we have our advanced placement data this goes back to 2017 um you'll see we're rebounding with our percentage of students above a three um but we are training downward in the number of students that are attempting AP and that's and one of the reasons for that is when we began our journey with ap and IB many of our students um and us as well we weren't quite sure what will colleges want and so students were sitting for both the AP and the IB in particular courses um that's very stressful um and but they were doing it because they wanted to make sure they were doing best by their
078college resume one of the things that we're learning is that colleges are looking for the level of rigor in coursework and so it's okay to be either AP or IB you don't have to be both um and stress yourself out in May um and so that's why our numbers trending downwards um but our AP um above three scores are are trending upward a bit we're starting to kind of rebound PA after the pandemic so as I mentioned before we do have pair which is our social emotional learning screener it's it's an opportunity for our students to receive a self-portrait on their strengths and difficulties um as well as um their resiliency so it shows them their strengths and it shows them their challenges um we look at their strengths and challenges overall as a district
079we um share them with our teachers at the class level um and this year for the first time we were able to share individual portraits back with students so they take the self assessment we're able to share with them what the assessment told them based on their responses one of the things to note there's a tier one two and three over in the corner and it indicates that 23% of our students have tier three challenges related to social emotional learning and why this is significant it's not necessarily the students that we know we don't know about our counselors are well aware our social workers are well aware our um our psychologists are meeting with these students perhaps it's a member of our administrative team that is just meeting with this student we know those challenges
080but that number is significant because we're seeing the slow rebound from the pandemic and it's kind of reaffirming that yes kids are still struggling so we use this information often to reflect on our practices the other thing that we look at is the challenges our students are having and we um often sit as a administrative team and we talk about well one of the top challenges is learning interest for students and what are some things that we could be doing to support teachers to support students in in kind of Higher Learning interests for critical thinking or perseverance so that's how we're using that information so the high school um I mentioned later uh earlier that um the high school has made some strides in their culture of care we did some restructuring and um some
081of the things that um are new are smart path so smart pass was implemented in 2223 here were our number numbers from the fall to the winter there were 26 out of school suspensions 13 in school suspensions and 10 instances of vaping and smoking at the high school now apply smart paths and all of the work that the teachers the administrative team and the students did to make this initiative successful and in the same time period during this school year it was six out of school suspensions six in school suspensions and six inol es of deeping and smoking so we're seeing a decline in the number of behaviors that are related to um decision- making in the hallways or in the bathrooms or in areas that were not scheduled to be because of smart T
082um also from 2021 to 2023 we've seen a 46% decrease in course failures um so our Administration is is really focused on looking at the students who are in danger of failing or potentially failing and providing that mtss that multi-tiered level of support that individualized support that students need um to decrease that number and get them those credits towards graduation and that feeling of success in the high school level we also completed our first session of credit recovery um and are in our currently our second session um but during that first session eight students recovered multiple credits for graduation so it's an in thee opportunity to stay after hours um and kind of recoup some of the credits perhaps lost um because of course failures um and then lastly as we engage with the community
083and and all of the thought exchanges and climate surveys and and things and information that we were uh was gathered uh the strategic planning committee has drafted what we are calling charting the course it's our strategic plan for the next 5 years it is still in draft format um but will be available on the web and one of the significance thing things about that is it is truly Community voice student voice teacher voice that went into the creation of this document and the planning forward for the next five years so on the previous slide um we said coming soon what are the things that we're focusing on now for next year related to the data that we're reflecting on and the information that we've learned about our story uh we have IB uh curriculum planning
084days these are opportunities for our departments our grade levels to focus on designing that curriculum to address the things that we're seeing in our data um we're talking about literacy Continuum and our student struggles on the part two of the assessment and working towards giving teachers additional tools to support kids in that area um we're providing teacher choice and empowerment and our superintendent's conference day up and coming um so they will have the opportunity to choose the areas where they want to be professionally developed during our superintendent conference day and focus on things that are important to them in their classroom and their pedagogy we have a um very rich conversations about Equitable grading practices um through our curriculum committee and a subcommittee and looking at the way we communicate students success so that we
085can better improve their understanding of what that score means and what are the things that they could do to improve um and then trauma informed practices knowing all of the things that our students are still hanging on to either post pandemic or just because of their own personal situations um it's really important for our Educators to understand trauma informed practices and be able to to provide a welcoming and affirming environment to all of our students um when they walk in the door each day so those are the areas of focus um in in the future thank you the brings us to questions and comments regarding tonight's agenda our financial reports the res at the Board of Education upon the recommendation for the superintendent of schools accepts the following Financial reports internal claims order report March
0862024 Student Activity Treasures report February 2024 Treasures report for February 2024 budget transfers 1718 19 2021 22 motion motion second second discussion all in favor yes motion carries unanimously donations be resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the Board of Education accepts the following donations $250 with Pro superintendent cler scholarship $5,000 dolber Family Foundation parent child home plus program 2425 $500 Vues at Brookfield HLA motion motion second discussion yeah um just uh great deal of thanks to for these donations um obviously the for superintendent um cluster donation is an annual one that we utilize for scholarships for our high school seniors um so that um is just an organization that we belong to we get that back that I belong to we get that back um the second one is sort of
087like um one that I I thank Miss ceras for her U networking and her passion for the parent child plus program parent child plus plus program for people who don't know about it is for our at most our most atrisk families um that suffer and live in poverty um from birth to age three um we actually do Outreach in this material a wonderful job trying to do some parent trainings on how to build print Rich environments and how to support parents to get their children um School ready um from bir birth to H before they hit prek um and so it's a really important um program for us for students who come from impoverished backgrounds um we generally get bullet a grants from legislators um Feld is once again committed fully to uh to support
088that for us uh you know pending of state budget of course um but this is a $5,000 donation from a family um that you know is not really looking for a whole lot of recognition but they have a charitable um portion and and they're making this donation to us it's $5,000 to supplement a program that really does a lot of great work um so can't thank the TR family enough for that um and then um $500 from The Vineyards at Brookfield um they this is basically just a thank you a thank you for allowing them to use our facilities um to host their homeowners association meeting um so you know did not expect it but they came through and said they they'd like to make that donation as a thank you for one annual meeting
089so really nice all in favor yes motion Carri motion to table items 12 F and 12 G rfps and approve amended consent agenda motion second we got two motions in second okay I'm sorry discussion all in favor yes yes motion carries we resolve a motion to approve the consent agenda items 10 a through 15a motion second discussion oh I'm sorry yeah in that again we have consent agenda so um we do want to recognize a couple of the tyes um alen Chappelle a power professional been here 23 years um she's just uh always you know identified as that really patient kindhearted person in our school um and has worked our breakfast program and has been here for a long time serving our population so um we wish her well in her retirement and secondly Mr
090Spicer uh Bob Spicer has been here for 27 years since 1996 umed as a n science teacher um he's been student council advisor and of course uh a tennis coach um so um and has coached soccer in the past so congratulations on this as well congratulations all in favor yes motion carries general public comment guidelines there uh speak minute time limit members of the public who desire to address question the board on any topic related to board work are welcome to do so at this time speakers are requested their remarks to not more than three minutes to appoint a spokesperson concern as aou concern supplement verbal presentations with fre reports of necessary or desired I think we do have a evening my name is Cassie um I'm going to prace my question by saying that
091I was employed by the when I so when I watch the live I had the first one being it was mentioned that the house we have and South I think are the two so we designate the district paper in is that anywhere on the website somebody want to see it will also be posted on the dra up spe for that this is a district project Brook Haven's approval to move the hous inside historic district but the district is controlling process and will be one correct it will be two lines for submission uh well first to answer your your original question who preparing it the district's Architects have prepared bits in conjunction with our office um that are being developed to be legally compant and then in terms of how that going to work there'll be
092two lines for submission the purchase price for the house itself and the cost for removal which would offset the district's hope obviously is that the the uh the cost of the house would exceed the cost the removal um for profit but if not the district put current cost uh for the service of removing house um it also has the house would be removed within the district why is that that was one of the requirements of the town in order to allow us some go the house because stort nature they like to remain that's correct and once the date is open will how will the community know who's will just like any other competitive bid the board will award it at so we would how much District have spend for or receed for it of read
093a lot commity concern know probably be the best person to have your some contact UM and depending on the situation everything thank you so much for that thank you Thomas so let me first off start by saying I'm actually very happy to be here tonight um I'd like to express my ucation the school board tonight for listening to my concerns the community concerns regarding the Personnel matter I'm sure you don't hear this often but thank you thank you for listening to the community thank you for letting everyone speak even though sometimes it was longer than three minutes thank you for making a positive diff difference in the school district thank you again thank you so much Mr Thompson thank you we appreciate the respectful discourse we know times often when people come and speak it's
094because they are unhappy and we do appreciate the respectful manner which everybody presented and we certainly appreciate you coming here tonight and Thanking us uh you know it's been a length of time so uh thank you very much for that we appreciate thank you we appreciate everything done that's it on the list okay um important I report upcoming Board of bed dates Wednesday May 8 2024 is the annual budget hearing district office at Administration boardroom at 7 o'clock Tuesday May 21st 2024 school budget vote and election new location here at the high school library at I know L went over the reasons why and that' be from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m come right into the door parking lot's going to be cleared so for ease of parking and entering uh and then Wednesday May
09522nd 2024 board head meeting location to be determined we are going to move into exec not U we're going to come out of exec we are not taking any action we're going home we do have second exec so we're going to motion into that now uh motion to move into executive session for the purpose to discuss col par agreements and contracts motion second all in favor yes motion Carri un thank you so much for coming out tonight