CUFSD BOE MEETING 09/24/2025

001Good evening and welcome to the September 24th board of education meeting for the Chester Union Free School District. Mrs. Ayuzi, can you please take role? >> I call your name. Mr. >> President, >> present. >> Mrs. Johnson, >> present. Thank you. Can we please stand for the pledge of allegiance? >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Can I please have a motion to adopt tonight's agenda? >> I'll make that motion. >> I'll second. >> All in favor? >> I >> motion pass. Can I please have a motion to approve the board meeting minutes of September 10th, 2025? >> I'll make that motion. Second. >> All in favor? >> Motion pass. That

002brings us to tonight's presentations. Mrs. Garcia. Good evening everyone. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we celebrate diverse histories and cultures of Hispanic and Latino communities whose traditions, values, and contributions enrich the lives of our students and strength and strengthen the spirit of our schools. Latinos. I will begin my report by providing you with summer updates. It's been two months since I've last shared updates, so I've have a lot of information for you all, so bear with me. Uh, I am pleased to announce that, uh, Chester Academy middle school science teachers received professional development on the lab aids pilot curriculum in July. grade level teams collaborated on unit uh select unit of choice and conducted lab modeling a students experiences and I will provide greater details during the curriculum pilot presentation in a few minutes

003our new teacher orientation continued with our teamdriven tradition it took place on Monday August 25th our admin team business officeic officials, uh, guidance team, athletic director, and Dorene Batiste. Welcome our new hires. I want to thank last year's new teachers for keeping with our tradition of welcoming the new faculty and providing them with tips by sharing welcome videos for the 2025 uh, new teacher orientation. And the teachers are Charlotte Petropalo, Colleen Pachchowski, Timothy Jordan, and Ashley Scallion who shared amazing welcome videos. Um, our new faculty members have been paired with a content area mentor and mentoring partnerships were formally approved yesterday uh by our APR uh professional learning plan district advisory committee. Our superintendent conference day took place on September 2nd and this year's theme created by superintendent O'Hara is purpose, passion and pride. The

004professional learning focus was on synergy implementation which is our new student information uh system and the event culminating in the celebration of our employee recognition. I will now share our update for uh English as a new language uh students. We held a district ENL department meeting on September 10th with Chester Academy and Chester Elementary School L teachers. Uh they made updates to Synergy uh on the student uh ENL status. They collaborated on ENL supports and they planned for the district's ENL orientation. Many thanks to Dennis Lri, our data guru, for providing the ENL department with data and synergy support. Uh during open house, both Chester Elementary School and Chester Academy teachers met with families um and I provided some support with them for Spanish translation where needed. Uh currently at CES and at Chester Academy

005each have approximately 30 ENL students receiving services. Um our students uh once they pass the New York State English language achievement test which is the nicest lab uh they are performing at commanding one and commanding two levels which means that they receive two years of support after they exit full ENL status. What that means is that they will receive about 90 minutes per week receiving ELA services uh in English class or in another content area. As part of his uh Hispanic Heritage Month, I will be participating in the Rising Voices Mystery Reader Series, Elevating Latino Voices at CES. I submitted a Google uh document for the teachers to sign up and in one day I had 15 teachers already signed up for a classroom visit where I will read bilingual stories in Spanish and English.

006Uh from the Scholastic book series encouraging multi-ingualism and promoting cultural pride. This initiative also highlights the district's commitment to supporting the seal of bi literacy at the secondary school level and reinforcing supports in the scholastic literacy curriculum pilot. And these are like two of the books that I will be reading. I organized them by grade level. Maria had a little llama, Maria Jamita and uh Esme. It's mine. So I have different grade levels uh books up to fifth grade and that's starting tomorrow. Um, in support of our district goal one and three, we are working on improving communication efforts for families who speak language other than English. Our administrative team uh is working on improving communication effort efforts in our school district and in our schools. We collaborated on creating a survey for families. We

007focused on three major questions which the first one was what methods of communication do they utilize to obtain information from the school district. What challenges do they face when receiving information from the school or district and what could the district do to make communication easier for them and their families? The survey was given September 17th via parent square uh to aid in translation supports encourage I encourage families to take the survey. We haven't had a lot of them complete it but I'll send follow-up messages for them to uh finish it. And um lastly, family instructional academy. Our very first family sectional academy workshop for the 2025 school year will be an ENL orientation and Hispanic Heritage Month social will take place tomorrow. So the ENL department will hold its ENL orientation for families at 6:30.

008The ENL teachers will present an overview of the services our school district provides and what supports are available for their children. and we will then hold a special gathering in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. We'll begin from 7 to 8. Everyone is welcome. We've had pretty good We had like 30 RSVPs for the event. We have uh Mr. Danny Tobin, our ELA teacher, and Nerda Cabo, our ENL leave replacement, uh will be teaching Zumba. Uh I will be facilitating dominoes stations. Uh we also have a special dance performance by the Mambbo Army which is a Matt Hernandez company. Our former student from Chester dance team is going to be dancing. And uh this is also a collaboration with the middle school uh student council and the multicultural club who will provide child care and activities

009for school age children during the ENL orientation. Special thanks to the club advisors Elizabeth Depalus and Charlotte Petropalo for coordinating the event with our ENL team and our next uh family instructional academy will be October 30th and then December 18th and I will now provide you with an update of the curriculum pilots. So you can look at the presentation and I'll start with that. So this is the curriculum update for 2025. So as part of our district goal two is to provide innovative datadriven and career connected learning experiences through highly qualified staff dedicated to support the success of all students. So the pilot process allows the teachers to explore and evaluate New York State generation standards that are aligned. The programs are aligned uh before deciding a full implementation or commitment to a multi-year contract.

010So, the teachers receive professional development. They engage with the program directly. They gather data on its effectiveness and how it supports student success and through the hands-on experiences, it enables them to assess whether or not the piloted program is aligned to the standards and meet the student needs. and then it provides valuable feedback before any final decision uh is made on moving forward with the curriculum. So in collaboration uh with uh Chester Elementary School and Chester Academy instructional meetings with building principles, we created a content area implementation timeline that focus on specific uh content area subjects each year. So um here we have our 2025 curriculum pilots. We have several that I will do a brief overview for. These are some of them and I'm going to give you an update on the ELA pilot.

011So last year uh Scholastic Literacy was the pilot winner and this is the second year of ELA implementation. And this year in an extension to the Scholastic Literacy, we purchased the Scholastic Literacy Pro uh which is a pretty cool uh independent reading uh program. It gives the students the ability to uh create an avatar. They uh do a survey on what their if they like reading or not. Uh they assess their reading engagement. Then they ask them what their favorite genre is and then they do a little assessment and then they're able to get like a list of independent reading books that's age appropriate. Um, and then the students make goals on how many books they want to read for the year, how long they want to read for, and then it makes adjustments. It

012allows the teacher to um allow the students to read a grade above or grade below so they can find the just right book. And the teachers are all excited. They received access this week, so they're thrilled for that. Parents are able to will be able to access that as well um through um uh class link. So, um, that's a great addition to the Scholastic program. At Chester Academy, uh, the teachers are implementing year two of, um, common lit pro. Uh, so it provides a grade 6 through 12 next generation standards data for teachers. So we know that the uh we have the I ready diagnostic uh in grades uh K through eight but then we don't have any assessments in the upper grade. So through common lit curriculum the teachers at the high school level

013are able to provide assessments for the students uh based on standards and then it gives them an item analysis results of their progress. So there'll be additional data um that doesn't just end in eighth grade. Uh so yeah so this is their second year ELA implementation. So uh last year the teacher started by implementing one or two units and then this year they'll add an additional unit to their uh course uh study uh mathematics pilot. We know that we have I Ready. This is our fourth year in I Ready and at Chester Academy. Uh due to the time constraints with the periods um the teachers uh at um reviewed last year ready New York which is a next generation uh standard uh platform that is not through I Ready classroom. It's uh a different program.

014is more aligned with the state assessments and the the standards. So, the teachers started that this year. They received all the materials. Um, if you're a middle school uh parent, you'll see that the students will have their own individual uh workbook um in grade six, seventh, and eth. And the teachers are liking it. So, as you can see, I went uh in first week of school, you see Mr. Higgins and uh Miss Mack teaching math. And there you go. uh science pilots. Okay. So, the program selection. So, last year I collaborated uh with Miss Bosch in developing a curriculum survey uh that allowed for teacher feedback at Chester Elementary School. We made a modification for the different programs that the teachers were evaluated. And then I modified uh the survey so that it reflects the

015Chester Academy teachers um uh middle school teachers who were doing uh curriculum review. So at Chester Elementary School they reviewed amplify science f which is full science systems and Smithsonian and amplify science uh scored the highest in terms of teacher feedback. So this year, teachers will implement the pilot after receiving professional development this fall. So on November 4th, they're scheduled to get professional development on the new science pilot, Amplify Science. And then on your right, you see that every grade level teacher selected a specific unit to pilot this year. And that's the list right there. You see each grade has a specific uh uh and then at the end they'll evaluate uh and then we'll decide on whether we'll have a full implementation after they evaluate it. And at the academy they conducted a similar

016uh survey uh but they evaluated several ones and they had different presentations. They looked at into science. They looked at amplified science as well. Smithsonian, open sedate science and lab aids was the winner. Um the teachers had different categories uh to evaluate on a scale from one through five on the academic supports, general consideration, the alignment with next generation science standards, how well the curriculum deals with assessment, teacher support, accessibility, and how it integrates with our uh Google classroom and class link. So, uh, as you can see, we had different teachers come in on different days. So, on January 15th, we had the sixth grade team who came in. Uh, it was Miss Benedict, Mr. Mororrow, and Miss Miller. We included the special ed department, too. Uh, the eighth grade uh, teachers, Miss Thompson, Miss

017Broofphy, and GMO came in on July 16th. and the seventh grade team came in on Friday, July 18th. So each uh grade level focus on a different unit of study. So it was physical science, life science, and earth science. And I'm going to explain that. So, um, we received several, uh, feedback and I want to thank Miss JSON who was the one who found Lab AIDS and this is one of the quotes that she said. She said, "It would be great if we could participate in a three-year roll out for Lab aids. Everyone who uh previewed multiple programs chose lab aids as their number one choice and in favor of rolling out all units for the 2025 26 school year. It has been very difficult teaching middle school science with new standards, new state test,

018uh new state standards. Wait, I just read that. Um and new programs and we need some consistency as we can better serve our students. And Mr. Olive said, "I can't wait to get started." And they already delved into it. They received all the lab kits. So, they're going to do a three-year commitment to pilot uh it fully. And we um they have shifted from an integrated uh discipline approach to a more grade level discipline specific sequence. For example, in sixth grade, they're going to be focusing on uh on different units. You can see there. Let me go back. So then I can split. So then seventh grade so I have to go back because I don't have it memorized. In sixth grade is physical science in uh seventh grade is earth science and then in

019eighth grade is life science. So then you will see and then this is a great sequence because then that will be a great transition in eighth grade when they will have the uh um bio living environment. So that's uh the goal. And then the teachers were able to move the units around um based on the weather outdoor. So they um were able to uh modify the unit order based on uh what's appropriate for students based on the weather and doing outdoor experiments. So that's the current sequence. And then the cool thing about inner orbit which was purchased last year is that it is aligned with amplify uh science. It's aligned with lab aid. So this assessment tool allows the teachers to do pre-assessments uh assess the students while they're doing the units. So um when

020the teachers go online and they go on the platform they pick their unit on lab aids and then it's already embedded with um inner orbit and it has mystery science it has new vision as well so that the high school teachers can actually um give assessments and then it has um animated videos uh and then the it provides item analysis for the teachers to see the students progress based on the uh NGSS uh standards. So this is uh year two implementation and world language. Uh last year they were uh using Somos and then uh and they piloted Authentico because uh their previous curriculum was um was modified. So Authentico is being implemented. Uh we're phasing in. So in this year we're uh we purchase uh Authentico for levels one and level two and then uh

021we're hoping that next year we'll focus on levels A and B which is the middle school uh uh courses. Um so in the meantime they're using the SOMOS curriculum uh to help with that. And this is important because um they modified the textbook uh and the resources to uh aligned with the world language standards that were changed. So this is a a great support especially for the seal of bi literacy and getting students uh ready for that. Then this is the full first year of the financial literacy course. We purchased the life course. Last year Mr. Magie uh um piloted for half the year and then he loved it. It has different topics on insurance, taxes, credit, career and it has different simulations and it's with real life uh people who are in the business

022area. So um uh the students loved it and he found it uh applicable to his um financial literacy course and uh advisory. This is the full second year should be three but we were doing it once a week. Uh and then this year um seven mindsets did an upgrade because uh they noticed that in the secondary school levels for advisory not every school was doing advisory on a weekly basis. So now they came up with something called seven mindsets foundations. We had uh I scheduled a professional development session with Mr. Flanigan and the guidance department to do an overview. So it already provides 10 lessons for each month. So now it makes it easier for the teachers to implement the advisory in a meaningful way. Um so that they don't have to scrimmage and look

023at the entire curriculum which has like overund lessons and this one is more focused on the seven mindsets one lesson a month. So um the teachers will um they started uh doing their PLC they planned for advisory actually this Monday and this is our future focused plan uh at the elementary school the teachers found that they were uh surveying the students on whether or not they liked uh the scholastic literacy. So I think it's important to involve students in the curriculum input. We often ask the teachers sometimes we leave students out of it and they're the reason why we're here. So we're trying to make it more meaningful in uh having elevating student voice. Uh we'll be doing curriculum audits, ongoing collaborative review with the teacher leaders and grade level departments uh to review the

024curriculum and conduct curriculum surveys and use the disagregated data with the support of Dan who uh also helps us break down uh the Google forms when we need to. And then um edge of planet should is a living document. So it will be revisited to make modifications on story uh boards and our uh course descriptions and we always provide um instructional and curriculum support for our families. If anyone needs assistance, you can reach out to the building leaders. And are there any questions? I know there was a lot. I do have a question. I do have a question. Okay. >> I have a question. Um you mentioned the common lit and the assessments. Um do they have um ben uh benchmark assessments like the ready? >> Okay. So the platform does allow for that. Um

025the teachers uh tested that out last year um because it was their first year of fully implemented uh the common uh lit so it was overwhelming to do the assessments. Um one of the things uh they were every grade level was trying something different and the only uh what the teachers noticed is that we needed to streamline. We have students who might be taking a 10th grade class and then taking an 11th grade class. So when the teachers gave an assessment um we had to call uh them up because we didn't know which grade level to give them to. So we were ironing that out. So it also allows the school district to provide grade level assessment as well. But the teachers were easing in to it um to do a mandate to do the

026assessments across the grade levels was kind of overwhelming because they were um trying out the units of study. But that is something that in the PLC's the teachers are discussing to do the um common assessment so that they can see trends across the board and common does have that capability. >> Got it. >> So that's the goal. >> Any other questions? >> I did have a question. First, I just wanted to say how fantastic your presentation was and I think it just really highlighted how many great changes we've made in a short amount of time and I love the extent to which there's been so many surveys checking in with the staff and having them partner with giving their feedback and you know how it's working for them um to help ease everyone into the

027process. So, thank you so much. Um I think the only question that I had was with literacy pro that's the extension of Scholastic. Um is that um the additional books that are available to students are those just through the class link online or is that also part of like the library piece that was expanded? >> Okay, so the the you see the picture there they have a book room and then the teachers uh assign books to the student to take home. So that is still happening. So the literacy pro is an addition to that. So it's like are you familiar with Sora? We have the the library we purchased Sora and Sora it's a the students are able to have a digital library libraries like the Kindle. So through an iPhone, an iPad uh the

028Chromebooks students are able to take out books digitally. So, literacy pro is a digital access that the students didn't have last year. So, this is in addition to the what they take home, >> the physical books. So, this is digital. Did I answer your question? >> Yes. Thank you. And that's fantastic because I know there are many of us prefer sometimes to have that hard copy, but >> yeah, >> more and more kids now are preferring everything digitally on the Chromebook. So I think it's great that we can expand it to that extent >> and then it allows the parents to support their child in what they're reading at home and then you can target the genre that your reluctant reader might have. So once the key to reading is for students to identify what

029they like to read. So a lot of the times students struggle to find a just right book and it's because they don't know what they like. So I think this is a great way for them to explore uh reading and literacy because literacy is our focus this year. um we try to achieve to break close the achievement gap and it's uh difficult to do at the higher levels but at least we're starting and going up. So um the teachers are excited about it. >> I just wanted to thank you um for taking the lead and and those who are supporting you in the engagement around ENL families both in and outside of the classroom and the broader Chester community. I think it's it's no small feat to do that and so I appreciate all the

030uh the work that's going into it. So >> yes, it's a shift. We're we're we're working on it. So we listen to feedback and we're making uh improvements on how to connect with the families. So um I I I love that part of my job. Any other questions? I just wonder first of all it's so impressive to see every you know we talk about and the programs come up but to see it all together in one presentation is is very impressive. Um I quick question about the science um program that we're piloting at the elementary. In your experience are the teachers finding like um you know the state was a curveball with the investigations now that these little people are expected to do. Are these programs lending it well? have them prepared for that. >>

031Yes. And our elementary school teachers were very critical of every program. So they were asking a lot of questions. They were uh putting down a lot of the other pilots uh that we reached out. Um the way this started uh we had a list of different I two years ago on my second year we knew that science was the focus. So I was gathering all the different uh science programs that were out there and we were formulating a list. Then ma um Miss Bosch was adding to that list, teachers added to the list. So everyone had we had a long list of like over eight science programs and then what we did was that we had um different presentations come in and yes sometimes they could do a sales pitch and then after that the

032teachers were asking questions. Is it NGSS aligned? One of the key factors in selecting Amplify was that the teachers wanted a science program that supported literacy as well and that was important to them because right now when you look at the high school um the regent exam is all literacy based right so they wanted a program that was easy for student engagement and easier for the teachers to navigate because they have to teach the sciences um so that's why Amplify was like the highest uh scoring ing because it was teacher friendly. If a teacher is having a hard time identifying what to teach in a platform, they're not going to do a good job in teaching it to students. So, that was one of the things. So, um they're excited for November uh to get

033the PD and get the materials in for that one unit. But I think Amplify, we were torn between Smithsonian and Amplify. So, either choice would I would have been happy with. Um I like that they organically selected it and it was their choice. So, I'm crossing my fingers that the even at the middle school level, the teacher is one of the one who found Labates and then I got them the information and they love it. So, I'm hoping that at the elementary school, Amplify Science is it. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. That's it. >> And again, thank you for in all the areas, all your hard work. Sincerely appreciated. >> Mr. Ducet, you're up. Good evening everyone. So, it's a very busy summer, very busy spring and summer leading into uh fall

034sports. Uh just to give you an idea, even just tonight, we had a girls varsity volleyball game in the gym. Uh they lost a a 3-2 extra went into extra points in the fifth set. Girls varsity soccer, uh a tough overtime loss. our mixed competition so modified soccer team won. So they beat poor Jervis. Um the girls JV volleyball team is currently in the gym playing right now. So we are we are neck deep in sports going on throughout the district. Um we'll get more into registrations fall sports in a minute. But uh what I like to lead off with every September the last three years I've been able to lead off with this and this year is no exception. We are a school of excellence. So, the New York State Public High School Athletic

035Association granted us School of Excellence distinction. 75% of all of our varsity teams had a 90% or better team academic average. Uh, if you recall, the first year we were team a school of excellence. Then we were a school of distinction last year, which means every varsity team got it. And then this year we were a school of excellence. We had one team. We had one team that didn't make it. So, we're almost there. Our goal this year is to get ourselves back up to school of distinction. But, we have a good run going. Uh this is the first time we had earned this these recognitions since this award had been uh created and we've got it three straight years. I'm hoping to keep that streak running indefinitely. Sports media update. I usually end with

036our sports media update. I'm going to start with it this year. Uh sports media. We are expanding. So I would like to thank uh Miss O'Hara and uh Mr. Susa for I would say Mrs. Susa would call me persistent. I think that would be an accurate term because uh I was after her for this scores table that we wanted to add to the facility that we can use for all kinds of events. This isn't just strict I mean it's an athletic table but we can use it for all kinds of different things. We're learning how to use this because it's a pretty complicated piece of technology uh that came with a computer with software that we have to uh understand how to use and we're getting the hang of it. It's been on display for

037all of our fall events in the gym so far but something we can use for basketball, wrestling, volleyball. in the spring, we can bring it out for different events and different things. It's a full LED table. Now, if you recall, two years ago, I made a mention in my board report about redoing the front face of the scores table that we had. Unfortunately, that scores table was not salvageable. So, this was by far a better option because the social media class, the sports media class, is going to design the front face of this scores table, which is a full LED panel. So, as we get more into the school year, you'll start to see the the face of the table will change depending on what game we're playing. And it's all designed by the students.

038So, we're kind of, you know, dealing how to deal with the aspect ratios and different things. And we actually found the program that we use, Canva, for the sports media class, we actually found a template in there that fits the table perfectly. So, now that we've gotten that and we're starting to teach the students how to use it, that will start to come out. something else that we're going to do. You know, it's been great that we've been doing the the school the game day post and we're going to continue to do those things, but we're going to try and add some other things to it. A few years ago, we had gotten rolling with some of the student of the week and some things like that. We need to get back into things like

039that. Um, this score table also adds that because on senior nights, we can promote our seniors at senior night and have those things displayed on the table. Um, but a lot of the things we put on the table, we can then slide over to the social media um, post. So, it's going to serve a dual purpose. So, we're getting creative with this. It's going to take some work. It's going to take a few weeks to kind of figure out how exactly we want to do it. And I'm working with the class to kind of figure that out. But, once we get there, it's going to be fun to see what we can apply to one that then applies to everything else as well. So, it's a little bit of a work in progress and we're

040going to figure that out. But, I'm excited to see where we can go with that. All right. Fall sports. I want to send out some thank yous first of all to uh Dan uh Dan Sportskov. I always I think I say your last name different every time I say it. Uh Matt D. Rosa and uh both of their teams because of what they've done to get us ready for fall sport. It was I mean what's the the technical term right? the heavy lift to get all this stuff done physically and literally to get Synergy up and running, to get the buildings and grounds, all the fields ready for all of our and everything was ready. And uh Synergy was was a challenge to get it ready in time because we did it a full month

041before everybody came to school to get that registration open and running. And we were here all summer trying to get this going. And I we had countless online meetings in the spring and the summer to get this rolling. It really went pretty smooth. We had very few complaints and we had the most registrations that we've had in the 15 years I've been here in the fall. So, and I was talking to Mr. Schworskov about it earlier. Very few issues, very few technical issues. And those technical issues that came in, we were able to send them directly to the tech department because in the past, athletics always had to deal with like family ID or our school. We always had to deal with it internally. It was myself, my secretary, and we had to problem solve

042it. Now, it's all under one umbrella, which we've never had for athletics before. So, it was so nice to be able to say, "All right, listen. Let's get you to the tech department, see what the issue was. He was able to go behind the scenes, call the families at home. This is what I need you to do. Boom, boom, boom. Hit this button, do this. Registration went through. The technical support on our end is something we've never been able to do before. We've always had to send it out to other people. So, be keeping it in house like that, pretty much solving 99% of the problems on our own, it it's a breath of fresh air with this. Jillianella is another one I need to thank for this because she was also thrown into the

043fire on this with me and having never done this before. Um the registrations represent a 15% increase over the last two years and we talk about our beds numbers which is our ninth 10th average of ninth nth graders plus the tth graders plus the average of the ninth and tth. It's a New York State number that they use that determine what class of sport we fall into. Nobody understands it but we know where it comes from. and 83% of our beds numbers, which is our sports population that they classify us, registered for sports for just the fall. So that's up from 81% from the previous year. I'd also like to thank the nurs's office. Uh we had very few students who came in who weren't cleared for sports as soon as they got here. In

044years past, it's always been they weren't joining sports till a week or two weeks later and they were behind because they didn't have their physical. Uh Amy and Gina, the nurs's office starting in last spring calling families at home. Hey, your fa your your physical is going to expire in August. You won't be eligible for sports. Can you get that into us? Very very few students, mostly the students who came to us from other districts, but they had to get a physical anyway. So very few students didn't have uh an eligibility when they first got here, which brings me to winter sports, believe it or not. So we need to talk about this because we're almost there already. So we are almost halfway through fall sports already. All of our teams are doing very well

045right now. Several of our teams are on pace for the playoffs. For winter sports, October 1st is going to be our get ready for winter sports registration letter. October 17th is our registration will open. New York State only allows us to do it 30 days ahead of time. So, we have to follow that timeline. November 1st, there will be a reminder, which is something I want to add this year because some feedback I've been getting is that the the communication goes out and sometimes we get so many parent squares messages and a lot of different things. So, what we're going to try and do is have that one week later. Let's send out another message just as a reminder. Hey, this went out. We can only go 30 days prior to the start of winter

046sports, but we can definitely send something else in between. So having that little hey here it comes then here's registration then by the way you can still register which then follows we always send out the coach's contact information which is on the website. All of this is on the website. We as soon as we send it out five minutes later we post it on the website. Uh it'll have the contact information for all head coaches and the tryyout schedule. So that's always kind of been our pattern but having that reminder in between will actually give us a message every week which it had been every two weeks before. So, by doing that, it'll it'll a little more of a consistent you'll see something from us every week, which is pretty close to what we were

047doing already, but there's always room for improvement. Modified JV varsity, girls and boys basketball, girls varsity and uh boys varsity wrestling, and varsity indoor track and field. We also do have our varsity boys swim team, which is going to uh shadow Pine Bush again this year. So, that's it for winter sports. Now, back to fall sports real quick because Huddle will go into this winter with this. We had 198 Huddle registrations. This is the first time the fall teams have used this. We introduced this in the spring for communication. It's been working out very well. No students have to use a cell phone for this. And I've had I feel a lot of questions from this last year and I talked to a lot of parents about this. How's this going to affect our students

048in the fall when they can't use cell phones? It doesn't matter. This is and we verified this with several students before we even came into the building in September. Huddle works on the Chromebooks. It's web- based. We don't even need the app. You can sign in. You can see your messages and through Aristotle and some of the other things we have, we can monitor what the kids are doing. So, if they're sitting there on Huddle for 40 minutes time, that's not going to happen because we can track that and understand what they're doing, what they're, you know, they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing and we can control that um as teachers within the building. So, we had all those registrations. Now, we had 199 sport fall sport registrants, but not all of

049those athletes either made a team or stuck with it. So, there's a slightly smaller number than that, but the number of huddle registrations exceeds how many student athletes we have on our teams, which means we are successfully getting this out to the parents as well who are also registering on Huddle. I go in myself every few days and just make sure that anybody that's in huddle has been approved so they can see all the text message threads and then we can monitor all of those conversations uh as a district. So one other change we made this fall and uh we used to use so synergy was a big change but the section 9 also went from using a program called our school which is our scheduling program for athletics. That's how they schedule uh officials,

050games, everything with athletics. They went to a program called Arbiter. So all of this happened at one time, everything. So we basically threw away everything from athletics and started from scratch. And so what we decided to do is we used to do this a long time ago. sometimes making doing things the the less technological way sometimes a little bit easier to publish our daily athletic game and practice schedule through our school the program we used to use you have to go in fill everything in publish it Jill and I sat down this year and said why don't we just publish it on a web page on the website like we used to do so we type it in as it's if it's a Google doc copy and paste it so now that that tab that's

051on the chest website or athletics it says you know daily game and practice schedule. You click on that, you open it up, it just tells you everything that's going on that day. And we change it every morning uh prior to usually around by 9:30, 10 o'clock. We update it, change it daily. So, no more going to a third party site that links out from our district. It is on our district web page every single day and it'll be that way for the entire year. It's just easier and that's what we're going to do from now on. So that being said, all the things that changed, Synergy is in, Arbiter is in, Family ID is out, our school's out, school tools out. So we had a lot of things changing over the summer, and people are

052adapting pretty well. And uh Dan and I are going to sit down before the winter registration and kind of do a little bit of a review of how did the fall sport registration go, what can we change, can we organize things a little differently, which we already have some ideas, just to make it even smoother and make it easier for us to get through the program. All right, Friday Night Lights. We were back. Uh, we had our We had a huge crowd for our first Friday Night Football game. One of the biggest crowds I've ever seen since we've been at Chester. Um, I'd like to thank Kristen Palmer, Brandon Holddridge, Matt D. Rosa, Brett Sutton. We spent countless nights walking out onto the field in the middle of the night getting bit by mosquitoes and

053all this stuff trying to turn the lights on and it this was a long time coming and those lights are bright and uh it was a it was a great win that night and uh I was happy to see everybody coming out on Friday nights. It you can see the difference in the in the school spirit and everybody was just excited to be there. The youth football team was there cheering everybody on. It was just it was a lot of fun and we hope to keep that keep that going. the athletic advisory panel. Um, I neglected to put this in my report, but I wanted to mention it. Registration was sent out on September 14th. It's still open. We're looking for one representative per sport per level. Uh, we sent out a parent square message.

054Uh, you can go on to that message and sign up directly in that message and I will get an alert that you have signed up for a slot. and we're looking to have our we have our first official meeting at the end of October, but we're looking to possibly have a meeting earlier than that to discuss uh uh and get some feedback about communication assistant coaches. I want to thank the board of education on this one because you approved our uh fall coaches to have assistants actually all of our coaches. we through a lot of our new teachers came in and also some teachers a lot of teachers want to be a coach but having the responsibility of a head coach that's that's a lot to do especially if you're teaching five six classes there's

055a lot going on so sometimes having that role of an assistant makes things a little more manageable and it gives us a level of safety expertise more productivity and differentiate instruction at practice better game planning better adjustments we've got seven assistant coaches for the fall teams already and we've already have uh teachers expressing interest for winter and spring assistant coaches. So, I only expect this to get bigger and better and it's just it makes a huge difference. Even myself, I have one myself for volleyball this year. What a difference it makes because I can't see everything. And having another set of eyes and also a different personality, a different voice that sometimes the students can lean on. That's, you know, I get along with I like to think I get along with all my athletes,

056but sometimes they just they click with that assistant coach. sometimes or they click with me and it it just they can kind of go back and forth and we can mediate some things and just it's a lot better. Our shadow programs of Florida are still going strong. We were able to offer uh JV boys soccer for the first time in probably a decade uh by sending some of our students over to Seward for JV boys soccer. We had over 30 students come out for boys varsity soccer and coach Graci doing a great job. team is currently undefeated, which in a school our size has football and soccer, it's that's a very rare feat. So, that's very impressive. Uh we're shadowing for girls and boys varsity cross country at Florida. Uh Florida comes to us for

057varsity and modified football. Uh we go to go for girls varsity swim actually has three swimmers now on the girls varsity team. And then one last thing I want to mention about shadow emerge. We are looking for information for girls varsity and modified lacrosse. We sent a parent square message looking for information of we graduated a lot of seniors last year. It was a senior heavy team and this happens every once in a while. So I would say I think it was 75% of our team was seniors. So we need at least 12 girls to be able to field our own team. If not we want to get ahead of this and possibly look at merging. Florida does not have their own lacrosse team. So we can't use that agreement but we could look at

058Warwick, Monroe, Washingtonville. contact uh emails have already been sent to all athletic directors requesting if they're even open to that relationship. And once we get that information, we're going to meet with uh parents and prospective athletes and kind of present, hey, this is what we've come up with and as a as a group and as administration, we'll decide how to move forward. So, I have some important upcoming dates. I gave you the winter dates already, but some fall dates for you. The homecoming football game is this Friday, September 26th at 7 p.m. at Chester Commons with our new lights. The homecoming dance is September 27th. Winter sports registration I already gave you is going to start on October 17th. I want to say that's probably about it for our important dates. Just keep in mind

059I will announce shortly we have most of them, but we're waiting for one or two all of our senior nights. Believe it or not, we already have to plan all that because we're almost into October. Most sports seasons are going to end in the next three to three and a half weeks and then the playoffs are going to begin which will be usually the last week of October for soccer. Um and then getting into November is volleyball and um football and then cross country will have their county and sectional meets and swimming as well. So there is a lot going on and you'll be getting a lot of dates and information from me in the next few weeks. Are there any questions? I I just want to give a shout out to all of the

060students that made the awards for the school of excellence. >> Yes, >> it is no easy feat to be able to, you know, um juggle sports and academics and all the clubs that a lot of these students are in and they're really what make it possible are the students like you. So, I just I commend all of you because it's a big deal to be able to do all of that. um >> a lot of those a lot of those student athletes, yourself included, multiple sports in one season. We have a few students who are run cross country and soccer and we've done everything we can to try and avoid conflicts between the two sports which is difficult sometimes, but you know to go back and forth and shuttle back and forth in addition to

061the 8,000 other responsibilities that you have, it is impressive. So I I mean it's multitasking at its best. >> Congratulations I I also wanted to thank um the boys and girls varsity soccer teams and their coaches for coming out for our opening day for the wreck program. Um it was such a great way to start the season. There were so many community members that were there and it was just so great to see the excitement between some of the younger players that are in this theater program that are eventually going to be connected with some of the older students. And I know that um the football program right now through the district has been doing the same thing. So, it's just been so great to see these young programs, emerging programs connecting with some of

062the older students and just seeing those partnerships getting formed. It's it's really been a great thing. So, I want to thank the coaches and the players who have been taking the time to come out and do that. >> It's been impressive to see because we have every season we we're seeing that and it's one thing we're trying to encourage with our teams is more interaction with our community. We we had the game changers last year. We were trying to do community service. We're going to do that again this year. But every season now uh you'll if you come to a basketball game in the winter, the the youth basketball team is there forming the tunnel for the kids to come out. The Mavericks were at the football game there with the soccer game. In the

063spring we have softball and baseball little league opening day. So there's and then wrestling is always doing their polar plunge and there's all we're trying to do more of that in all of our sports. And you're absolutely right that is it's such a good representation of what our student athletes are doing and and and their influence on the younger students and that only encourages them to come out for our sport programs later. It's a good role model for them. It's just getting everybody involved get that community feel. It it's it's fantastic. >> I have a quick huddle question. >> Yeah. Are are all of the home games for all varsity sports um recorded and viewable on Huddle? >> The only one that's not right now, we have to figure out how to do it is

064boys varsity soccer. That's the only one. Every other sport is either recorded live and broadcast live or uploaded at a later date. Um we added a camera down at Maple, but it doesn't quite capture the boy varsity soccer field. There is a conversation about possibly moving the boys varsity team to play their games up at the academy. I've had that conversation. The boys like playing down at Maple and I can't blame them. It's in the center of town. So to solve that problem, we could move them to the academy just for their games, but now they're practicing on a different field they play on because we do have the academy camera for the girls varsity soccer. I'm looking to find a way to possibly just buy the boys varsity soccer team a camera and just

065have them record it and upload it on demand after the fact. We just started talking about that because I was hoping that camera on the softball field would capture the field. It does, but it's too difficult to see the far side of the field and we really didn't know that until the field was painted and we played a game. So, we're going to probably go the old school route. Get a camcorder, record it, upload it to Huddle, but it'll still be there and it'll still be in high definition. I just had one, you know, with our time on the board, definitely the amount of teams that we're merging and shadowing with. Can you just in case anyone's listening, explain the difference? >> Yes. So, a shadow versus a merge. So, if we want to host

066our own team and compete as our own team, so Chester's swimming is a perfect example. If we want to be the, you know, Chester Academy swim team, we can find another school that's willing to host us. And what we do is we approve their coach as our coach. So when our students go to say goan those athletes are swimming with goan with the goan coach but technically he's also or she or he or she is also the chester coach we compete on our own as chester swimming if we were to merge as a swim team and go to goan then we would all just be part of goan swimming so there is a difference so individual sports that are also team sports like swimming cross country track that's where you typically run into your shadow

067situations because you still want to run for Chester and have your Chester uniform on. Team sports such as football, soccer, baseball, softball, basketball, you can't shadow because you can't play indivi you can't score individually. So you have to be part of a team and that team whatever the you have to designate the home school with the section. So we designate ourselves as a home school for football, but Seward designates themselves as the home school for JB soccer. So it typically it's whatever school has the most amount of students. you know, if you make up the majority of the team, you're going to be the host school. And that's where that that's a merge. And that's what we're looking at for lacrosse. We can't shadow. We have to merge with another school if we want to

068play because it's a team sport. Whereas track, we can shadow. >> And so when you merge, you're wearing you could be wearing that other team's correct jersey. >> So when Seward athletes come to Chester for football, they wear the Chester uniform, but a lot of times we'll find little ways to kind of add their Seward flare to it. The football helmets have a Seward Spartan sticker on the back of the helmet. We try to do things like that just to give them a little bit of that, you know, hey, you're still a Seward student, you know, things like that. I think the JB girls volleyball teammate just won the cheers that just came out of the hallway. >> Well, thank you for your very thorough report. >> Thank you, Mr. Sore. >> Good afternoon. Welcome

069back. Um, all right. We got a lot to cover. So, um, first thing on the board report is GCN videos. Uh, the we, as of September 15th, we had 53% of our staff successfully with all of their videos. We're currently at 66. The deadline is September 3rd. So, we'll be sending out a September 30th. So, we're sending out a uh email shortly. if we didn't today. Um to remind them, we had a ton of projects this summer. So, one of the big ones was Synergy, obviously. Um on July 30th, Synergy became our system of record and CIS student information system. It is our database. It is where we house all of our data on students, parents, teachers, everything. that database pushes out to every single application that we use. So we then needed to connect

070once we got the database on on July 30th, we then needed to connect that with all 200 educational apps that we use, we needed to connect that to the Rick so that uh the lunch ladies can and people can pay for lunches um or extras for lunches. We needed to connect that to my schoolbox, to parent square, to Google, to every single application we use. Um, so that took a lot of work. I need to thank Dennis Lee. Um, October last year, I called him in, sat him down. I said, "Hey, we're going to be bringing in a new student information system. Um, I cannot do this alone." He said, "Okay, I'm your guy. Let's go." and he never looked back. He is better with this program than I am and I'm pretty good at

071this point. Um, which brings me to he is tomorrow, nope, Friday night, he's uh receiving a award from the Mid Hudson School Studies Council for Excellence um in support staff. He has been absolutely amazing this this year and we could not have gotten through this project without him. Uh so thank you Dennis. I know you're listening. Um the last on September 2nd all teachers were um trained on grade book on attendance on taking lunch counts. Uh, we have been following up with them with just regular two, three minute videos. Whenever I get more than three emails about one particular thing, I send a video out. I guarantee you if there's three teachers, there's probably 15 that are not asking that question. So, we've been sending those videos out. Um, for the next 5 days, I'm

072going to be in the elementary PLC's also showing them how to do progress reports and report cards. So, for the parents that are listening, um, report cards and progress reports are going to be going out digitally this year through parent view. So, if you have not signed up for parent view or you haven't gotten an email for parent view, um, please reach out to the tech team, tech teamufsd.org. or um we will resend a parent view activation link to you. Um we did also switch over to Aristotle as our um web filter this year. We switched from my boss to Aristotle. There's a couple reasons we did that. the management of the filter is a lot easier for us as a tech team, but it also had a um application that allows us to see

073student Chromebooks in real time while they're in our classroom. So, we can see, we can push tabs out to them, we can lock them down, we can make sure that they can't do anything on them. So, if we just need them to listen, we lock them. Um, all the teachers have been trained on that. Uh, a bunch of them have reached out to me for individual training on that as well. We have provided that parent square. It was a big push because essentially as we switched over from synergy, every single parent and student got deleted from the system and then readded from our new database. Um I have found a couple of parents that have reached out because they were not added properly again. So this is again just a PSA. If you are not

074getting parent square messages as a teacher or a parent, please reach out tech team chestersd.org. Um, going back to synergy really quick, one more just shout out. Um, Kathy B, Kathy Biato, the um, administrative assistant here at the high school. She has watched every training video she can think of. She has set up automations already um for certain things at the high school that not even I knew could be done. Um she is definitely a star when it comes to this and I just wanted to shout her out cuz she's um been spectacular as far as just kind of lightening that load on us and just exploring and seeing what else I can do. Um, brings me to the safety capital project. I want to first off just thank a bunch of people here too.

075Uh, first of all, buildings and grounds. Um, he's going to be going over what to expect as far as what the next coming weeks come uh are going to look like. But, uh, Nick Patel, John S. our um our tech team and our our two level one techs spent the summer. We installed a mini rack in a bunch of different locations at CA. What that's going to allow us to do is future upgrades are now going to be a lot easier. Um Matt probably overall save the district. Matt and his team probably save the district. He's going to say a lower lower number than this. Uh but he probably saved around $400,000 running wire. um instead of having an outside contractor come in and do it. Um his numbers lower because I'm factoring in a

076future project that we ran wire for now so that when we do it, we don't have to spend that $200,000 then. Um cost us four $4,000 or so to get the extra wire and run it while we were up there. Um his team is invaluable to this district uh to this district and uh they worked their butts off this summer. Um Wi-Fi we are waiting on I've been talking about this for a year. Uh we've been waiting on uh category 2 funding. It was supposed to be released in July. We're one of three districts left in our Boseies that are being held up by the state um for th that money to be released. Once it's released, we can buy those access points and actually finish our Wi-Fi upgrade. We did purchase three new two

077new firewalls, technically three. Uh what that does is that we got a new firewall here, a redundant firewall here, so if one goes down, the other one picks it up. And we also put one down at Maple. What that did is there's a constant VPN between this building and that building which means that building is now part of our network. So we can bring in our camera system down there in the future. We can add badging so there's no keys out there and we can add Wi-Fi so it it looks like you're in this building when you're in that building. We can add cameras, we can add huddle, we can do all the things that we would do here down there. Um so that was huge. Nick has that was a lot of work. It's

078a lot of work to replace. We went back to the base of all of our systems. Firewall is the beginning of our network. Synergy is the beginning of our databases. We rebuilt that, which means we had to rebuild pretty much our entire tech department this this summer. Um lastly, we did purchase 180 new Chromebooks for the um elementary and sixth grade. So we we put them in the fifth grade this year and the sixth grade. Next year it'll be fourth grade, sixth grade, third grade, sixth grade, and that will start our every sixth year process. We are not sending Chromebooks home to any CES student this year. So we did end up purchasing 25 new Chromebook carts. um so that they can uh store those Chromebooks in the classes, they can lock them and they

079can be charged all the time. I know I'm forgetting things and I know I'm forgetting people. So, um do you guys have any questions? I apologize if I did forget people or anything. >> Thank you. You did a tremendous amount of work. >> We did. >> And thank you for being proactive and running the wire in advance so we have to >> reopen and rewire and all of that. I love the proactive. >> I'll mention one more person, Brett Sutton. They anytime that we needed something like that, he he gives me the look like, "One more thing, huh?" But then he is right on board and he does it and he is great to work with. He's a team player. Um, and uh, the entire B&G team is, but I worked very closely with Matt

080and Brett this this summer. So, I just want to thank both of them. >> Also want to thank just what you were saying when troubleshooting the issues by pushing out like a video. That's great because of course the issues are not going to occur when you're in school and you have all this available help. It's home when you're trying to do a progress report. And to be able to refer to the videos is is going to be critical. And I've been just been trying to make them 45 seconds or a minute so that they're not you can watch them in between a class or or something like that so that way they're not too long. >> Very much appreciated. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Mr. D. Rosa. Hi guys. Welcome back. Um, I uh

081I put together a pretty elementary PowerPoint just so that we can all be on the same page as to what I'm talking about. Um, first off, want to thank you guys for the opportunity to update you on buildings and grounds. Um, the summer is usually our busiest time of year. This summer was by far our busiest summer. And um I promised Miss O'Hara I would keep my presentation under two hours and since Dan covered half of it uh we'll we'll keep to that. But I definitely want to start off by thanking you know Brett Sutton, Brian Rogers, Tyler Chryser, Mike Perry, Mark Reed, and Julie Magadam. Julie, if you're watching, I cannot say your last name, and I apologize, but but if you guys remember, Julie was our our our intern. Um, and we hired

082her as a summer summer help, right? A summer uh position, and she was instrumental in this. She used what we taught her uh in the in the internship and it and applied it in this world. And it's amazing. Um, while we were on the job, I'm kind of getting off of my presentation here, but it's kind of important. While we were on the job, um we were working alongside of local three electricians and um one of them uh happened to do happened to work with um interns. So we are bridging them two together and our hope is that Julie will be uh working with local I think it's 333 out of Haramman. Um that's not set in stone yet, but um that's you know we made that connection. She really enjoyed it. uh and I

083think she has a really bright future ahead of her. So that's our big success story uh in Julie. But I don't I I don't get to present on um really interesting and cool stuff that I find interesting and cool, which is a little bit nerdy, but um this is definitely one of them. And I'm not going to be able to top this for the rest of the year. So don't expect anything uh like this going forward. But at the beginning of the summer, I met with Brett and other members of the team and I said, you know, we have this big capital project. We have a budget for it. Um, what I'd like to do is to know if you guys would be willing to step outside of the normal duties that you do over

084the summer and take on some of this work. Um, and sure enough, they jumped at the opportunity to. Um, it was a bit nerve-wracking because their work very much impacted the entirety of this project. And if they did not meet their deadlines, it would have caused our contractors to been to have been delayed, to have had to work overtime to create change orders, which as anybody who's run a project knows, change orders are kind of lawless, and that's where contractors make their money. Um, so they were great. They hit the ground day one running. Um, and they ran 6 68,526 ft of cable, which was the tally at the time I wrote this report. We have since broached 73,000 square ft. Um, that is over 14 miles of cable, which is wild, right? Uh we

085I not only was the effort running cable cuz anybody can run cable through ceilings and that sort of thing, but each one of the devices that we fed with these cables are addressable. And that means that each wire has to be meticulously labeled back to a port in the closet. Right? So that effort in itself is it's very very challenging even for people that do this as their career. Um we received great feedback from the electricians and our security vendors who uh were really impressed with the the labeling and organization of this. They they did a tremendous job. Um um so just to give you an example, all of our badge readers, which I'm going to talk about in a second, were pink, right? So, we ran pink cables for that, yellow cables for the

086future uh digital clocks that Dan had talked about, um white for our strobes, but each one of them was meticulously labeled and had to go to a specific port in a specific closet. doing this work, we saved, and this is a hard quote, this isn't a madeup number, $225,000 uh in labor, uh which allowed us to do some things that I'm going to talk about at the end of this presentation. But what Dan was alluding to, and this was really his driver, right? uh was in addition to running uh low voltage cabling to our badge readers and strobes and fire horns and door holds. We ran futures for digital clocks which was not part of this project but we were already in the ceiling and Dan brought the idea to us. He said, "Why don't

087why don't we just run the cable?" Which at first I was like, "Yeah, Dan, why don't we just run another 30,000, you know, feet of cable?" That's a great idea, but uh but it made total sense. The upfront cost will far exceed uh and pay for itself in the future. So now the project to upgrade digital clocks, which will integrate with our security protocols, better communication throughout the building, is as easy as buying, you know, a $500 clock per classroom. So, that's something in the future we're going to wind up doing, but the infrastructure is in place. Dan has upgraded the network so that it can easily be plugged and played. Um, and we are we are in good shape. So, if we added that savings to this, uh, it likely would have been much

088higher, but I only want to talk about the numbers that I actually have quotes for, and that's $225,000. So, big big kudos to them. The low voltage cabling obviously uh the big part of it the pink wires as I talked about went to the badge readers of which we installed 152. Um as you could see in the lefth hand side it's just a picture of a typical badge reader. It's not very impressive when you see it but when you think about what it represents to me it's super exciting. So again when I started here we had physical keys that were all over the place. We did not know who had keys. We did not know who had access to the building. I know for sure that there are physical keys still out in the community

089somewhere that we can't account for. Those keys are no longer functional, right? They can't get you into the building or we've changed the course. But what this system allows us to do is to immediately modify access to any employee. So if a teacher needs access to a lab or a classroom that she's never had access to, momentarily, we can do that as opposed to cutting a key. More importantly, we can restrict access to areas that may not be uh or that may become off limits or to employees, you know, that may wind up finding another employment. We can immediately deactivate badges uh at a given door or an entire building. So, this this is a tremendous upgrade for our security protocols, and it's something that I'm I'm super proud of. We anticipate going live with

090uh these readers on o on or before October 3rd. Um there's we're in the testing phase right now. Um and you know we're moving along. The other portion of the uh low voltage cabling was lockown strobes. So we had two we installed two different types of strobes. On the lefth hand side, you could see the exterior strobes which will have that sign in the center that we just had made through U Bosey's uh sign shop. Um they're going to be affixed to the building tomorrow. But what that allows us to do is to communicate with people outside the building and let them know there is an emergency in the building, right? Uh stay away from the building. That did not exist prior to this project. Um, there's another element of the public notification that I'm

091going to talk about as we go on, but this is, you know, there's kids on the playground, there's kids out in the field. Those strobes go off uh and and and the uh and the notifications, you're going to know that there's a lockdown or an emergency situation within the building. Uh on the right hand side, that is a a depiction of an actual strobe installed in our building. Uh all of our hallways have a minimum of three lockdown strobes. Uh our larger spaces have lockdown trobes in them as well. Um but these have all been installed and we're currently in the testing process right now. Um another big part of this project was the compartmentalization of classrooms. So some of the classrooms throughout the district were designed as an open concept. Um so what we've

092done is we've we've closed that off. Um, as you can see on the lefth hand side required some masonry work. Framing out the walls is step two of that process. And then step three is the finished uh uh framed opening. Unfortunately, the doors, you know, that I've mentioned in the past, for some reason, doors have a tremendous lead time, uh, upwards of 16 to 18 weeks. So, these doors are expected to be in October 20th, I believe it is. Uh so once they're in immediately we're going to install those doors and they'll be operational. So very proud of of that one as well. And this one here, right? So it's kind of timely uh in in in what we're doing. But um we have designed and purchased digital entrance signs for both the elementary school

093and the Chester Academy. So, if you've noticed when you turned into the academy, the scrolling sign that is there isn't isn't on. It's not lit. That burnt out. It's an older system. They don't make replacement parts for it. And it just so happens with the $225,000 that we've saved on our project. We were able to purchase with a portion of that, didn't obviously cost all of that, with a portion that these upgraded entrance signs. and they will integrate into our security procedures and our lockdowns by automatically displaying an emergency message. So once these are installed on November 12th, I believe it or November 12th, um we will have prepackaged messaging. In the event that we go into a lockdown, it'll say something like um the building has experienced an emergency condition. Please exit the premise

094immediately. Right? Obviously, we're going to work on that verbiage, but it's another way to communicate uh to folks outside of our building what's going on. We had a um an incident last year and there were parents gathered at the entryway and we couldn't communicate with them. Uh the cell service was bad. Um and this is a a perfect opportunity to be able to change that message and let them know, hey, for more information, check out Parent Square or go here for the most updated information. Um, but these I think these are going to look really nice. Um, the academy sign we had to upgrade the power. There's a lot of it's a lot more surface area of LED. So, um, that's being done now. Um, switching to somewhat miscellaneous work and off of the presentation.

095Um, unless you have questions with my here, we'll wait till the end. Um, there were a few other things that we've done over the summer that I wanted to mention and I think they're important. Aside from, you know, six weeks dedicated to running low voltage cabling, we still had our normal operations to do to keep the buildings up open, right? We sanitized and stripped 52 uh classroom floors. That's a big deal. We have to remove all the furniture. Um, these guys meticulously make floor plans, the maps of where each desk goes, the teacher's desk, the orientation, all that sort of stuff. Um, this is probably the first year, and I'm going to thank Dan and his team for this, that we haven't that we didn't find out that we lost something. Usually, it's, you know,

096we misplaced a mouse or some, and I I've received none of that. So, I'm very happy that those are usually very stressful conversations, but, um, it went smooth this year and and I think, uh, thank the IT department for that. Um, 55,000 square feet of hallways were stripped and waxed. Uh we um uh shampooed all of our carpeting in the elementary school. Um roughly 60,000 square feet there or 65,000 square feet there. And also our annual maintenance on HVAC. Right. So we have 24 air handling units between the two buildings. We stripped them down, greased the bearings, changed the belts, uh replaced filters, did all of that maintenance, which was it used to be under a contract. So, that was an outside contractor that would perform that work that we've now taken inhouse. We did

097that a couple years ago, but it's still a realized savings and it gets our guys very familiar with the equipment, which I love. Um, other things that we've done, uh, security upgrades with our athletic facilities. So, down at Maple Avenue and Butchers Field, there was only one gate that got you into the dugouts. I don't know if you ever noticed it, but the only way to enter or exit the dugouts was to access on the field. Um, and then that's how you So, what we did was we put additional uh gates on all of our dugouts. So, now there's multiple points to get in and out, right? Um, if there was an emergency, you didn't have to run onto the field to get off the facility. Now, you can leave um through through the exterior

098of the facility. Um, also at the academy, so if you remember, we relocated the varsity baseball team from Maple Avenue to the academy. Um, and we've been incrementing incrementally upgrading that field to a standard that's sufficient to uh, varsity baseball. One of the last things that we needed to do was was crowd control. So, that field was a modified field and there weren't there wasn't much control around uh, the use of it. There was a three- foot high, maybe even smaller fence around the dugout, which allowed for interaction with parents, which is great, but also allowed for interaction with parents, which is not great, uh, and spectators. So, what we've done is we've raised that fence. We replaced the fencing. Uh, Mr. Ducet is working on screening. So, we're going to screen all the dugouts,

099um, hopefully with something branded. But um the idea is to keep a a reasonable separation between spectators and the players and I think we've uh we've done a good job of that. Um one last thing that I wanted to discuss um is our fire inspection. So we had our fire inspection last week and it went very very well. Uh in the this is my fifth year here. This is by far the best fire inspection that we've had. So, um, our teachers, our staff, they are fully engaged in making sure that our buildings are safe. I feel like we're getting to a point where they understand what the fire violations are and are proactively addressing them. Um, when I tell you there were two items that were found in the entire fire inspection, that's unheard of.

100Uh, I can't I mean there's no school that has that low of findings. Um, and it was it was super impressive. Very happy with right to to be in safe condition. So, um, fire inspection obviously we passed and uh um we are in we are in good shape there. So with that, I turn it over to you guys for any questions uh or comments. >> There has to be one question. >> Just a comment again like what you guys accomplish. I mean what everybody has accomplished this this summer is is remarkable. I mean 14 miles of cable. >> Yeah, it's probably more than that. I wasn't able to do the the math once we bumped it up to 70,000 square uh linear feet, but yeah, it's a lot of cabling. It it it is a

101lot of cabling. Uh and I'm not going to lie, there was a there was a moment about a week into that project where we were like, what did we get into here? Um but uh but you know, there was a bit of a learning curve. We got through it and you know, it was it was a great accomplishment. a lot of pride uh that the buildings and grounds department has in being able to support a project like that. So, um and when they drive in, they see the signs, they'll know that their efforts, you know, had a direct impact on that. Again, those signs were not budgeted. Um they were realized due to the savings from from this project. So, >> as we said to Dan, you know, and to your team, just sincere thanks

102for, you know, the hours. >> I'm sure it wasn't done just >> um >> it didn't happen overnight. It didn't happen. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I just wanted to say beyond all of the work you did, thank you for letting us know about the the student who did the internship with you and then how that has now led her to be doing all of the other things and pursuing >> Yeah. >> you know, a career in that even. >> So, I think we were we we I want to say we lucked out. She's great. I mean, she's she's super eager to learn, uh, and which is, you know, a great quality, especially somebody at her age. And, um, she picked up on this stuff very well. We it got to a

103point where she was just part of the team. We didn't have to, uh, tell her what to do. We didn't have to tell her how to label the cables. She just got it. And it was really great to see. So, >> Thank you for recognizing that. Yeah. >> Thank you again. >> Thanks, guys. That brings us to our first public comment and seeing that no one is with us in person, we'll move on to round table. Mrs. Loftess, do you have something to share this evening? >> I do. Just a few pieces of information out of the special education office this evening. Um, I gave you my updated enrollment report which is up some numbers. We had 20 new students to district enroll who had IEPs or 504s the week before school and the week

104the first week of school. So within those f two weeks um 20 new students. So that um I have to thank um my office staff Donna Hart and Deardris Balto and the school psychologists who helped me to hustle because it is not easy to get all the information where it needs to be to make decisions about placements and accommodations that will work in our district. These folks were coming from the city, Kansas, New Jersey, all different places that don't always translate exactly to what we're doing, what our curriculum is, what the settings and needs are in our buildings. So, you have to work to get to know the students a bit and get them what they need. Uh we'll continue to tweak things as we see, you know, how that actually looks when the students

105are in the classrooms um and living that. But um that was a a good percentage increase in just a short period of time for for our department. Um we have gotten initial contacts from Goan who is hosting the 10th annual Special Olympics this year. It's on June 6th, the first Saturday in June. Um and we got the survey saying who's interested and we have said we are. So we're looking forward to again participating in um the countywide special Olympics this year. Um access VR night. So this is for anyone who has a junior or senior um who h who has a student with a special need. So, if you your student has an IEP and they are a junior or a senior, I cannot encourage you enough to please attend um Access VR night. And

106I should say it's Access VR night and college preparation night as well. We added that last year. Um, and what it is is Access VR is a state um program that helps students prepare for the workplace. Whether that be interview skills, helping to get a license, um, assistance going to college, anything that ultimately leads to employment, Access VR can help students with. And it is a lifetime service. So, we can't stress enough if you don't even want to take advantage of it now, sign up because maybe in 10 years you will. Um, so it's very very valuable. Um, we give information on that um, right here at the academy room 115 on Tuesday, October 28th at 7 o'clock. A blast will go out as we get a bit closer. It is on the district calendar

107as well. Um, and then last year we added the college preparation piece. So, we also talk to parents about if your child is going to college, what do you do to help that child get services once they're at college or at a trade school? Um, so we talk about, you know, most colleges have an off office of student services. What do you have to do to advocate for your student? What does your student have to do once they are there? Um, and so all of that um will be discussed. I also have two teachers. Karen Flynn who really has a lot of expertise. She uh does our transition sections of our IEPs. So she attends that night and also Carrie Lumbbo who has some experience with Access VR. So they are also resources that will

108be there that evening. Um so please join us. And then lastly um every year the special education department in each district has to report on certain state indicators. our um parent involvement survey is up. So, this one is tough because we New York State expects us to get 90% response rate. Um and we did do that seven years ago, but now we have to do it again. So, um we ask everyone that gets a survey from us, please take the time to uh fill it out. It not only helps us be in compliant with the state, but also gives us really valuable feedback. It is about how parents perceive their involvement with their students um IEP preparation. Uh is their voice heard? Is the student voice heard? And how we're collaborating with families and that

109is very important to us. It's something that we really um want to be going well and if there are things that aren't, we want to be aware of them so that we can address them. So uh please fill out that survey for multiple reasons. um that will be associated with our annual review um meetings which start at the end of January. So happy to take any questions that you guys have for the special education department or otherwise. >> Thank you. >> How do you share? >> Thank you. I do really want to mention, building on all of the reports shared this evening, uh it's truly exciting to see all of the progress that has taken place across this district and we're in September. So, facilities and athletics, uh, instruction, technology, these improvements truly reflect the

110collective efforts of our administrative team, our teachers, families, staff, as Miss Garcia mentioned at the beginning of this evening, if it How can it be more clear that we are all passionate in the work that we do? Clearly have a purpose in our why in the objectives that we seek to complete and certainly proud in all of the accomplishments. I know that I am proud and appreciative of the team of our students, our teachers, our staff and appreciative of the direction of the board of education and always looking through the lens of continuous improvement. So, uh in that spirit, uh I had shared the overview of district goals and objectives at the September 10th board of education meeting. They do remain available for everyone's review on our website under board of education district goals. To

111further support transparency and community access, we have launched a dedicated tab on our website for the proposed intercolastic athletics facility. So, you will find it at the top page uh top of the page of the website all the way to the right. It's titled Interscolastic Athletic Project. Currently, this page at this time includes just the overview of materials that were shared in the welcome back to school letter on August 20th. um sent on August 20th along with the intercolastic audit of all athletic programs and facilities which was done back in November of 2022. Um there is going to be further information included in uh uh such as the two-year feasibility study and many other components of all of the efforts that have gone into the project thus far uh are going to be on that

112website as they become available. In addition, know that there is an email dedicated email on the website as we progress in sharing information. Any questions that you have uh you can send to that email address and your uh answers will be included on an FAQ. So, we are in the midst of finalizing materials for upcoming presentations including a video featuring students, teachers, coaches, and staff sharing what this facility would mean for them in the community. Uh I do think Broo Badiato is one of the students that has been requested to participate. Um and it's really important beyond just our athletes and Brooke as a multisport athlete on student council and sitting here as a student member on our board panel. But the purpose is driven um hearing from students beyond just our student athletes. But

113but what does it mean to you um to have a facility facility on campus uh football field, track? Um what does it mean to our teachers? What does it mean to our community members? And what does it bring to the Chester community and expanding opportunities and bringing families to our district? So, uh we are finalizing um materials and uh know that a an engagement timeline is being created. It's going to be shared most likely midocctober, mid to end of October uh with board of ed presentations, panel discussions, open community forums, uh several opportunities for community engagement, excuse me, when we share this uh presentation. Uh those will be taking place throughout November and pretty excited uh to share that. I will add the proposed intercolastic athletics facility is more than athletics. As I said again,

114it's about creating a space where students, staff, and families can take pride in our school, in our community, celebrate achievements, and come together as a community. The facility has the power to inspire, to attract, and expand opportunities for all students now and in the future. And I again want to thank the students, teachers, and coaches who shared their perspectives today. Uh, and more voices will be heard on Friday as we prepare for our pep rally. that there's um again um as we share information and presentations, there will be several um opportunities throughout November for community engagement, opportunity to ask questions, have dialogue, have discussion uh so that we're fully transparent as we lead up to a potential referendum. I do want to just mention on the parent advisory panel uh with regard to the spirit

115of partnership and shared voice um our parent advisory panel for 2526 we currently have 24 members. So I want to thank all of our returning panelists as well as we have many new members joining this year. We actually have just four open spots left. Um one in prek, one in second, one in third and one in fourth. So if you are still interested in joining prior to our October 28th meeting, uh please reach out either to myself or our district clerk Lindsay Inuzi on our email address. And uh Mr. Ducet had already shared our other opportunity for input to provide input on the Scholastic athletics facility. And lastly, uh the other opportunity where we reach out to families, Miss Garcia mentioned, is our family instruction instructional academy that kicks off uh tomorrow evening. So, we're

116very excited. Um we're always looking through the lens of continuous improvement and so very much. We're excited for this year. There's a lot happening. There's a lot that's already happened and uh there's a lot that uh is soon to come. >> Thank you. >> Anything for round table from this side? >> No, I just wanted to share that the next Orange County School Board meeting will be on October 7th in person in motion. Brook, >> do you have anything to share with us? >> Yes. So, the class of 2020 Friday. The dance is Saturday at 7 and they will be serving pizza for Main Street and they'll also be having a Sunday bar with ice cream donated from American House which is very nice. Uh yearbook had their second meeting on the 18th and the

117yearbook theme was voted on. The theme retro was chosen and the cover page is being designed now. Photo signups for sports teams, spirit weeks, dances, and candids also took place and photographer photographers have been out and taking pictures all week. Uh, student council met last week and created the homecoming spirit week, which was Adam Sandler day on Monday, rhyme without a reason today. Tomorrow is Jersey versus Jersey Shore. And then Friday's orange and blue for the fall pepper. for fundraisers for various clubs as a lot of different projects are starting up throughout the school. Uh Kikov had a meeting today and they discussed a new recruitment method for members. They'll be setting up a table next week during lunch periods five and seven and it's just to like help deliver information on what the club

118does and how to get involved if you're interested. service projects and fundraisers for key club are going to be starting in October. U Miss Stern has been calling down seniors individually this past week for students to have their senior meeting and it's basically just to discuss how to apply to college and to go over your transcript. Uh voice ensemble course and drama club have started the annual virtue hawk chocolate fundraiser. The chocolates are sold after school for $3 to fund raise for them to see Hamilton on Broadway. and the fundraiser ends on October 30th. Uh medical club will be having their first meeting of the year on October 3rd and Miss Cisco is continuing to run the club. They will be brainstorming service projects for the year and possible healthcare workers to have come in

119and speak to the group because that was something the members really liked last year. And then lastly, another class meeting will be taking place tomorrow after school just to finalize Okay, that brings us to consent agenda. >> I would like to make a motion to adopt consent agenda items 5.1 through 5.12. >> Uh second. >> All in favor? I >> consent agenda passes. That brings us to you or can I have a motion to adjourn? >> I'll make the motion to >> a second. >> All in favor? I >> for those of you who tuned in this evening, um thank you and our next meeting will be Wednesday, October 8th. Have a good night.