001agence [Music] one two [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] the [Music] [Applause] e ladies and gentlemen introducing the world famous e High School drum [Applause] line [Music] he [Music] n come [Music] [Applause] w n the [Applause] who from rampa high school on drum over there went to cat also she was n all St this [Applause] year [Music] a sh [Applause] w thank you all can we give another round of applause for our be thank you so everyone um please please uh please remain standing uh I think it's just a good time to talk about um perspective and um this week uh the last couple of months or so we've had a pretty hard time time so it's always important to remember be good in people and don't don't ignore all the joy in life um we
002had a we want to have a moment of silence for uh two St two people and then we'll have a moment a quick moment of prayer for someone else uh one of our teachers a biology teacher at Spring Valley High School passed away recently his name was Rodney Simmons he was a relatively new teacher but um Ronnie passed away um this weekend uh two of our students were in a a Terri terrible car accident and uh one of them a 10th grader uh from Ramapo High School her name is Sabrina Villa Gomez Gonzalez passed away so um for Rodney and Sabrina can we just please join us in a moment of silence honoring them thank you now um we have another student 12th grade uh from rampo high school that was also in the same
003accident as Sabrina and uh she's still hospitalized so I just ask that you please keep her in prayer her name is Aaliyah Torres uh thank you for that um Miss Charles Pier thank you Dr Ellis um I would also like to share with the community that we will be having a vigil tomorrow at Ramapo high school at 7 o'clock for Sabrina and also a prayer service for Aaliyah Torres uh visitation for Sabrina will be be held this Thursday January 25th uh from 4: to 9:00 at the sniffin seala funeral home and her funeral will be Friday January 6th at 10:00 at St Joseph um Church her resting place will be at assess Ascension Cemetery in s River uh Airmont New York thank you um and we also have our thoughts and prayers out for the
004staff and students at rameno High School uh the school at Aaliyah and Sabrina attend uh Spring Valley High School because uh Sabrina attended Spring Valley last uh last year and Grand View because she has a younger sibling that attends Grand View so you know we got to come together as a community now now's the time so I really appreciate it thank you very much okay thank you Dr Ellis good evening everyone we're going to do things a bit different tonight um to begin with our translator some technical issues is running a little behind schedule so we will begin the superintendent report and as soon as the as our translator is here we will open up the floor for public speaking um before we move on let's talk about the fire exits are located in the
005Sid of the room in the front and the back in the event of a fire you will hear a fire alarm at that time please move in a common orderly fashion to the nearest exit we will now move on to the superintendent's report Dr Ellis take it away yep okay again good evening everyone and and thank you for joining us this evening um as you know last week's board meeting was uh was rescheduled due to inclement weather so thank you for joining here I'm glad everybody's well start as we start all of all of our meetings we start off with um our vision and mission statement as a unified Community the East rampo Central School District is committed to educating the whole Child by providing a healthy safe supportive engaging and challenging learning environment our
006vision is that we'll become proficient in all that we do um our we have a our goal our 53 we call the 53 way of and uh that's five goals and three commitments our five goals are number one success in the early years um number two a healthy safe supported engaged and challenging environment number three we want to we want to develop motivated confident and empowered critical thinkers number four we want all of our students to master the academic subjects as well as the Arts and that's evidenced earlier of our our band that performed and number five that upon uh High School graduation that our students are our students are ready for College and Career our three commitments are number one under academics and instruction number two social emotial learning and then number three uh
007operations um this is uh this will be the overview of tonight's um report we're going to have um building presentations by uh start with Eldorado elementary school then Pomona Middle School we'll have a presentation from Hill for literacy and then operations we'll have our district ride announcements as well as our continued um information on our budget vote for 2024 and uh Dr We Ready start up with um olorado Elementary School like to introduce principal extraordinaire forgal [Applause] georgees let me first begin by just expressing how proud I am to be a part of this District um specifically the principal of El Dorado um sometimes the narrative that exists out there is filled with inaccuracies but I know one thing is for sure is that uh with the leadership of the board um Dr Ellis's leadership
008and of course um District cabinet capable cabinet um we're working very hard on behalf of the students in our district so I'm very proud of that proud to be a part of that so let me um talk a little bit about El Dorado um first of all on behalf of of Eldorado Elementary School I want to thank the board for a few minutes so um our academic commitment our smarty goal which was set for us far ourselves last year um I just want to summarize very quickly for a couple of minutes um first thing we were committed to using small group instruction an evidence-based practice uh to support the needs of our kids and um to help us do that we we restructured our master schedule um to allow each teacher uh an additional period
009of academic intervention support um to help with that effort we also embraced uh the teacher rotational model to support our small group instruction um basically what it helps us do is to make sure that during every AIS period the needs of every child in that classroom is being met um with the work of generation ready last year um in our instructional rounds we identified some key deficits that we needed to address um specifically def deficits in our foundational skills there were twoo many of our students who are not reading um at grade level making it very difficult to access um grade level content the other thing too found foundational five where pretty used to that um strengthening that integration um in every chance that we got um with a special focus on student engagement um
010and differentiation for motivating students and um that real world application the the the why so to speak is a very useful piece um for the impact that we have on our kids next slide this uh nice visual here thank you doc Dr iaha um triangulating the data obviously there's a lot of data available to US Special thanks to our district leadership um but I really like uh the way this visual is set up because what it does is it helps me highlight for you three key components a professional learning communities where we look at our data we look at the feedack back from our learning walks and our um observations it just really does a very nice job of triangulating which is another fancy word for manipulating the data so that what we observe what
011we say and what we do is at the key point of what we do at at um for our professional learning communities so we inspect what we expect so that's a very key piece next slide let me talk a little bit about some of our um data specifically our student growth percentile which which shows growth relative to others in the same grade um we're very happy about our our trajectory it's on a positive trajectory if you look at our Ela numbers our high growth um has inched up and we do celebrate those small successes um Although our typical growth and low growth is still flat we are excited about our high growth and that um that challenge is before us but we're up to that challenge also our star reading proficiency rate which is a
012nice snapshot of how we will do um on our state assessments um we've already surpassed our numbers in grades four and six from last year if you look at um this year's um cycle numbers we've inched up quite a bit and we're very very excited about that our fifth grade is still a ways away but again things are looking good for them as well let's look at our math numbers in math our SGP our high growth numbers are on par with Ela uh there's that that slight improvement from cycle one to cycle two and that's exciting for us our star math proficiency rates also look very nice um our for just this year our fifth our fifth grade and sixth grade have already surpassed last year's numbers and our grade four is poised for surpassing
013last year's numbers as well we're right there so again we're very happy about our trajectory one of the things that we're starting to look at very closely is how our kids are doing in math in Spanish so I'm excited to report in our SGP we have high growth in cycle one and cycle 2 for are Spanish speaking students who um with the bilingual support um have exercised some nice growth in our SGP um for our math proficiency rates um again that District Benchmark is a nice picture of how we might perform on our state assessments there's nice growth across all great levels from cycle one to cycle two so um you can clap that up because that that's that's amazing I I appreciate that next slide so our commitment highlights um this commitment it says
014commitment to social emotional but it also covers our our third commitment as well operations um we recited last year um for our attendance numbers but I am happy to report that um we've shown a decrease in our chronic absenteeism almost 6% so clap that up it that's not an easy thing to do and as a result our daily average attendance has increased so special thanks to our ad hoc attendance Committee in our building we have a lot of committed teachers who are um happy to support our efforts to get our students in school ready to learn and ready to succeed next steps getting a win so you have two pictures of some of our Jaguars and um how we address English language arts scores um we use every available resource to help support those scores
015um in English English language arts so uh the picture on the left is one of our students our grade six students um here he is he's solving problems he building a robot using Legos and coding we have a wonderful librarian who's an expert in all things computer science and we're thrilled to have him and of course he's doing wonderful things with our students the student on the right um was a newcomer just two years ago less than two years ago and um here he is showing off his Capstone project Capstone projects are something that every single student in El Dorado um has to do it's an opportunity for them to um work on a social justice problem and create a project a research project where where they have an opportunity to really synthesize all they
016have learned whether it's presenting and researching um problem solving it's just an exciting opportunity and we have a Capstone fair at the end of of year um as well where we showcase every single grade level we invite parents and it's a real opportunity for our students to shine um and really pull together everything that they've learned all year Capstone projects next slide addressing our math scores one of the things that um I'm very proud of is that El at Eldorado we have a lot of expertise there and we tap into to it all the time um so one of the things we're doing is we're creating strategies um to improve our math proficiency levels um by focusing on power standards um using star data using lyric data to do question item analysis um so that
017we understand what students can do and what they need more support in so we're laser focused so that we're we're not doing test prep but we are being very laser focused on um making sure our our students the best that the very can on the exam and as far as our English language proficiency scores um what you have there is one of our bilingual teachers as you know we've had an influx of student non-readers non-readers even in their home language um so it does challenge our small groups but what we've done is we've identified um small numbers of students and we pull them out um to do um phonics in Spanish phonics in Spanish so that they gain confidence in their own language making making it easier for them to learn the English language so
018uh that program is called the nacho program and that came from within our building and we're testing it out we're not afraid to try new things and we're hopeful that it's something that will show um great Improvement for our non-readers and then we'll share it with the rest of the district as well and last but not least um I just want to thank you all and I want to know that the spirit of collaboration the spirit of creativity um and a commitment to solution-based problem solving is um Paramount at El Dorado and we are El Dorado strong and thank you for a couple of minutes thank you Mr Georges and thank you for being so steady um in your leadership appreciate that I'd like to now introduce sorry before we call up I just have
019one quick question um the star Spanish that you mention mention is the test in Spanish or just getting extra support it's extra support are you talking about the nacho program correct yeah the nacho program is is in Spanish um basically it's phonic in Spanish to support our non-readers no no I'm sorry the star the star the star math oh the star math is is taken in Spanish in Spanish yeah for our bilingual and it's taken in Spanish okay so they may not be able to speak the language but they can do math in their own language and we're excited about that growth thank you Mr thank you uh so much appreciated Mr georgees thank you thank you proud proud to be a part of your what you do thank you sir so now um i'
020like to um bring up the principal of uh promoter Middle School uh Taran Washington Peterson and her assistant principal Dr Barbara Jean Dr Barbara jeene is one of our graduates from East Dr Ellis Dr Ellis Dr Ellis yes we we could stop now do this after this okay yeah um sorry for sorry for not telling you um um Miss um prin uh president Rose just decided we might as well just you know maintain the momentum thank you we proceeding okay so thank you for having us this evening um we're here to present to you on Pomona Middle School there is a third person to our team who is Miss Wendy vaka but she's holding our PTA meeting tonight building up communication with our families so she's here with us in spirit so we can go
021ahead and get started it's our academic commitment so we're our academic commitment thank you oh thank you at Pomona Pomona is we're committing to learning and using identified strategies we really shifted our Focus this year on looking at student data through professional learning communities so our smarty goal this year is really to focus on our math and Ela scores and move our students in our Ela and math star Renaissance and data which will initially or eventually impact our overall end of year assessments how are we going to get this done right so we have our teachers meeting weekly through professional learning communities where they can not only collaborate but really discuss student data and analyzing their scores so that we're able to really focus on students where they are and where they're going was that
022so how are we going to do this in these professional lunar communities teachers are identifying students in all levels so that we're making sure that when we're building lesson plans we're targeting all students that we're moving all students we tend to focus on as an education Community students who are right below that meeting Target or students who are falling below but we don't want to forget the students who are achieving high already because we don't want to lose them in that bracket so we color code students based on each class and identify it a standard that we're going to focus one intentional strategy that teachers can really build upon to push those students where they need to go and as we assess on the next cycle we look back at that student data and we
023see what students have truly progressed and we can look at the actual strategies that we Implement to see where they actually effective now this gives our teachers opportunities to build upon them their own instructional practices and really heighten best practices across the building in this time you'll also see when you walk through the halls of Pomona in each classroom there is a data board this also allows our students to see where they stand as a class as a community of where their data is from cycle one to cycle two therefore they can celebrate their successes along the way and encourage each other to push each other to the next level it's really important that our teachers are seeing the star data and they're analyzing it and knowing where their kids are but it's even more
024important to that our students know where they stand and they setting goals so this goes to our last image on the left I'm sorry on the right bot bottom where you see a conference sheet after each star cycle each student conferences oneon-one with their teachers they set goals on where they are and then they reflect did I meet my goal did I not meet my goal and why this also let students be able to speak to their parents and build that school home Community as in one so that we have everybody that can speak upon data so we're we're progressing everyone at once next slide please so this is our impact if you take a look we had a baseline star data assessment and then we had our cycle two we actually have our cycle
025three coming up very shortly so we're really excited about what our scores will show but if you look here it starts off with our seventh grade and eighth grade reading scores we thought it was very important to also put down students who have totally test it because then you can see that we also had an increase in students across the way so that overall ending cycle 2 Data what it doesn't show is the actual student movement and I would like to share share that so in seventh grade for cycle 2 20 students moved a level in eighth grade two students moved a level when we start looking at our seventh grade and eighth grade math star data assessment we notice we had our even greater gains in seventh grade we had 36 students jump an
026entire level in one cycle and for the seventh grade students who took it in Spanish we had 38 students who jumped the level our goal was really to meet 45 students across the grade in ela and math and we're already superseding in our math scores our eighth grade um students who took it in Spanish we had 37 students who jumped a level and those who took it in Spanish were 33 students who jump the level this is really important and looking at this data and talking about it with the teachers and the and the families we realized students really do leverage the opportunity to take a a assessment in their home language and ini shows across the board next slide [Applause] please all right so we're going to um talk a little bit about the
027commitment highlights so as you can see um we're going to address academic goals so star reading percentile score increased from 38% to 46% um Ela is approaching our school step goal next slide please also as you look further um this is our math um percentile so star math increase with high growth with 47% to 59% um and we exceeded our um um school goals so which was great for math um from cycle one from the fall to LA from last year to this year next slide please and as you also can look um students when they test in their native language they show um growth of course um this data shows that when students are um you know provided with bilingual um support they will exceed um star math Spanish um also have um the
028goals have grown from 53% to 59% so shows from last fall of 2023 um 2022 to 2023 to this year so that actually is amazing to see the growth with our students next slide attendance very important so we do um want to acknowledge our social workers we want to acknowledge our secretaries because and also our teachers because it's important that um we do communicate with the families so you see that the 90% percentile this school year um is growing so one um one of the commitments we work daily with our um average of attendance which is very important for our school and District next slide and next whenn what are our next steps at Pomona middle school so to continue our progress we're going to continue improving our instructional practices what does this look like
029at Pomona we're going to continue to implement instructional rounds in our next Cycles where we have teachers pushing into other teachers classrooms to build on their best practices that they don't necessarily get the opportunity to do during the professional learning communities we are going to continue our professional learning communities cuz we see a big win in them by teachers being able to know where their students are and where they're going it is impacting our store stores tremendously and we want to continue to build on accountable talk strategies what we always say is the ones doing the talking is the one doing the learning um on top of this we will also improve our instructional practices by providing parent workshops um on how to support our elll Learners our PTA meetings are ground force for this
030Miss Katherine Morales for the district has been collaborating with promoter Middle School very often to come in and speak with with our parents whether we do it in person or we do it virtually we want to continue to outreach and find different resources for our parents to support them at home because when our parents have that extra support then our students get even more support and lastly we're going to continue to build on our district um focus on Lexia English and Lexia PowerUp giving our students a self assessing platform where they can continue to build on and that meets the student where they are thank you we can continue okay we last one all right our last slide is um last one always providing support for our teachers so it is important that so teachers
031are receiving professional development so we do have um they receed the Orton Gillem training also working closely with um uh literacy Specialists so we're looking at multisyllabic words working with students and small groups um instructional grouping is very important for all our students and as you can see is um this is what we work on with our students with closed syllables teaching how them how to read um and just being supportive to our teachers so I want to also acknowledge our teachers at Pomona because without our teachers there's no Pomona so thank you thank you one thing I forgot to mention that both of these young ladies both of these administrators the principal and the AP are both graduates of the East rapo Central School District so excuse me for being remissed thank you and
032yes today it does say Pomona gets the win but pona and kagat we stand as one our collaborated team did take the win today against tapen SE so congratulations thank you guys thank you very much uh I will now make a motion to open the floor for public speaking do have a second second by Mr guber all those in favor say I andone oppos abstain motion carries speaker number one good evening first of all I'd like to say that these schools just proved the point our children do better those who have Spanish as a second language do better and Excel better than doing it in English so where are the Spanish teachers where is a program that's not just for these schools but for all the schools for the children to learn in their own
033language because they Excel better at it where are the Spanish instructors that are needed number one a parent just text me while they were talking about how many Pomona middle school children actually just were passed on and really weren't even fluent in learning okay so I I I I don't know what to expect but the text is here okay secondly the problem that we're having with parents getting Advocates into school meetings is allowed because parents are supposed to have a Advocate that's in their parent right so for certain schools here tonight understand that it's the parents right you can't be taking that right away from parents and denying them the right to have somebody there to be a support to them if there's a situation or problem in the school or to advocate for them
034in the school it's wrong it has to stop taking away parents' rights has to stop because parents are learning more and more about the rights that they should have good move on your meeting tomorrow Dr Ellis because you promoted your meeting but you don't promote the board meeting where parents need to be so this is like you trying to say you want to have a good kickoff for the community okay it ain't happening that's wrong to do you should be encouraging parents to come to board meetings cuz these board meetings are important this is where the statistics are that's important and the statistics that were given some people still didn't understand them so break it down a little bit better for parents that are listening in this board meeting now I'm moving on to bullying
035okay and I'm going to tell you it's enough because those are one of the subjects for Pomona middle school today and and I'm going to tell you that the bullying in all these schools have to stop and you're going to have to come up with a resolution for this children should not be afraid to go to school children should not go to other schools and have problems because kids decide they want to be bullies and bold okay it's enough parents are fed up with it yes you've got something good here yes the teachers are making improvements but our K our children are still failing but they're doing better when they do programs in their language what does that tell you it's a wakeup call it's a wakeup call to every single one of you start
036hiring Spanish teachers or start getting programs like that so children can exceed in all the schools thank you thank you speaker number two good evening board members and community members I have a question that I need and Community uh members need answered I know you don't answer questions at the meeting but an email answer would be appreciated the selection of a superintendent is the most important task the board has to perform School leadership is the search firm you selected to bring forth candidates for the position of superintendent the community has a right to see the description of what you are seeking in a superintendent thank you thank you speaker number three hello everyone um before I start talking about my concerns my condolences to Sabrina's family um and it's sad that we lost an amazing
037Soul um I would like to express how concerned I am about not having security and when it gets warmer when the kids are at training um pigy backing off a topic that Terry did spoke about was kids going from one school to the other and causing issues um it would be great to have a security guard outside for example uh soccer when the kids are training for example in the back of Pomona it would be amazing to have a security out in the outside but also whatever sports inside I know there was this amazing security guard there but he cannot split in half unfortunately he's amazing um in regards to bullying it's a consistent thing we know after covid it has rised even more but we do need additional programs going in every school I
038mean from kindergarten all the way to 12 even more intensively so if we can bring that more programs that'll be amazing it does affect them educationally um and you'll you'll you see it because of all these um percentages going up and around if we don't have that addressed then you won't see that increasing as fast as we all want to um a comment from my six-year-old um she was wondering if she can also participate in the lunch thing that you guys are having because it wasn't specific what grades can the students can participate in that um event on February 1st she's very eager to know if she can join yes or no um but besides that I also wanted to talk about safety how the population is in the high schools and there's not enough
039space um I've gone for meetings including of a sibling of mine and you can't even walk in there especially when that Bell Rings um a suggestion I know it's out there in the future but North Rockin did an extension to their high school if we can possibly do an extension to one of the schools that will relief a lot um I don't know whoever does GRS and stuff if that be great they have an extension in the back um where they have their health their art and they it it's bigger now and and I went there my sister did too and it's such a different atmosphere because now you have more space um thinking about how the population will grow even more because we have a lot of um undocumented Community coming in and of
040course they choose here and other places um but besides that I want to congratulate all so the marching band has done an amazing Winter Guard winter percussion um I enti again to promote um stuff like that on the website on social media and the clips that you had the principles talking tonight if maybe media person can clip that or have them individually do those videos like you did before about the women the shos and all that that'll be amazing and if it can be multiple languages that'll be great thank you thank you uh I just was remiss I just want to acknowledge our administrative team from cacat over there hey guys raise your hand Miss wiou welcome thanks for coming thank you guys thank you speaker number four for I'm sorry what's the station yeah
041yeah we went as a vide for ES [Applause] thank you speaker number five [Music] okay [Music] for say [Music] Gra [Applause] thank you that concludes public speaking for tonight um continuing with the superintendent report um I believe we have a presentation yes we do um Dr why it's Hill for literacy correct Hill for literacy um they'll discussing um Miss Shir Cen from Hill for literacy is on Zoom now for presentation Miss Cohen Goldberg can you hear us yes I can is it loud enough for the board to hear um board members could you hear can you speak again just to make sure yes can you hear me yes um can we increase slightly just one moment we're going to increase the volume okay if you can just speak once more yes hello can you hear
042me very good all right great shall I begin you may begin okay uh good evening everybody my name is Shir Cohen Goldberg I'm director of client services from Hill for literacy and we are very excited to be able to begin a literacy needs assessment kindergarten through 12th grade in your District so I just want to First share with you what we're talking about when we um are doing our needs assessment for literacy um the gold standard through the research is to develop within a school system a multi-tiered system of support mtss and a multi-tiered system of support creates an equitable approach for all students through five priority goal areas and so these are comprised of leadership which involves a vision a set of goals prioritized instructional time a distributed leadership team and team approach and
043a view and lens on diversity Equity inclusion and District climate the second priority goal is tiered instruction which involves involves adoption of research proven materials programs and routines and differentiated instruction grouping and scheduling the third priority goal is an integrated system that supports the adoption of these programs and differentiate instruction grouping and scheduling um so and this system is profession is professional learning and it's research based professional learning and resource allocation priority goal four is is a valid and reliable assessment system which drives databased decisionmaking which then informs what instruction looks like which then informs the professional learning plan and finally priority goal five which is family and Community engagement and so that is the priority goal of engendering a welcoming culture and effective communication so these are this is the lens through which we
044look at a district when we engage in a literacy needs assessment so if you could forward on to the next slide I'm going to share here the needs assessment process and I also just want to um share that we are actually deeply engaged in the process at this point so I'll let you know where we are um in in the process as I discuss the various elements of this so the purpose of A needs assessment is to conduct a comprehensive indepth analysis of the current Equitable literacy practices within the school district and from this in-depth analysis we seek to provide detailed recommendations Based on data collected from teachers and from your administrative team for improving literacy achievement via a lens of equity inclusivity and cultural responsiveness and we think about this and going back to
045the image of uh of the Hill model and the multitiered system of support that this is a system that exists for all students enl students special education students regular education students students who come to the district at any point in their educational careers should be served through this model and the final purpose of the needs assessment is to enable the building of a strategic literacy plan um of where the district is and where the district seeks to go so this process begins with a series of leadership meetings um and an overview of the process for both the district literacy leadership team and the entire staff we launched the process um with a district leadership overview and staff overview and then the systems analysis begins that's the second box there on the graphic um and this
046is working with a smaller administrative team and it consists of facilitated conversations and artifacts collection um to understand what the current literacy model looks like through the lens of the administrative team then we get into our distinct work of data collection with the teachers who are in the building every day working with students day in day out and through this piece of the needs assessment there are four areas of data collection two of them are um are sort of um uh facilitator collected data and two of them are data that is collected via our system of surveys called Hill online the two that are facilitator um collected data involve focus group interviews we sit with groups of teachers four to six teachers for 30 minutes and ask a series of questions in order to understand
047the experience and perception of what it is to be a teacher of literacy within your District we also do classroom walkthroughs where we spend 15 minutes in every classroom where literacy is taught in order to gain a highlevel picture of Equitable literacy practices and areas that are um and areas that may require further investigation um it is notable that our classroom walkthroughs are about 15 minutes so clearly we cannot see all of the practices that are happening and all of the teacher student interactions but we seek to get a highlevel view um of what classrooms look like District to District we also as part of the needs assessment you'll see here in the that third block box down the road map survey and Road map inventories we seek to gain information from teachers around the
048current programs that are in use in their classrooms around the current assessments that are in use with their students and also around the um professional learning and their that teacher specific experience of professional learning within the district and so um this data plus a roadmap survey which is um a percep survey around the five components of a multi-tiered system of support I'll say them again leadership tiered instruction professional learning assessment and family and Community engagement all of this data collected seeks to build a picture um of areas where the district is thriving and areas where the district can Garner support resources and areas um and a and actions in areas for growth and so what happens at the end so we're actually right in the throws of doing the data collection um we're starting our
049classroom walkthroughs tomorrow um and we are engaged in collecting data via the roadmap survey and road map inventories um and focus group interviews are starting um for most uh schools in about two to three weeks and so then what we do after we collect the data is we compile it and prepare a results and recommendation summary report and presentation which will be first shared with the literacy leadership team and then shared with staff the findings are um are made available to all staff because we really believe in the power of teachers and in the importance of teacher voice and if teachers are putting all of this effort and energy into participating in a data collection process we want to be able to share with them what the outgrowth of that process is the report findings
050will then lead to the development of a k to12 District literacy plan and through this process um we engage with the district literacy leadership team to empower them via a series of um a series of really discret steps to build a plan which then defines the goals and priorities of the literacy initiative moving forward and this type of plan is intended to outline a multi-year approach to improving literacy outcomes for students so that is all I have for you if you have questions I'm willing to answer them to the extent that I'm able and um that is it have a quick question well actually not a quick question one of the questions I have is what are um if you could answer it what are some of the supports that you could provide teachers um
051what supports do you provide um teachers with the hill literacy program so that is a different that is a different scope of work and I'm happy to talk about that at a different time um but basically what we're doing here is just doing this needs assessment process oh needs assessment process yeah and in terms of other got it got it yeah you got it okay okay okay thank you thank you yeah thank you I just want to interrupt and say that um I'm happy you asked the question because that is a question some of our teachers had you know what's the purpose of this number one part of our recommendations in our plan was to understand where we are in terms of literacy K12 so this process of interviews with teachers all you know all
052teachers of ela surveys inventories observations where um it's it's a deep study to see what does literacy look like in our English classes when they're teaching English when you're not teaching English so that we can make some decisions about programming okay thank you so much Miss Shir Cohen Goldberg thank you very much everyone have a good night I'm gonna go put my daughter to bed thank you have a good night good night so I like to just we'll we'll skip this slide for now I think we just you want you you want to do a slide down it's up to you no no no we whatever you plan let's go go ahead doc Dr yaha do my guess um we wanted to take a moment to celebrate um the district to celebrate uh the anticipated
053board approval of uh Personnel tenured recommendations of all those listed we specifically wanted to um we shifted it to now because we know we have some Educators here who might need to go home to be prepared for for tomorrow so um I believe here we have um Mr Douglas doller our assistant principal at cacat and Dr Elis I turn it over to you as you might want to bring them up I don't know I don't know if you want to have um any of them come up or okay I just wanted to give um principal wilmouth an opportunity to speak on Mr Doug dollar who is such an part of the community at kacak as Miss wilmouth uh comes up just to acknowledge there are other teachers we have uh lyanna Russo Deborah shazman Dean
054sha Williams Lisa bar Baron Jennifer wolf Lou Leo Cheryl fredman Kayla spian and I know I said that wrong Miss Spen I always do Nicole SMI Jillian TR traso and Joselyn Hilario so congratulations good evening everyone thank you and congratulations to all of our 10year recipients or anticipated 10year recipients I just wanted to U be sure to be here tonight because Mr dollar and Miss auu arier they literally are my right and left hands as you see them standing here this evening specifically U Mr dollar um through his time with us and it's a couple of decades now for those of you that don't know um I'd be remissed if I didn't share that Mr dollar has worked with me as an instructional facilitator as a math coordinator as a director of Elementary education and
055now as my second time go around twice as my assistant principal and um I couldn't ask to have greater support specifically at this time he is instrumental in the development of our diversity equity and inclusion go goals he has been diligent and thorough in ensuring that our buildings and our libraries are um representative of the people who visit our schools you know representative of our Scholars so that they see themselves in their in the literature that they're reading he has been um an integral part of our data Dives really taking the time to explore data with all of our staff members so that they can as uh Miss Taran Washington shared earlier take that information during professional learning communities and plan targeted instruction so that our Scholars have goals and they know what they're striving
056for Mr dollar is an incredible instructional leader um teachers really look forward to I know this sounds strange observations uh with Mr dollar because his feedback his lens for instruction and his feedback uh really grows helps grow the instructional program for our teachers so we are it's just a treasure and um personally because of all of his support it allows me to be more present with my family so like present as in not worrying about everything even though I'm present and um for that I will be eternally grateful that you have been such a support and such an impact to the Kakak community and helping me find balance personally so thank you and um I forgot Atlas uh that's why they all love them here at the district because um really sound C curriculum development
057especially with our Atlas program so Mr dollar congratulations on your well-deserved tenure thank [Applause] you thank you congratulations thank you very much [Applause] congratulations just want to mention uh to the community that we're having a a town hall tomorrow evening it's our conversations with Clarence uh the time has been adjusted um initially it was going to be held at 6:30 to 7:30 but we adjusted the time as we're having a vigil for our student um you know uh Sabrina that passed away so we're the the town hall tomorrow night will be at First Timothy Christian Church it's located at 198 North Main Street in Spring Valley so um you know looking forward to you guys attending so we could talk about the things we've done in the district things we plan to do and how
058important it is that we get the community out to um to vote um to support our our school district SL um yes now also out of the business department um Miss espanel is not here this evening but we will be um opening up we've opened up the uh the applications or the deadline is for uh April 1st for our private and parochial schools the application for for uh Transportation it's uh April 1st that's the New York State mandated deadline all Transportation forms as well as instructional information can be found on uh Transportation website uh Department uh website at ercsd.org on page 522 uh new students um the parents are able to electronically fill out their children's Transportation application online at ercsd nonpublic Transportation e form and that's also on ercsd.org page 522 uh the form
059link is ERC D jotform.com and it's it's right here on on this this slide oh yes Kathy M so at the top of that uh slide is the uh um link to get information on superintendent search the ercsd.org search 2324 and uh one of our speakers tonight miss Anderson had asked to make the uh search specifications more visible they've been on board do since January 2nd but I uh put them over here on the superintendent search uh web page tonight so I thank her for that suggestion and on uh January 8th the online postings of the vacancy went live on websites at the American Association of school administrators the New York State Council of school superintendents the National Association of black school Educators and the association of Latino administrators and superintendant the uh Association of
060school administrators uh generated an email sent to over 5,000 superintendent and other Association members the Nikos website reports that um 418 individuals have accessed the requirements and downloaded it the education week print ad will be out on January 31st and will remain online for 30 days and school leadership has sent a recruitment letter to more than 1,200 State associations of schools and superintendents as of uh today 11 people have actually gone through the online application on the school leadership website and um they have begun personal Outreach to individuals that they have targeted they will next come back to the board um the board will need to determine a meeting date on earlier mid-march where they would present uh the candidates and their recommendations for candidates following that uh would be some interview process for uh
061they anticipate the board would select three to five candidates for interview and and the budget vote just a reminder again to everyone the the budget hearing is May 7 and the budget vote itself is May 21st um there's also a short link to go there ercsd.org budget vote 24 and from there you can get to all the other Pages you can check your registration check where your poll site is and uh by the middle of February all the forms will be up for those people who are interested in running for a trustee position on the board and just a reminder the federal court set the boundaries on the wards and the actual poll sites and the school does not have authority to make those changes thank you very much thank you Miss K and I
062um thus ends the uh superintendent report for tonight uh Tuesday January 23rd 2024 thank you very much Dr Alis moving on to consent and agenda items I believe we have a we have a we have a a change so on the motion would be to approve the consent agenda items 1 to 10 excluding section 7 of consent item number three the certificated HR okay I will now make that motion do I have a second second by Mr Weiss mandle any discussion all those in favor say I I anyone oppos abstain motion carries moving on to action items 1 through 16 do I have a motion for Action items 1 through 16 motion move by Mr guber do I have a second second by Miss lavel we'll open it up for discussion okay here hearing no
063further discussion all those in favor I'm sorry Ashley you said we have a motion on a second for Action items one through 16 all those in favor say I I anyone oppos abstain motion carries moving on information reports from the board yes um so I just wanted to congratulate all of our uh scholar athletes who participated in our community basketball Day event on on Saturday at Spring Valley High School um we had a great turnout um from the community and parents and also students um just to share um our Chestnut Ridge Middle School girls they won over Pomona Middle School 21 to 18 um our boys Chestnut Ridge Middle School boys won over Pomona 54 to 52 rample High School freshman won over Spring Valley High School 58 to 46 uh rample High School JV
064boys went over Spring Valley High School 56 to 33 um and Spring Valley High School varsity boys won over rample High School 62 to 42 um and our JV and varsity girls uh East rample Titans um Unfortunately they did not win but they did play a good game so I just wanted to congratulate like I said all of our scholar athletes uh also um I just want to give a special shout out of course to our students that participated at the MLK service um on MLK day um I think the Mike Smith um the performing arts department for you know always putting that together making sure that our students participate so um thank you to our young scholars thank you very much uh future meeting dates regular meeting is scheduled for Tuesday February 13 shim
065me I just I'm sorry Bruce go oh no problem let me just finish this Mee is scheduled for February 13 2024 beginning at 7:30 p.m. at the plcc administration building Bruce oh thanks sorry for interruption so I wrote a memo to the board and State education department regarding the energy performance contract I I would suggest that the board members read if they have any questions unfortunately we the last bid opening for the banking RFB was on Friday there were three RFP since October no banks participated in the bid we would have needed to borrow $15 million um to have the energy performance as the board approved it last year new lighting univent and energy performance system um the State education department has approved the construction portion of it but without the funding we can't move
066forward that's one issue the bigger issue is that annually the school district borrows money short-term borrowing a revenue anticipation note tax anticipation note and if banks don't participate in the loaning of money to the school district that would have a severe impact on the operation so this is all in the future if you recall I attached the Moody's report which we received in August the downgrade of the school district which led to the hency of any Bank loaning the school district money at this time so if you read the memo um you have any questions let me know I don't know where this is all going to land in the future but these going to be very tough decisions we going to have to make as we are starting the budget process two weeks ago
067we will need a full commitment from the board that they're supportive of it one of the issues that the banks continue to raise is the lack of community support for the last 10 years um it's been a drain on the programs the finances and now it's reached ahead that we can not no longer sustain um this is news not news for this board it's been in existence for many many years uh the lack of support of this of the school district so if we have the budget process that we're starting just similar to last year Personnel efficiencies line by line review Dr Ellis would have to present to the Board of Education every dollar that the board has reduced that's a less of a need to borrow money for next year uh as we know
068Transportation went up tremendously this year um by the recent bids in in October so we have we're finalizing the con uh the contracts with the bus vendors if they want to renew at cost of living or if they want to go out the bid uh and and they'll have an opportunity to submit bids at the market rate or open it up to competition these are huge decisions for the Board of Education affecting the programs the instruction operations uh and the future viability of the school district so we will keep the board and the community informed as we learn more if anyone has any questions okay thank you um Ju Just One Thing before we move on um I had noticed on the website that we had put the tasting for the food for February 1st
069at 5:30 but I noticed that wasn't shared tonight is that still on for you know we're going to we're going to make it we'll make announce tomorrow what the time is if there's any revision today we're going to take into consideration the fact that um one of the community members asked for low grade students to participate so so what we'll do we'll do an official announcement tomorrow after I am able to confir my my team and make a more solid decision okay thank you m you're welcome okay moving on to written Communications since the last board meeting the board received has not received written Communications um I will now make a motion to enter executive session what are we discussing Kathy um to receive advice and councel from the school attorney on uh the negotiations
070with the OTR group and the era group also on Student Bus litigation and a new federal court litigation no action is expected following do I have a second second second by vice president Charles Pier all those in favor to say I motion carries okay I'd like to call this meeting back to order I would now like to make a motion to adjourn this meeting do I have a second second by Mr guber all those in FA all those in favor say I I anyone oppos abstain motion cares thank you everyone have a good night