001Uh do I have a motion to go out of executive? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I opposed. We are now in regular session. >> Welcome everybody. >> Uh see we are going to stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> I'm going to read an addendum that needs to be put in for tonight. Uh, it's agenda item number 14.6. >> I'm sorry, 16. Thank you. Resolution of the board of education of the Elmford Union Free School District authorizing agreement with Tech Systems. Whereas the Elmsburg Union Free School District has a need for a temporary temporary clerical assistance and whereas Tech System can provide this assistance. Now
002therefore, be it resolved that the board of education of the Elmsford Union Preschool District authorizes the district to enter into an agreement with Tech Systems for clerical assistance at a cost not to exceed $41,000 for a period not to exceed 6 months. All right. So, uh, Angel is not here, so we do not have a report from him tonight. He's probably still on his summer break. We'll expect him back hopefully September. Um, and we are going to hand it over to the superintendent's report. Um, and it's all yours. >> Good evening. Yes. Yes. Good evening, everyone. And, uh, I just want to thank the board of education. Prior to my arrival, uh the board of education embarked on numerous capital projects and we are so excited to share some of our summer project updates and
003we have had many hands and hearts that were hard at work um to prepare for the new school year and many of our capital projects are now nearing completion. Uh we've already completed the Alexander Hamilton High School parking lot last year. uh the new voice over IP phone systems, security camera upgrades, Grady Elementary School and Dixon Primary School roofs. I actually wanted to just show you what a roof uh system that's being torn and then rebuilt. Isn't that fascinating? Uh I just thought that that was a really uh great way if we could just see the second slide too um just to show that as well. Thank you, Mr. Dri. Um, and so you could see what our Dixon uh, primary school looks like without the new synthetics uh, slate uh, shingles that was recommended
004by Trustee Datino. Looks fabulous. It looks absolutely fabulous and we are off to a great start. We're so grateful that the board of education um, really rallied for these projects and we're coming to completion. We will say that we will be going out uh most likely in October or if not November for the remaining portions of this project for the AC track and the classroom unit ventilator systems. Um and so we thank the entire community for their support ensuring that our students and staff have safe, welcoming and modern facilities that they deserve. I want to especially thank Mr. Freeze and Mr. Curry who have been supervising all of these projects as well as all of the maintenance and repairs. You'll notice our fancy new stairs that are outside of Alexander Hamilton High School that were
005repaired as well. So, we thank um everyone for their support and their patience. We will have uh construction continue throughout the month of September. Uh they will not be working on the roofs while students are in session. However, we expect that the uh shingle roofing will be completed at Dixon by the end of next week. Uh they're at 80% completion. We also have some different areas of the Dixon parking lot that is um above the school. There's a retaining wall that had a fence which we're still fixing and that will be under construction. So we really want to say that uh all of this work has been really monumental and we are so excited that we have created welcoming and modern facilities and upgrades that uh all of our students and staff deserve. Thank you
006very much. So we have some great news that tomorrow we have opening day for our staff and we have President Hec also speaking tomorrow. Uh but we want to acknowledge uh our teachers and some of our staff members who are celebrating special anniversaries. Uh Kim Breen, a teacher at Grady Elementary School is going to be at 30 years. Carolyn Hopper also 30 years. Christine Kelly 30 years. Mary Patenza 30 years. Lisa Watson 30 years. Eugene Dunup 25 years. Suzanne Egan, 25 years. Tyler Fernandez, 25 years. Beth Fletcher, 25 years. Leah Samp, 25 years. Richard Vaggera, 25 years. Andrew Cleveland, 25 years. Omar Bayz, 20 years. Lisa Lanzelatto, 20 years. Sonia Rossello, 20 years. Nathaniel Weinberger, 20 years. Samantha Delaney, 15 years. Marian Darentes, 15 years. and Dr. Andrea Hamilton who is here today uh for
00715 years. So congratulations to all of our employees and their we also have this week um some meet toteer events and uh we want to just announce that uh students would be able to visit Dixon and Grady on Thursday. Uh there may be some amendments to classroom visitations. We have had some unexpected situations that have occurred. Uh but every parent should have received more information. Um as well as there's a coffee with the new Dixon primary school principal at 10:15 on Thursday as well. So please see your emails uh from your principles. There will also be a meet the administrator, not the meet to teacher, um at Alexander Hamilton High School tomorrow night for seventh grade families where they're going to be able to walk around and get acquainted prior to the new school year.
008We also have our new district calendars and in the board packets you have the new district calendars which have already been mailed to all of our homes. Uh we have some revised school start time start end times that were not reflected in the calendars but they are correctly reflected this year. Uh we want to just let everyone know that uh we have universal free breakfast and lunch for all students. Uh and families received applications in the mail. And some may wonder why we are receiving these free and reduced lunch applications. is primarily that we encourage families to still fill these out, to still send them back because it's used to determine eligibility for benefits for state and federal funding. As well as for secondary students, it allows you to qualify for um application fees being
009reduced or potentially free through the college board, college applications, and more. So, Alexander Hamilton High School will be open for breakfast starting at 7:00 a.m. And we ask students to be there no later than 7:40 to be on time to put your internet devices into your lockers and to have sufficient enough time. We want to remind everyone that beginning September 1, New York State law requires all K to2 public schools to restrict students use of personal internet enabled devices. Um they will not be allowed at any time. Not during passing times, not during lunchtime, not during free times. None. Uh and we just passed this uh policy last month. Grady Elementary School will be open for breakfast at 7:45. Uh and at 8:10 classes start on the dot. So we want to invite all students
010to make sure that they're there at 810 and on time. We also want to mention that there's a lot of traffic on first day. So, uh we know that uh takes quite a bit of time. So, please make ample time for that. And Dixon will be open for breakfast at 8:10 and the school start time is 8:40. We also have a new communication tool called Parent Square and you'll be able to get on the Parent Square um communications app and we encourage everyone to do that. And um I'm going to give a quick update on my entry plan findings that uh I have had really a wonderful time entering into district. Uh it is now the I'm nearing the completion of my eighth month and this month uh we will be lifting off the 25
01126th year with the theme of engage, equip, elevate toward excellence. And I'm going to just transition over there so I could kind of do slides and and do that as well. Thank you, Mr. Yap. And I just want to go back to that one slide. We did have summer school this summer and we thank our teachers, Miss Caris Carisia and Miss Saggera who led summer school for ENL students and they had a great time. All right. So the care entry plan, as you recall when I first came in, had goals to cultivate strong working relationships, achieve a smooth leadership transition, review and gain a deeper understanding of the current state of the district, as well as engage stakeholders throughout the entire district. And you know, I wanted to really get to know everyone in district.
012I wanted to understand what the strengths of the district were as well as well as areas of growth and improvement. and what else would you like me to know about our district and our community? So, I'm going to just quickly share some of the findings and um if you could go to the next slide, Mr. Yak. Thank you. These are all the different individuals that I met. I want to thank the board of education who spent quite a a considerable amount of time individually to share their reasons for coming on the board, their priorities, their thoughts. And I want to thank you. uh the the themes that we have here resonated throughout many of these stakeholder meetings. We also I also met with Dr. Jim Ryan, every single administrator in our district. We also met
013with every department chair, every grade level team, teaching assistants. I also had any person who would want an individual appointment with me was able to come and see me as well. We also talked with facilities, operations, clerical, school monitors, business office staff. I did a lot of walking around with them um and talking. We also met with collective bargaining presidents. We also met with parents. We also had uh PTSA president, residents of the community. We had students, we had student government, we had alumni. Uh we also had the privilege of sitting with all of our elected officials. Um I was able to meet with Mayor Williams, Commissioner Foster, our chief of police, as well as our EMS chief Mr. Diaz as well as fire chief Duca as well as over Zoom to meet with Senator
014Stuart Cousins and we also I also had several events. So um what was the process like and what did we do? So let's go to the next slide. Um we had some resonating themes and I was able to distill those areas that were resonating throughout the district in about eight different categories. And the process was for me to listen to and I I forgot to bring it up with me all of my notebooks. I had like a stack. I'll bring it for staff develop for our professional development tomorrow. But just to show how much uh everyone contributed to this process. Uh and some themes that came up uh throughout the process were areas that the district really felt strongly about in one way or another and had some thoughts and reflections that I learned a
015lot from. So those areas were curriculum instruction especially in the areas of um not only the course offerings but student performance how are we doing special education ENL learners the dual language program also talked about all of the different types of student supports the learning environment um through classroom visits um school culture resources also about leadership and professional development because it's a quite a a a very no a novice leadership team. What about human resources, family and community engagement and communication and supports, safety and emergency preparedness, as well as finance and operations? So, I'm going to quickly go through some of the things I've learned and some things that I want to share with the board for consideration um for for the board to consider as we begin to kind of develop what are we
016focusing on, what are what is our strategic um activities and our plan going to look like. So, the next Oh, no. These are Oh, yes. No, that was okay. That was okay. All right. There are some slides that are embargoed. So, I have two sets of slides. So, I just want to apologize because I thought it was the other one. Uh I just want to show how well we do for our um outcomes. Our June graduate rate was higher than last year's graduation rate at 94%. The state average graduation rate was 86%. And we outperformed the state. And uh what I want to show is that our graduation rate for June 2025 is 95%. Which is fantastic. Next slide, please. Here are all of the different colleges that our students were accepted to. There were
017more. I just couldn't fit them on the slide. Uh but we are proudly be able to talk about our valadictorian who went to Harvard University and our saludiatoran who is at the New York School of Visual Arts. And here are the plethora of colleges that our students uh were accepted to. Next slide. So here are some things that I learned uh about curriculum, instruction, assessment, course offerings, as well as our student performance. Our students take a lot of pride and ownership in their projects. And they love showcasing their work. They love to show and tell. Uh our teachers really enjoy collaborating between grade levels and departments. and there's a high level of teamwork and they said something that I thought was very profound was that they requested a shared vision throughout the district for rigorous
018teaching and learning. I also learned that we had new curricula implemented K to6 and it was done all at one time and our teachers worked till very late hours implementing that curriculum. Um we've got curriculum that's now on our electric portal. We also have assessment data that is uh not integrated into data dashboard but we do have electronic assessment data that's available. One of the things that I would say was the greatest um area of concern that was raised with me over not only through uh the teachers but through um different members of the community and different staff members was our dual language program and the way in which the dual language program was designed at Elmsford were to be a 50/50 model. So that would be 50% Spanish-sp speakaking students and 50% English proficient
019students. And over time, what we have learned is that there have not been enough Spanish- speakaking students to maintain the program. We've also learned that um Hamilton has had course offering experiences that have been challenging to to space scheduling staffing as well as we've learned about the graduation pathways that are changing in New York State and how does Hamilton begin to really parallel those graduation pathways and experiences here. We also learned about the schedule special education programming and that it's largely integrated co-eing here and a 151 special class and some related services. But we do have a number of students whose needs are being met throughout district placements that are also financially very challenging for the district. We learned about ENL learners throughout our district that are also receiving varied types of programming like integrated
020code teaching pullout services and some content courses with bilingual educators. Um so we are seeing that there are is a diversity of the types of needs that our ENL learners are and everyone who um understands the new NGLS standards knows that we have a need to vertically align all areas of content and course curricula. But our data really showed some interesting areas in the math and science instruction. um and potentially we want to look at from the findings that we had heard from people labs and technology that require modernization. So what are some future considerations that I have for uh the board to to kind of contemplate with me and to be partners as well as our administrators our staff are going to hear this tomorrow is to develop a K to2 shared rigorous vision
021of powerful learning and teaching. We want to move away from pockets of excellence and that is the one thing I noticed throughout the district. We have pockets of excellence and yet we are not integrated as a system of excellence K through 12. How do we then also build coherence through people, professional development, our time, f finances to foster real continuous improvement through reflection, collaboration and data and for practices. And then one of the things that was repeated over and over again is how are we using meetings? How are we using our time for evidence-based conversations and collaborative culture to really build measurable outcomes in student success? One of the things that was mentioned over and over again through many of the adult conversations throughout the district were how are we measuring success and what is
022success beyond our achievement scores. Uh there was a need to align our literacy practices and embed literacy in all content areas, audit special ed, ENL and dual language programs to build an MTSS system and train leaders as well as identify ways to build special education programs in the district. Next slide. Uh what I learned about student supports uh students feel really supported and teachers and psychologists, counselors and social workers as well as uh partnership with WJSC uh feel as though our therapists really work synergistically. Uh we also offer uh what I learned was on-site mental health therapy. We're a clinic in Westchester County. So our parents and our students can have private confidential mental health uh therapy if they would like. Here in the district, we also have a partnership for substance abuse counseling with
023student assistance services. Uh but the relationship is not as fully transparent um as we had hoped is some of the feedback that I learned. Currently, our system is responsive intervention. It's not the current model, which is the New York State multi-tered system support. Um, we've heard quite a bit about a need for coherence in academic and behavioral supports and MTSS not being implemented as consistently as they had hoped. There was a large concern from our community about chronic absenteeism and targetiness um from our students as well as student discipline procedures were an area that was mentioned that there's a lack of consistency at times about how discipline is approached. Our students really told me, I want more afterchool opportunities and can you get a late bus for me? Can you please get us a late
024bus is another thing and much more after school homework help out. And uh the district continually needs more coaches for athletics and chaperoning and teaching assistance also as well as other staff members requested some more training and deescalation and developmentally appropriate approaches for behavior responses. So what are some future considerations that we have? um developing a phase in plan to move from RTI to MTSS. Also really thinking about our academic and behavioral supports so that we have clear interventions that are tiered tier one, two, three, some progress monitoring and reduce the fragmentation we may see across the three schools. Use data to really kind of target interventions for chronic absenteeism and really engage the staff in reviewing some uh current discipline practices. Next slide. So what I learned about our learning environment is that we
025have very favorable studenttoteer ratio. We might have the most favorable teacher uh student ratio throughout Westchester. Class sizes right now are ranging from anywhere from 13 students and class to 22, which is beautiful. And as a result of that, teachers are really feeling um a level of personalization that they can provide for students. Uh again, some of the things that were talked about in the learning environment was how absenteeism and tardiness impact classroom instruction because you have to stop and start and stop and start. Uh teachers really model such a respect um and differentiation and fairness and care. And one thing that was a very interesting aha that teachers had as they were talking with me was that they really want students to do well. they provide all these supports but the support sometimes impacts
026rigor and high expectations. Um so they they they get challenged by that. Uh we also heard about some of the classroom furniture from students. Um I had some six feet students who told me that the chairs were uncomfortable because their legs and their desks were not uh conducive. Uh some of you are laughing but uh you know it's true. Uh and uh classroom walls uh and bulletin boards display student work but sometimes it's inconsistent. Uh there needs to be they uh what I learned was that some have mentioned some modernization in our furniture. HVAC issues were noticeable. Uh but technology is ubiquitous in our district. It's abundant. Um and we have teaching assistance in all our primary classes at Dixon, which is fabulous. So future considerations is what do we do with our students? Engage
027them in personal goal setting, more rigor, more scholarship about how to be a scholar. Um, and let's really think about potentially modernizing classrooms and HVAC provisions and what are we doing to build a portrait of a graduate now aligned with new graduation pathways. Next slide. So we we learned um from leadership and professional development that every Monday schools released 30 minutes. So how is that staff time you utilized was a real discussion area and staff has requested that there would be a lot more coherence and a lot more coordination across the three schools to have more coherence in curriculum and instructional um design. We've had quite a bit of leadership turnover um and there's also retirements that are impacting direction. Um so that was something that was mentioned as well. Uh there are some systemic
028professional development offer offerings, but they're pockets. Again, this pocket of excellence versus a system of excellence. Um teachers often talked about how they were asked to implement new curriculum all at once with little or no professional development. Also, scheduling constraints. So, you know, teachers who are integrated co-eing often had a difficult time finding time to collaborate. Um and teachers were saying, you know, we want to do more professional development offerings, but we know that requires financing and requires a lot more um job embeddedness and yet they also know that because of our scheduling that they don't want to be pulled from the classroom. So here are some things to consider. Uh we've also started to do some of this is to strengthen leadership development. Uh we just had our administrative retreat. As administrators, we're reading
029the book Good to Great by Jim Collins, as well as the school leaders are going to be studying the book Coherence by Michael Fulen with um Deputy Superintendent Mr. Yap. Uh we are reviewing the early release Monday schedule and we are considering moving away from the practice as early as and we want to give everyone advanced notice as early as January. Uh we want to get to that place. We want to increase more time for students and so we want to really think about um you know removing the early release Monday schedule and then also thinking about professional development differently. So, we would want to reconvene the district-wide professional development committee and to develop a very fiscally responsible plan that's a multi-year plan um and think about ways that we want to expand mentoring and
030leadership and um also use uh professional development to uh use data to drive instruction. Next slides. So human resources is another area that I studied and and this is just an sampling of the range of experience of our staff. So the left column gives you the years of experience and then the total staff number is how many how many people are in that years of experience. So you could see kind of like this shift of how the years of experience from one to three um or one to five even are kind of where the pendulum is currently. And then we're seeing that we have teachers who are in the years 20 and above starting to slowly decline. So there's a lot of wide range of experience and much for us to learn from one another.
031And that is one thing that we have heard throughout the district. We've also heard that it's been challenging to fill teaching positions. We have had um sometimes for elementary positions, we will have 300 candidates apply, but still finding enough qualified candidates has been challenging. Um for some of our STEM positions, we have maybe five candidates apply. So, it it is a challenging season that we've experienced. Onboarding new hires has been something that uh there's been talk about. They would hope would become more electronic. our teacher and staff have talked about some performance evaluations that are are unevenly given and there's also um a year of contract negotiations and how are we benchmarking that. So let let's think about these future possible considerations developing strategic recruitment plan strengthening our onboarding systems so that um you know
032we don't spend a lot of time on paper and pencil um also think about a tiered retention engagement. What does that tiered means? is that so people who are in the beginning years of their career versus the latter part of their career. Um we want those veteran teachers to really begin to uh share their knowledge, their expertise and for our uh new and developing teachers to have the ability to learn from mentor teachers. Uh we also want to continually build trust and transparency with collective bargaining units. The district has had historically very strong uh relationships that have been very positive with all of our collective bargaining associations. Next slide. So, safety and emergency preparedness. Um we've got an amazing and I thank the Elmsford Police Department as well as our mayor um Mayor Williams as
033well as our school resource officer. Um there's a strong collaborative partnership. We've also done a lot of security upgrades. the Raptor, the cameras, the electronic locks, the PA system, all in one year, and we thank Mr. Yap for that. Um, there's a real uh increase to now campuswide alerts as well as you can dial out on 911 on our phones. We've had a a a ton of assess um assessment trainings for mental health professionals. Um, our leaders this summer went to threat assessment trainings this summer. um as well as every year our staff does uh GCN and works partners goes and we do all of the emergency drills. Um so we want to continually practice clear communication and operating protocols. We want to invite um our law enforcement in for tabletop exercises um when school
034is not in session so we can collaborate and we could continue that. um as well as you know I don't want to go through all of the areas of the benchmarks that we received from partnership um but we want to improve upon those areas as well. Next slide. Uh our family and community engagement and communication and supports. Our our families love coming to our events. They love, you know, donuts for dad, muffins for moms. They love all of our plays, our our musicals. They love uh our showcases. and parents want more opportunities to come into the classrooms and experience lively events. Um, we've also heard about our stakeholders wanting more news about district accomplishments as well as families want to have us communicate more through social media as well as they've enjoyed some of the
035workshops we've had for college planning. So, we want to continue this. We want to develop more ways to engage families. We want parents to be coming into our schools a lot more. We also want to extend social media and electronic communication in different ways. Um, you know, and we also want to partner with PTSA um to increase family engagement and involvement. And lastly, um, we can't do any of this without fiscal responsibility. And so, you know, our district budget has been within allowable tax limit limits. We have fiscal audits that show positive fiscal stewardship as well as positive reserves. Transportation is provided to district students and resident students not attending school district um our district schools and that budget is much more is much greater than actually what we provide to indistrict schools. We've created
036a five building uh five-year building condition survey that's completed. We've also finished all our capital projects. We've got HVAC next summer which will be the last one and then we're continuing improvements and maintenance and repairs. Um, you know, there's been requests to what are we doing about our flooring, our tiling, what about our HVAC systems here at uh Alexander Hamilton. Um, and then we've also had significant technology upgrades as well as one of the things that we've seen in the finance and operations is that we've had leadership and staff turnover and as a result, one of the things that we've noticed is that our staff has been cross-trained um to support one another. So, we want to continually um uh really reflect on our five-year plan u using the building condition survey findings. We want
037to align all of our budgeting with instructional priorities so that we can continually do the great things that are already being done. We do want to conduct an efficiency study for transportation. We want to create shortterm and long-term preventive maintenance for our repair plans. And we want to work on developing operational excellence um and expectations and standardization because what happens is that when you have leadership and staffing turnover there's a knowledge that someone had that someone may not have and just building that knowledge base. So as a result and this is my final slide and I'll open I'll be open for any questions or comments. So you've learned about all these different things that I've learned and so how are we going to focus our energies? We can't do everything. As you've noticed, there are
038many areas for us to consider, but we want to focus on these four priority areas. And our um theme again this year is to engage, equip, elevate toward excellence. Our priority is always always student first. And so we want to excel in student achievement. The next priority area is to engage learners in safe and supportive environments. We want to equip um recruit and retain highly effective educators and staff. really giving them the professional development and the building of the capacity that they need to be successful and then we want to continue to elevate effective highquality costs efficient operations. So that is the conclusion of uh my entry plan findings and open to any questions or comments from the board. >> Well, I'd like to thank you first of all for that incredibly detailed um report
039and presentation. Um it hits a lot of key points. I think that we've gone over through workshops and um what we've you know basically given you the task of of basically executing um The