Fayetteville-Manlius BOE Meeting - Sep 11, 2023

001foreign today being the 22nd anniversary of the 9 11 terrorist attacks I would ask that we observe a moment of silence thank you first item on the agenda item 1.03 approval or revision of the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda thank you Cindy in a second from Sherry any discussion we are anticipating our student board member coming tonight to do her oath but if she doesn't we'll have to table that when we get to it so that may be something that comes up later on all those in favor please indicate I I and no one's opposed dripstein oh well it's right there actually I thought it was a little further down uh have not hurt for her um why don't we move that then um 1.04 let's move that to yes to

002make that 6.03 so um I need a motion to move item 1.04 to make the item 6.03 thank you Daryl second from Rebecca any further discussion all those indicate I I and no one's opposed or abstaining next on the agenda excuse me item 2.01 presentation for the spring 23 student climate survey results foreign as the board knows we Enlisted the help of research and marketing strategies of private third-party vendor to help administer a Anonymous and confidential uh survey we applaud their efforts it certainly has been a pleasure to work with them they've kept everything confidential I know the board and the community relations committee and the administration and actually the teachers during opening day had a chance to work with the results and now RMS representatives are here to present so Pat will turn it

003over to you great well thank you so much Dr Tyson I really appreciate you making some time for us to speak and share some of the findings today I know you probably have a full agenda first week of school a lot of things going on so I appreciate the time to share what we found and I uh Echo doctors it was really a pleasure to work with your team everybody was great working on this project in terms of administration out to students there's a lot of things we had to work through in terms of making sure we get through your servers and we're going into the right junk mail or anything like that and it all went great and I think the results in response right there we had to it's kind of reflective of

004that uh so what I'll do here today is we'll do some quick introductions of myself and my colleague Molly who's joined me tonight talk a little bit about RMS I'll share the results and a high level of the report and uh please uh we're going to go through kind of at the highest level here and if you have specific questions for me I will have a question and answer tonight uh and also you have seen the report too as well so you can dive in a little bit deeper there as well too and also spend some time talking about some recommendations and findings and how to move forward with what we found so as Dr Ty said I'm Pat Firenza I'm the director of research analytics at uh research and marketing strategies we're a local

005full-service research firm located in Baldwinsville we're established in 2002 by Mark dangler who unfortunately can't be here tonight we are uh actually we run the CNY best places to work survey uh in that event is tonight we're announcing the winners uh there too so he's off presenting here and Molly and I are holding on the fort here tonight too so we have a lot of RMS has a lot of experience in the education industry we work with a lot of local school districts we've done stuff with Baldwinsville West Jenny Oneida and so we are familiar with the space which was nice kind of working with Dr Tyson this team more competitively none to that experience as we worked on on this project what's fun about my job is we work across all Industries and all

006sectors so it's fun to really you know look at a project and start making connections between you know what do we learn from this last banking survey and apply it into education and that kind of manifests and some of our reputation about high survey response rates uh it's one of the ways that we're known for that we can get people to take surveys which you say the word survey I know a lot of people just want to run away as fast as they can or click close on their emails I encourage you please don't do that you can make my job a lot a lot easier too but we're we've done a way of good good job of building relationships with people so they take that action to participate uh and we're also really passionate

007about being our clients their back office so we want to be more than just uh kind of uh we don't more than a client we really want to be our partners in this work and collaborate and really make sure the results of our finding will help drive your organization forward or really shed light on how you can improve the experience for the students within your district and we operate with full transparency I think that's something that's really important to us about the data that we're collecting you own the data at your information and we want to make sure that we're completely transparent with what's being collected and how things are are running and the last bullet here is just about our privacy and security we work a lot with the center Center for Medicaid services

008or approved research vendor and sort of New York State's energy Department too which basically means we're at the highest level of security and protections on how we protect our data both on our server and the cloud and all those technical areas to really make sure that what we have is safe and secure I can kind of trust the information that we're that we're collecting in terms of your report uh this first slide just at the highest level about the results so this student climate survey we modeled it after a national survey and that survey has been validated for both reliability and validity so what that means is we have confidence that that survey being implemented if it was implemented in different settings or multiple times the results will be answered the same way or appropriately

009on there too so the tool itself was statistically valid that we used and what was also great about this survey too is we had an 88 response rate which is really terrific in terms of response from his students and a very low margin of area error so that means basically we can trust these results going forward and that we know that the information is valid and reliable too and if we do this work again we have some really nice benchmarks to compare against in this work so at the highest level the four key themes that we identified is generally that students are satisfied with the culture at Fayetteville O'Malley School District however we did find that there are some opportunities within the environment domain we'll explain what that means throughout this presentation and we did

010see that stress as a negative factor and this was true particularly among female students and what I thought about this it was interesting we gave this report to Dr Tice earlier this year and when I was kind of reviewing my notes sometimes you see things I think about these things a little bit differently too so the Silver Lining I think about this finding is of course you don't want you know students to feel stressed or have this uh be a negative experience for them but they were very clearly able to Define what the cause of the stress was and they had mentioned that you know the the strong academic reputation you have and the status in the community and they want to live up to that obligation which is really kind of the the fact

011that they could name that they can say that's what the issue is I think is actually a positive so as administrators and teachers it's helping them understand how to manage those emotions so the stress doesn't become a barrier to their you know excelling and they can kind of use that maybe turn that stress into motivation or more positive framing of that that feeling of wanting to excel which I think is something that that you would want students students to have so there's a little bit of a silver lining in there too on the stress finding that we found we also looked at this among different subgroups too either socio economic status or special education status and we did not find any variation in the data people uh the students were responding similarly across all those

012all those groups and we did find in some cases that students respect for each other was low and this is just an opportunity I think to think about how to really encourage students again about treating others with kindness and respect both in and out of the classroom and a lot of this came out also in the open-ended questions that we asked and so some of it was experiences you know in the restrooms or in the hallways or on the bus so kind of times when you know teachers eyes might not be direct directly on them so these were more of the cases where we saw some of this coming coming into play so the way the survey was structured there was three key domains and in the report we Define each of these a little

013bit more in depth but the really the three big ones were engagement safety and environment and within each of these domains they break it down the federal government into different subgroups so cultural linguistic competence so this is more their awareness of their culture and understanding about the community and how they relate to that relationships so the strength of relationships with uh other students and administrators and their participation in in school events so maybe this is being part of US during clubs or athletic groups safety so this breaks out into several domains around emotional safety physical safety bullying and cyber bullying and substance abuse so this was again about how safe they feel coming to school and being an active member or a student within the schools that we looked at and then environment so this

014looks at more of infrastructure in one area and then also things like discipline and mental health so this is the way that the survey was structured that we that we administered and this was done for our students from fifth grade up to as well so again you might say fifth grade sounds kind of young for a survey but again the survey has been it was tested and we felt confident that it was an appropriate tool to use for for that age so the results here to go through so what we found again is that the environment category was a little bit lower and for the mean scores that we calculated we considered anything above a three to be favorable and so you were close you're really close on the safety and environment once there too

015so hopefully this is done again those numbers can kind of see those creep up and see some improvements on there too so across each of the the schools that we looked at pretty similar the middle schools seem to fare just a little bit better than than the high schools did as well and so this is a question that we asked about uh in the in the past 12 months how often have you felt uh and then this gives us a list of items on there too this is called the Cohen's perceived stress scale and so this is measured on a scale I believe it goes up to 40 and it gives different levels of stress that students feel from low uh moderate to extreme and you're in the moderate level of stress based on the

016scale and with 11th graders feeling the most amount of stress and the 12th graders feeling the least amount of stress and so this would just provide just to students grades 9 through 12. and again we saw that females felt a little bit higher stress than compared to the male students and so kind of on this some of these items to highlight what you can see is so 59 of students said that they felt behind on things in the last 12 months 58 said they felt stressed or nervous in the last 12 months and you can kind of just follow that pattern going down going down the list here too so again we mentioned as we started about how there was some stress that students felt and these are some of the ways more contextualized out

017what they felt is going on in their day-to-day life in some areas where we can think about maybe how to support them a bit more so then we asked another question a little bit more on stress so we gave a list of items again about different areas and we asked as a cousin to what degree is it causing causing you stress and what I did on this scale is I just I condensed it just to those responses to set a lot of stress overwhelming stress they also could have chose on the opposite end are no stress or very little stress too so these are basically what you see is 55 or say that grades are are a source of their stress and then my own expectations 48 or homework 44 so again this gives some

018idea about where the stress is coming from from students and it connects into some of the open-ended questions that we asked too as well at the end you know students could either say tell us more about you know anything that you would like to say in the survey or we also asked what did you like and what do you dislike and that is highlighted in the report as well and it kind of aligns with what we saw here in the quantitative or two so it's nice to see that both of the qualitative data through the open-ended questions and the quantitative data here kind of aligns to that you know they're feeling stress about media expectations and the grades uh there too as well so this next slide we also asked about if they had a

019trusted adult that they felt that they could go to both if they're struggling academically or if they felt like they were struggling emotionally and so this is again one of those that's kind of it's a little bit of a mix I think you know obviously as members of the board you're passionate and you want to say everybody you know has that you know person that they can go to so on one hand I think you know at the high school level 68 say they do have someone they can go to academically but then again about a third of students don't have that don't have that person they feel like they can go to so I think this is one area you can think about how are we how are you building relationships with them make

020sure they have uh you know someone that they can go to and that the students are aware of all the tools and supports that they can get if they're feeling like they're struggling academically and the same thing emotionally too so they know that they can go to somebody when they need help um and you know before something becomes a crisis in terms of recommendations we highlight some of these in our report a little bit further too but the nine that I want to talk through today the first one is a suggestion of convening a school-wide climate Improvement team and what I think this can do is it can help you now you have the report you have the findings and the data it can start to really start building some strategies off the findings too

021and I think our role as an analyst is really to present the data and share our insights but you really have all the contacts within the school so you know the ins and outs how things can work what can be practical and looking at the data saying all right this makes sense but you know I really want to go a little bit deeper on why we see some of these findings too and understand the context around it too as well so I think convening some type of improvement team to really set up strategies and work groups and thinking about you know both what can we improve and celebrating some of the things that you know you're doing doing really well it will be a great step forward for for the district number two is thinking

022about looking at any early intervention practices that you have for at-risk students so this is thinking about any Community Partnerships that you have maybe it's morning programs after school programs programs come into the classroom and making sure that students who you think are might be at rest at risk are really accessing those programs and really leveraging them to the best of their ability we know from the literature that these programs work and really getting people involved and connected it can help in some of these domains especially around engagement and some of the safety ones too as well number three I believe you're already you're already kind of in the works and doing this and and really why this uh report was started and why we're working with you too is just always thinking about the

023shared vision for the district and strategic planning about how you can kind of colless the teams and around shared mission and vision and everybody's on the same page moving towards those shared goals and objectives number four uh more ongoing our continuing professional development for teachers and I know some teachers might cringe here in more professional development I know some days they're so busy they can I'm amazed that they can even get to the restroom with how busy they are throughout the day so making this really meaningful then for them to as well and keeping them informed on the latest teaching strategies and and whatever might be happening in the literature too as well and I think another thing I think one of the beautiful things about teaching is the more you do it the better

024you get so I think it's a good way to connect maybe some of teachers who have been around a little bit longer to share practices and maybe create some informal type of mentorships with younger uh teachers too who are just entering uh the profession and those first early years from what I've read in the literature and from people going through it that I know those are tough years to really start turning in you know what you learn in the classroom into uh what you learn as you're training to be a teacher in applying that into the classroom the next piece here is making sure you kind of five and nine are very similar it's just kind of closing the loop and surveying your staff to understand what the barriers might be around maybe implementing some

025uh changes that you might want to do to improve the school of climate and also hearing from them about what their challenges are what the morale's like and what their needs are to if there's maybe there's some low-haging fruit you can identify from reaching out to them and giving them a space to really talk about what their issues are in working with a third party like RMS gives some anonymity too so to tend to feel like they can provide open and honest responses uh we know the importance of relationships and school connectedness so all the great activities that you do I saw some kids running around on the athletic field that I got here which is great so all those things continue to do do those as well uh number seven is this idea of

026the whole child philosophy so this is really thinking about how every part of you know the the way that you touch and work with Children Here is connected uh in making sure you're rounding out the whole experience for them too and it's just amazing to me when I was thinking about these things about how much the world has changed from when I was in school my daughter just started kindergarten last week and she was in upk in the Baldwinsville District too and over the summer one day she's like Daddy I need to relax my body I'm gonna go do some yoga I said you can go do yoga it's like this is I never would even thought when I was your age not even a thing on my mind so it's just great how these

027things are changing now too on there as well uh the number eight is just really working on the stressors and tools for students to help them deal and manage the stress that they might feel too and again so what they're feeling doesn't become an inhibitor to their success and they can use it in a more a more positive way so we go through these throughout the report and talk a little bit more about ways you can maybe Implement them and and how they could they could work so that was at a high level of the report uh two of what we found and if anyone on the board has any questions or comments I'd be happy to be happy to address them and if you get through them and you think you're after we leave

028here tonight some more questions you want to ask are our comments please feel free to reach out happy to address and talk more sure thank you thank you wondering I know the national survey that you baselined against was from 2015 to 2017. do you know is there going to be a refreshed version of that just so we can see where we sit against National averages yeah so we were we were really frustrated by this too because we reached out to them and we asked are you going to be doing this again what are the new benchmarks is going to be released and they did not have an answer what they did in 2015 to 2017. it's not like a pilot study too so the answer is we don't know and we're really hoping that they

029could do it and especially now in a post-covered world a lot has changed since then too so when we talk about the benchmarks in the report we kind of uh they were really measured about how much we really want to put stock into comparing them the good news is that you have this report now for yourself but it would be great if we could identify and one of the things maybe you know if we do this again we can look at maybe how some other districts have done this too and just say hey let's all share our data this would really be beneficial to all of us so informative you just mentioned the pre and post covet have you worked with districts that you did the surveys before and after and found differences or um

030is that something you've just started working with districts after Kobe yeah we have uh I started at RMS about two years ago so I started I had not been at the before so I haven't really looked at looked at that data through that lens but now that you mentioned that that's something I'm gonna go and do now and see what I can what I can dig up and find on there too some of the changes I think with FM though we should really just base it on what not compare ourselves to others but it is an interesting idea to think about how it may have changed yeah no absolutely and you know it's always interesting when you're you know if you do look at it you know a 2017 or or whenever it's a conversation

031starter so that's what I would recommend too so when you're looking at the data and doing that kind of benchmarking it's a good way to get people talking around it too so I don't get lost in the data think more about the strategy connected to it so all right I do just have one um hyper technical sure and my College statistics professors will be very disappointed in me for not remembering much of what we went through but for most of these you have a mean score for Eagle Hill main score for Wellwood mean for the high school and then a district meet to arrive at the district Bean if I'm looking at this right it's a third or third a third you're taking the three numbers and getting the mean out of those which is

032isn't that overweighting Middle School compared to high school that we did not calculate it that way so it's the aggregate if you're if I'm understanding right we're not taking the mean means of the means so we're taking the aggregate numbers from the whole and then calculating for the overall so because I wouldn't I'm looking at a row just as an example so engagement relationships Eagle Hill 3.2 Wellwood 3.1 High School 3.0 district mean 3.1 right which would seem that it's taking the three and equally awaiting the three schools yeah so yes they are they would be equally weighted because we're taken from a full the full sample so we're not doing any waiting compared because the high school population is bigger than no so we did not wait it wait in that way so I

033mean that's what I'm just I'm just trying to figure out if it's it just the the numbers as I ran through them it appeared as though just in the more granular report that it's waiting it is essentially is two-thirds one-third an overweighting Middle School to get the district made I just want to make sure if that's what's happening here or not yes so that would be that yes but statistically I for what we calculate for the overall I think that's that's an appropriate appropriate way to to calculate that the district mean and the other reason is because of the the size of the sample too because we're looking at the district the full the full District as a whole so and that's why we break down by the by the groups too okay I'm just

034I I guess I'm just a little bit I want to make sure we're working on the right Baseline okay and on many of these items the high school scoring was slightly lower than the middle schools and so I just I want to Part of Me wonders if we aggregated the middle schools and the high school and then equally weighted those if that's more accurate reflection are you talking about the overall I mean yes okay I can run it by Mark and see if he if he thinks a different a different waiting if there's a waiting needed for the overall for the overall District of all right that's what I've just done just a little bit I understand I want to make sure we're looking at the right Baseline as we go forward with it okay

035thank you yep absolutely I thank you so much for this presentation it was really informative and I'm just kind of digesting the the full report which is almost 70 pages but I think we have a lot of work to do on our end to now break down the data and figure out as a as a district and I think community relations was going to start by really our board committee to to figure out what to you know what to look at and do next from your perspective I'm interested we've talked about administering these surveys next year certainly to staff certainly K to four and possibly to the whole student body again and I'm wondering if it would look like the same survey or if we might dig deeper into the some of the topics that

036were of more concern and and tailor a survey that gives us even more information to areas where we have we can really improve yeah I think you could that's a conversation you could do it either either way so the the student there are versions of the parent Studio survey too at the federal level that are again validated tools that you can use and what we did in this surveys we did add in a couple questions too about the the stress questions or what we put in there too so as you get into the data and if you want to really go into like that environment to me and say we really want to understand this this area more those are things we could certainly look at and add into the survey too and if you

037look at the survey and say oh this survey is feeling like it's uh getting you know it's it's getting too big we don't want to do all this too there's other data strategies we could talk about doing too it's a focus group with parents or with teachers other ways to collect the data too so sometimes it's figuring out the questions you want to ask and then connecting to the right the right mode of research research too but the good news is there are surveys already available for you know the parents and teachers too which are very similar to the one-way ministered and later on in the agenda I will be asking the board to approve going forward for this current year to administer a student survey in the autumn in the spring along with faculty

038staff survey and the Autumn and the family survey in the spring that could be streamlined as we go forward depending if we're seeing similar scores or difference between Autumn and the spring at least by doing it one more time in the spring it wasn't necessarily optimal for students or any of us doing it when we did it in the middle of you know the testing and end of the year so we'll be able to compare kind of pre and post just to see what we have but maybe in the future it could be streamlined so the other question I had was obviously we're going to benefit from doing this and then redoing it because benchmarking gets yourself is the easiest I you had on in the detailed report series of I don't know it was

039eight or nine other school districts around the nation I can you just speak to how and why those were picked they were picked we were looking for similar districts and someone said we could find that had publicly available data and those were the ones that we could identify and get that we could we could find in terms of available data for us for the benchmarking and again uh those were not as available as we had hoped but that's where we could we could find and start to compare or try to compare pair with so and I think going forward you're right if we can find more data that's great but we'll have the benchmarks for for FM to look at that way okay that was just like like the one right below I found was

040listed as California Department of Education I I can't see where that's comparable to happen so that's why so this is these are this is what you were able to find yeah okay not picking them out as we think this is comparable that we should be working against able to find yeah so okay thank you so Dr Chase you've shared this data with your administrative leaders correct and have did they have a look at all these recommendations as well and are they thinking about this in their building action plans or that's part of the Year going forward they had a chance to first dibs at it and thanks to Dr Dalton and part of the schedule for opening day the teachers had a series of questions to kind of work through it and departments and grade

041levels to take a look at what that we got yeah we wanted the staff to have first dibs before we did the Public Presentation I think there are any other questions thank you very much I appreciate the work great thank you so much I appreciate it thanks there you go thanks Molly thank you both moving to item 2.02 Athletics program presentation we're delighted to have our athletic director here I know the board has been interested in this topic and I appreciate Scott taking time out of a busy fall sports schedule to be here with us and put the slideshow together so Mr sugar I'll turn it over to you good evening thank you for the invitation as mentioned we're talking about athletic coaching there's been some questions about this topic in as a whole and

042I think this is a good platform to provide you with some information about um what goes into our seasonal and yearly responsibilities as coaches so a little background about our teams we have 88 teams in the district 121 coaching positions I broke those down by by a month or by season so there's 48 in the fall we're ranging from middle school or modified levels up to the varsity level winner has 28 and then the spring has 45. and then just for some participation numbers for for for context there's 706 athletes in the fall last year I figured I'd run these student or student to coach ratio so you see 15 to 1 which is pretty good in the fall 16 to 1 with 440 three participants in the winter and then another 664 with a

04315 to 1 ratio overall 1813 student athletes obviously some of those are multiple sport athletes there's not counted individually so you could have a fall athlete and then a winter athlete and then obviously some of our middle school kids have the opportunity to play four times a year which is a great opportunity so we we really have a large number of student athletes that are taking part in our program a little bit about the the department um many of you sitting here know this the community I hopefully know that hopefully knows this but just to rehash um in 2021-22 we were named New York State Public High School Athletic Association School of Distinction which is given to all all schools who have a hundred percent of their varsity teams earning scholar athlete Awards so their

044their overall GPA of 75 percent of their student athletes on their varsity roster have a GPA of 90 or above every team did in 2021-22 the three years 19 18 19 20 21 and 22-23 we were named School of Excellence those are given to the same criteria but you were 75 percent or higher of your varsity teams received scholar athlete Awards I am um I need to recognize that we are actually 29 out of or 28 out of 29 we had one team all three years not earn scholar athlete Awards and then 2020 2021 and 21-22 we were named all CNY overall Athletic program of the year so it's there's multiple reasons why that is distinguished but we're very thankful for those Awards so a little bit about coaching positions in New York state coaching

045positions or one-year appointments um so this is not an FM thing this is this is New York state they're one-year positions so if somebody thinks that they have a 10-year term that is not true all coaches once appointed they they attend preseason meetings with me the entire staff and we go through a whole agenda or a whole array of responsibilities and duties and expectations for the year and then at the end of the year we have end of season meetings for all coaches all varsity coaches have in-person meetings with me and we do an evaluation now that's a link if I pull this up right now you're probably not going to be able to read it and the people in this and the crowd won't be able to read it but I'd be glad to

046pull it up if you'd like to see it but it is a uh it is an evaluation of written evaluation that goes through many of those things are never surprises um I I talk with almost all of my coaches in a season every day so an evaluation doesn't happen at the end of the year at a one-time event and to think that I talk to every one of my coaches in that season every day it doesn't happen once we communicate multiple times daily throughout the entire year so when questions might come to the board or to Dr Tice I guarantee you I already know it's not a surprise um so then at that meeting some of those meetings have taken hours one two three hours I remember back probably about eight years I had postseason

047meetings with one coach we met three times two two hours a piece and during those we do we do a season review and then depending on what the decision is going to be about a recommendation for the next year we would go through a whether the coach is going to be returning if there's going to be a coaching change and then if there's going to be a development of an approvement plan just like a teacher and many times we have done that where we we develop a very detailed Improvement plan about what our expectations are I would even tell you that recently I had a meeting with three coaches and I was planning on developing an improvement plan and unbeknownst to me they actually came to the meeting with an improvement plan of themselves so

048which was which was great because a it was a lot less work for me and it allowed me to go through they did a self-evaluation basically and they developed a plan of how they were going to move forward and then we obviously talk about as we said Aries and needing Improvement even our best coaches need some areas of improvement and we always continue to work on those each and every day and then we developed plan our goals and plans and expectations for the following year if those coaches are going to be moving forward coaching positions are then posted at the end of each season and at the least we we try to get our varsity coaches reappointed for the next year as soon as possible and I'll show you why that is important in an

049upcoming slide but open positions are posted on local media outlets and then we use Olas with our HR department in in searching out I would tell you that for any people that might think that we have a lot of applicants that is absolutely false people do not want to coach people do not want a referee we had a varsity basketball position open for roughly four months about six years ago I had a beg and plea to college coaches in the area do you have any graduates that you think might be capable of doing this and unfortunately we have more and more new hires that have not had any coaching experience at all okay I was a varsity coach at age 22. it worked out but it's not a good situation to put people in okay

050now luckily the person I'm referencing has been absolutely phenomenal absolutely phenomenal um but the trend nowadays in every single District in this country it's harder and harder to find coaches I'm going to try to click on these and hopefully I don't get out of these so many people ask me you know what do you need to do to be a coach so if you're if you're having trouble sleeping you can go to the New York State education department's website this is the abbreviated version hey but if you go to the state Ed Department there is a document uh 135.4 I believe it is Dr Tice that outlines what the requirements are this is the abbreviated version I'm going to try to scroll through this all our coaches go through the teach online certification process they

051are fingerprinted before they're board approved they apply for a certificate um they pay 50 for that it used to be for a new coach used to run about 350 dollars for a new coach new a person a non-teacher to become certified 350 bucks out the door I always kid and I will continue to kid if I wanted to hire Jim Boeheim tomorrow he would have to do all these requirements and it would have cost them back in the day 350 to get certification right they have to get first aid in CPR certified they will then go through a process of three required coaching classes philosophy and principles and organization of Athletics that is required within the first three years the next two health and science and theories and techniques of coaching are due in the

052first five years the theories and techniques of coaching is is required specific to the sport that they coach so what that basically means is it entails some sort of internship or actual coaching and going through some basic paperwork and and stuff with the with the class um they can also they can do either or they can do the first three that I just named or they can go to number three the nfhs has an accredited online certification process which they can go through and that is done online about five years ago this all changed and coaches never could do that I actually teach the three classes above the philosophy the health science and the theories and techniques they used to be before we got to stay dead and pleaded with them that this needed to

053be changed we used to have to teach classes in person uh I think they're 32-hour classes and they're very very extensive okay um that has now changed with the online version which has become much more manageable for somebody to be able to to uh get that they have to have satisfactory coaching evaluations which we turn into BOCES they complete all the trainings like a teacher does child abuse save Dasa training and then we said fingerprinting there and then the second page of this is all the requirements for a coach if they're not a teacher okay a teacher is required to have all these certification or all these classes all these trainings they just don't have to apply for a certification okay so quick example our ice hockey coach works for free delay if you ever

054need potato chips let me know and he has all these requirements done he applies for a certification every year he's now on to his professional license which is there towards the bottom which is good every three years and then every renewal he renews that every three years all right let's see if I can go back I'm not going to take you to this well yeah we'll go there so this is the nfhs learn this is something that we helped developed I was on the committee that helped develop this so now coaches can go in here online training they can click on their state and it'll walk them through the requirements that they can complete online um and then they submit them to this on top of that actually that's another next slide I'll wait for

055that one so then obviously the other requirements are Sport rules rules change every single day every single year so they have to stay up on other Sport rules District rules you've all seen this this is an extracurricular duties expectation which is was developed with the help of um Mr Jeff Gordon a few years ago when we have this for all our extracurricular activity expectations that that they agree to before they sign their contract and then they have to stay up on sectional rules and state rules many of those are like transfer rules you know so I am I'm usually the one that's uh I am leading that charge because they will not always be up on what those changes are so I'm leading what those might be additionally there's there's continuing education um we have

056first and foremost coaches can go online to the nfhs learn back here and they can complete Sports specific training classes so uh in here there's a pole vaulting class so our pole vaulting coach has taken this class on his own not required by me not required by the district not required by state added or anything but he's taken that and he's completed it there are some free classes like this one here so name image and likeness that's a new trend in college sports it's actually legal for high school athletes our coaches could take this if we wanted to or this could be a class that I do I run with my coaches during one of their preseason meetings then these are a number of other things that that go on so USA soccer has their

057own certification process so if you wanted to coach in the World Cup you have to have a certain level of training certain level of certification some of our coaches um I won't name how many but some of our coaches not required by us have done that training on their own which is outstanding ice hockey coaches one of our our head Varsity ice hockey coach is um they have the same type of certification process he has the highest level of certification not required by us but that's the training that he completed on his own and then um many like like many sports sports have conferences or conventions that that some of our coaches have attended I know our girls lacrosse staff plans on attending the lacrosse convention this January in Philadelphia our boys staff usually goes

058every single year and our girls staff is going to go this year and then something new that we're starting this year October 28th I'm running a coaching seminar for all our coaches and that's going to be run in conjunction with Paul Minch and Jeff Hammond and we have a number of different topics that we're going to cover in a seminar just to continue to educate our coaches so I want to use a little example of what this is a varsity coach and this is the coach that I referenced that I call the Sligo State on and hired this is what their season is season runs about November 15th to March 15th that's what we pay them for then the spring he runs an April break Youth Camp not required by us he does it because

059he loves us loves the kids in our district loves the sport then he runs spring open gyms two to three nights a week for two hours a night it's free to our kids we don't pay them in the summer the varsity team attends two Varsity leagues basically it's one night a week our JVS are in two leagues esm and Liverpool League are modifieds or even in the esm League last year they didn't have it this past summer so two years ago they ran a modified team and they also have two knights of open gyms each week again all free to our kids and open to those interested in playing in the program coaches again not paid the team the varsity team this summer uh well in last summer they attended two or three this year

060was two last year was three summer team camps they go to Lemoine and they go to uh Oswego state uh the Oswego State one was a Saturday Sunday and they played games all day long working on things in the off season they also ran two summer youth camps they had a morning session for real young kids talk about fun if you want to have some fun let me know and I'll have you come coach with these kids talk about energy wow and then the afternoon is our a little bit older kids middle school kids up to I think it's 10th grade and then the fall they have actually this is wrong I apologize coach emailed me today he requested three nights of open gym not two and we're going to try to give them as

061much as he would like and those run about an hour and a half to two hours so that's just that's just one example of a varsity coach of what they do and I will tell you that every I don't know if a varsity coach that doesn't run their program like that in some fashion coaching responsibility so this is not club sports we pride ourselves in educationally based Athletics this is the development of the whole student this is you know we talk a lot about building relationships it was good to hear the person before me speak about that and we talk long and hard about why that is so important to help our student athletes um this is an extension of the classroom but it's also a privilege not a right chain of command we talk

062about this um and we do pretty well here but just to bring it back up this is in our uh this is in our all our district Publications so we encourage athlete to coach communication and what I've actually done is I've I've flipped this when I talk to my coaches it's actually coach to athlete so if you have a junior senior that maybe aren't having getting the playing time that they might want we would love for the kid to come and say hey coach you know what can we do what can I what can I get it better at but we know that that's hard for a 15 16 17 year old to do so we talked to the or I talk to the coaches about flipping that see out those kids and then take

063especially if they have an assistant coach plan two or three minutes a week not a month not a season but a week to talk to kids how are you doing how are your classes how's home what do you think about your role on the team and we talk about those things does all of them do it I to my knowledge I think they do in different Fashions Paul Minch would be the first to tell you he he prided himself and talking to every kid every practice and he did it I watched him do it and his staff does it and our coaches on the football team do it still to this day and it could be something as much as a pat on the helmet but it goes a long way to those kids and

064then from there it's coach it's parent to coach and we have athlete involvement and then parent A.D and the coaches are a part of that conversation and then parent to superintendent this one oh there we go you talked about preseason coaches meetings we have preseason parent meetings so once the teams are selected we have parent meetings at all levels it could be a five minute meeting it could be a very you know Varsity is a little bit more involved because they're talking about fundraising and and things that might be taking place during the season rules and expectations are outlined for parents we have booster club involvement so obviously coaches need to be involved in the booster club they usually have all our varsity teams have parent reps who kind of lead that we don't we

065it's not the coach's responsibility to be fundraising okay but they have to have the vision and the philosophy and the plan of what they're looking for and then they and then they have our their reps that will assist them in representing them at the booster club and then finally our coaches have gotten more and more involved in the college recruiting process um some of the athlete parents here you might have heard huddle huddle is a filming a streaming filming system that we have in our district allows us to to capture films uh of games throughout you know Home and Away events it allows us to break them down it allows us then to build recruiting videos that we can then send to college coaches and help kids if that's an aspiration of them so that's

066what I was asked to talk about tonight I'm always willing to come back and talk anytime but anybody have any questions tool I inherited that when I started here 12 years ago it is much like what takes place in almost every other District um so it's about some of the things that they're evaluated on like one is loyal to staff and school Personnel I'm not sure how like that would be something very important but I'm not sure how that's something that can be observed like how that would be observed how that would so when we talk about working I'll answer it when we talk about um so that was one of my questions about you know how some of these items are actually observed and then I also was curious about um the feedback that

067you would get from parents and and or students into some of these different areas that are evaluated so let me answer the first one first sure so the first part of that is um rephrase what you said because I'm now thinking about the second one so I was well I started out asking about where this where it came from and you said that this is something we inherited so um but now that you asked me about that again is there is there any thought to updating this and then looking at different areas we have a huge focus in our district on emotional wellness and overall Wellness of our students so is there an interest or has there been thought and consideration in how we can revive do this for me yeah definitely so we we

068I attend the state and National Conference every single year and those are those are details that are shared at that conference and we look at what other districts use across the country obviously things that happen in Texas are a little bit different than what happens here so we try to take you know compare apples to oranges um you know many of those things you know about your first question is that our staff working well with the rest of the staff not taking players not planning things that steal Players let's say from other programs we work so best example we can use previous years before I attended here there was a lot of competition between music and Athletics we have no competition between music and Athletics here doesn't happen with me it's not even a conversation

069when we have concerts I do everything in my power to work around them when they have musicals we clear our schedule Carlos and I worked very closely together to make sure those things don't happen but if I find out that coaches are then creating conflicts that's something that we have to address and we have to deal with okay so many times yeah maybe it's not observed but when I get a phone call and says Scott why is there a student that says there's a conflict with this concert tonight I thought we worked that out we work it out um kids should not be you know put in the middle of something that adults can work out so as for adjusting the evaluation tool I'm always open to adjusting it that makes sense for the betterment

070of our student athletes in the betterment of our district hi Scott I was just interested in the perform the Improvement plans or those all in writing as well and then how do they play into this year-end evaluation like what is the process they're written up they're put into their their file I guess we'd let's say they're shared it could be very detailed it could be you know some of it could be just you know some of it's verbal you know you had a port you had a you did a poor job communicating with parents explain to me what your plan is going to be to better communicate you so for example we're now moving into parent Square okay that is going to be an evolution that's going to allow our coaches to better communicate so

071just it is an example some of it's going to depend on you know how many changes there might be obviously if there's that many issues there needs to be a change but likewise just like we have with our with our teachers um just because somebody maybe struggles in a couple things it doesn't mean we're not here to try to help them get better okay so it's kind of twofold um I would tell you we made a coaching change about probably eight years ago and I did Improvement plans with the coach I think it was it was at least two maybe three years consecutively we talked about different things that they need needed to work on and things needed to improve and then finally we made a decision you know we made a decision to go

072in a different direction so it's twofold somewhere it's dependent on the situation [Music] yeah they're they're in writing in some fashion okay I wouldn't tell you how in depth they are you know I'm saying absolutely absolutely so Scott can can we back up a little bit you um you talked about evaluations and at the beginning of your presentation but what is the what does success look like I mean we talked also about the lack of applicants for coaching positions and in part it's a hard job and if we aren't clearly articulating you know what does success mean to be a coach at FM is it wins losses is it building a robust program like do you have sort of the philosophy of when you recruit coaches this is what matters the most I mean obviously

073you have your tool that it has a variety of elements on there but what pieces do you go into to say you know this is what I'm going to be measuring your performance against so yes we um some of it depends on the level or the position of the coach right so obviously a varsity level coach you know head coach is is evaluated differently and the expectations are different than a modified coach um obviously the expectation of each of those levels are a lot different as well so we have in our in our philosophy handbook we have an athletic handbook that the philosophies are in there and it thought and it details how you range from the Middle School level the modified level up to the varsity level and how you know the the changing

074of learning the sport you know learning the skills uh becomes less and less important as we get up to the varsity level and then winning does become a little bit more important another thing we have to remember is we don't recruit our kids so it's not all about winning losing okay um you know many of our Sports I feel we play in the toughest league in the state and I have a couple parents here that know the league we play in um when you think that in in our league there was a team that lost nine one goal games last year and didn't qualify for sectionals in his one I don't know three or four state titles means we're pretty competitive okay so for me to sit here or us as a district to sit

075here and think that everybody needs to go 10-0 everybody needs to win sectional titles is not what's most important right but it's part of it because there are you know kids don't want to go out and lose haven't met a kid at the varsity level that wants to lose games and the same thing with a coach so we have to do things that also at that level helps us achieve those goals so it's it's definitely goes both ways depending on the level thanks and then I guess my other question was um you talked a little bit about this but I didn't see it up there on like the training perspective in terms of mental health Dei training do our coaching staff go through any sort of formalized courses so that they're aware of all those

076issues as they're interacting with their students so they they do all the trainings that are required by by teachers just like anybody else so they are required to complete all those those trainings as well which includes mental health which includes sexual abuse all all of that so they yes they go through all those trainings as well thanks Scott for uh all the info you provided it's uh you know you're doing a lot um since I've been on the board there have been a number of uh Community complaints about or Community mentions of eighth graders being on varsity and you know 11th or 12th graders not getting a position because of younger kids um does FM have a position on that or is it all just based on the coaches we do have a position if

077they're trying out for a varsity position for a varsity team grade level does not come into play right and and we say that because um we don't do that in eighth grade math or ninth grade math okay so there's not a rite of passage just because you're a a senior it doesn't mean you're the the starting point guard on the basketball team um um that is very close to being true yeah the only one that I know that didn't was West Genesee a while ago and they have since changed that um I'm going to refrain from answering that we can agree to disagree so Scott let me just let me ask this question and this is not anything about picking teams but is there conversations about all these coaches around one-year contracts right so is

078there conversations I guess between varsity coaches and JV coaches and Ninth Grade coaches about we have this open tryout the varsity team is the top I don't know pick a number 20 kids right so but we have an eighth grader that's really good right so is there some conversation between those three coaches about where this person may fall and and development of that student athlete yes yep and so how does that how does that process work we talk about where they fit in skill wise and in relation to everybody else that's in the program um I would like you to flip the other side is that if a if an 8th grader let's just no I'm not going to use names if an 8th grader has the skills to be there why should they be

079held back well the process is the entire for the most part every coaching staff talks about kids in the program okay you saw what our basketball coach does okay so they have these camps they have these teams they have summer leagues they have all this involvement they have the ability to see the kids in the program and then from there they're able to evaluate where kids are going to fall and likewise what would happen if somebody moves in the district let's say you know that you can't plan for that's as most recruiting that we can do we recruit our own kids and yep yeah and many times like uh many times our our teams um have all our coaches at the tryout as well so for instance there's one fall sport that had every one

080of our coaches on the staff at tryouts the entire staff Varsity through modified and they evaluated every girl that was at trials that happens routinely routinely we have varsity coaches that go down to the modified level to assist our modified coaches in making cuts and that happens as well so it's there's a there's a lot of involvement I do have a question about modified cuts it does is I I and I'm minimally there yet with my kids ages but I understand that it it seems that there's more of an inclusive approach to allow as many kids as possible to play seventh and 8th grade Sports except when there's too many kids so I know maybe Eagle Hill has too many students for the 7th and eighth grade soccer team but Wellwood doesn't have enough and

081I know I think in the past sometimes you've mixed but I'm just wondering um as as we progress to high school we have a very big high school and only so many spots I'm just wondering what other opportunities there are for students that maybe aren't at that level where they could play maybe even JV to give kids as many opportunities to play as possible and if there's ever opportunities to even compete interscholastically even if it isn't of our like is our club level for sports that traditionally are JV and varsity in-house there's there's not probably as many offerings as there there could be there's just there's just not um much there many times we will redirect people to a Rec program if we know they go up to a certain age level let's say or

082if we know that there's a club level so a good example and it doesn't reference FM but my best friend lives in Orlando Florida he lives in Lake Nona if you want to look up Lake Nona it's probably one of the largest growing districts in the country his son was cut from from JV baseball There Was 80 kids that tried out he never played High School sports ever again but he went on and played club and wreck around the area and that happens to many kids because at that level you know kids haven't developed yet you might miss a kid and he's told me that a lot of kids will go on and play in college just because there's just so many kids so we try to do our best to redirect them to you

083know okay there's a senior league baseball team that maybe you can play or there's a you know there's a Rec basketball team so some of our basketball players play in the they play at IC in the CYO League so we just try to redirect them to that organization that then they can get those experiences and maybe they come back out and try out for us and maybe they don't in terms of like continuous and Improvement of the program what how do you get feedback from the coaching staff parents and and students in particularly students about their experience in the program and how is that used I mean can you think of a picture of a spot but is there an example of how maybe a coach has something like come up with an idea or

084a parent to improve the program that we've acted on but mostly how do you get that feedback from them so twofold we have some coaches that do exit interviews um just you know how was your experience and they'll talk about where you know what do you especially it's like you're you're G you know sophomores or uh Juniors you know what are we looking for from you in the future so that's directly with the coach um last year I started meeting with all our graduating seniors so hypothetically the baseball team is done you know you had two seniors come on and come on in and let's chat um I worked with Dr Tyson on a survey that we didn't Implement at the end of the year last year we're going to do this year he's going

085to you know go through the questions um that that I've developed and just make sure that we're all set with that and that's going to go out we're going to we need to Tower it so there's a there's a parent response but then there's a Student Response as well so it's going to be about the same survey okay but um obviously there's different questions that you might ask a parent then that you might ask a student so that will be twofold that will run this year at the end of each season two separate yeah two separate because obviously the you know like I say to parents sometimes when I meet with them you know I'm not in the gymnasium every single day you know that's something that's got to come from the kid about what

086you know what their experience was and sometimes they won't say it verbally they won't you know we I'm sure the gentleman before me would tell me Tell the same information that there's things that they will respond to and confidence that they wouldn't say in a room with somebody else so I think that's going to be a little bit more effective and then we and we take a look at it make changes or improvements that we need to additional questions for Scott Chrissy yes one I just wanted to touch back to the eighth grader point from my understanding we do not the there's not a written policy eighth graders can try out for freshmen JB and varsity and their talent dictates that I was just curious this isn't necessarily tied to Athletics but do we have

087a policy in place for the music program can our 8th graders try out for the High School Musical or those select singing groups band groups or orchestras if that's just a question I have out to the group it's my understanding I don't know if any have if it's ever come up but just in the realm of equity just thought I'd put it out there yeah as you know we don't call them Varsity JV or whatever I mean there's different orchestras or bands and so forth but they're the deck the deck is shuffled to allow the ability level to fit I mean a child isn't put in a situation where they're in over their head but we do allow other students to move up based on the particular instrument and so forth yeah it's all like

088whether it's a coach or um you know a conductor or whoever it's the adult who decides this student is the right one to ask to move up it's not student driven right like the student doesn't say that's correct I want to try out for Varsity that they have to be asked or the same thing with music or whatever is that correct correct they're not open invitations but you know and do you want to say a word about as they move up from modified to JV to Varsity I mean if a child is moving up from eighth grade in terms of the expectation to play they're not fill a roster spot or a bench spot no we talk about if you're going to move them up they should be playing often so I would I first

089want to clarify there's a lot of talk about eighth graders playing up um we have and and don't quote me on these numbers so don't write them down we have maybe three eighth graders swimming we have one field hockey player I believe and I think that's it so these questions seem like there's a wave of all these things happening and I could be off a little bit with the numbers but it's very few and far in between okay because those kids have been identified by their coach and move up now swimming is easy because there's a number related to that okay golf there's a number related to that it's easy to see those things um you know probably our biggest one that that happens is tennis because we don't have a modified program yet hopefully

090is Brad still here hopefully Brad will support a modified team next year because we have so much interest in modified tennis yes that'll be in my budget request in December that we just need to have more more opportunities for kids that want to play tennis okay um foreign and do you want to say a word too about Player Development I know at the modified level the expectation is everybody plays not an equal amount but as Equitable as it can be yeah there's so there's rules at the at the at the middle a modified level that require coaches for kids to play a certain amount of time it's it's bound by state rules so we could have a kid who um who maybe is out of place at the eighth grade level and we get pressure

091from the parents of the Johnny's not playing enough but there's only three quarters in the basketball game that Johnny's allowed to play by rule because there's a lot of equal playing time at the modified level which is great for all kids but could hinder our higher level kids could not guaranteed um so if a kid moves up we always talk about with the coaches that they should be PL they should be playing maybe if it's a field player or a court player it should be half the game at least um I always tell coaches if you're bringing a kid up even a ninth grader you talk about eighth graders but even a ninth grader I should walk into your gym or walk into your you know your rink or your field and I should recognize

092that kid they should stand out to me and if they do that they're they're rightly placed if they fit right in they're probably not in the right spot and maybe we have that discussion you know should we consider moving this has happened before should we consider moving this kid back to JV would that be a right fit so with development that also comes into play I always talk about a goal scorer when I was at Oswego we had a girl that played on the Olympic ice hockey team she was pretty good at ice hockey she played lacrosse well let's start there during her eighth grade year as an ice hockey player she scored 66 goals to play JV lacrosse and scored 56. now I say that because she really had never played lacrosse before she

093was just a pure talent so at the time we wanted her to play JV because we fought developmentally that was the right spot for her so she played JV and then immediately when sectionals came around we moved her up because she was a great goal scorer and we needed her for sections so that's an example of that happens even here where we try to put kids and and it's not perfect but we try to do our best to put the kid in the right spot that is going to allow their developmental abilities and then so they can come progress through the year so we have kids in on teams this fall I could name that maybe have been held down to the JV level because there's kids at the varsity level that are just more

094skilled than them they wouldn't yes they could make the team but they wouldn't play so we we leave them down as a even a sophomore we get they play all the time their their confidence is is through the roof so that next year as a junior we know they're going to be full contributors so we want to try to to build a plan for each of those kids that we can see their development each year Scott I just want to say my husband who's a retired School administrator always has said next to the superintendent the ads job is perhaps the most difficult because you have to be in so many places so I don't want to have I feel as if you're annoyed with me no not at all I just want to say for

095the record a student who excels in eighth grade will still excel in 9th 10th and 11th and so why not give the 10th 11th 12th graders the spot and you don't have to answer me I just I have to say it because I have to say it I just have one more question I was glad to hear I think I understood this because my my um kids weren't my daughter did crew so it was a different world my daughter does too yeah it's a great sport yes I miss south days um but you had mentioned like there were coaches who do like clinics and things for kids which in our community I think is a very helpful thing because just about to think of what this community is you have a lot of kids who

096are able to do a lot of different trainings from very young ages to to Really promote their athleticism so I was wondering um in terms of that like equipment because these sports are so expensive I mean I think baseball was like I was astounded how much a baseball bat costs um so is it the booster club I think I read somewhere or heard somewhere that the booster club has like equipment that kids can like if they can't afford something or is it FM how is that we do we the district how do we support like and how do parents and athletes find out about that like what what do we do that supports them in that so the biggest number one sport for this is lacrosse happens every year Doug Madden be the first to

097tell you we get five six seven parents to call and say Johnny's never played lacrosse before is there anything we can get so we don't have to buy all the equipment and we have helmets we have shoulder pads we have gloves we we've actually had to throw some out because our previous coaches just hoarded things which was great because whenever ever anybody called we could we could hand those out so they just make a phone call and we you know and then if it's something obscure that maybe we don't have we'll try to find a way maybe with the help of the boosters to to purchase those things helping it happens all the time yeah Scott I just I'm biting my tongue a little bit this evening um you you know my girls have been

098in this Athletic program for a very long time I look at this school at distinction and school of excellence awards and my my girls have pins and each and every one of those years on those teams um I I am grateful for the time that our coaches put into these teams at every level educationally but not just on the field in the pool on the court because I've seen it have been part of it firsthand the development that they work on with these student athletes as students in humans first and athlete's second and we are blessed at this District to have tremendously dedicated people leading these programs and I'm grateful for them I I get I get concerned when we have this discussion that focuses on on the edge case versus the entire program in

099all the years that my children have been in Varsity Sports which goes back many years now between the two of them my oldest was an eighth grade Varsity athlete because there was only a varsity team she could have swung as a seventh grader she didn't she was asked to she didn't my youngest when we talk about whether they are ready or not you know was the smallest and youngest player on the girls soccer team as a freshman and she got a lot of grief for being on the team as a freshman is she too small is she too young started went to Regionals made all week the coaches evaluate the athletes based on Who belongs there and they spend an incredible amount of time doing that and and I think we start to make mistakes

100when we start hyper evaluating from the outside based on the edge cases we don't do this in the classroom with our teachers we don't ask our teachers to do end-of-year parent feedback surveys to evaluate whether they should be changing their teaching style in the classroom I know many parents would have a lot of opinions on doing so but we don't do that with our teachers and I don't believe that we should be doing that with our coaches and I'm very grateful for the time and effort as you said coaches and refereeing are the two most least the two least thanked jobs that we have and they get the most external grief because everybody is an expert in what they do so I just want to just I see my piece on that I completely agree

101with you and I I thank our kids if you come to our January or our June banquet I thank our kids every single year because they wear our colors and they wear our name and they have a number to be identified and then the results are put in social media to be judged think about that math scores aren't so Scott just to piggyback on what Dan's point I think part of the reason why the board wanted to have you come and present today was we wanted the community to be able to hear what processes are in place so that they know how our coaches are being supported and that there is a process that it's not just some a Community member if they have a particular concern that there's a way to express that concern

102and how we want to encourage our students to be involved in that process um but I guess I would also like to ask you how the board can better support our coaching staff to make sure that coaches want to come here and they are such they can play such a pivotal role in impacting our students overall experience at the school and in the future a lot of students come back and think about their Sports careers or they had a coach that really changed their perspective on a lot of things it's a trusted adult that's outside of the academic walls so if there are things that this board can be doing to further reinforce that I hope we're open to feedback too on that side of things I'll be glad to any further questions or comments

103all right thank you very much sure anytime okay next item on the agenda item 2.03 the statistical report part one enrollment data foreign good evening and thank you for having me come tonight to give you an update on our hiring stats as well as our enrollment we've been working on this um back to January February we really started looking at what were our estimates in terms of how many classes did we need how many teachers will we need how many students do we think are going to come so using Jeff Gordon's model for his presentation from last year you'll see similar reports here this year with a little bit of some of my own edits and changes here so I'll begin by first saying that we have 23 new teaching positions that were filled this

104year as opposed to 28 last year 18 of those appointments are probationary appointments or last year there was 17. five of the appointments are regular substitutes or long-term substitutes six of our openings are due to teacher retirements and we have the early retirement incentive which is very helpful so that you can project who do you need to send out ads in Olas or other places to advertise and look for staff so we can begin early looking for teachers we had seven teacher resignations for various reasons 10 in 2022 four of those resignations people were leaving to return closer to their home or their family one person returning to an urban district one accepted an assistant principal promotion and another district and then one was leaving education altogether to go to the Private Industry so of

105our new instructional staff 91 percent of our teachers hired for this year hold a master's degree which is very good there was 86 percent last year so very good we do have a career letter program here which helps pay for classes and then also credits individuals credit hours as they move forward on the salary scale so that is an incentive and something we should continue to highlight and praise to recruit people here the cohort currently has an average of 14.3 years of a teaching experience so we've brought in some very experienced teachers as well so something else to be very proud of and we have one teacher who returned to New York from Connecticut now looking at our enrollment Trends we're up about 18 students this year which I I really have to give a

106shout out to Sandy Sandy was helping she's my new assistant every week we were watching the enrollment trends of students coming in to the district trying to keep an eye on did we you know plan for enough sections are there other sections we need to open are there shifts we need to make and so Sandy you know great work in terms of keeping that and monitoring all that work for us we also work with BOCES and they pull reports for us and then we have staff here and the student support system our services office that also pulls reports so we really do keep a really good close eye on student enrollment and this enrollment is as of last Thursday the kindergarten numbers this was it's very interesting we're tied with last year now when Jeff

107was presenting this data last year we do have some ups and downs in some of the buildings we did get a little nervous at fail because we were getting um quite a few kindergarten students at the last minute and then last week before school we were just kind of waiting it out to see you know were we going to have to send students somewhere else which was not something we wanted to do at all we didn't have to face that so all of our students are in their home schools where they should be so this is sort of an overview of each of these schools and the number of students by grade level I've separated upk it was sort of tied to Mott Road just for like reporting purposes but we are up to 116

108upk students this time last year Jeff was reporting about 95 and then that number you know kind of crept up to about 100 students and now we're at 116 upk students which is very very good something to be very proud of so the total number of students enrolled as of September 7th is 4 262 students which takes us up a total of 39 students over last year when we prepare for the sections to make sure that we have enough sections by grade level we do that also in the spring and we meet with with our leaders and some of the data that we really need to factor in when we're looking at these sections are enrollment trends at each level where do we think we're going to be up or down by grade levels the

109fluctuating enrollment students who are entering FM and then those who may be exiting so these are kind of some of these are guesses but we have to give it our best guess and look at past history to try to come up with the estimates and then space and capacity at each of the buildings we have to be very mindful of that as well and then keeping in mind all those special areas the gym art music library all those special areas that we need room for and then also keeping an eye on residential growth and development in the area to see do we expect to see more students at home in school or another and you know really being mindful of that and keeping an eye on that this year we increased our sections by two

110classes and that was due to some of the enrollment trends that we anticipated and rightfully so we were very glad we did that so that we were able to have each of those classes and grade levels covered this was a slide that Jeff had in and I left it in because I thought this was very interesting when we talk about the teacher shortage areas and the the number of applicants that we've seen reduced over the years 2015 then he showed you the 2019 and then last year he showed you 2022 I wanted to show you this year just in these three areas to show where we're at in elementary still not where it used to be you know and reading very low two candidates and then banned our most recent round of band interviews and

111applicants was at 18. so I did include in the reports to the board the list of all the applicants by tenure areas and you can take a look at that if you have any other questions for me on that let me know but uh we're still certainly in a teacher shortage or declining area where we don't have as many applicants as we we had years ago so some of the things that we're still seeing happening in central New York and also around the nation teacher poaching we have some people trying to as I shared four people went to other districts close to their home or close to their families we also had people apply to positions here nfm and they were leaving their districts to come here um districts are you may have seen some

112of the news articles are hiring staff with a with a bachelor's degree and no certification and then working with them to try to get them certified and I'm proud to report that all of our teachers are certified so um that's really something else for us to be proud of Nationwide it's very interesting 876 school districts around the country in Colorado New Mexico Idaho Oklahoma Oregon and Texas have gone to a four-day work week their work week is a little bit longer so that they get their instruction you know instructional minutes in but it's it's I guess their attempt of trying to see will this help with the teacher shortage so I put the article in the resource there if you want to check that out but I'm going to be watching that that's I don't

113know if that's something we would do here in New York but it's interesting to see that others are going in that pathway so then what can we consider doing uh here in FM we do need to continue to Market and advertise the wonderful benefits of working here in FM this is a great place to work a great place to teach and so we'll be continuing to put together some of those marketing and advertising you know documents to put out we're looking at putting together a pilot program to have some of our teaching assistants become teachers and so Amy and I will be working on that this year and then we're going to continue to recruit diverse teachers in and outside of New York state to come here to FM what the state can do and

114what we can do is we can continue to ask the state to you know advocate for changing the appr regulations it would be great to have an evaluative model that truly does give our staff that feedback and the growth opportunities that they need to continue to improve in their craft and not just a numbers-based evaluation so advocacy also needed for New York State Ed a true reciprocity where we could recognize a teacher's certificate from another state if they come here and Grant them certification it's a little complicated now it's it's not that equivalent so advocacy for that would be really helpful and then if we could look at uh potentially advocating for teachers to go back to getting certification issued to them once they finish a teacher pathway accredited program at a college or university

115some of those teacher exams have really sort of gotten out of control they're they have pulled back on some of them they have done some changes but we need to continue to Advocate and ask the state to consider doing more and then one one other thing that I there's so much we could really talk about and do but another item is this pension waiver that has helped us bring back a few teachers this year to help us through some of our regular sub and long-term sub needs when we had shortage of teachers available to us to take on a probationary appointment so continued advocacy for a pension a waiver for hopefully another year and then after that hopefully this date will look at some kind of a tiered approach to that pension waiver they set

116it at thirty five thousand dollars but it would be nice if they could maybe base that on some kind of a tiered salary approach to some of my ideas but we can and we'll certainly think of other things so um just to quote Dr Martin Luther King the function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically intelligence plus character that is the goal of true education and this cute picture came from our website I loved it so any questions um in terms of advocacy um are you hearing um are you are we seeing any impact from the tier six the disparity yeah and how that's affecting younger people who want to go into teaching um because they may likely not do it now considering the right because they have to

117the very contribute for their entire career yes and there's never there's a very big difference from what current you know people have been a little bit longer have done so is that something that you would add to the advocacy list and is that something you think is affecting this yeah I think uh you're You're On Target there and that's definitely something we should add to our advocacy uh list uh when we talk to legislators and talk to the state or others you know about uh what what do we think is sort of stopping people or swaying them from making a decision to come into education and president Mims I think you're right on there that's definitely something that we're going to see um going forward that might that might uh curtail people from coming into

118the field Lisa uh thank you one thing that I know Jeff talked about before was the high percentage of teachers who tend to return to wherever they grew up and so I was wondering if there's been any discussion about I know I've seen National articles about like kind of a grow your own program within the high school so giving students more exposure to a career in teaching outside of just obviously seeing the teachers that they interact with but what it's really like to become a teacher and how that path would grow to try to encourage more of our students to maybe look to go into teaching after they graduate um that's that's another program that I was very fortunate to see uh develop and then grow in the city and it's absolutely something that you

119know I'll talk to Dr Tice about but it's one of the CTE Pathways and you can get kids so ignited and excited about teaching and they already start learning you know some of the classes and then taking classes and then can you know just see is this something that I'm really interested in is it something I want to do but that's certainly something we should explore and put on our list of ideas and ways to give kids opportunities and experience exposure you know this is what it is these are the standards these are the plans this stuff you know just start introducing them to the whole field it's great So Lisa two questions for you on the numbers um so for the enrollment Trends right so we factor in covid um I know it's not

120on the chart but do you have any idea where we are in terms of kids that are homeschooled within the district [Music] that from school I don't think so but we can get that too yeah that's fine um and then the second one was is I know the upk number is at 116. at some point this summer we had a wait list do we know where we did we were we able to get everybody in or do we still have kids that are on the waitlist that did not get in I think we still have some but um 38 still on the list okay thank you you're welcome thank you hi Cindy hi quick question what do you see as the steps needed to take to change the app are scoring rubric so that it

121is more of a comprehensive response well I believe there is discussion and legislation that has been coming up and surfacing up that there is there's been quite a bit of advocacy already to look at that and to change it um I think we just need to continue and the school boards conferences that we're attending or in you know if we have legislators that we have connections to talking to them but I I really believe that there's got to be you know a really good push and a change for this I know Mary Patrol is if she's still here the fmta and the you know teachers unions are certainly advocating for that as well so I think unity in terms of us all coming together and saying you know we really need something that helps our

122Educators grow and develop uh you know madagacha or not a just a number which thank you thanks Lisa I was just going through your chart of applications interviews hired yes and I'm I'm just curious I obviously the application numbers are lower than what we'd want because of the shortage got it what's our win rate though when we when we find somebody that we want and we offer the position to at what rate if you know are they accepting those offers I can speak to what happened with me this year I only had one person decline in the offer and it was because she was from out of state it got pretty late into August and transitioning moving back here now this is someone who was from this area but moved away and wanted to move

123back but in terms of moving back that quickly and getting her children and everyone settled it just that wasn't an opportunity for her to be able to do that so she did decline everyone else that I've experienced this year when we went out for an offer they accepted I mean that's that's a pretty good indicator right right that's that's an indicator that we probably ought to be if you're not already highlighting in the higher process that that yes but that's also an indicator that people really want the positions because there's a lot of people interviewing for a lot of positions and then they pick and choose if they're taking the offers at that rate that's I'd look at that as a window yes thank you so thank you this is a wonderful presentation I'm interested

124from the sectioning standpoint you have a slide page seven that talks about elementary sectioning is Middle School and High School a similar I mean I know their classes are structured differently but is that same consideration given to class size at those levels and does it look any different in terms of what you think about yeah that's great when because okay great question when we meet in the spring with all of the principals we do look at those numbers to say do we have a huge number of students coming up from fourth grade that's going to be a a bigger increase as we go into fifth and then correspondingly when we have six going into seventh are we seeing an up you know increase where we really need to look at do we have enough sections

125do we have enough room do we have that capacity so we are doing that and then at high school it was really great um what Ray did this year he actually showed me how the whole schedule is built and how the students are looked at and then the process that they go through in order to verify that students are in the right classes and so he really broke it down and explained it to me so that I could see how do we make sure we have enough you know teachers for the classes that we're going to offer or that we need to offer and so that whole process does take place in the spring too where we're looking at numbers for each grade level and how many kids are moving up and if we saw

126a big increase again from eighth grade moving to ninth we may be then looking to come to create additional positions if needed or if we have a corresponding big reduction we may be looking at something else but our numbers don't speak that we're going to be having if you look at the history you know over the last 10 years or so but great question it does take a lot of eyes on the numbers and the classes and the each year you know kids moving up but then how many move into the district and how many move out to each year so studying those Trends is important too yeah strikes me that we're talking about the teacher shortages and maybe what's not reflected on the slide is just teacher retention and retaining the amazing staff that

127we have right and all the things that the district does to to support um our teachers our Educators and our staff and then the other piece that I'm just thinking about is around and again I don't want to put you on the spot but just the pipeline you know thinking about hiring more diverse staff and I'm just interested in what our process what you know in your new position what that process looks like to think creatively and maybe outside the box to continue to push on hiring diverse hires even in a shortage climate that's great and that's where some of those advocacies are needed because I'm trying to think a little bit differently about potentially can we go look at other people from other states to come in because the competition in New York state

128everyone's competing for those same limited number of diverse candidates so if we can maybe look at something different by going outside of the state and then having that true reciprocity looking at those individuals resumes and making sure that they will meet the current standards for the reciprocity and if not then again continuing to advocate for the state to say you know if we want to have a diverse staff that looks and represents our students and our student population we do have to do things differently we're going to have to advertise in different places than we are now we need to advertising and many differing Publications online as well as in print and we're really going to have to think of doing some things a little bit differently and be open to inviting people and being

129that welcoming place for everyone to come to I think our Dei initiatives speak to some of the work that we're willing to do as a community and as a school district and that shows you know this is a community that's welcoming to all and and so continuing to do that and marketing like I said the marketing and the advertising is it's really going to be important for us to do and get out early this District does a great job of that and keeping that Trend to get out early as students are getting ready to graduate get out and go to the colleges or you know personally do one-to-one interviews with with candidates so thank you my my last thought on that is just you know Sherry you're in charge of legislative as our legislative liaison

130just making sure we put a pin in how we could support some of that advocacy as we think about the nisba convention and putting proposed resolutions forward maybe those two New York State specific um you know themes we could we could think about putting forward yeah thank you I do believe that that thank you has come up and uh one of mitzvah's positions is to advocate for uh for to make it easier to get reciprocity I'd have to look that up to don't quote me on that but I I'm pretty sure I remember that happening right I can help with some talking points if you need because I would really love to see that happen I I don't remember that specifically coming up but again I'd have to look back through all of Elizabeth's positions

131I've been to the meetings the past I think four of the past five years and uh it's just like going through my head did we discuss this and I do remember the discussion about uh about reciprocity I don't specifically remember appr but that's one it's too late to bring up this year but it could be for next year okay well we we may hear more about that from the Blue Ribbon commission along with the Regents exam so I think this fall all right thank you thank you very much okay moving on to item 2.0 for the president's report I sent out an update to everyone today with some additional items for the retreat agenda if you're not going to be there please let us know so we can plan accordingly [Music] um the Dei committee

132um it's about ready to hit send on an email to the DI committee um to see to gather the work that's been done over the summer so that we can the D the board Dei committee can meet with the facilitators and talk about next steps annual report I believe I've gotten reports from each committee now is there any committee who has not responded yet thank you did you have a request for Rebecca I I'm wondering if we could have all of that in one document just so we you don't know the Dei or the No No the the report out for each Committee just so we had a one or two pager that could summarize all the work that's been done by committee for the board okay just cutting and pasting from the emails I

133mean I'd even be happy to do it just I think it would be nice to have it in one place uh let's see what else um that was it all that I had but again just let us know if you're not going to be able to attend that uh Retreat that we're having next week Dr Tice your first report certainly president Mims under superintendent's report the backup information is located there for you Capital project update now that the installation of the new Turf and the resurfacing of the track is complete the high school's construction project continues with work in the courtyard which will be adjacent to the expanded cafeteria a new technology Edition at the front of the and the new technology Edition at the front of the building it's worth mentioning that the temporary

134classroom Suite became operational for the start of the school year and will provide much needed swing space for the teachers students who may find themselves displaced during the construction project under Capital transfer projects as mentioned before our Capital transfer projects at unders Road and feyl are an ear in completion the projects include the Safety and Security entrance at Enders road which is down to punch list items and air conditioning at Fayetteville Elementary tree I updated the board earlier today as they were pressure testing the system the AC still will after the pressure testing awaiting commissioning by the engineers under covet update I'd like to thank our Capital Region BOCES communication team for making modifications to our covet information on the school district website the district office team is working with the individual buildings to make

135optional resources available to staff and students especially with this uptick in covid coveted test kits are being dispatched to the ocm BOCES through action by the governor and I have asked our allocation to be delivered to The District in the near future on the test kits under newer educator orientation I'd like to thank Dr Catherine Don and Ms Lisa Wade for organizing and delivering our new educator orientation before the start of the school year after the general introductions I had a chance to sit in in the morning and it was inclusive of all the new hires and I think helped to set expectations but also to offer support to our newest employees so well done to the two of them and opening a school I'm pleased to report that the start of school went very

136smoothly and was relatively uneventful I'd like to extend my sincere appreciation to The Faculty staff and administrators who work tirelessly in preparation for the return of the students that ends my first report thank you any questions for Dr Tice on his first report second report please on Mental Health Services certainly same thing the backup information is under 2.06 for you as well under mental health additional Mental Health Services we've talked about this before the beginning of the school year plans are underway for the arrival of the promise Zone Specialists from Coordinated Care Services and talking with Ms Evans they're still in the process of interviewing and trying to secure those promise Zone Specialists which we were hoping to have at the beginning of the school year our Student Assistance counselor from contact Community Services which

137will staff the drop-in clinics we have the high school Clinic operational and worse they are still advertising for the middle school student assistance counselor and as mentioned before school officials are working with Onondaga County and arise to establish the three therapeutic clinics one each at both middle schools and the high school in an effort to reduce the travel time a rise Will Bill the family's insurance plan for these Services I know Ms Evans has worked tirelessly to try to get the office space approved for these clinics and we're hoping to have those operational mid-year staff mental health the mental health and well-being of the staff was a focus on the first professional learning days of the school year I'd like to thank Dr Melissa Carman CEO and founder of CNY mental health club counseling Ms

138Amanda Ward one of her counselors and our very own mental health educator from contact Community Services Mr will DeSantis for co-presenting a session on faculty Wellness taking care of ourselves and each other in addition to Dr Carman and Ms Ward they also unveiled a new series of supports from CNY mental health counseling as a result of the recent RFP last year including the facilitation of staff member focus groups in an effort to continue the dialogue and special thank you to Dr Dalton for organizing the Slate of activities at the beginning of the year along with her faculty teacher leaders and finally research and marketing strategies as I said earlier following tonight's presentation about last spring School climate and culture survey which was administered to students in grades 5 through 12. later on in the agenda

139you will see I will ask for your support to have these Professional Services continued for RMS to serve as a third party vendor which means to continue the administration of these Anonymous and confidential School climate surveys to staff members students and their families the plan for the upcoming years to administer a staff survey and the first student survey sometime in the Autumn followed by the family survey and second survey admin student survey Administration sometime in the spring that concludes my second report questions should occupies the second report Cindy first is just a comment that I think it's a great way to start the year to do some Focus for the our staff on mental health and well-being I think that was a great way to begin the year my second question is when the survey

140is given to staff will that also be given to non-instructional staff as well yeah they started by saying faculty but I think we've got to include faculty and staff and included it may mean different parts of a survey and faculty do one part and staff do another or depending on the model that Pat talked about tonight maybe they have something that fits both kind of a one-size-fits all but we will work with them just like we did before in developing that so when I say fall it won't just happen right away usually the September and October will be the planning if we're shooting for an early November Administration Dr test I just have a question on the the survey planning so I'm glad we finally did it I'm glad we're continuing to do it um

141but are we doing is the plan going forward to be doing students twice a year or are we doing these annually the question was because we administered it in the spring and just in the event that there were some count confounding variables affecting the results such as the end of the year and testing and everything there we thought we would administer twice once in the fall once in the spring and if those results are similar and statistically insignificant then we'll go to one Administration and on the out years so we just want to make sure that the results we got and it's great to do another spring survey to kind of do pre and post and compare it from one year to the next but we're trying to see if there's a difference between the

142beginning of the year the end of the year does the stress ramp up and so forth so the idea is to administer twice this year with the hope of going to one Administration in the out years and we're trying to be cognizant of the biomass and everything else we don't want to have a survey fatigue which I am trying to read between the lines of your question any additional questions okay we'll move on to 2.07 committee representative updates see nothing from audit correct or do we have something promoted community relations hasn't met since our last meeting correct right okay our camp region folks used to be together at the same time on Tuesdays that has changed to Thursdays with the new hires okay um anything new from facilities Dan you mean Jason uh oh Jason

143you want to do it it doesn't well it's pretty much all good news um the asbestos abatement that was scheduled for 2023 is completed the nurse's office 2209 2211 completed The Boiler Room pipe reinstallation is underway but the let's see offices in 2201 2202 the National Grid gas line relocation is completed the Windstream phone line relocation is completed the modular classrooms as Dr mentioned are in use and the kids love them um number seven as you know the AC at fail is just about complete we're in the testing phase and the store Front at Enders road is complete and um King and King has offered to do or we've asked them to do renderings that will be prepared before open house at the high school so that the projected project will be shown to parents

144and families um is there anything else doctor no thank you and then policy meeting tomorrow okay and you've got a lot on your plate for legislately so legislatively is done I've taken notes on things that Lisa suggested we Advocate we also talked to Martha and I talked about writing a letter to advocate for the for help with the veterans tax advantage tax exemption and if any of you have any talking points that you'd like me to include that in that letter just send me an email because I'll be working on that shortly um and then the last thing is that the uh nisba did send out their resolutions packet the proposed resolutions I don't do you guys get that email or okay um and I'm going to ask we have a board meeting scheduled um

145well the the actual me the actual annual meeting where we vote on these is October 16th which we do have a board meeting and as in previous years I will attend the business meeting instead and I'll join the board meeting when I can but in order to get your opinions about what whether I should vote for against things in the proposed resolutions book um I I think we have a board meeting on October 2nd um I'd like to suggest that we discuss it then during my report so I will make sure you all have a copy of it before then so you can read through and decide for against on each resolution and Chrissy you're new to this so I'll help you through it if you need it so share the letter that we're working

146on is for all the exemptions right yes okay yes okay thank you so much how you doing Angelina Delaware we didn't expect a report I can do a report oh okay here we go okay so um so overall the students are excited for the start of the school year um for the freshmen um link crew was very successful and students reported like they were very happy that the leaders were very good at the team bonding and icebreaking parts so good for the leaders um there was still a struggle to find the classrooms but the leaders really helped and so overall the freshmen feel that they're ready for high school um but people said that they wish that they maintained further contact with the link crew leaders so that it wasn't just like a few days

147deal um and uh just during the weekend a link crew dance was hosted and that was fun um for the sophomores um their first fundraiser has already been held at the daily Diner um this weekend too and it was a great success no news for the junior class but for the seniors a senior Sunrise has already taken place on the first day of school and there were a lot of fun in games and a lot of people attended seniors are enjoying New Freedom for their senior privilege and driving privileges and um they have already planned fundraisers during the summer for school stuff um for like the newly built house three people who are going there feel well adjusted and they feel like it's just like any other normal classroom so that's going well um there

148some people's schedule has people still feel some frustration with like having to travel between houses multiple times as it takes a lot of time and they have to carry their backpacks this isn't an issue for all the students but the scheduling is a problem still for some and that's all thank you very much appreciate that you're welcome okay and 3.01 is public comment I believe we have two people here for public comment hold on one second get my list uh Lee Pomeroy you're gonna cut me off okay that's fine good evening everyone my name is Lee Pomeroy I am an alumnus of FM and the parent of three alumni one of whom is a non-binary transgender non-binary student our trans men but non-binary child transitioned in FM high school in 2015 and graduated in 2017.

149my husband myself and two of our children including our non-binary child are still in the community and call it home recent in recent public testimony here stated that quote there are only two genders and there is no such thing as trans child no kid was born in the wrong body end quote I am here to emphatically say that trans non-binary and gender expansive children have always existed and have always been part of the FM community it's just that today the dignity for all student act or Dasa passed in 2015 and its implementation by the New York State education department ensures that our trans non-binary and gender expansive kids are hopefully welcome and safe from discrimination bullying and harassment in all public schools including FM I believe there is no leeway in recognizing the humanity of

150trans non-binary and gender expansive kids as has been stated here many times before FM must do a better job addressing the mental health of all its students all its students especially after our recent losses addressing mental health is suicide prevention however one cannot demand better mental health for students and in the same breath attack the existence validity and Humanity of trans non-binary and gender expansive non-conforming students not when 68 percent of students polled in 2021 felt unsafe at school due to their sexual orientation gender identity and or gender expression I would like to recommend that the district consult the report entitled schools in transition a guide for supporting transgender students in K-12 schools edited by the right the Human Rights Campaign specifically the section entitled key elements and practical tips to ensure that we are

151employing the best practices when it comes to things like pronouns personal safety and school facilities this document I emailed to you before the meeting I hope you will consider auditing District practices based on this document please do not let outside voices forces who have not lived lgbtq plus experiences in the community in and who do not believe in the humanity of my child our children drive your policy decisions our kids deserve more than this I respectfully thank you for your time today thank you thank you [Applause] and then Lauren roughage please don't roughridge sorry about that thank you for correcting me thank you hi everyone my name is Lauren roughridge I'm the parent of three boys in the district excuse me I'm a little nervous um two of which are currently at Enders Road Elementary

152and I'm a volunteer with the be smart program which is what I'm here to talk about tonight the issue of gun violence in schools has instilled fear and parents Educators students and leaders in our community but we can take action together to help keep our schools safer one important place to start is by practicing and encouraging secure gun storage in every home a few facts about gun violence in schools unsecured Firearms are often used in school gun violence the U.S Secret Service found that three and four School shooters he used a firearm that they took from a parents or a close relative's home gun violence in schools includes not only mass shootings homicides and assaults but also unintentional discharges self-harm injuries and suicide deaths using a firearm throughout the United States an estimated 13 million

153households with children under the age of 18 contain at least one gun and one study found that the majority of children in gun owning households knew exactly where that gun was stored not all of these Firearms are stored securely approximately 4.6 million children live in a household with at least one gun that is stored loaded and unlocked according to the U.S Secret Service addressing student access to guns is a critical component of any school-based threat assessment intervention plan and that starts with Secure Storage at home hmm the be smart program is a program of every town for gun safety support fund and it was developed to reduce the deaths injuries and Trauma that result when children gain access to unsecured firearms the program emphasizes that Secure Storage is always the adult's responsibility and it encourages

154include individuals to take five simple steps to keep kids and families safer smart is an acronym the S stands for secure secure guns and homes and in vehicles M represents model we are all to model responsible behavior around guns a is to ask ask about the presence of guns in other people's homes when your child is going for a play date or a sitter babysitter is coming over recognize the role of guns in suicide so R is recognized and T is to tell your peers to be smart one important thing that I want to note is that be smart is neutral on the topic of gun ownership it does not encourage or discourage individuals from owning guns it also does not advocate for changes to gun laws rather it emphasizes the power of each and

155every adult to take agency over the safety of children and teens we've partnered with the Manlius Police Department we table with them and we have their support and we've been working together to try to bring this program to the community and we'd love your support and how we can bring it to the school district thank you [Applause] I believe that was it for public comment right there or did I just had one more person but I believe he that person is not here they are not here all right thank you um all right so move on to new business item 4.01 approval of the minutes from the July 31st special meeting the August 14th regular meeting August 21st special meeting in the August 28th special meeting is there a motion to approve those minutes thank

156you Cindy and thank you from Sherry any discussion I missed this at the beginning can we split these we were just trying to save a little time one reason I'm saying split is there's a whole series of people here people not here for this which um the special meetings but everyone's here for the regular meetings but not the special meeting is that what it was okay we could just do these individually then um all right so motion to approve the minutes from the July 31st 2023 special meeting all those for their emotions sorry thank you Cindy and thank you Sherry any discussion of those minutes all those in favor indicate I I anyone opposed staining raise your hand and wait Chrissy with your hand up for that one okay is there a motion to approve

157the minutes from the regular meeting held on August 14th 23. thank you Rebecca from Jason any discussion all those in favor and Kate I I those opposed those abstaining one abstention anymore okay is there a motion to approve the minutes of the special meeting on August 21st thank you Christy second from Sherry any discussion all those in favor indicate I I anyone opposed or abstaining okay so if you raise your hands for her you've got oh we forgot we've got with that just was that it from that meeting Daryl and Rebecca okay um all right is there a motion to approve the minutes from a special meeting held on August 28th 2023. thank you Chrissy in a second from Cindy any discussion all those in favor Nikita I anyone opposed or abstaining Jason Rebecca and

158Cindy where's your hand up to no okay all right perfect moving on to item 4.02 approval of agreements with RMS is there a motion that they'd be resolved the Board of Education the Fayetteville Manley Central School District hereby approves of the district entering into agreements for the administration of student parent guardian and staff staff climate surveys in the amount of twenty two thousand seven hundred and twenty five dollars in the 2023-24 school year is there a motion thank you Daryl second from Jason any discussion all those in favor with indicate I I and no one's opposed to abstaining item 4.03 appointments excuse me is there a motion that it be resolved at the board of education or the Fayetteville Mainland Central School District make the following revised appointments as presented is there a motion thank

159you Sarah a second from Chrissy any discussion this is the procedure uh changing in the guards so to speak abstaining item 4.04 designations is there a motion of the board of edge that will be resolved at the board of education of the Fayetteville Mainland Central School District make the following revised designations as presented is there a motion thank you thank you uh Daryl and uh Sherry any discussion all those in favor please in the kdi aye and it was opposed or abstaining moving on to 4.05 reserve resolutions is there a motion that will be resolved the Board of Education the Fayetteville Maryland Central School District approved the revised Reserve resolution as follows thank you Sarah in a second from Cindy discussion all those in favor please indicate I I and no one's opposed or abstaining

160item 4.06 pardon oh no we're not gonna do all that that's okay is there a motion that we resolved with the Board of Education with favorable manly Central School District hereby approved the retention of the chase construction for the 2023 Capital transfer projects authorized as the president of the board to superintendent of schools or their designee she enter into the contract on behalf of the Board of Education and take all actions necessary or convenient to proceed under contract and connection with the project and upon board approval this resolution shall take effect immediately is there a motion uh thank you Daryl and Jason just like pick one any discussion all of the favor please the naked eye and no one's opposed or abstaining all right under board development is there anyone who's not going to be

161able to come September 18th to any part of that so we've got the facility sword and we've got the dinner retreat part is everybody going to be there there is a chance that I could be late I don't think I will be but I will just text and find out what building you're in at the time I can join at 4pm no worries okay all right thank you so much all right Nick that's the part of the um the re the facilities Tour Part right then I'll do my best to get everyone done at um at [Laughter] me all right so I don't think we have anywhere going to the um the Nismo convention okay and then there's the other news book convention um April 6th through the 8th well Sarah know if you're interested

162and the complementary complimentary webinar from the state controller working agenda items so we have I mean November 13th the very important discussion about the tax exemptions and October 16th the electric bus transition October 16th is also when we're inviting our state our representatives to come our legislative Representatives right so Marissa um excuse me last year we we were going to do some studying somebody somebody was going to study the tax exemptions and have that data ready is is that going to be you mean like um oh I I think you're referring to like the impact like like how much it would impact different taxpayers like different sorry different homes based on their value yeah I think we were we wanted to look at the whole all the different categories and see what the impact would

163be and I thought that was if I'm my dreaming that it was our right that was the takeaway from last year when we talked about it was that we needed to study it and I know there was communication with John Deere about that as well but I don't know what ended up happening with that we will get the information if you remember it started when Mr Furlong was here we asked for it a lot of the other municipalities went ahead and made their decisions so they ended up not doing the study so we're going to have to mine it and harvest it ourselves so we will have that available yeah but for the presentation we're scheduled to present in the discussion the hearing and then to vote on it three consecutive meetings correct I'm not

164dreaming that right yeah thank you and we realize we've talked internally and we've talked as a governance team to make sure that we advertise that because I think the double will be in the details on the numbers because I think our heart tells us one thing then the hearing the our head will tell us something else as we kind of compare it and shift the tax burden so I think it'll be important to hear all parties out on that and then that's certainly the following meeting will weigh into a vote what we do regarding them so is the November 13th meeting the discussion or the vote just so we can yeah November 13th is the presentation discussion the hearing that's what I'm that's my crib notes our district clerk asked me if we could go

165back to 503 I know we've talked about calendars and school start times as you saw today the governor enacted Asian Lunar New Year it will not affect us for the current school year but will be a consideration in 2025 and years going forward the governor has made that a holiday for all schools a state holidays on a Saturday for the current year so it won't move unless it's a Federal holiday like Fourth of July so so we're all State offices and schools will be closed on that it's a Saturday this next year next year in 2025. there's an article in today's paper so we did Future Board of Ed meetings some dates to remember coming up um at the homecoming parade and game at the turf field um if there are any board members interested

166in attending the any of these events together because we don't have many opportunities where we can go to events together um we can email about that and see we can sit together the group with families Etc um I think the homecoming one would be a good one and even if we went to the um athletic Hall of Fame induction after that or does their concert so um I'll put that out there and email and see you know if some of us can get together to do those things that would be nice okay then we added 6.03 that's right with the waffles please rise and raise your right hand to take your oath of Allegiance please repeat after me I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United

167States of America that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and the constitution of the state of New York and the constitution of the state of New York and that I will Faithfully discharge and that I will Faithfully discharge according to the best of my ability according to the best in liability the duties of the office of ex-officio Board of Education member the duties of the office of the ex-official Board of Education of the faithful manly essential school district of the Fayetteville Manley essential School District congratulations