001yeah it's a really quick meeting we're going to call the meeting to order all right can everyone stand with me for the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge 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 thank you now I would the Board of Education would like to hold a moment of silence in memory of high school teacher David Engel who passed away on August 24th 2024 and Lewis Lis Stanton member of the class of 2025 who passed away on September 9th 2024 thank you I know it's been a um hard first couple of weeks for everyone in our school community and I just want to say to everyone at the high school co-workers of Miss
002Mr Angel and folks who knew Louis Stanton um the board is thinking of you and um sending our deepest condolences and sympathy item 1.04 approval or revision of agenda um we do need to revise and remove item 5.07 so we will just do that is there any other approvals or revisions for the agenda that are needed okay item 1.05 recognition so Dr tyon and I are going to come up to the podium and recognize um some great staff members for achieving tenure um and also I just just wanted to since it's our first meeting of the new school year recognize our incredible buildings and grounds staff who got this school looking actually absolutely spectacular especially with all the construction that's been going on um so thank you to all of them um and for everybody
003who has made the welcome back for all of our students incredibly welcoming um and I heard very positive things along the way so now we will recognize these teachers okay well we have a great crowd in here today and I'm sure it's not just for our really exciting agenda um so we just want to take a moment and call up all of the teachers for their accomplishment and achieving tenure to earn tenure teach must complete a probationary period receive Effectiveness ratings for each each probationary year and receive a recommendation from the superintendent so when I call your name if you're present if you'd like to come down we have a a small gift from the Board of Education to congratulate you so Elizabeth Angel Alro [Applause] Emily Anna [Applause] Caro thank you to Sandy for
004helping congratulations Jacqueline Corbett she's not here Kelly Christa Foy [Applause] [Laughter] congratulations Sharon [Applause] defusco trying not to trip on all these cords Kim [Applause] Fuller Kendra nap perella Myers Sarah [Applause] Shaheen and Sarah Willard there were two Sarah and just a round of applause for all of our 10-year teachers thank you have a good night everybody oh we'll try not to okay we're moving on to item 2.01 we're going to have a presentation for our special education audit certainly at this time uh we'd like to uh welcome and I think he's online right we heard the Wizard of Oz voice although we call him Uncle Bob among the administrators but Bob uh conducted a special ed audit last year and reported out to the administrative uh councel uh during The Summer's convocation and we
005all thought it would be appropriate if he could summarize uh basically his executive summary from this summer uh with all of you today Bob has 35 years of experience in education having served in leadership capacities in rural suburban and small City school districts as an elementary and secondary school counselor Middle School assistant principal Elementary principal director of special education assistant superintendent for pupil services and until his retirement in June 2022 is a superintendent of the salaman city school district in New York Bob is a wealth of experience uh as a educational turnaround specialist facilitating subst stantial improvements in student achievement strategic planning School finances construction state and federal advocacy leadership transitions hiring mentoring and contract negotiations in addition to working as a public school educator Bob has been an advocate presenter leader at national state
006and local levels he also serves as a lead program evaluator with cogia and a consultant with w Zed rx5 cyber security Workforce initiative as and as the executive director of the New York Association for small City school districts so without further Ado and hopefully the technology will work we'll turn it over to Bob and Sandy thank you very much uh just as a process check can everyone hear me okay and uh okay all right I just want to double check Dr Ty and members of the board thank you so much for the invitation to be here and um I I I just want to say that how a district Grieves and how a district celebrates speaks volumes about your organization and uh please accept my condolences for your loss and my congratulations to your staff
007members who are working exceptionally hard for the students of your District um I'm going to kind of jump through this fairly quickly and um uh one of the things that I think is important is if you give a retired superintendent the microphone uh brief and short typically don't happen too often so I'm going to do my best to go through the audit and the uh results that we found and similar to Stephen Cy's work I'll start with the end in mind um after auditing uh appr approximately 11 districts at the time of this audit now working with five additional districts in the past 18 months uh the FM system is doing an exceptionally fine job uh and meeting the needs of students with disabilities there is a strong Foundation of trust and collaboration within your
008system that is something that you should and can celebrate with pride and be an envy and a shining example to your neighbors and peers not just within the region but across the state looking at the findings uh there is some exceptionally positive work that is being done and through the findings there is some work uh and areas where the district can continue its positive progress in meeting the needs with students with disabilities this includes increasing the knowledge base of your staff and your administration building upon strong instructional processes that already exist keeping lines of communication open and investing in professional development with a high degree of efficiency to drive positive results for your neediest students and the staff who serve them in looking at the study we came out with four executive summary survey points
009of focus and those are briefly compliance capacity Common Sense understandings and Leadership opportunities within the system looking at your compliance there were no material compliance concerns it would cause myself or the audit team to be concerned about legal implications or potential pending lawsuits or litigation the fact that the district is aware of its needs needs of its students and how to best Implement programs that provide meaningful benefit uh suggest strongly that the district is doing all of the right activities at all levels of the organization to maintain compliance with state federal and local requirements there is some opportunity to look at how you calendar and how you schedule annual review meetings and trianal three-year evaluations uh but even looking at 50,000 data points uh there were very very very limited instances where dates did align
010uh you can expect in the near future that the state is likely to come out with more stringent recommendations on how districts can operate within the anniversary calendar schedule for services and evaluations but by and large the district is doing a fine exemplary job of Meeting those requirements um from a compliance perspective 504 accommodation plans were not part of the original survey of work that we were going to do but as we got into that and spoke with stakeholders we realized that 504 plans not just within your system in the district but across the state are growing at a proliferation level that should cause some concern for syst s and we'll talk a little bit more about that but compliance wise there were no concerns that the district should be concerned about in terms of
011Your Capacity there are capacity factors that are outside of your direct immediate control but areas where you can be aware of and take steps to mitigate any potential concerns with capacity again uh one of the most uh prevalent factors is preschool special education programs or cpse programs there is a significant concern across New York State not just within your region or your District about uh the availability of evaluators service providers and locations for preschool students under the age of five or pre kindergarten age students from 2.5 to 5 years old before they enter kindergarten that's not just a regional concern it's uh we're seeing this across all of New York state so to the extent that you can provide additional supports and resources for this program when they enter kindergarten that will provide significant tangible
012benefits to your school district as I mentioned the an review stressors are a concern uh and that is something that I know the district is aware of and has had conversations post audit and a concern in terms of instruction uh you'll hear a lot about professional development and see a lot of notation in the written report about professional development but it also extends past that with collaboration time and it's not just simply having teachers or staff members have the opportunities to engage in discussions discussions are critical and important but actually planning the instruction rather than discussing instruction is a stressor and a potential risk area for all systems so to the extent that your leadership team can provide dedicated consistent time to collaborate and plan the instruction uh that will yield High return on investment
013results for your students that are struggling and the staff that are providing those services in terms of Common Sense Solutions professional development is where your bread and butter are really going to produce really significant results for your staff and to the extent that you provide high quality professional development is uh is something that you can be proud of because you're doing that to a large extent but I would encourage the system to take a deeper look at it to provide differentiated professional development instruction in addition to the instruction that you're providing which again is high quality as it stands during the audit so to the extent that you can take that a little bit further and work with your staff and stakeholders to differentiate that based on the needs based on the students that they're
014providing services to would be uh an exemplary uh activity and lastly with leadership opport unities um the stakeholders clearly trust the leadership team in the district the fact that you provided this audit when it wasn't a requirement speaks volumes of the district's commitment to Excellence and providing valuable programs and uh at the end of the audit we were hearing some of the work about a new transition program and a CommunityWide partnership those are the things that will allow the district to continue to shine in the audit we looked at three critical questions how well the department is doing to meet the needs of students are students making progress and do students have a good experience in school and the answer overwhelmingly with all of those is yes you are providing a meaningful beneficial program to
015your students with disabilities and creating opportunities for growth and enrichment for your students with disabilities when we did the audit we looked at compliance capacity and Common Sense understandings and we looked at a deep deep data dive within the system we covered over 50,000 separate data points within your student management system we redacted out all of the personally identifiable information and we did a deep dive into analyzing your program bands your program needs location duration frequency as well as the documents uh the internal documents within the students plans that speak incredibly well of your staff's commit to Excellence in creating a document that was both individualized and conveying maximum benefit to the students when we looked at those data points we looked at the consistency of how programs are implemented where there are stressors within
016the system and we found what we would expect to find at times of transition there are more stressors and administratively when students are transitioning that's an opportunity for more professional development more communication with parents and stakeholders and service providers both within the district and outside of the district to make sure those transitions run smoothly and effectively we also interviewed a significant number of Staff over a multiple day period of time within the district and then had follow-up conversations individually with stakeholders uh as they continued to participate in the process over the uh late winter and early spring months interviews were about six 30 to 60 Minutes in length sometimes a little bit longer and it included all levels of stakeholders uh faculty staff service providers Administration and parents and during the parent process we spent
017a little under two hours having conversation with parents about their experiences within the school district and their experiences as parents of Childrens with disabilities and in summary with the interviews they were incredibly meaningful in driving the conversation to to support what the documentation and the data was telling us they were honest direct collaborative conversations and the team trusts and values the input of the other team members um we talked about compliance and there were no significant concerns with compliance I do want to take just a moment and talk about the data of capacity for the district we looked at 14% of the active IEPs we touched on 50,000 data points and for that information at the time of this audit there were 234 504 plans with 25 pending which suggests a 10% year-to-year growth in
018504 plans and that is a factor that I think does present a risk or at least it should an area be an area of concern for the district there were 137 preschool special ed placements with 19 pendings so just about 177% growth in your preschool programming and a a a strong point of 436 active IEPs with 23 pending or approximately 5% growth in your preschool or your school age programs excuse me the program offerings do suggest a high level of degree of inclusivity as well as the opportunities for students to participate with like age peers within your system uh and there is a high level and I mean high in in the very positive terms of the uh offerings of speech language services in the district which is not only a wise investment of resources
019but a strong strong indicator of providing both uh appropriate pre-referral strategies for students uh that are struggling in school uh and your speech therapists are doing a fantastic job as our the occupational and physical therapist and the other therapists that serve some unique and highly indiv idual needs of your students with disabilities there is an opportunity for growth which we've shared with the administrative team about opportunities to grow and expand elective offerings at the secondary level uh we've talked and provided some opportunities for input into that uh that does take a little bit of time because it involves scheduling and uh creating Pathways for students with disabilities to participate in general programs to the best and greatest extent that they they can um and lastly I want to touch on the common sense understandings from
020the staff staff Works exceptionally well they care deeply about the students within the district they are valuable members of the team and they welcome input and feel that their input is welcomed and appreciated by Administration um the stakeholders recognize that everyone is working exceptionally hard and to the extent that they are willing to continue to work hard and do that work is a function of the culture and climate within the system and that came across very loudly and clearly within the um interview sessions with the stakeholders some areas of concerns that we did note where there are opportunities to expand the work that you're already doing is um some dedicated time in more clearly articulating what the co- teing model looks like within the buildings and the grade levels um transitioning to an anniversary schedule
021for your annual reviews uh and for those who are not aware of what that looks like instead of doing 436 IEPs 137 preschool IEPs and approximately um uh 230 504s from March April May and June you spread those out over the course of the year that allows for more detailed and more effective documents that are more reflective of students needs rather than trying to condense them all into what some districts call March Madness um I think that's going to be something that we're hearing whispers about at State Ed that that's going to be uh a little bit more directed from Albany towards districts to comply with the anniversary and the calendaring requirements of the partk regulations um your special class programs are doing a fantastic job of meeting the needs of Highly highly needy children
022with disabilities and um that translates into the success factors that the school district um and the stakeholders have very clearly articulated throughout this process uh in closing we did make some suggestions in the final report about opportunities for professional development ongoing coaching within the administr for the administrative team and the service providers that are providing input and programming for the students with disabilities and to the extent that the Schmid leadership group and myself personally can provide support to the district uh we're happy to provide support uh over this next coming school year thank you Bob board members you have any questions go ahead Ian I'm sorry I never used a microphone before um thank you for your presentation Bob I just have a couple questions um and I'm for beginning I'm really glad we're in
023compliance that's something to really be happy about right um but a couple questions include how can you tell us a little bit more about how those interviews were conducted who was it oh he's gone are you sure sure so when we did the interviews um we met sometimes individually and we met sometimes in small groups and that dealt more with scheduling and trying to mitigate any interferences with um Service delivery for the students or the programs um when we met I explained to them what the process was that uh and and if you ask the staff I hope that they will remember me saying this that you as a board and the administrative team as a leadership um governance team for the district has a right and an an absolute urgent need to know what
024members of the field are saying but they don't have any right to know who said it and so we maintain the highest level of confidence to to get information from staff and I think I'd like to believe that those conversations were Dynamic and genuine and the staff was very much engaged in sharing with me and other members of the team that were participating um on what they thought the district was doing well and where they thought there were opportunities for the district to do things a little bit more effectively and more efficiently uh within that process one of the other things that that I think W is an important stress in all of the evaluations that I've done in my career which is you know significant number not just in the last 18 months but
025my experience with near approaching 40 years in pupil Services is the way to effectively translate results within pupil Services it's not with a deficit mindset if your speech therapy levels decrease because you have better scheduling the first and uh immediate reaction of systems that are less effective would be to cut speech therapist positions I've espoused in my entire career that you should not be looking to cut those pre-referral preventative proactive services like speech and occupational therapy and the primary building you could do that but the risk is you will have more students with uh greater needs as they hit third and fourth grade particularly if they have um innate underlying learning disabilities so during the course of the evaluation interviews um we had really Dynamic conversations with faculty and staff members and I felt that
026they were really genuinely engaged to try to make the system um operate much more effectively thank you I have one more about the interviews um when it came to the the interviews that you conducted with the parents um can you speak a little bit to how those looked how many parents there were how they were selected sure um in the course of the uh conversation with the leadership team we uh originally had talked about how we would be able to effectively engage parents in that process uh there was an evening session that occurred and there were I think about 10 parents that were able to come and attend and we talked about referral strategies we talked about their uh concerns and I want to stress that um while the overall results were very uh positive
027and a positive reflection on the school district that doesn't mean that everybody was happy the entire time they did share concerns about their experiences with special ed historically versus over the last three years and there was a marked difference if you want to take a demarcation line in time of the last four years versus uh um uh previous to those most recent four years uh how the parents were selected I believe that um the administrative team engaged with parents in um what uh how they came i' I'd have to defer to the administrative team but I do know that at every opportunity I provided my individual cell number to uh faculty staff and parents and encourage them to share it with other individuals and there were stakeholders that I didn't directly interview face Toof face
028that did reach out to share their concerns uh and their uh their experiences within the department thank you oh sure hello hi nice to see you um so that parent stakeholder group was actually already in um formation because they were helping to develop the new transition program and things were ahead of schedule with that program so I asked if our already scheduled meeting could be given over to Bob so that was the group he was able to interview they were already in session that evening any other oh go ahead Cindy I should also note that we did spend uh a significant amount of time and I may not have been clear talking with the administrative team at the respective buildings um about the the stressors that they experience in implementing the programs as well as
029uh their thoughts and concerns about what their immediate and long-term needs might be hi Bob I have a quick question for you thank you for this presentation it's very informative and really helpful and I'm glad we're doing well um we're also going to be talking tonight about class sizes uh in our buildings and my question to you is when you are looking at our programs um do you suggest smaller class sizes um for inclusion with our students so that they have their needs met the best um or would you suggest more AIDS in the classrooms I I think to the ex that's a great question that that doesn't have in my experiences a direct answer so I'm going to do my best to try to kind of frame it in in options for you obviously
030low class side is helpful in dealing with individual students that are either need to accelerate their learning because of their capacity or need to have their uh instructional needs remediated because of uh deficiencies and deficits that uh are existing uh when looking at the Traditional School population um there is there is a metric that I found in my career that if class sizes get below 12 or 13 or 14 that has in my experience has not yielded the most positive results because you don't get those Dynamic interactions similarly if class sizes particularly at the primary level exceed 18 19 or 20 um then that allows for limited individualization and customization in one-on-one time with the teacher uh to the extent that teacher aids or teacher assistance depending upon which which pathway you would go as
031a dist District um I think having additional supports in the classroom is helpful but there is a deficiency in finding individuals that can provide the type of instructional support that's necessary so if you ask me my professional opinion the the best way to maximize that would be to keep class sizes at a reasonable level within your community you know that better based on your individual demographics I didn't really look at that but to the extent that you can push in additional supports to the classroom whether it's reading teachers or speech therapists to do whole group language or phonics instruction or even in my elementary school as a as a principal um I pushed in occupational therapist to kindergarten in first grade to help students learn those um fine motor skills which translated several years down
032the road to hire and elevated test scores within English language arts because they had better capacity to to uh perform the writing tasks that we were expecting them of uh third through fifth graders in our building at that time the last thing I would add to that in terms of the interventions and supports um I think absent class sizes what seems to translate to provide productive consistent sustainable results is allowing your instructional staff in your classes to have consistent bands of achievement and instruction and in AAL a classroom if you have third through fifth grade students you could have academic skill levels that are well beyond their age ranges so looking at how you cluster and group students is something that I think can provide more um maximize benefits for instruction particularly for students that
033are struggling with the attainment of academic skill sets there isn't a quick easy answer but you should be looking at all three or four of those elements that you discussed and does this model work with this age and population of students that you're currently having and hopefully with those intervention supports those needs will decrease over time thank you any other questions the board Amy I would just like to add uh I think it's great that you sought out an external audit because I know um there's I guess historically always been a perception real or not or some in between about our level of special ed services in the district and so I think it's always good to get some an independent view of how things are going um so I think that's I applaud you
034for that and uh I think that's great oh thank you to the board for approving the audit and thank you Bob for conducting it and answering all of my crazy questions at anytime and and listening to me uh spout off ideas so thank you we're here to help anytime thanks so so I I do just have one question and and Bob thank you for that but I think my question is less for for you than it is for Amy and Dr T is your normal flow when we have a review or of an audit done is it's great to have all that information but then there's an action plan and I know you've had this for quite a while now I would be very interested to see what the action plan is that was developed
035if it has been yet or when it is based on this report so it was part of it was in the special education plan that I went over in June um Bob was wonderful in providing feedback throughout the audit so some of the strategies began before they audit plan was even out such as changing our related Services model from a weekly to a monthly we are on the pathway to moving to anniversary date it's a huge heavy lift um we are doing that and certainly I heard the questions about the consultant teacher classrooms and the sizes and we had a lot of conversation about that and Bob was a a great listener and um guide so that you would have seen in the plan most districts have have about 10 students with IEPs in the
036classrooms for consultant teacher there's also no mandated teaching assistance assigned to those programs we have kept them at we've said about six students when the special education teacher is not in the room we have hired a teaching assistant to be in the room some of our uh rooms who may have some greater needs have also a part-time special ed ta and a full-time um but on I think our largest room has five students and we have some with three so our numbers are pretty low um but yes I can share further with you at a later date than can anything else thank you thank you and now we're moving on to item two oh thank you Bob thank you everyone thank you item 2.02 a presentation from Lisa Wade on our statistical report part one
037enrollment data there we go all right thank you for the opportunity to present to you this evening um I sort of changed the format up this year of the presentation so I welcome your feedback in terms of how we've laid out the slides and the data to show you so I look forward to receiving your feedback on that the um photos in the presentation are our students I grabbed them from the website so you'll see our students uh throughout the presentation as well all right the um top items that I'm going to present tonight we're going to start with the new or the promoted administrators and instructional hires then we're going to talk about some of our student enrollment Trends then we will look at the sections enrollment and ratios then we'll review the teaching
038assistance and the teacher aids and then five and six we're going to look at some of the board goals and the Strategic plan and how when we look at staff how we are taking some of those board goals and strategic plan initiatives and implementing those as far as personalized learning for our staff as well as a Dei focus on staff so this year we did add the administrative positions that were filled in previous years we didn't uh identify the number of administrative positions filled and I'd like to add that going forward uh we hired 30 teaching and ancillary staff um for this school year last year we hired 23 this year we have 27 probationary appointments and last year we had 18 we have nine regular subs Andor long-term Subs we had five last year
039and 12 of our openings were due to administrator or teacher retirements and we had six in 23 nine of the teachers who resigned uh for various reasons are indicated um on the slide those reasons why they um decided to resign and something new that we implemented as um part of our listening and hearing from the board and from administrators we put in place an exit checklist and we tried to do exit checklist and piloted that with our administrators last year this year we've implemented it across the board so any staff member exiting the district we're going to be collecting more data from them in terms of the reason why and what are some of the things we could have done better to help support support them so that's an initiative that we are continuing to
040move forward of our new hired uh teachers of the 30 individuals hired 86% of the teachers hired already hold a master's degree 91% last year this year our cohort has an average of 10 years of teaching experience prior to starting their employment here at FM last year 14.3 years and this year two of our teachers hired moved from other states one moved from Ohio and another moved from Florida and relocated here so this slide uh we used to see last year in the presentation that we we shared the actual um numbers and so we've added in a trend line at the top we've also added in the breakouts for each of the buildings and um that way you have a chart as well as sort of a scale in terms of where we're at uh
041the trend line we currently have 4,225 students which overall is down 37 students from last year all of our data was pulled last Monday September 9th so the data we'll be presenting is as of last Monday our kindergarten enrollment has increased so we're up by 22 students and um you'll see that uh we are now at 281 students in our kindergarten classes um Enders and Fel went up by three students and M Road went up by 16 students we ended up creating another section for kindergarten at m road because of that increase in the number of students that we saw this slide here has all of our levels uh so we did three different charts to show you the up K and the elementary students so we've broken K to four uh with the upk
042and upk is tied to m road but the students are not attending m road I think we uh discussed that previously but they're actually tied to M um we have a total of 1,599 overall Elementary and upk students in the the district as of September 9th for middle school students our enrollment is up to 1,27 seven students and again we've broken them down by the two um middle schools and then the grade levels for each and then high school we are up to 1,349 students and again breaking it down by the grade levels for a total of 4,225 and overall down 37 students so this is a new slide that we put in this year uh in previous years we have put in these sections and you had the enrollment but they ask from the
043board and this is our first attempt at at uh kind of taking this data and then producing for you the ratios uh the ratios are in alignment with the fmta contract limits none of our classes have met any of the limits um because if they do we would absolutely be creating another section or we would have to shift students from one building to another uh as I mentioned in the kindergarten we had to create another section and as we kept looking at numbers over the summer we went from four to five sections that took m road to capacity there was no additional classroom space for any additional classes at M Road and again we start this um for Budget purposes we start looking at sections looking at historical information and looking at where we're headed
044for the next school year usually early February or so we're giving bread some estimates looking at the next school year and where we think our enrollment is going to go over the summer Sandy does a great job we look at the enrollment every single week watching those trends for the students who are new coming to the district new registrant as well as those students who are projected to exit the district maybe they moved out of the district area and we're anticipating that they are leaving so we continue to wait for student record requests for students leaving but what happened in first grade at M Road you see they got pretty close with their ratio to 22.5 they're close because we anticipated that the maximum number of first grade students in all of our projections and
045then everything we looked at was going to be 87 we had many more students enroll over the summer than we had projected and so we got to a point where Lisa and I were having conversations every day right up to the start of school that if any additional students came in to register for the first grade we were going to shift them to faal because faal had some capacity with five sections we could have potentially looked at Enders to if we needed but thankfully we didn't get to that point um and again second grade stayed within the ratios and um we didn't have any uh concern there then we take uh the grades 3 to five which is the next chart um on the bottom and those limits in the fmta contract are 25 students
046so taking that um new newly negotiated item which it used to be covered under a Phil Martin memo saying these were the class sizes we should be res respectful of keeping we negotiated that into the last round of um the fmta contract so as you can see grades 3 to six we are still under the um Max numbers for each of those um student student numbers then when we started to get to the Middle School uh the fmta contract says that uh classes cannot be more than 125 students per day and that may be based on a five or a six class uh per day period or 750 students per week 7 to 12 so again we took seventh and eth grade and divided the total enroll rment by the eight primary uh teachers that
047uh were teaching those uh classes and that's where we get this ratio 9 to 12 it got a little difficult where we were not able to continue to um use just the overall numbers for sections as well as the enrollment because there's over 200 courses at the high school some of those are electives which may have um a smaller number some are Regents some are AP some are Supa so the varying degree of high school um sections that we have that would definitely take us a lot more analytical work and a lot more time to focus on and and work on uh for this year's presentation um I've reached out to Heidi and Pat to see if they had any other way of thinking about how we could approach this and we really couldn't come
048up with something um to be able to present tonight that would be um to be able to explain all those 200 uh course electives that we have but interestingly enough August 14th syracuse.com there was an article that was presented um and I reached out to the author of the article and asked him where the data came from but let me click on it hopefully we can open this if you haven't had a chance to look at it yet and he shared with me that the data is from 2223 and it's from the New York State Ed Department website site that's where he gets his data so he showed me where he got the data and he shared with me that these are two years back so now we're looking at old data but if you
049scroll to the bottom of the um article there's a nice tool that's in here we'll go to the bottom and let's see did I miss it here it is so if we take to the tool and we type in our school district and we select our County and if we wanted to look at Algebra 1 there's a number of classes that they have um they've put in this tool and then if we want to do a search fville Manlius Algebra 1 Common Core 18 student is an average class size and you can continue if you want to look at the tool um and kind of study this and start to look at it hopefully we can get to this place as as we continue to analyze and look at it but it was very interesting
050that um you know he wrote this article it was very timely too so if we do a search again if we want to look at chemistry we can pull up chemistry and do a search and F Manus 24 students is the average class size so again this is just a tool because we were not able to break it down um for you for this presentation today but it does give you a tool to start showing that you know hopefully we can get to this point uh someday with our data here and so let me go out of here and go back to our presentation I don't want to spend too much time on that um but hopefully you'll find that helpful and this was Al this was also a new ask and thank you to
051Amy and to Tracy they put this together um for us uh for this evening's presentation we have now highlighted the teaching assistance and the teacher aids that we have um for the 20242 school year and hopefully this gave us a starting Place based on the board's request of what you were looking to see um Amy broke out the teaching assistance by the special areas like special atas ken1 ta's part-time special at ta's computer lab and testing center so we have a total of 97 um Tas for this school year on the right hand side we just showed um the new hires as well as any vacancies that we have but those are included in the 97 and then at the bottom uh that contains the teacher Aid or supervision aids for the school year and
052again we are at 47 and that includes the new hires and any vacancies so hopefully that gave us a starting point based on uh the board's Quest wanting to see this data all right um something new I included this year is I thought it might be helpful for you to see the number of applicants that we had for the administrative positions as well as the instructional staff applicants um for each of the subject areas that we posted the chart is pretty telling you can see where we have uh plentiful applicants our elementary teachers for example 159 applicants uh in the elementary teaching uh area and yet you can see where there's uh limited applicant pool the foreign languages technology uh very limited applicants still um I am proud to let you know that 100% of
053our teachers are certified 100% of our administrators are certified so we do look for that as part of our criteria as well not only having um you know qualified candidates but having that New York State certificate in hand as well oh there we go so uh as I mentioned um professional learning and support for staff are our Focus you know from the board and and our strategic plan should be focused on students and it and it really is but there's also an opportunity here for us to take some of the goals that we have and focus those on the staff and that's what we've been trying to do is apply them to the staff as well we have uh started personalized or individualized p uh professional learning opportunities for our staff we held a substitute
054professional development on August 27th which was very well received and we received a lot of positive feedback from the substitutes who attended that we're looking to repeat that training in November for those who were not able to attend we've also assigned emails and launched mandatory training to the coaches and the substitutes so we do want to continue to show our staff that we appreciate and we value them and um we're going to treat them and recognize all staff for the various jobs that they do and continue to listen to them and provide feedback that hopefully addresses their needs we're going to continue to explore obtaining ID badges for our substitutes that was something that uh they echoed at the professional development that they'd like to have that ID badge to recognize them again as a
055staff member and be able to get into the buildings in a timely manner so we're working on that as well um as you may know we negotiated career lad opportunities into some of our contracts and this was geared at an at efforts to try to encourage professional growth and learning as well as to create a grow our own program um in terms of filling our future teachers ancillary staff and our administrative positions we've also um asked our leaders to invite cruss help people to all of their faculty meetings this year we did that with a focus on the staff's mental health and their Wellness just as important you know we know our students um we want to make sure that their needs are met our staff too we want to make sure that their needs
056are met and then looking at the lens uh with diversity equity and inclusion and focusing it on staff uh we want all of our work environments to be welcoming and and affirming for everyone again we negotiate contract language that was inclusive of all staff and it contained gender neutral terminology we've been reflecting on our hiring practices and inviting more staff to participate in the interview processes for instructional and administrative hiring we've hired some diverse candidates this year for our teaching positions and administrative roles 40% of our new hires of the 30 that were hired were from communities outside of our FM neighborhoods 0.006% of our new hires are diverse staff which is um very good because across the district we only had 0.02% of all of our instructional staff were of diverse um backgrounds so
057we're making progress we're looking at the data and we're going to continue to do our best to uh focus on making changes then in terms of trying to work on our Improvement for Communications and create Greater Community awareness of our FM hiring opportunities we are implementing an HR news and notes bulletin we're going to send that out to staff that will announce vacancies the board approved staff appointments resignations retirements or upcoming um reminders or dates that are coming up so we're working on that and then continue to use our social media the communications team here is amazing and any of our job openings that we ask ask them to post out or to put out on social media they they're incredible they do a great job so we're going to continue to do that to
058continue to improve our Communications and awareness of our job openings and then we've looked at taking some of the feedback from our RMS staff survey we've been having listening sessions and um we conducted one in June with our bus attendance and the upscu union leadership team um which was great because then we listened to them we heard some of the things that we could fix immediately and address and thanks to Amy and Brad we actually addressed a question that came up with the bus attendance about knowing students needs when they're on the bus and how does that information get to them and and if there's medical needs how do they know that so immediately we addressed that to make sure that they have the information that they need or that they seek parent approval to
059to share that information so we're going to continue with our listening sessions with staff and parents as we shared last year we want to gain feedback on the newly appointed principles so that's going to be some of the next sessions that we will be scheduling out to hear from both our staff and parents and then uh listening um to staff just to create additional opportunities for inclusion training support all aimed at retention efforts and having our staff again feel valued appreciated and want to stay here at FM for their entire career any questions Thank you Lisa board members have any questions uh yes I had two questions um my first one was on this um regarding interviews so I noticed that like for uh psychologist there were six candidates one interview and then was like
060chemistry 25 one interview is that because of certifications why you only interviewed like one there were like 25 applications or was it just because the pool was not very good let's see so psychologist six applied we interviewed one and we hired one so I'm going to phone a friend um just curious as like there were a couple of them like that okay could you assist with this one thank you I know some of the applicants may not have had the certification as well but uh Amy can help thank you pH friend sure thanks what are we going to win I know right so for that um specific role it is a very high need area uh districts are really struggling to get applicants and in fact when I called to um do some checks around
061the area some districts had zero applicants some had one so we were fortunate but in the time it took us to um set up interviews which was a very short time cand CES had gone to other districts there were some that had not had their full certification yet we have a wonderful one that we hired so we were very fortunate right okay thank you and then my um other question was in regards to the class sizes so I was glad to see that we're not at what the um contract limits have for us but is there conversation regarding whether or not we're still comfortable with those class sizes so 23 I believe it was for K2 and 25 for 3 through six are we having conversation about whether or not that is actually the number
062that we want to set as our limit or do we want to have F or try to um Target smaller class sizes just from being in the classroom it's a lot of students especially when you have the little ones to manage so I'm wondering are there any conversations about that we really haven't engaged in any conversation and uh if it's the board's uh wished for us to study that and look at it I know that there was a study done previous um to my appointment Jeff uh Gordon had shared with me that a study had been done a few years back to look at class sizes particularly at those primary grades so we could resurrect that but we could also continue to do that research um and if that's you know the decision of the
063board and uh but I'm also cautious about our capacity um which is another facili issue but right but to study it I mean certainly and I'm looking at it from the perspective of how does it impact learning to have the higher class sizes I can't remember what Jeff's exact study was I think it was just like looking it might have been more from a facility standpoint of like how many kids we had and positioning them I don't remember but I I'm concerned about like how is it impacting learning for for the students to have the 23 and the 25 you know class sizes so from that perspective that would be my my um interest okay yeah it almost seems like we need to look at the data on a layered Viewpoint so like you know
064the class size and enrollment data is one slice but then like special ed data and you know looking at our achievement data it' be nice if you could sort of put them all together to find out you know is this class size that we're working with is it okay for our student population or are we finding that we're having kids are struggling more in certain grades where there's the higher class sizes and the teachers maybe we're finding more burnout in with staff or you know this is a great one set of data but it's only it's very narrow and that's I feel like as a board maybe we should be looking at kind of a a more holistic view of all this data because it's hard to know how it sits and you're right it's
065absolutely in competition with each other because the buildings have set sizes so Mr Gordon was back here with that study he'd remind us that we'd like to we'd like everything to be as low as possible but eventually given some of the special ed projects we're doing in special areas it's always in competition so and my experience the only data that I've seen or any direction from the state um the governor made a uh directive to the city schools uh but the cities were to look at trying to bring their ratios down to 20 um so I haven't seen anything other than that but we can continue to research that yeah the class size reduction money which you're remembering fondly was for grades K1 and two to be 20 or less at those levels because of
066learning to read all right so thanks Lisa so this is going to be a common theme I think in many of the questions because mine is also on class sizes so we can talk about studies and we can go read studies but what I've heard very consistently from teachers across our district at virtually every level is that the class sizes are too big and at the same so that's you know left hand right hand is this inescapable truth that our buildings are full so it it is a challenge but the biggest interest and most important interest is always going to be about the students and what's best for them in this this learning environment so uh I have a couple of questions one is just I I didn't go back to the previous presentations from
067the prior year to pull data out to them so you know I I see your charts on what the enrollment history has been in say for example in m road for Total Building um and I have the the average class size for m road free to the grades on this but do you have the longitudinal data for what the average class size has been for example in M for the last eight or 10 years because the section numbers have changed so just looking at total numbers doesn't tell us much about what the class siiz numbers were we have to know the section number so if there would be a way to show that longitudinally of not just what the building is but how many sections and just what were the average class sizes per grade
068are we increasing are we fluctuating meaningfully is there consistency I I my sense is we've been going up um but it's my sense I don't have I just don't have that data unless I went through and pulled that individually from these reports from each year my big picture concern is we're full and that's a problem and obviously we all know sitting at this table that we have significant facilities challenges in this District in terms of space and capacity but but as we hear on top of the presentation that we we had just preceding this one if 504 numbers are going up and IEP numbers are going up then those classrooms are harder the the the level of instruction the level of need per student is higher which means we should be working toward lower numbers
069not higher numbers um but one of the things that would well inform that or better inform that is we had talked about having another study done on population a a population forecast study I'm I'm curious where I know we talked about an RFP going out on that I'm curious to know where that is because my sense again where the trends are going to be going um Micron Etc and what's going to happen is that we're not going to be seeing a decrease um but I think that that plays into this but I I think we we can't just keep saying capacities our problem if we have to find the way and and Dr T you know this you've said it before it's not that if you build it they will come it's funding is a
070massive Challenge and we understand that but but we have to be able to provide the right classroom sizes for the students for the teachers and if it means we have to find ways to do additional things and the buildings to create capacity then we're just going to frankly have to do that um big undertaking for the community community needs to know about that um but if you could help with that longitudinal data that may help inform some of the decision processing on that I know it doesn't exist in the past presentations this is the first time we've really took a snapshot of the ratios so it did not exist previously so that would certainly take some research and analytical digging we can we find an intern somewhere a volunteer intern who would love some hours
071one one of the high school students that that is interested in statistics and that that could help pull this together I think would would help look it would look really good for them some of them would be very interested in it but it would be super helpful to us Lisa I just wanted to say it's a Monumental task that you've accomplished I know you had a couple of accomplices because you named them but thank you for all of this information I think it's quite a bit more than last year and we also have to consider our budget we keep talking about how our budget can't keep going up and up and up but we know and forgive me Mary and Denise our most expensive you know factor in our budget is faculty there I said
072it tomorrow tomorrow well it's good it's good for us to talk about don't ruin the surprise I think he's getting a school Lisa to go back to um Marissa's question about you know where we have these areas where we had you know one interview and and someone was hired I'm hopeful that maybe in all those circumstan we had the diamond in the rough and that that one interview was a fantastic candidate and I'm sure that was the case um but I do appreciate that we're trying to do some things differently from professional development but I guess I'm just given the reality that there's in general teacher shortages across the board in the state um are we looking at ways that we can help provide additional mentoring or supports for our new teachers and also so
073we're really um helping to review them and assess and like work with them to make sure that they're being successful um when they're new here and getting them acclimated and I'm just curious if that's something that you're looking into or in general it's a focus area John derky uh proposed to us and we met with the fmta um about a mentor program and actually training our mentors to actually be better um supports for the new teachers having ongoing uh topics that might come up monthly addressing things as they come up that maybe are not on the agenda but to provide additional resources and support so we have been working with the fmta uh John had some uh ideas about a program that we could put in place so we are exploring that yeah thank you
074for bringing that up so Lisa as we've talked about and you know we've heard time and again all the buildings are close to capacity for any uh families that may be looking to move into the districts I know in the past we have told folks no matter where you move in the district this particular grade level at this particular building is full so your child can't attend even though your house might be mat towards there do we have that issue right now for this year with any grades with any buildings we were close uh to M as I indicated uh Andy had a flyer ready to go on the website we were ready to post it at the school we were going to post it at the district office saying first grade is closed and
075we're at capacity at Mount Road for any new registrant you will have to be placed at another uh building which doesn't always feel good but if they're coming new to The District in first grade then if they could stay either in the building that they get appointed to and they don't have to keep changing back and forth unless for some reason that parent does want them back at M Road would have to continue to look at that and continue to look at enrollment but we were there we were prepared to to put out the posting and and close the enrollment yeah that was close good question any other questions or comments Thank you Lisa you're welcome and I'm GNA just leave this uh with a thought um from our little bets um I'm going to
076just put this up um the key to success is not to avoid failure but to embrace it as a stepping stone to Greatness so as we continue to look at things differently and try things differently um we'll keep taking those little bets and moving forward so thank you for your time thank you okay I item 2.03 superintendent report thank you President Fitzgerald uh my superintendence report is in board dos for you as backup information item one opening of the new school year I'd like to publicly thank all of the members of our buildings and ground staff for their extraordinary efforts to prepare our six school buildings and especially FM high school for the arrival of the students faculty and staff their Herculean efforts did not go unnotice especially in that they had a double down
077on their Endeavors at the end of the summer when the contractors were wrapping up important utility work linking house one to house two I would ask the entire governance team to join me in a round of applause for all of our employees from all departments who really helped to make the school ready for the opening of school this September item next Capital project update uh the high school construction project continues to move forward with the contractors refocusing their attention to the knuckle of the building which includes the new photography classroom the auxiliary gymnasium wellness center student learning support center found and the foundational walls that will support the newly expanded and enlarg cafeteria while soft out openings have allowed students and staff to occupy the new tech technology classrooms the nurses Suite faculty Lounge retrofitted
078conference rooms and a large portion of the new main office it is self-evident that much work remains in the rest of the building with approximately 15 months of the projected 40-month project now in the rearview mirror please remember that it will take time uh that we will take some time to celebrate the official grand openings and to offer Community tours sometime in the future in order to properly celebrate the ceremonial Milestones of this massive project I had the pleasure of attending the FM high school open house last week and I know many of the families and attendance marveled at the upgrades that have been completed and took notice of the work that is currently underway and then last but not least a special announcement it's with mixed emotions that I inform you that a specified
079date to be determined by the governance team in years truly in the future I will retire from my position is superintendent of schools for the fat Mania Central School District during the 2025 26 school year while this decision is bittersweet because I have loved my time at FM I know that it's just as important to honor the transitional planning efforts by providing the requisite retirement notice stipulated in the recent addendum to my employment contract this will allow the Board of Education sufficient time to conduct a thorough and comprehensive search for replacement uh for the 2025 26 school year it goes without saying that I have thoroughly enjoyed my nearly 10 years of service to the FM District while many of the duties and responsibilities and projects have been professionally enriching it has been the relationships
080and friendships that I developed over the years with the students their families and my fellow employees that have been the most meaningful and rewarding to this day I remain humbled to be entrusted with the care and stewardship of the FM Central School District in closing please know it's been a distinct honor and privilege to serve as your Chief School administrator rest assured that FM will always occupy a special place in my heart that ends my report Dr Ty on behalf of the whole board we just want to congratulate you and thank you for your service to this District and um appreciate that you have been able to give the board advanced notice um so that we can conduct a very thorough search and make sure we find an an exemplary candidate um but we still
081have lots of work to do over the next uh year and a half two years um so we have we're not let me off the hook yet and we are excited to partner with you um through this period so thank you very much and congratulations this is great anybody else have any questions or comments for Dr Tyson on hisort sure I'm I'm the last one here that was on the on the board that hired you Dr Tyson it was a very good decision that we made and um not going to make a speech because you have a lot of work left to do but um yeah it is with Mi mixed emotions to hear that you're leaving us but I'm so glad that you've been here I'm glad to call you um our superintend it
082and um I look forward to see how you're going to leave what you're going to do so I mean well don't do too much any other questions comments okay thank you um item 2.04 president's report so um related to Dr Ty's report um are we will be releasing a statement from the board tomorrow morning um so that will be coming out and um for any staff community members students who might be tuning in um please rest assured that this board is very ready and willing and capable of embarking on the search process um and we've already started the process of talking about um the next stages and we are going to be keeping uh folks informed of our our process as we go forward so we're going to try to be as um open and
083transparent through the process and uh we'd love to gauge and gather input along the way um as as needed so thank you um the other item that I wanted to mention um I know I think there's going to be more information coming out and Dr CH correct me if I'm wrong um but I think it's very exciting that the district is re-engaging the big read for the district um and they're going to be doing the book Never Enough um so any board members who have not already read that book um it's a great one and I would encourage everybody to do that it's specifically relevant for our district because it's for high achieving cultures and um it's gives a lot of actionable things that both families uh teachers students have any supports um individuals would
084can do to help um with stresses that come from an high achieving culture uh so I think they're kicking that off October 29th um so I think more information is going to be coming out but just want to make sure if you guys weren't aware of that um to keep you informed and that is all uh s a question for you um so I know we're releasing a statements tomorrow can we have that on the website under a section entitled superintendent search um because as we go and as we progress people are going to be looking for more information and looking back and looking forward and I know we all want to be very transparent about the process and make sure people can have the information so it would be possible to start a section
085on the website called superintendent search and so that information is all right there that people can access it I think that's a great idea um we can talk to the communications folks and see how they could find a location for that we had talked about it already I mean to start with an article and then pushing it out with parents Square uh to all the families and then starting exactly as you said the superintendent search which will be populated as the process goes along okay item 2.05 reports uh from the committee in representation um legislative liaison Daryl thanks Sarah uh at the invitation of the policy committee I joined them and we went through the excuse me 34 proposals 25 of which the nisba is recommending that we support and 12 of which they have
086uh decided that they would not support and we went through them um one by one we really went through all 34 of them and we came to the conclusion that we are in agreement with nisba and so failing any of your comments or amendments if any of you has I know you've all read through them but if you have a comment or an amendment you'd like we could discuss and I I have till the 20th to submit any changes that you wish but I did reach out to our assistant superintendent for special projects because and Amy was a great help to me because several of these have to do with the LLS and nice to tell and she was a great help so we definitely want to support those and one of the other things
087that I thought of when we were talking about retaining our teachers and I know Lisa knows this but one of the proposals is to um collapse or eliminate tier six um it's hard for these young people to to think of working 30 years for you know a pittance when they finish so I think that's something we really strongly want to encourage their support so if there not any other questions I'll be on the phone with them on the 10th for all hours um go ahead Rebecca well I just want to thank you for your time and your leadership on this because you're a great person to to lead us forward with these resolutions I'm happy to do it it's very interesting to me thank you yeah I appreciate the work that you did darl and
088going through the policy committee I think was a great process and on agenda 5.08 we're going to give an opportunity for all board members if there's anything different that you would like to raise with regards to the resolutions we can talk about it also at that point so thank you darl appre appreciate it um Marissa are there any updates from bosies sure um the recently the what's being called the New York Workforce Hub had its first meeting um in Syracuse it's an advanced manufacturing group of advanced manufacturing companies from Buffalo to Albany um Dr Cook was on a panel that um discussed um both adult education and um Regional Education opportunities for students um so that group will be meeting more often or will be meeting regularly I should say um there was a superintendent
089development program that's timely um that Dr um cook also spoke at I believe Dr desano from esm is facilitating that um the Blue Ribbon Commission on graduations has his next meeting at the iosis in Courtland or kinville office on the 25th if anyone wants to attend that um our next meeting is this Thursday um is the Liverpool office prior to that we met um to discuss our strategic plan so we met with our administrators and we looked at the the B strategic plan which has five key areas that we're focusing on um teaching engaging all students um diversity inclusive sorry creating inclusive environments um through Dei strengthening communication with all of our stakeholders improving the employee experience and um improving Community District family Partnerships so we met with our administrators and talked about some of
090the next steps that we'd like to see um things we like to do in that regards um one thing we talked about specifically was um board members beginning this school year to go out to the district or districts that we represent with some students from those districts to talk about the programs that they're enrolled in um and show districts what their students are accomplishing um at Bose and get people more familiar with Bose as it is because there are still a lot of people who have misconception about OC osis and the work that we do um so that's something we're going to be working on getting started and Dr Cook will be coming around to uh with the board member and students to talk about that so I don't know about FM yet um but
091I will let everyone know when we um would like to come so be on the schedule that was it thank you thank you Marissa and eam um I don't have anything yet so far but uh me and the class president Zach mango Zach mango uh have started our student advisory team and we have our first meeting on Thursday and we'll I don't really have anything yet right now but after our meeting we'll have definitely have something so how often is the student Advisory Group planning to meet and how can we make sure that we're getting feedback from them on a regular basis is three your updates or have you guys thought about that yeah process through my updates yeah okay and probably like once a week or something you're going to be meeting once a
092week yeah I don't once every two weeks or something like that once every two weeks okay does anybody have any questions about the student Advisory Group okay I know we're going to talk about it later with kind of upcoming events um Isam but we're going to be one of the things that's coming up is um we're going to get a presentation about the cell phone policy and I think it would be really great to get student input on you know how things are working where the overall perception maybe just some feedback um from different groups within the student body um so if that's something that your Advisory Group could kind of talk about a little bit that would be great to get feedback on that thank you okay um and then we had um the
093last meeting talked about trying to maybe take the committee reports to on a quarterly basis and certainly if any committees want to report out more frequently than that just let me know and we can certainly add you in there the the minutes are always available for board members to take a look at um but I just wanted to double check um I know there's been a lot of conversation regarding audit and finance and I want to just confirm that we do we are required to have three members on that committee and so my understanding is we've got Daryl Dan and Marissa um and I just wanted to double check we're we're good on that committee for having membership to make sure we're we've got it covered because I know Sarah needs to schedule the next
094meeting okay if something changes let me know thanks than you all right now we're moving into public comment item 3.01 um my understanding is that there is no one for public comment which is very disappointing um nobody wants to change their mind on that from the audience out here okay just checking all right then we will move on to item 4.01 um proposed executive session um and I do need a motion to go into executive session um we for the purpose of a litigation um we have a collective bargaining um issue and the employment of particular persons um so can I have a motion Jason and a second from Cindy thank you and all in favor okay anybody opposed or abstaining all right so for those of you here we will be coming back um
095stay tuned um so we will see you very soon thank you for your patience we are back uh and we're moving on to new business um item 5.01 approval of minutes be it resolved that the Board of Education of the fa manle as Central School District hereby approves the minutes of the meetings held on August 12th 2024 August 20th 2024 August 26 2024 and September 6th 2024 we met a lot you got to break them all out separate because people were not I mean so my understanding is that it's obviously preference if people want to um abstain if they're not there but that is not required um for approval of the minutes so how do you how does everybody want to handle it that is true you can you're actually agreed about that okay so
096we will break them out um so we're going to the minutes this will be August 12th 2024 um okay so can I have a motion to approve the minutes of August 12 Daryl and it's don't I'll pull them up thank you okay so Daryl do I need a separate motion for every single one we just can can we have a motion for one and then uh okay second by Chrissy so for those all in favor anybody opposed or abstaining those two so just I guess if you guys are if I'm understanding correctly from past practice we want to continue this practice of approving the minutes because I know we could put it in consent agenda moving forward so um we'll go through this but maybe that's we can discuss if if that's something okay um
097be it resolves that we will approve the minutes of the August 20th 24 so we got oh motion by C and Ann all in approve a favor yep anybody abstaining okay we got three exensions all right and now we have August 26 okay we've got Marissa and Chrissy and then all in favor anybody abstaining this one everybody was there okay and then finally September six can I get a motion Marissa and Daryl and all in favor anybody abstaining okay oh okay and Jason and Rebecca okay um all right so 5.02 the it resolved that the Board of Education of the fville manle Central School District hereby acknowledges receipt of the corresponding corrective action plan may I have a motion got Cindy and Marissa any discussion all in favor anybody abstaining or opposed okay thank you
098item 5.03 be it resolved that Laurel cha is hereby appointed to execute data protection agreements to ensure compliance with education law 2D in collaboration with the student data privacy Consortium of the Central New York regional information center may I have a motion Jason and a second from Cindy any discussion all in favor anybody opposed or abstaining okay thank you item 5.04 be it resolved that the Board of Education of the fville manle Central School District hereby moves the non-fraternization policy into second reading at the next regular board meeting May I have a motion please Marissa and an a second any discussion yeah and I'll follow this up with an email was specific to Accords to the policy committee but I I'm in my read of this I view this as I certainly understand the reasons
099but it's a very broad brush from one incident covering now the entire District I think that what was proposed by nisba is very comprehensive it defines when you should not do when you should not communicate by various tools in various circumstances I think that the broader brush that's included in this on the what page what page is this on page two in blue of District employees are prohibited from using their personal devices to interact with students is far too broad there are circumstances where it can be done where it's should be acceptable to be done in certain circumstances and and I just I think that that's a little bit too Draconian for me in light of the circumstances that we're trying to address I think it's addressed more than adequately in the nisba language that's
100in here without going to that Draconian extreme so one clarification and Ann I'll let you also add in um with that particular sentence we talked about because it's sort of divided up there I think it was intended to be interact with students on social media or text messages not just but yes saying like like you know I I'll just give you an example somebody gets injured in a sporting event and a coach is just checking in how you know two hours after the game how are you doing yeah you good I not good checking in with Team captains who are entrusted in High School of 18-year-old 17y old students who entrusted with were supposed to be trusting to yeah to and we did I just I I to to me it's that there are prescriptions
101that are in the other part of it I just think that that is more Draconian than I would like to see so part of it was that all that can be done over email and use of the official that's what I'm say means of communication by the school but so reward yeah so your point is it's not texting a student it is sending a message through school messenger or whatever to the student it's not calling the student you it's sending a message through a channel that we can monitor very easy and that's not creating a private environment or private space between student and child I'm sorry student and teacher and I don't want to speak for the entire policy committee but I know we did debate that and I think it was the spirit using
102School sanctioned and sponsored tools and modalities as opposed to because some of the feedback my office received after the incident this spring was aren't you monitoring everything thing and I mean there's just we can monitor what's ours we can't monitor the world but thank you Dan if you wanted to send an email to the policy committee and that's why we want to just have it in first reading so any other and if anybody else has any questions or comments or concerns about the um wording please do send them along do we get any feedback from administrators or teach I mean is I just feel like this to see how this would play out in practice or if this is overly restrictive for our staff it would be helpful to just get some input because we're
103living on an island with these policies it was taken to the August administrative council meeting and as fun as it sounds to W Smith as a group we did and went through it so I'm clear are are we at a minimum in agreement that that that last sentence has written is is not how it's going to live because they would be even if it's a school designated app it's on their personal device this says are prohibited from using their personal device to interact with students well there's text messaging through these apps so even if it's an approved that's not actually that's that's not actual there are texting capabilities within multiple hours not like regular texting it's app approved Tex a at a minimum that would need to be other than through approved District approved applications
104but I just want to make sure we're at least an agreement that that that language needs to at least be cleaned I don't know that we are in agreement because I feel as if the policy committee has presented it as you discussed and administrators looked at it right so I think Sarah's asking you to send a preferred and I will but I thought that Marissa started that off by saying that needs to be rewarded from what it is and that's coming from policy so that's well I wasn't at me to be fair so I was they're all about fraternizing over there okay so thank you and yes I think it's it's an important policy but we we certainly want to make sure we're not going too far in another Direction too so thank you but
105the just to the policy we said we didn't want to Fast Track it so to remind the board that's the whole purpose of having a good conversation in first reading and then tidying things up by stting reading thank you all right so we need uh so we did the motion so um May I everybody in favor of moving it into second reading okay anybody opposed or abstaining okay so danan is opposing or abstaining opposing okay thank you all right I item 5.05 Amendment to the board meeting schedule so be it resolved that the Board of Education of the fville manle Central School District hereby moves the meeting scheduled for October 21st 2024 to October 28th 2024 and the November 4th 2024 meeting to November 18th 2024 so may I have a motion for that Chrissy
106and Dan and any discussion that November 18th okay any other conflicts that we know of or concerns on that okay great all in favor anybody opposed or abstain okay thank you all right so we are going to table item 5.06 do I do anything on that need a motion to table it Dan and second from Jason all in favor tbling okay and anybody opposed or abstaining no all right and we removed 5.07 already um all right so 5.08 that Daryl referred to earlier um is the nisba annual meeting resolutions um so this is a discussion item darl and second but Dan would like to um I think add to one of the one of the proposals what did you say our deadline is September 20 I got everything else this week so there's a proposal
107in here by the bville school district I think it's number eight yeah it's number eight which talks about you know they've got the same situation that we do they've got really old buildings and it's it's more practical in some instances to build new than to repair old but with maximum cost allowances and and and Aid it's impractical to build the buildings and so they got a proposal related to that for funding through building aid for the construction of a new school that would replace one or more outdated or Antiquated schools I would like to see us either offer as an amendment to that or is a separate one to to address providing sufficient funding for building aid for a new building that is not necessarily a replacement so like in our district for example if
108we were to build a new building for to expand Elementary to deal with a class size issue capacity that we talked about earlier and this inevitable to come down the pike prek um situation where if we want to have it in house we we can't build a building to do that until they're already in house so I I would like to see us make a proposal that we'd be able to adjust some version of avoiding the if you build it they will come but so that you can fund if they build it you will come when you've got a designated cohort already like prek that you would move into a building so I moved it but it needs a second and I think that's a good discussion what I suggested to Dan is that I
109could send him the form for an amendment and he can then send it to to all of us and as long as we return it I was going to ask that what's what's the deadline to get a the 20th the 20th of September September oh okay so this is the I know right well if you have a deadline more have to do it quickly would we have to vote to well that's why I'm thinking if we send it around maybe we could can we do that by email you can't vote to accept it by email no no of unknown language I would be comfortable with that if so okay so first business we needed a second to open this conversation which we'll say is an and great conversation I I think that's a great suggestion
110um so as all in favor of the approach of adding a resolution that Dan will draft um in amending amending we had to vote yeah it just say discussion I don't know if we usually vote or just reach consensus on these resolutions every year I wish Sarah was here but maybe we could amend yeah okay do we have consensus those all in favor yeah okay yeah so I guess we don't have to vote on this so we're moving along thank you okay [Music] so item 6.01 uh board development so National School boards Association conference is being held April 4th through 6th in Atlanta Georgia General registration is open now um Sarah Gridley would like like anyone who is interested professional development extends Beyond just staff members of the district so it's important for board members
111to do so as well so I would encourage anybody who is interest to step forward um okay potential considerations for future meetings so um the upcoming item that we have a date on right now is uh cell phone use we're going to have a board presentation at our next meeting on October 7th um which will kind of have some feedback from the conference that I know Mary is attending and then we have Christy and Marissa from the board and and Dr Ty are also attending as well as some others um but also looking at our what we're currently doing in all of our buildings and um talking getting some feedback from different stakeholders and I hope that Isam is able to get some feedback back from some students as well to inform that conversation um
112and then some of the other items on this list we just need to pin down some dates Dr Ty um so that we can kind of work them into the agenda so that we're the administrative council is organizing a committee around the school start time so okay we're getting volunteers for that as we speak so um for the homework policy one could we give some consideration to putting that in discussion of Equitable grading so it's not just looking at the homework because it's all there's a lot more to that um homework is part of Equitable grading policy yeah that's part of our conversations with Dr Meredith Madden and the equity AIT just changing the name of it to Equitable grading process or Equitable grading um procedure or something like that well we'll let uh Dr
113dton who is the uh RI on that um decide how she wants to word it and go forward so can't wait okay any other questions or comments on that at this point no I know we're all looking to the Board of Regents in November so a lot of these things will help get checked off and you know I think it's been great we've had some preliminary conversations but I know more will be forthcoming from alany okay um I guess the only other thing with regarding to the the cell phone use I know we did get some emails about the screenagers um showing if that is something that I don't know if the district is considering or if we should be chatting with the hsas about well that's our intent is I know in the past
114as Dan will remember uh we had it is part of the FM Foundation this very Auditorium and that's part of our principal meeting uh tomorrow to have them go back and talk with their hsas oh okay great all right so item 7.01 future meetings um so next meeting will the uh external audit Focus 7.02 dates to remember um so homecoming game and parade at the chur is October 4th at 5:30 be great if any board members wanted to gather up together for that event um playing [Music] Al and the next day at noon uh October 5th is the athletic uh Hall of Fame inductions at noon two former administrators Dr Martin and Rich Roy will be inducted at noon great the announce at halftime but I know there's a formal presentation at noon okay great
115um all right so home stretch we're moving to the consent agenda can I get a motion to approve the consens Marissa and Cindy all in favor anybody opposed or abstaining okay wonderful and item 10 adjournment may I have a motion Marissa and Chrissy any all in favor but nobody's opposed okay thank you thank you appreciate your time see you in a couple of weeks