00125 work and special sessions of the board of education. This is Kristen Papus, vice president of the board of education speaking. Thank you for attending in person or through Zoom. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Due notice of this meeting has been provided to the public and each member of the board of education as required by law. Tina, will you please take attendance? >> Vice president, >> present. present for business and finance district >> present superintendent for human resource leadership development >> present. >> Dr. Alice Bowen, this is superintendent for curriculum and instruction and excuse this. May I have a motion to accept the agenda for
002the December 9th, 2025 work session as presented? >> All in favor? >> I. >> Tonight's presentation is the primary and elementary update. Dr. Sha, would you um like to proceed with the presentation? >> Sure. This is the mo this is probably the most excitement we have seen in our audience. >> Yes. need >> and so much energy enough energy here. I think we do. >> So, we're super excited and I'm going to uh really this is an opportunity for us to highlight what we are doing in our K5 buildings. So, we're starting off with our primary schools and we have here Mr. Jim Curran who is our interim principal at Hemla, Miss Eileene Voda who is our principal at Locust and Veti our principal from Homestead and they're going to start the presentation. All right,
003good evening everyone. So we're excited to share with you um some highlights of the primary schools. I talked about it at our last board session to talk to you about win time. So wind time is unique for us in the primaries. It's a special program that we have. It is rooted in our kindergarten program and then also trickles every other week in our first grade program. And the way it's designed is that our children um meet with three adults at that time. And so they meet with the classroom teacher, the speech pathologist who is Mrs. Klene who works on phmic awareness and phonics and our math coach who also slis provider at the time at some times, Mrs. Beamer. And so they have an opportunity to meet with three adults in the classroom and then
004have they have a fourth station in which they are in independent station at that time. But they get to practice various different skills. And what we noticed over the course of the um this is now our fourth year of wind time is that we have really seen some significant growth in our students. And what you'll find is we talked a little bit about a fact fluency progression of how our children learn facts in addition and subtraction and then how they move to the area of derived facts. Um and we saw the significant gain in our kindergarten addition where they we took our fall scores in comparison to our spring scores in kindergarten. But when you actually look at subtraction, it's even greater. So we've seen some significant gains for our children in this respect. Then
005we also have seen the impact it's made in terms of our AIS support. So we've actually have less students now in first grade receiving AIS services as a result of our win time. In addition to that, we also talk about literacy and so you as you know um we have a literacy progression and our ph fun ph fun ph fun ph fun ph fun ph fun ph fun ph fun ph fun ph fun phological awareness and it begins at one level and there are five levels there and the children progress through that through our hegedy program which is kind of cycled through those lessons but if on the next slide you'll see how much of an impact this makes. I'm sorry I'm trying to get my slide that's closer to me. Um it's if you
006see like take a look like segmenting phonemes in the fall is the grade it's at 19% by the time they leave in kindergarten it is at 87%. Right? So that's significant gains that our kids are making and that we do attribute to our teachers their learning as well as this wind time that our children are uh participating in. So without further ado, I'm going to bring you to our learning land. And so I'm going to ask my Locust children to make their way up. This is our time to teach you all about wind time. So the board is going to experience a little bit about what windtime looks like. The children are going to encourage you to be participants and we're going off into the corner. So let them just get to their stations and
007then I'm going to invite you up and please uh central office please join us as well so you can see how they experience wind time. >> So as you know wind time is what I need. So it really is designed to be differentiated instruction that's occurring in the classroom. Yep. And I will lean in and kind of narrate a little bit about what's happening at the different stations. >> What's your name? >> Yeah. >> Curry. >> Hi How did you get 10? >> 10. How did I get? >> Yeah. What did you do to get 10? >> Four six. >> Yeah. Four plus six. You added those two numbers. Okay. So, do you want to draw your first line and then I'll go >> 10. >> So, the first game they're playing over here is
008called capture the square. And they're always doing facts within 10. And so, the students have to roll two dice and determine which way they're going to to um which square they're going to capture first. And the goal is to obviously beat the other person in capturing the squares. Jack, can you tell us a little bit about find the pair? How do we work? Okay, so you each get five cards. Then you try to find some pairs by asking the partner. And then once you ask the partner, you got to write it down on your piece of paper. Great job. Thank you. >> Write that down. >> All right, you guys. Do you guys want to Oh, do you need a partner? Mr. Capio will be here. Your partner. Okay. She'll be your partner. >> And
009then I tell him how to >> um >> spell the word. Um, no, I don't. Um, he needs to figure out the sentence and then when he's done, he needs to um I he gives it to me and I need to see if he made any mistakes and then I need to um try to explain it to him about saying it and also mark it up. >> All right. Thank you. Okay, this is going to be like speed center time. So, I'm going to ask us to switch. So, if our board members and our um central office staff can switch for us now because this is speed centers. [laughter] You All right. That was you. Okay, now we're going to switch again, please. Welcome. Thank you, Mrs. Voda, Mrs. Dukeman, and our wonderful Dukeman first
010graders from Locust School. >> You were amazing and everybody loved it. Thank you so much. So, we're going to shift into our science. Over the last few years, we've shifted our science instruction to reflect the new New York State Learning Standards, which place an emphasis on sparking students curiosity, inquirybased learning, and encouraging effective communication. And we love how all of our friends are amazing listeners because their next set of friends are going to come up next. Oh my gosh. And it's going to be even more exciting. And this might look familiar to some of our students. In science, we spark our students curiosity with phenomena. Phenomena is anything that you can ask like why do birds fly? Have you ever seen a rainbow? Why are polar bears white? When we ask students these questions, they're
011naturally curious and they want to find out the answers to these questions. And through hands-on activities and discoveries, they explore and they be start thinking like little scientists every single day. So we introduce each unit with anchor phenomenon and a seethink wonder protocol. Through this students generate and record observations about the phenomenon and then they develop their own ideas or explanations about what they think they've observed. And finally they generate questions that's their wonders about the phenomenon that they're going to review throughout each lesson of the unit. And then during and after each lesson, the students gather clues to help them improve their understanding and their explanation of the phenomenon. Through these observations, wonderings, hands-on activities, and discoveries, our students are exploring science in a fun and engaging way. So our science teaching and learning
012aligns not only with our mission and vision which we start every presentation and ground everything in which our teachers foster our students curiosity. They engage them in cognitive productive struggle but for science teaching and learning aligns with our district goals. Portrait of a graduate attributes we could see our students as creative innovators. They're using their imagination, their curiosity. They're thinking flexibly. They're developing new ideas and adapting to evolving circumstances throughout units, checking their see, think, and wonder charts. They're effectively communicating, clearly, articulating through their speaking, reading, writing. They're engaging in act interactive readalouds, addressing literacy across the content areas. They're listening to different perspectives from one another. They're writing about their what they're reading. They're developing their science vocabulary and oral language. And they're critical thinkers. They're analyzing their information thoughtfully. They're identifying patterns and
013connections between the different pieces of information as they get to that explanation of the phenomenon. So, in one of our first grade units, our students were introduced to the phenomenon in sun and shadows of moving shadows with the question, why do shadows mysteriously move? and they engaged in activities in our beautiful new outdoor courtyard learning spaces where they traced one another's shadows outside at different times of the day to see how their own shadows moved. And then they traced shadows of stationary objects to see if those shadows moved when those objects never even moved. And again, they observed, they wondered, they explored, and they learned why do shadows move. So tonight, our wonderful first grade students from Miss from Hamlock, yes, Mr. Curran, from Miss Mrs. Goldberg and Miss Catino's class are going to come
014up so that you can discover the phenomenon, why do shadows move? So, my Scatino Goldbergs, would you please come on up? And our board members and our administration, would you please come over to that corner? Yeah. I'm going to turn them off >> and Mr. Curran will dim the lights. So, what is the flashlight acting as? >> Can you tell them what's the flashlight acting as? >> Very magic. >> It is. Does look like a magic trick. >> So, how is the And so how is the shadow moving when the gnome is not moving? going to tell me what it is. >> Oh, there you go. Go off. So the students are demonstrating how because the sun changes its position in the sky, it makes the shadows position change. They take about five minutes to
015>> see when you move the What happens to the shadow? See what's happening to the shadow. Very cool. >> Pretty cool, right? So in this activity, moving shadows, the students use flashlights and paper gnomes to explore how moving the position of a light source makes shadows move. And they relate these observations to shadows changing throughout the day and the sun's position moving across the sky. >> Wow. Yeah. Grab my water. So, how did you make the Shadows move or change? Now that you've taught everyone here on the board, >> position of the sun, >> but a position of the sun. >> The the sun moves, so it makes the shadow move. >> Amazing job. Thank you to our Hemlock first graders and and Mrs. Fitino and Mrs. Goldberg. And now I will pass the microphone
016to our elementary colleagues. We before before we move on, we'd like to thank our students who came in this evening. And for any parents who want to take their young ones home now, feel free to, you know, get get them to bed if that's what time what time it is hopefully for everybody. Boys and girls, boys and girls, I just want your attention for one quick minute. You guys did such a great job teaching us. You were amazing teachers. And thank you to our parents and our teachers for being here this evening to share. Great job. >> Yeah. >> Kind of like this lighting. I like this lighting right now. Yeah, >> you guys good for the elementary start, >> right? >> All right, good evening everyone. My name is Chris Hardigan. I am the
017principal of Straford. Can we just give another round of applause while our kids are leaving for our primary kids? They did a great job with that. Uh and so our portion of the elementary update is going to be a highlight on two areas. The two areas that we selected were from our students. We asked them what are the best parts of their day. What do they enjoy most? And we're going to be highlighting the enrichment for all experience for our second and third graders. And Miss Lindsay will go into some detail about it. and monumental math which is a project-based experience for our third graders that will be uh facilitated mostly by our students. So these initiatives are they they have future ready competencies for our students. So, as you are listening to them, uh,
018as you're listening to our students and our our presenters, we really want you to be thinking about the collaboration, the critical thinking, and the skills that our students had to demonstrate to perform both of these activities successfully. Both programs um have required a significant amount of teacher professional development. So when you're when you're viewing it and you're interacting with our students around it, I also want you to keep a a lens from a teacher perspective about the professional development that is underlying on these two experiences. Uh our kids are really excited to to share this with you. But before uh we get to our students, we're going to do a enrichment for all update and I will turn it over to Miss Lindsay. Good evening everyone and thank you so much for having us talk
019about enrichment for all. We're excited about it. It's a dynamic instructional program offered right now to every third grade class and newly this year all of our second graders. Each class works with our enrichment for all teacher Miss Taylor McDow who specializes in designing learning experiences that stretch student thinking and build skills that go beyond the tra traditional curriculum. These lessons are intentionally structured to mirror the kinds of problem solving and collaboration that students will need throughout their academic careers and in the real world. Our third graders participate in multi-session problem based learning experiences, which means that they begin a real world challenge and work together to find a solution. They practice identifying what they already know, what they still need to learn, and how to test their ideas. This approach builds critical thinking in
020a natural and authentic way. Students are not simply completing an activity. They're developing the confidence to approach unfamiliar problems, talk through ideas with their classmates, adjust their thinking when needed, and persevere until they arrive at a workable solution. Our second graders are building the foundation for this kind of thinking. Their lessons focus on creative problem solving through what we call productive struggle, and that's the ability to stay engaged and keep trying even when something feels challenging. They learn how to manage frustration, communicate effectively with teammates, and understand that mistakes are normal and they're essential to your part of learning. These are the building blocks of resilience and academic independence. They're built through hands-on challenges that are connected to their classroom learning. Recently, our second graders designed tools to clear fallen leaves, which aligned with their
021unit on community helpers. They built the tallest freestanding towers that they could engineer, which tied into their classroom curriculum on urban communities. They tested different pumpkin stands to determine which designs were strongest and created safe enclosures to protect paper turkeys. Activities like these are fun and exciting. But underneath, students are developing transferable skills in planning, revising, testing ideas, and working together as teams. As you listen to these examples, you can hear the direct connection to the New York State portrait of a graduate. These enrichment experiences are the earliest building blocks of skills that our state identifies as essential for future success. When our students collaborate, communicate, think critically, show resilience, and create solutions that matter to them, they are practicing the exact competencies of portrait of a graduate. Enrichment for all is not simply an
022add-on to our school day. It's an intentional investment in developing the kind of learners and citizens that we want our students to become. And on the next slide, we have a little video that showcases exactly what this looks like and sounds like. Another area we're especially proud of at the elementary level are the interdisciplinary units and performance-based learning experiences that we've developed. On the screen, you'll see some examples of the work across grades 2 to 5. These units begin with thoughtful curriculum writing where our teachers collaborate closely with curriculum coordinators. The goal is to create strong curriculum connections, integrate purposeful use of technology, and provide students with meaningful opportunities to apply their learning while strengthening their foundational literacy skills. The third grade monumental math unit is a standout example. Victoria and Christina, our coordinators, partnered
023with our teachers throughout the unit, offering targeted professional development to ensure deep understanding and consistency across all classrooms. This evening, a few of our third grade students are here to walk you through monumental math. They will share the components they explored in social studies, math, and literacy. They'll also present their final projects to you. So, we're going to start off with Quinn and Ella. Come on up. Oh, wait. >> We We learned so much about math and monuments around the world during our monumental math unit. >> Do you think you could rec you could recognize some famous monuments from around the world? Use your postit to keep track of how many monuments you guess correctly. Let's play. How many of these do you recognize? Give yourself a tally if you recognize this monument. Give yourself
024a tally if you recognize this monument. Give yourself a tally if you recognize this monument. Give yourself a tally if you recognize this monument. Give yourself a tally if you recognize this monument. Give yourself a tally if you recognize this monument. Give yourself a tally if you recognize this monument. >> Let's review. Which monument is this? >> Statue of Liberty. >> Mhm. Which monument is this? >> Which monument is this? Which monument is this? >> Eiffel Tower. >> What monument is this? >> Opera House. >> And what monuments is this? >> Lincoln Memorial. >> How many out of six were you able to identify? >> All six. >> We did pretty well, huh? [laughter] What? >> During this unit, we also use technology to explore these amazing these amazing monuments. >> The monuments we explored
025with the great pyramids of Giza. >> Let's take a look at the pyramids using our virtual tour. As you could see, we can search for a monument and take a tour of its surroundings. We can also ask questions. One question we have is, how tall is the Great Pyramid? a question for us. >> It's loaded. >> Oh, have no fear. [laughter] is much faster than the classroom, right? >> Way faster. without any machinery today. A stark contrast to the monumental achievement it represents. >> Does anyone else have another question about the great pyramid? >> How old are they? Question. >> Yes. You'd like to ask something? very old. It takes a long time to figure out. a testament to the incredible engineering capabilities of that. In this image, the sheer scale is empounding sandy under
026a sky. >> We made great connections between math, reading, and social studies during this unit. >> After reading all about a monument, we recorded monumental facts we learned. Here's an example with the pyramids of Giza. >> We solve math problems using our three read strategy. We loved making connections across subjects in this unit. Now we are going to hear all about how students designed monuments of their own. >> Thank you. >> All right, we have two Stratford friends to invite up. >> Good job. referring to Steve. >> Thank you, Stuart students. Great job. Can we get them one more round of applause? It's not easy being up here. Haven't awesome. And so now I would like to introduce Zach and Maria who have their monuments here and their part of the presentation is to really
027engage our central administrators and our board in a question and answer. So they're going to talk to you a little bit about their experiences and we hope that you'll ask a couple of questions to them about their learning. So uh Maria, would you like to start and talk with us a little bit about your experiences with Monumental Math? Okay, go ahead. I >> think that this was a very fun project and that we learned so much about it. Um, I think that it really proved to teach us about monuments and easy ways to solve standard algorithm math problems. And it was just very fun. And after a while, we got to know the group very well when we were building our monuments. And I think every day when we were building our monuments, all the
028teams just got better and better. >> Oh, that's awesome. Like what do you what do you mean better and better? Talk to us a little bit more about that. >> Um, we were sharing more ideas and we were working together more. >> And do you f do you feel like all ideas were shared appropriately? Yeah, I think if somebody had an idea, um, we would incorporate it with another person's idea and we would try to make sure that every idea was incorporated in our monument. >> So, I hear you saying that all ideas contributed to the making of the monument and not just one idea. That could be a lot that you had a lot of people in your group, right? That's a lot of agreement that you had to do. That's awesome. Um, Zach,
029you want to talk a little bit about your project as well and then we'll we'll turn it over to the board central administrators to ask a couple of questions. >> So, my group, we felt like some things didn't get appreciated. That should be >> that happens. >> So, we took some ideas of like stuff in Garden City that isn't really something in real life. So like the GC pineapple, it's a thing but it doesn't have a monument for it. So we created a monument for it >> and talk about talk about that your monument a little bit more. That was a great idea that you guys came up with as a group. So talk a little bit more about your monument now and what skills you needed. We collaborated in ideas of how engineering works
030and how ideas can all be incorporated to go together and create something else. >> That's awesome. I'm going to ask you one question first each to get us started and then we're going to go from there. If you had to pick one part uh that was your favorite of this entire project, what would you say? uh learning about the monuments and in the worksheet drawing of them. Cool. >> Is an illustration. >> And for you, Maria, >> my favorite part was probably the building and the math facts. >> The building and the math facts. Awesome. Awesome. And so now I'd like to turn over to our central administrators and our board of education if you have any questions for some of our students about their learning. >> Can you tell us how did you use
031math in your building? So it would explain about it in an article and then they would give us a worksheet. It was like draw a picture of it. How was it built? Why it was built? Where it was built? What materials it used to build it? And then would give us three facts. How tall is it? How wide is it? How long is it? How many people did it take to build it? uh how many years it's been around and how the math facts can teach us about the monuments and what they're about. >> Thank you. >> Good job. Um, I thought it was incorporated because we had like we learned about very cool facts about the monuments and we took the facts and they you the teachers use them into word problems and then
032from there we would answer answer them in standard algorithm. >> Wow. >> If you could put the pineapple monument Maybe put it by the golf field. [laughter] >> Um >> if there's maybe a spot here, the library >> idea answer too. Seven straight. >> What was important for your group to have in the monument? What did you all agree? Everyone had different ideas, but what did you all agree was something that was very important to have on the monument? >> Well, in my group, we thought it was very important to have um some kind of flag inside of it and a pineapple. [laughter] For my group, we all thought we in my group, everyone does like art. So, we all thought that it should have a lot of detail and texture >> because there's like
033gems and and other pieces of cardboard and then it says love, hope, respect. >> And can I ask the the tall one here? Does that have a plaque on it? Is that like a paragraph written? >> Yeah. Um, so >> use the match. >> I think something in the back is holding it. [snorts] >> Yeah, it's >> right there. Yeah. Um, >> yeah. >> It says, "We designed a monument for Garden City that teaches visitors about our history so that people will learn about Garden City and want to visit." >> Sure. >> Go ahead. >> I love these kids. Mine said, "We designed a monument for Garden City that shows that being unique is good so that people will think in different ways and be themselves." >> Love it. >> Wow. >> You guys did
034an awesome job. Thank you so much. I see really incorporating some of the things you're learning with your pillars, >> right? That's what I see there. And then I also see in your pineapple I like that is you notice we have a pineapple above the train tracks right by the middle here. And I like those ideas. These are phenomenal. >> And how long did it you to make one >> your projects. >> Mine took about [laughter] >> 15 minutes >> a lot of work to cover. Okay, [laughter] >> these are just two examples of what we do. >> Oh, that's awesome, Zach. >> That's awesome. just by the pasta and some of the language you use to explain how you created your >> monument. >> And then we're going to wrap up our elementary update.
035>> All right. So, as you can see, this monumental math project aligns seamlessly with the mission and vision of Garden City, which encourages students to develop an enthusiasm for learning, respect themselves and others, and develop skills to become a creative and independent thinker. Here up on the screen right now, you'll see a few more opportunities highlighted that are already in place at Steuart and Stratford where students can demonstrate creativity, perseverance, empathy, and teamwork. Um, a few of these photos up there, we have fifth graders are working together to construct a device to remove microlastics from the ocean. We have buddy classes working together. The bottom center there, we have a second grade class and a fifth grade class constructing balloons uh after reading Balloons Over Broadway. And that was really only possible after they all
036worked together. We have on the bottom left some students uh fourth grade class where our cast students uh kids are scientists too came down from the high school to work with them. So we have a lot going on here and this monumental math project has been added to this great list of uh project-based learning opportunities already taking place at the elementary level. Thanks everybody. I know. I'm sorry. >> So, this is brand new. This is the first year we've done the monumental math unit. What we've seen is students being able to apply a lot of the foundational skills that we've been working on in the classroom. So, it doesn't have to just be sit and complete a worksheet, sit and do some kind of quick task. They really have to have a deep understanding of
037the social studies skills, the math math skills, the reading skills to be able to gather those facts to then be able to apply them into the next phase of building the monument or whatever the next phase of like the hands-on task will be for them with any of these projects. So, what does this look like uh a couple months from now? Right, they finished this monumental map project. What is uh the next hands-on projects based learning um project look like for for uh they report fifth graders? >> These are third graders. >> Third graders. >> Third grade. >> Wow. >> Okay. So take that where you may. >> So it depends upon the grade level. There's different experiences throughout the year for every grade. I think it's also just about how our teachers are thinking
038differently about how they're planning and how they're providing these opportunities where they're connecting a lot of the content area work with the math and the literacy work that's being done in the classroom. So, they're being provided with multiple opportunities to really dive into the content in different ways to bring it to life for them. So, while it might not always follow the same exact structure that monumental math followed, it's about taking those practices and bringing it into other areas throughout the school year. In fourth grade, in the spring, they'll take um social studies and bring it to life in different museums. So, sometimes it's the Museum of New York State because that's what they've been working on throughout the year. Sometimes it's the museum of the American Revolution. and they visit museums first to kind
039of see what's important when you go to a museum before they plan their museum exhibits. So, it looks a little different throughout the year in each grade level, but it's just about incorporating all of those same ideas. >> What was the process um for creating that unit that was all created by teachers working together within the district? So, can you just describe like how that curriculum writing worked? Yeah, absolutely. It started with found time in the third grade math pacing. So, after we went through a year of illustrative math uh pacing, we recognized that we wanted to layer in standard algorithm, what the kids were saying as a part of a review to supplement some of the work we were doing. And after going through like really careful pacing, there was about 10 days that
040we had uh around November around the Thanksgiving time frame where we decided to implement this project. The creation of it, we really have to thank Victoria and Christina and our classroom teachers who had two professional development sessions that were held during the school day and after school to bring this to life. So they were creating it on the back end, Christina and Victoria and Lauren Calfman, our our literacy director and then we implemented it to our teachers and they took it and they ran with it. U we used some the help of Mike Dvola to help us with that and we just saw the opportunity and and took it to find that time. We could have easily done those 10 days and and layered in stand standard algorithm in very traditional formatting, but we wanted
041to bring it to life in a way that made sense for our our students. And I think what Maria said about agreeing on an idea is like one of these like future ready skills that we really want our kids to be able to do when they are progressing through our grades and into middle school and high school. >> What's nice with our curricular coordinators is and our teachers is that they look for these opportunities and I think we've expanded on that year after year. we're adding more and more into those our students experiences and this one I think just came about so beautifully because it was I think a couple of conversations that leads into this >> and we've also done quite a bit of curriculum writing that comes here around project based learning and
042again these skills are part of portrait of a graduate skills that we want student >> I think Of the things that we do often as an elementary team with the curriculum coordinators is we line up all of our units across all content areas and just find where are the natural fits for these types of experiences to occur. Because if you find the natural overlaps of topics that are happening in different subject areas, that's when it works and that's when you're really able to bring it to life in the classroom and really have enough time to spend multiple opportunities throughout the day touching base with the experience. So the students really have a deep understanding by the end of it. >> And then I just had a question for the primary administrators and the elementary. How
043is um the implementation of mystery science going? Like I know that's relatively new for the district. Are you finding the teachers are happy with the materials? Are they finding ways to make that like time for that in their schedule or how is that working out? >> Yeah. No, I think mystery science has been a fantastic addition to our resources in science. We see a lot of hands-on learning in science happening because there's no, you know, scrging around for materials. It's all right there at our teachers fingertips. Um there's a nice structure that goes along with mystery science as the primaries explained starting with that phenomena and really starting the questioning and the curiosity right at the beginning of the lesson and continuously going back to the phenomena throughout. But again, it's a lot of hands-on
044learning um which the students bring up all the time that they enjoy. In fact, it was a little bit of a contest between the elementary and primaries. We all wanted to do um science activity for mystery science tonight. Primary one out. Um, but I think that's >> I think that speaks to Yeah. >> that that's what the children are telling us they're really enjoying about their school. >> Yeah. So teacher friendly, videos, you know, I mean lesson build that they were wondering. It's an exciting progression for it down to all of us to the students. So >> Miss Pap is a natural next step to that will be to take a look at the pacing for it. Um because the mystery science kits, they are very helpful as we just shared with you, but as
045you know from an elementary lens, the pacing of it, um the teachers enjoy it so much and kind of get it could take up a lot of your time. There's a lot of learning happening. It's great, but there's so much material to cover. So, we want to make sure that we're just critical and looking at the pacing so that we can cover all standards at all times. We are seeing a really high level of engagement from our students from that. >> Good like um connections, right? like literacy. They provide with like some literacy connections. >> They do. Yes. >> There's so many connections with math as well. A lot of um the different video components. We watch it and we're like that's exactly what we're doing to introduce a luster of an illustrative math unit.
046So, we're able to use a lot of the videos or the ideas from it when we're introducing a math topic, let's say, or call back. >> How many projects do they do? When I say they by grade level, how many are they able to do in a year? >> It really depends and it varies and we're building more as we go along. Wonderful. So, we're seeing the benefits of it. The children are sharing how much they're enjoying it. The teachers are seeing the benefits of it. So, we're really building more and more as we can, but also making sure that they're purposeful and that they make sense for the work that we want to accomplish at that time. Is that something that's already the mystery science is that a curriculum? Um the curriculum is already
047set mystery science writes it and then do you as the educators and the classroom teachers you create the activities based on the curriculum or it's kind of you follow a model and you're autonomous or you can be autonomous. >> It's it's packaged for us which makes it um helpful for the teacher to make sure that they're have a clear learning objective. it it meets all the standards and that they have the science experiments to to be able to do all there. Um, so it's been, you know, our teachers find it helpful. Again, we got to look at pacing because it's they're lengthy and they're fun, but we just want to make sure that we're covering everything uh in a short amount of time. >> Like any other resource that we have, we look at it
048and we make it our own. >> We make sure that it meets our students needs. >> Thanks very much. >> Wonderful. >> Thank you guys. >> All right. Thank you to our Statford and our students, our Stratford and Stewart students. >> So, we always just make sure it meets our needs and if we need to make adjustments or if we want to add on to it or if we want to bring in another content area or bring in some more reading where we don't feel like there may be enough in there, do that. But the base is all there for us. Okay. Um, I have one more question. This is more of like a nerdy thing than anything else. Um, I was I I love a good graphic organizer and I really appreciated the primary.
049It reminded me of the KWLs. >> Um, I wrote it down. Which one was it? The see, think, wonder. Is that something then that carries through? You already know where I'm going with that. >> That's really nice. And does the verbiage change on that or it stays see Wonder? >> Again, nerd. This is like a a nerdy >> see, think, wonder sticks uh throughout because it is also one of the routines that we use in math. So yeah. So you you we see it in it's curriculum agnostic. So we see it and the terminology stays very similar. if there are small nuanced words that change as the content becomes more uh more challenging >> because my middle son today came home with a chart that actually it's essentially the same thing and he said I
050don't know something's going on I have this chart in two different classes [laughter] >> so it's exciting to see it way up >> are Is there like are there is there anything that you can think of that you um need like that you need our support for or where are you looking to like go next or head next? Like where do you where are the needs you think in our classrooms like as we're >> heading into what do you guys want to say? You guys want to say something? >> What's your wish list? >> [laughter] >> and beautiful library so I shared that earlier that within um you know within the content area they're learning they're vocabulary and she was very vocabulary reinforcement and now it's all I think it's support that support allows posted
051someone that was so that one of you know the um attributes you know for PO. So I think you know I think that our coordinators work with them and then being able that was created. I mean they actually showed you the data. I thought that was very very powerful. That's what I was thinking. >> And we started when we had hired you know we spoke of Ruby Ruby as our speech and language provider. She's really made a big difference. >> Yes. Primary and she works with she she is someone who really assists in that really that important kindergarten first grade to help kids. And we say speech and reading. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> So that support and it's very the amount of time they spend planning for that learning that building every day. She's
052got different. >> So right now it's kindergarten every day and first grade every other week. >> Every week. >> So is that your class like >> so you would want more? If if you know >> look it's it's the holiday season. What's your wish list? [laughter] >> I miss you too, Miss Bon. >> Dad stroke. [laughter] >> Dan, >> you need to hear it. [laughter] >> Let's go. Wow. >> Moving on. >> Yeah. >> And the focus that is very much there for you know in terms of kids having to work together >> within a finite amount of time. So last year when we began the program in third grade, it was just the third grade offering and it is a homegrown unit, but it's based on our homegrown program based on what the needs
053are of our students. And in the moment, our students do need to be presented with a tough challenge that they can build stamina through and not give up. They need skills in their toolbox to be able to take on any challenge in the world and be able to have the confidence to see it through. and all the skills that they're building through these many challenges, we'll call them problembased learning because it really is a problem they're trying to solve and finish in such a short amount of time that we move that into second grade because why not start them younger. So second graders and third graders are now experiencing this and as we're seeing things in real time in school, we can implement them because we have this homegrown program. But it's only second grade
054and third grade right now. So if you ask for a wish list enable to move this into fourth grade and fifth grade and beyond would be something we would love to look into. >> How how often is enrichment for all? >> For third grade it they they're seen three times a week in third grade but it moves from teacher to teacher. So one class gets three times a week for that one week and then it cycles through the rest of the third grade classes and then they get a three-day experience again. Second grade is two times a week and then they cycle through all the second grades and come back to that class for their next experience. And I just want to give credit actually to Rachel for structuring it like that because when we
055originally went to the drawing board on planning, it was like you meet the the third grade class meets with the enrichment teacher and then doesn't meet with them again. But Rachel's idea was to take it and do like a a short burst of like three lessons right in a row. >> Stack them right away. So they get that experience. They could follow up in the classroom after it and then they come back to it. That was Rachel's, you know, >> we want them to remember dayto-day what they're going through so they can finish it. >> Yeah. And it was a really creative scheduling opportunity and it working out really well. >> And um I'm sorry, forgive me. The name of the teacher who >> McDonald >> Yes, she does. >> Oh, okay. >> You know,
056one of the other things that I wanted to point out with Rachel, they also bring their area of passion into the work. Alison has very strong background. So those are the things that we are using and again for Richmond, >> you know. So these are really wonderful. Marina was here. She's a teacher. She's an intern. >> And would you please >> Thank you for being here tonight. Anything [laughter] else? >> No. >> Can Can I go back to one last question? The primaries you had talked about and I just want to make sure I heard it correctly since win time and I didn't realize it was four years you've had wind time. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And so is did I hear correctly you've seen a decrease in the number of students >>
057in AIS? >> Yeah. whole early intervention and really giving the supports >> early on without going into special ed without right this is this has become a really good way for us to provide the support the other thing I'll also say is our UPK has also is something that we have to we're monitoring that data because our kids are coming in with something you know kindergarten ready in a way and we're monitoring that the curriculum Alice um our sister super a great job coordinating that within the three sites that four different sites including homestead so that also has been a posit >> thank you so much >> thank you We're uh you guys can all leave if you want. I think we're down to the procedural stuff. May I have a motion that there is
058no further business to come before the board and the work session be adjourned in the special session be opened? >> Second. >> All in favor? I. Special session is now open and all members of the board of attendance of all all the board members of the board of education are in attendance. At this time, I have a motion to accept the agenda for December December 9th, 2025 special session as presented. >> I'm sorry. >> All in favor? I any questions from the board? >> Okay. Uh to make more efficient use of the meeting time, the board of education authorizes the use of a consent agenda as part of the meeting agenda. The consent agenda allows for one motion to approve multiple items that are identified on the agenda. At this time, may I have a
059motion to approve the consent agenda, which includes personnel matters E1 through E4 and business matters F1 through F8? >> All in favor? >> Do it. >> I >> say I. >> Any new business from the administration? I see none. Any from the board? I see none. Everybody's packing up. Uh Tuesday, December 16th, 2025, regular session at 7:30 at the Garden City High School. Um, at this time I have a motion that there's no further business to come before the board that the meeting be adjourned. >> Second. >> All in favor? Finish