001Tell me when you're ready and I'll put the procedure down. Good. >> Rainbow. >> Good evening. Welcome to the November 12, 2025 work and special sessions of the board of education. This is Joe Silio, 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 stands nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Due notice that the meetings have been provided to the public and each member of the board of education is required by law. Tina, will you please take attendance? >> Present. present. >> Present. >> At this at this time, I have a motion to accept the agenda for November 12, 2025 work session as presented. All in favor? I. At this time, I'm gonna hand it over to Dr.
002now to go through the superintendent report. >> Sure. Just wanted to um mention a few things that are on the agenda for this evening. One is um you know we made the uh board aware that effective January 20th, 2026 amendments that were made to the education law mandate that the cardiac emergency response protocol be incorporated into our district-wide and building level safety plan. That was reviewed with Mr. Capua uh Miss McLaclin with the health and safety committee. Um that was about two weeks ago. Um they've reviewed it and our goal is to we need to put post it up on the website. So that's what we're asking. That'll be posted for a public comment period for 30 days and hopefully in December's meeting well ahead of our uh schedule for January 20th that we could
003adopt that. Okay. >> And then a couple of other items that are on the agenda. Also on the agenda, we have uh the resignation of Miss Odon, our hemlock principal. And uh she's leaving us for a new position that offers her greater flexibility. And I just wanted to say she's here this evening. Um that she has done an exceptional job in really leading Hemllock from teaching and learning to just strengthening um you know the community feel within Hemlock with her students and her staff and uh and really forgs with uh with folks there. So want to thank you and we will miss you and uh you could always come and visit us, >> right? Um and we wish you continued success in your in this next chapter for you. And so also on the agenda,
004we have uh Mr. Jim Curran. He's on the agenda as the um when Miss Odon leaves, he'll serve as the interim uh principal of Hemllock. And then in December, Miss McLaclin will give an update in terms of u the uh principal search for Hemlock. Uh what else? We also have some uh some additional appointments on the agenda. There's change orders for our projects and we also want to thank Friends of Music for their donation of ropes for our middle school students and they've done that. So, uh, so they'll have that ready for the performance that's going to be >> I think we're going to you have more or you >> Well, you want to do the agenda then I'll do the student chief. Just going to go right to the presentation. At this time, uh,
005to make more efficient use of the meeting, the board of education authorizes the use of the consent agenda as part of the meeting agenda. Consent agenda allows for one motion to approve multiple items and such items are identified on the agenda. The president of the board will ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda and will ask the board members wish to discuss or have clarifications on specific terms contained within the consent agenda. Following the discussion, the board will then vote on the consent agenda motion. In addition, a board member may request to have an item removed from the consent agenda in order to vote separately. At this time, I have a motion to approve the consent agenda which includes business of the board matters F1 through F2, personnel matters G1 through G5, and
006business office matters H1 through H4. All in favor? >> I may have a may have a motion now. There's no further business for the board and then we move from the we move to the to the work session. All in favor? I. Now we're going to go through the uh student achievement report. I'll hand it over to Dr. S. Dr. Bowman. >> Great. Thank you, Mr. Psilio. So, um, this evening our work session is dedicated to the student achievement report and which really highlights our students performance and growth across all grade levels. So, um, just for for all of you, when we get the assessment data, our team really gets uh gets right into it and we start looking at that. At the high school, it actually starts over the summer because we get start
007beginning to get some of our data back then. Um and we analyze our data throughout the year. So it's not just for this presentation but it's throughout the year we do that. This also uh this year's presentation also reflects some of the feedback that we have received particularly around um uh sharing more of the K2 data along with special education data. So you'll hear that this evening as well. We'll also be sharing Dr. Bowman will go through some of the changes with the the new requirements with the portrait of a graduate and changes to the regent's exams and graduation requirements that really sets the stage up for you know the um for this for this particular report and moving forward. I also want to share that our um you know this evening our administrators like
008they did last year they will share successes and areas where we can improve and do even better in. So you'll hear that from um from them. I want to take the opportunity to really thank all of our principles who are here, our assistant principles, our coordinators um and also again Dr. Bowman who has really led and spearheaded this um student achievement report. And hopefully you'll see that you have everything in here. And we also have our director of PPS. Where's Michelle woman? Oh, there you are. All right. There you are. Okay. But thank you for being here. Um and then um you know again thank you again for all your good work with this. And with that I'm going to hand it over to Dr. Bowman. >> Okay. >> So good evening. Um I'd like
009to start by thanking Dr. Sinha, the board of education, and the garden city community for the opportunity to share with everyone the 2025 student achievement report. The presentation that we will be sharing is truly demonstrative of a collaborative effort in terms of building the presentation for sure, but more importantly the collaborative effort of every stakeholder involved in the education of our students from pre pre kindergarten through 12th grade. Each year our students grow as learners as a result of the collective efforts of everyone and I think you will find that shines through tonight. Toward that end, I must say a heartfelt thank you to the administrative team, all of whom contributed to ensuring that tonight's presentation is thorough, accurate, and clear. A few notes before we begin. Tonight's presentation has a great deal of data,
010and while we will be showing each slide, we won't be able to speak specifically to each and every slide. The last count we had was that we were up to 94 slides. Please rest assured that the presentation will be available on the district website. You will see that some of the data hasn't been released yet and when we reach those slides, Mr. Stein Grubner will point that out again. As the data becomes available, however, the slides will be updated on the district website. Check the clicker. Okay. So, here in Garden City, we ground all that we do in our mission and vision. And so it's fitting that we begin with them for your look for your uh for you tonight. Okay. New York State adopted the portrait of a graduate in July of 2025 as
011part of the blue ribbon commission. Presented on this slide are the components that comprise the portrait along with descriptors of each. As a district, we are currently engaging in the learning process to ensure that our educators preK through grade grade 12 are familiar with the components and begin looking at how our system supports the growth and development of each component while ensuring that we maintain a high level of academic rigor for our students. In addition to the portrait of a graduate, the blue ribbon commission has adopted changes to graduation requirements. moving to one diploma for all students with opportunities for students to distinguish themselves provided through seals such as the seal of civic readiness as well as locally developed micro credentials. This next slide highlights the phase in of the new diploma requirements as well
012as the changes to assessment requirements, our regent exams for graduation. In the coming months, as more is shared by the state, we will keep the board and community apprised and updated. But the information on this slide is current as of today. This year we will be sharing information from GA grades K through 12. Though I want to highlight that we have grown as a district family and now have eight UPK classrooms across the district. We have seen a shift in our kindergarten students readiness when they have attended our UPK program. And so the continual growth of UPK is a harbinger of our students growth and the future of our district. And so to begin the evening, I'd like to invite Mrs. Voda, principal of Locust School, to speak on behalf of our primary buildings. Thank
013you, Dr. Bowman. Good evening. Um I will be sharing with you the primary school assessments. I also want to um echo the sentiments of we are definitely seeing the impact of our universal prek program with our students and we'll be looking at that data in the future but it does look promising about the impact that it's had on our current kindergarteners. So on this slide obviously you'll see this is our various assessment suites from uh kindergarten to first grade. the next slide. Um, and on this slide, it indicates that we piloted in 2025 the administration of the NWA reading fluency to our kindergarten students. Um, with that said, um, in this spring, we will be definitely assessing our kindergarten students with the NWA reading fluency and sharing those results with families. But if you c
014you can definitely tell the difference our kids are making an impact with our current literacy suite. When looking at the results of first grade in the spring, students proceed to the adaptive component that includes ORF. They start off in a foundational skills like they did in kindergarten um last year, but they'll take that component in the fall. And in the spring, we expect our students to make it into oral reading fluency, which is ORF. Um here the results indicate students that um are still in the foundational skills. And while we see students are still in the foundational skills, that doesn't mean they didn't make it into ORF. They might have, according to NWA, made it into ORF, but didn't finalize to the very completion, which then the system since it's adaptive, will kick the kids
015back to foundational skills uh to determine if there is an area of gap as you can see. So now we we're looking at our oral reading fluency which is usually where our typically children will end the school year in oral reading fluency. That usually indicates for us that our kids are making some significant progress. So although um our students are making their way into ORF, sometimes they don't based on the criteria that is required they don't make it to the third passage. Usually they have three passages that they have to complete and they may may make it to two passages but perhaps accuracy and comprehension are not at the criteria level and so they'll be kicked back to foundational skills. They need to make it three two three passages to completely get a full ORF
016score. So many our families might see uh foundational skills and ORF results when they get their June um child's assessment. At this time I'm going to pass it back to Dr. Bowman who's going to talk about the 2025 changes in norms and RIT scores. >> Sure. So um when we look at our NWA data uh for the students who sat for the MAP gross assessments um in math beginning in kindergarten and in literacy beginning in second grade. What you're going to notice at the top of each of the slides is that it says the national norm for student achievement and it has either the year 20 or 2025. Just to explain, the national norms are set based on data collected nationally over a series of administrations occurring prior to the year of the norms. So
017the 2020 norms were set prior to 2020 and 2025 norms which were released this summer were set based on data between 2020 and 2025. Why is this important? It is important to note that the data for 2023 and 2024 is aligned with the 2020 norms while the data from 2025 is aligned with the 2025 norms. The trend that you will see is that our students have consistently performed above the national norms across the board regardless of the year and regardless of which norms we are aligned to. Year-over-year comparisons, however, are a bit difficult this year in the context of different norms, but to the degree that we're able, you will see them on each slide. As you know, we began using illustrative math as a core resource during the 2022 23 school year. And so,
018if you can actually see our data, it it shows for our students that our kids are making significant growth. Kindergarten students take NWA twice a year in the winter and spring, providing valuable data to track progress and guide instruction. What especially is encouraging though, even though the national norm for kindergarten increased slightly, our students continue to still show growth and you can see that in the percentages performing at the 80th percentile and above has increased along with those high averages. For the 2025 school year, 83% of our kindergarten students are performing in the high average and high percentage ranges. You can clearly are we in first grade? Thank you. Sorry, they looked the same for me far away. Um, as you can see clearly the strong progression and significant gains in our 2023 and our
019NWA scores. We attribute this growth in several key factors. our coherence and consistency of our scope and sequence under the leadership of our Christina Cardella um for kindergarten and first grade our first grade teachers as well in in terms of implementation. Our professional development focus on building student number sense, mathematical reasoning, and content knowledge and the use of instructional resources along with ongoing PD have supported our primary math specialists who also played a major role alongside the dedication of these hardworking teachers. Additionally, both in kindergarten and first grade, our math specialists collaborate with the speech pathologist to design something called win time. what I need time providing targeted small groupoup instruction as a tier one intervention for students in need with coordination of the classroom teachers and you're going to hear more about that in
020our December meeting and actually have some students come and share with you what that looks like. So as you know hide her many individuals excited to share with you information tonight so I'm going to pass it back to Dr. Bowman. >> Okay thank you. Um I believe that what we were going to do is uh pause for questions from the board in between each section and then is that >> so before I get introducing our elementary principles >> you can keep going. >> Okay. Uh next we will move on to the elementary buildings. But before I introduce Mrs. Hand and Mr. Dr. Hardigan, I want to bring to your attention that the 3 to8 assessments in ELA, math, and science across New York State will be highlighted beginning in third grade. Um, across New York
021State, we saw an increase in the year 2425 across the board uh than they were in the previous year. And this trend is consistent in Garden City. What you will also notice is that we compared the change in proficiency from year to year to see where our increase outpaced that of the state. In other words, we looked to find where the slope of our change was steeper than the slope of the region. When we get to those slides, our principles will show how that is depicted. But I wanted to point this out beforehand is as it is important to know that we are vigilant in our analysis of data and are also constantly striving to improve. We recognize that a high tide raises all boats, but we want to see our boats rising even higher.
022Mrs. Hand and Mr. Hardigan. >> Thank you, Dr. Bowman. So, tonight, excuse me, tonight, as Dr. Bowman shared, we're going to be taking a look at our NWA data and our New York State 3 through 8, both in uh 3 through 5 and elementary uh ELA, math, and science. To reiterate what Dr. Dr. Bowman was sharing about the proficiency rates. All sides are organized the same. So we'll use the first science side to kind of unpack and go through the format of the slide and then we'll get into the data from there or we're just going to look at the pictures a little longer. >> We're either going to look at the pictures are better. >> Get a new battery or ask someone else to >> to click. >> No more science. >> No science.
023We're having clicking issues. >> We'll get it. >> She's going up. >> Okay. >> All right. So, this was our second year administering the New York State grade five uh assessment in science. For many years, it was in grade four. Then there was new standards rolled out. There was a pause in the assessment and then the new grade 5 assessment take uh took place the last school year, the the year prior. This is our second year that we administered it. Uh in doing so, we the last year the cond the testing conditions improved because we had a better sense of what to expect. If you remember, we shared with the board the student achievement report the grade 5 science the first year was a very long very dense assessment. Most of our students were testing
024um almost the entire day. Uh a lot of our a lot of nearby districts including ourselves provided some feedback to the state. They kept this the assessment the same length, but we knew how to better prepare the students for it. So, yes, they were still testing for a great portion of the day to be able to get through this to be able to get through this assessment. So, what you will see in that assessment is that an increased proficiency rate from 62% to 69%. So when we were looking at where the students did well, we saw stronger results in life science especially around traits and habits as well as earth science including earth surface patterns and students also did well in the engineering design standard specifically in evaluating the merit of different solutions. The main
025area of focus for our science now moving forward will be in matter and in forces and inter matter and forces and motions. And in particular, we really want to strengthen how our students use patterns to draw conclusions on constructed response questions. There were several bright spots on this assessment and overall we're really proud of how our teachers and our students uh with the support of um Joanna Rogousich approached such a long and challenging assessment for our kids. Uh like I said, we have some increased rates in proficiency and we are hopeful that we'll continue to see that rise. If we could just pause on this slide for one second so I can kind of structure the slide for you. So on the left side of the screen here, you are looking at last year's data
026two years ago. And then on the right side, you're looking at last year's data. You on the left side of the column, you're looking at the region, and on the right side of the column, you're looking at Garden City. In the uh far right side, you see two numbers. It's uh 69 and plus 7. The plus 7 shows the increase in proficiency rates, which constitutes a level three or a level four. So you will see this same structure throughout all of the uh assessments. So if you're looking to see what the increase was, you can just draw your attention upon those slides, those bar graphs right to the right to see what the increase were. The good news is we increased in in dark red. Um well contrary to, you know, the color that usually
027indicates performance, but it was the Garden City Maroon that we used to demonstrate and show that. So you'll see that increase uh you know pretty significantly from last year to this school year. >> Okay. When we reviewed the ELA assessment data with our teachers, we identified several areas of strength across grade levels along with continued growth in overall proficiency. As we move through the data slides, we will highlight these areas of strength first. After reviewing the data as a whole, we'll shift our focus to areas for growth and discuss the plans we have in place to continue refining our instruction. When we analyze data with our teachers, we approach it through the lens of make the story or make the data make sense. We don't just look at numbers. We start with the data and
028then identify the instructional practices that may have contributed to the results. The process not only helps us understand what's working, but also allows us to build structures and supports when we identify areas of need. We'll begin by reviewing the NWI MAP growth assessment reading data for grade two. A total of 74.4% of our students scored in Nope. I don't think so. I think we're good. That's okay. A total of 74.4% of our students scored in the high average or high range with an additional 13.5% of students scoring in the average range. The average RIT score for Garden City second graders is a 197 compared to the national average of a 182 based on the 2025 norms. Across both the 2020 and 2025 normed assessments, our second graders have consistently performed above the national average. As
029we move into the data for grades three through five, you'll see both New York State assessment data and NWA data. Overall, the NWA results support the trends we're seeing in the New York State assessment data. A common area of strength across all grade levels was language standard for determining determining or clarifying the meaning of unknown and multiple meaning words and phrases by choosing flexibility from a range of strategies. This demonstrates students growing ability to use context and word analysis to deepen comprehension. While this standard is not assessed as frequently as others, our students consistently performed well across all grade levels when it was measured. Additionally, all grade levels showed increased proficient proficiency rates compared to the previous years. We attribute this growth to the focused work teachers engaged in last year, analyzing data, reviewing student
030work, and implementing new strategies while continuing to refine existing instructional practices. Looking at grade three specifically, grade three achieved an 85% proficiency rate, a notable increase from 66% last year. students performed stronger than the region in some cases significantly stronger in readingformational texts. This success can be attributed to the intentional work teachers have done integrating science and social studies text sets into literacy instruction and incorporating close reading routines to strengthen comprehension and analytical skills. When we move into fourth grade, we can see that the fourth graders achieved an 83 profic 83% proficiency rate, up from 68% last year. Students demonstrated strengths in standard 2, determining a theme or central idea of a text and explaining how it's supported by key details summarizing a text. and standard 4, determining the meaning of words, phrases, figurative language,
031academic and content specific vocabulary. These outcomes reflect the grade level's intentional standardsbased focus last year on standards 2, three, and four, which emphasized deeper comprehension and vocabulary development. And finally, when we look at fifth grade, the students achieved an 82% proficiency rate, up from 73% in the prior year. Students showed strong performance on constructed response questions, scoring above the region on all constructive response questions. This improvement is attributed to the continued implementation of the clear writing strategy, which provides explicit instruction on how to respond to reading using a claim, multiple pieces of evidence, and reasoning. Constructed responses had been a significant area of growth for us in past years, and this targeted work has resulted in notable progress. All right, so on to math. So for as Carrie was explaining, the NWA results continue to
032mirror the broader patterns that we're seeing with our New York State assessments. NWBA uh continues to remain a very reliable source of information to provide progress to our parents and also drive instructional planning. As Dr. Dr. Bowman shared with you before that we have seen some national averages dip from 2020 to 2025, but the NBA data that you'll see here um reflects um small increases over time. And then we'll get into the grade three uh excuse me, grade three math assessment. So, Dr. M, if you could just hang on this side for just a moment. I'm going to go do like an overview of all of them and then we'll come back to this one. So, we continue to look to the at the data through a very critical lens. We always start with the
033district level and then we go deeper into the class level and then the student level. That's where our personalized plans are developed and refined. Last school year at our student achievement report, we we highlighted three areas that we wanted to work on. Grade three was comparing fractions. Grade four was finding whole number quotients and remainders. And grade five was reading and writing decimals to the thousand's base in numerals. So, we are before I get into the highlights of grade three, we're pleased to report that some of these areas still remain a focus simply because the content is just so dense and the standards are rigorous. Um, and then some of them we have moved on from with different areas of focus. But the growth is reflected in our standards analysis, the gap reports and the
034increased proficiency rates. When we did further data analysis of all the math assessments, we attributed this growth to three areas. one very very strong professional development. So in these sessions, teachers analyzed trends, they reviewed student work samples and made refinements to the curriculum. This often resulted in the creation of math tools and targeted instruction. A tremendous teach uh a shout out and thank you to Christina Cardella and our math coaches and our classroom teachers. So that's one strong professional development. Two, curriculum enhancement articulations which strengthened pacing for us. It also strengthens spiral review and fluency practice. You will hear me say this pretty frequently, but um anyone that's listening and has young children, please practice your math facts day in and day out. Um we we can do it in the school a bit, but
035it's really important that you do that work at home with with your students as well. And then the third reason for the significant growth um across all areas last school year, we attributed to that heavy focus on writing to explain mathematical concepts. So in short, before we get into the grade level data analysis, when we were at the table for the student achievement report last year, we made a commitment to those three areas and we're happy to see that the commitment commitment has paid off. All right, grade three highlights. Okay, so from the 23 24 school year to 2425, grade three proficiency increased from 87% proficient. Again, that's level three and four to 93% proficient. One important data point that we'd like to highlight is the 16point increase in level fours. When we looked at
036this closely, we attributed this to intentional pacing and a coherent scope and sequence related to the professional development as I listed as that one of the contributing factors to the success. >> Mr. Hardigan, I just wanted to if I could just the the data here that represents all of our students. Uh Dr. Bowman, our regular, special ed, and ENL students are part of this. Just wanted to make sure. >> Okay, grade four. Again, the uh grade three ELA we uh NWA. If you want to pause on that slide just to take a look at it, you absolutely can. Um but again, you'll see the national average is 18 uh 199 and Garden City is at a 208. The NWA is the most normal reference assessment sampled over 3 million times across the country. So uh
037pretty reliable assessment that we like to take a look at. All right, grade four highlights. So, grade four last school year was at 90% proficient. So, when you're starting that high, uh there's always a little sense of pause, like can you maintain it? And then if you can, how do you stay that high? Right? Um we're happy to share that we went from 90% proficient to 95% proficient. The reviews showed that a significant jump in student performance was on the constructed response, especially in writing to explain mathematical thinking. It's pretty good, right? Uh so grade five highlights in in grade 5 proficiency remained uh steady for several years at a 82% proficiency rate between the 2022 uh 2023 and the 2023 and 2024 school years. we saw an increase to the 86th% proficiency in the
038grade five math uh examination with while that trend is similar to the regional trend we remain 16% higher than the region overall I want to take a a zoom out on the grade 5 mathematics and just bear with me for a quick history lesson here the the longer trend is important because the 2021 2022 school year grade 5 was only 59% proficient and it is now at 86% proficient, which is a 27 point jump in a pretty short amount of time. Along that increase, we've seen a major drop in the number of students scoring at levels one and level two. We had 41% of those students at a level one and level two just dropped down down to just 15%. Uh and then this past year, we saw increased performance in decimal operations with constructed
039response, an area that I named it was a focus from last student achievement report. So before we get to the final summary, you know, we're seeing strong proficiency rates across the board. Some are in line with the regional patterns and some exceed the regional patterns. And we've used gap reports to understand not only where our students are excelling, but where they still have room to grow. It's critical that we continue to cross-reference these growth rates with underlying standards because that's what's going to drive our next steps. And Carrie and I will touch on that in uh in just a minute. I think K's actually going to get into it now for our ELA. Okay. So, when we analyze assessment data with our teachers, we always aim to identify meaningful opportunities for growth. Chris and I
040are going to share some of these focus areas with you now, both ELA and math, along with plans we have in place to support this continued work. So, in ELA, we will continue to focus on the core standards, that's standards 2, three, and four, while deepening our instructional approach across all content areas. These standards, which include determining central idea or theme, summarizing, analyzing characters, and interpreting words and phrases in context, help to strengthen students ability to think critically and apply comprehension strategies to a variety of texts. While we have noticed growth within these standards, there are some inconsistencies within the data that shows us we need to continue this work. Our data also shows us that students will continue to benefit from support in response to literature writing. Teachers will continue to use complex texts
041and model purposeful rereading, incorporate text dependent questions and annotation practice, and strengthen written responses through the clear writing strategy. This work led by Lauren Kaufman and the literacy coaches will be supported across disciplines, giving students multiple opportunities to engage with reading, writing, and analysis beyond their ELA block. For example, grade three right now is in a monumental math unit. This unit integrates math, social studies, and literacy through reading passages about various monuments. Students read texts, identify evidence to answer comprehension questions, use that information to complete graphic organizers, and create and solve math word problems. This interdisciplinary approach not only reinforces key literacy skills, but also builds background knowledge and deepens content understanding. Our goal is to ensure that students can apply these strategies confidently and consistently as we continue to strengthen literacy instruction across all
042grade levels and subject areas. We recognize that both the literacy review and our data analysis highlight a need to strengthen our instruction in grammar and spelling. While the literacy review team will continue meeting throughout the year to develop a long-term plan, we will be implementing several structures this school year to address these areas. The roll out of clear writing structure has successfully created consistency across classrooms and fostered a shared understanding among teachers, students, and families of how students should should respond to reading. While teachers will continue to use resources such as foundations, words their way, and writing revolution, we will model the clear structure to develop tools and resources that will support consistent, meaningful feedback in every classroom, emphasizing organization and precision in student writing. Additionally, through our continued analysis of student work, we have
043identified the need to strengthen instruction on vowel teams in upper elementary grades. To address this, a group of teachers and administrators will develop targeted resources and assessments that will support accurate encoding of words containing vowel teams as well as enhance foundations units in lower grades as needed to better meet the learning needs of our students. All right. And then to close out some of our next steps for elementary, uh we have our next steps for math. So the area focus in grade three will be fraction equivalence and representation. Grade four it will be fraction multiplication and context. And grade five will be fraction operations and applications. Yes, all three of those fall under the domain of fractions. That does not mean our students are struggling with fractions. I don't want to be crystal clear when
044I say that. Um that was done through a careful analysis to show us that it is a major cluster of the assessment. The units are dense. The material can be sometimes challenging for our students to internalize. So we will use this as an opportunity to fold it into our professional development. and it will include a significant emphasis on the real world application so students can better understand the why behind fractions. Um I want to to stress this important that it we do not have an issue with fractions. Our gap report shows solid performance. What we recognize is an opportunity that some of our level twos can move to level threes with some targeted instruction in fractions and our level threes can continue to move to level fours if we focus in on those areas. So
045across all grades um in addition to focusing on fractions, we are going to um implement and we started to implement with the help of Christina Cardella and our math coaches the three read strategy similar to how we rolled out clear for writing response and response to literature. The three read strategy is a way to tackle story problems for math. We call them story problems not word problems for a reason because they are uh many stories. So the first read is that what is the main problem uh the main idea of the story problem. The second read each ka each student will understand better what does the quantity represent in that problem. And the third read will be what efficient strategies can I use to solve it. So we are looking forward to taking that strategy
046using what we use and how we rolled out clear to roll it out to our students and to roll it out to our families so they'll have a helpful tool at home. So with a focus on fractions and a focus on the three read strategy, I think that we are continue to head in the right direction for our elementary math instruction. And that about wraps it up for elementary. Before we wrap up elementary together, I just want to offer Mrs. Vavona an opportunity to share with us two slides. >> Thank you. So this year we incorporated separate slides um to to uh demonstrate our students with disabilities. It's one of the things that came up at last year's um uh presentation. Um so we're going to take a closer look. Uh the first slide here
047is um ELA and just to kind of explain the slide, each color represents a different year. One, two, three, four. So you can see the progress um with regards to the scores. Um data shows a decrease in students earning ones and twos and an increase um in threes and especially fours for ELA. So again moving in a nice trend. And then for math um we have similar findings, a nice drop um from ones uh in ones from twos um with scores moving in a positive trend especially for three. So again we're moving in the right direction. remembering that these are um students who all have disabilities who all require additional um instructional support to meet state standards and we're moving in the right direction. So all good. >> Thank you. Now before we move on
048to the middle school, we'll pause for a second. Do we have any questions? One of the things that I'm noticing is that there is um you know data is data but I feel like there's very reflective work that's coming out of that data. So um appreciate all the details into like what kind of instructional shifts have happened and um how some of the instructional work that's happening in the classrooms has changed as a result of that. So, thank you for giving all that great information. >> Okay, so thank you elementary uh Mr. Escobar >> and the middle school. >> Thank you, Chris and Carrie. That was very that was a very informative presentation. Uh as as many of you know, this is my first year at Garden City Middle School, and I've been truly impressed
049by the level of excellence our students have achieved. This success is a direct reflection of the strong partnership among our teachers, administrators, parents, and students within the Garden City School community. As we continue to navigate curriculum changes, we remain committed to continuous improvement and to providing the highest quality instruction for all our learners. Now, as we go through the middle school presentation, I want to just touch base on two components of Portrait of a Graduate. That's one of the things that's one of the um initiatives in New York State. There are six components, but the two that we're going to that I want you to just reflect on as we go through the data is uh the one is the academically prepared component building a strong academic foundation across all content areas and number two
050a critical thinker identifying patterns making connections and solving problems. Those are two those are two components that are that we are um that the middle school teachers are focusing on as we move forward. Okay. So when we go to when we talk about middle school data, middle school has several exams. So we have we have the flax exam, we have the the algebra regents, the earth science regions, we have the state assessment for science, we have the state assessment for ELA grades 6, seven, and 8, and we have the NWA grades six, seven, and eight. So there's a lot of data for us to process. So to start, the flax exam, which is the checkpoint A world language exam, that assesses student proficiency in middle school. All eighth grade students must pass Checkpoint A exam
051to earn high school credit. The exam measures speaking, listening, reading, and writing. And in Garden City, the languages that we offer are German, Italian, and Spanish. As you can see from the data, the students do very well. In 2025, we had 89.5% scored proficient 97. Basically, every student that takes the exam passes the exam with the exception of one or two. Okay. Then we move on to high school. Now, I want to be clear when we talk about algebra regions and the earth science regions that includes middle school students and high school students. So basically we have we have approximately 150 eighth graders who took the algebra one regions and as you can see from the data the students did very well mastery 60 over six almost 67% and the passing rate was 97%. That
052includes middle school and high school. Now we move on to earth science. In earth science, you see a huge difference between the mastery rate we have. We went from in 2023 to 2024 30% mastery which is 85 or better to an over 80% mastery rate. And that I want to just be clear is that is a credit to the teachers also a credit credit to Miss Rogosich who has helped lead professional development with our staff. She's our science coordinator and also Emily Kang who's a professor at Adelfi University. She's assisted us with curricular changes encourages students to engage in science practices and give evidence-based reasoning. I want to be clear about something though. All of the curriculum changes and all of the professional development is important, but the key to success in the middle school
053and really through Garden City, the entire school district are the teachers. And I want I'm new here, but I want you to I think that the we the community should realize that I've been in other school districts and the teachers in the Garden City School District are top quality. Top quality and very each one of them very very caring individuals. Okay. So, now we go to grade Oh, go to the the Yeah, Grade 8 science. Okay, hold on. Uh, do we might have did we miss um a slide? >> Yep. >> Yes. So, Alice, can you go back one? I think >> I sure can. I thought there was a science I thought there was a science um grade eight science exam. >> That's >> maybe that's coming right >> right here. >> Okay. So,
054just so you know, the grade eight science exam are the students who take that exam are the nonacelerated students. So, those are non the non-acelerated students and the scores are still very good. 74% scored at a level three or four and the regional average was 40%. That is that is that is very very good. And as you could see the proficiency went up 18% from last year in the on the grade eight science. Okay. Now we're going to middle school literacy. The focus is continued intentional emphasis on reading and writing to build strong literacy literacy skills. Okay. So now we have the grade six ELA assessment. We have 81% scored a three or a four. The regional average was a 62%. And now and now the NWA reading 73% scored between a high and a
055high average. Okay. Grade seven ELA scored 78% scored a three or4. The regional average was a 61%. And the one more the NWA NWA for grade seven is 70% scored between between a high and a high average. Now, grade eight ELA exam 77% scored between a three or four and a regional average was 61%. So, it's basically it's very very consistent with our with our threes and fours. And NWA was a little was a slight drop from seventh grade was 64%. Now, we go to middle school math. Our focus is on strengthening critical thinking and students ability to identify patterns and connections in problem solving. So grade six you have students scored between a three and a four 90% with a increased proficiency of 12%. Regional average 69%. NWA 77% scored between a high and
056high average. Grade seven for the state exam 95% scored between a three and a four. The regional average was 71%. NWA high and high average is 79%. Now math be clear with this data math the the state acce assessment 86% scored between a three and a four. The regional average was was 53%. The NWA though as we get to it you'll see a drop. 42% scored between a high and high average. However, in grade 8, the NWA, the students do not take the accelerated students do not take that exam. So they so they all of those students are are those 150 160 students are not they don't take that the NWA exam. Okay. And then we're going I'm going to pass it over to Michelle Vona, our director of PPS. Okay, once again, two slides
057to represent our students with disabilities. Um, the first one is math. Um, the slide is exactly the same. So, each color represents a different year and you can see our data continues to move in the right direction. Um, and then for ELA, a really nice drop in our number ones. and again progressing in the right direction. >> Okay. And before we move on to Mr. Stein Grubner, do we have any Oh, sorry, my mistake. >> Okay. The middle school analysis. Okay. So, ELA, we have an intentional focus on priority standards, New York State standards 2, three, and four in writing across the curriculum. And person who's leading that charge is Miss Lauren Kaufman here. Thank you, Laura. And in math, we the intentional focus is on expressions and equations, proportional relationships, functions, and strengthening students
058ability to explain reasoning on constructed responses. And the PD and the credit is goes to Miss Cardella, our math coordinator. >> Thank you. Um, thank you so far for the data and analysis. I I had some questions just about the middle school uh specifically uh the intentional focus. Um Miss Hand and Miss Hardigan talked about how in the midst of uh the literacy review and the committee deciding what comes next um what their focus would be to kind of fill in those areas uh for improvement for student growth. I was wondering if the middle school has approached it the same way. Uh knowing that we have some time before the committee comes out with what the recommendations are. Um and looking at the state assessment scores. Um what professional development could we could we just
059maybe have a deeper understanding of what professional development has been done espec es especially in the area of of literacy um or what what strategies are changing or what has been introduced to help students uh gain further proficiency in the areas of reading and writing across the content areas. >> Sure. So um I I can speak to that a bit. We are working throughout the year to again in the same way that the elementarymentaries have really focused on making it intentional to have uh reading and writing instruction happen across the content areas, we've also made it a very strong focus at the middle school as well. If you ask any of our middle school teachers, uh they will tell you that they are also literacy teachers even if they teach science or social studies or
060even math. Um, and so that's one thing that has been very consistent in our professional development and ensuring that those skills are integrated in every single thing that we do. Um, we have, as I've mentioned in the past, really structured a lot of our summer curriculum writing around areas where we felt like we needed to make some shifts. So, we have explicit instruction and vocabulary that's happening in a way that wasn't quite as formalized last year. um this year where the teachers worked over the summer to make it so that we had standardized vocabulary that was taught explicitly through the reading that's done in classrooms. Um we've shifted to make sure that our middle school students writing is an area of focus as well. Um and in addition, we've employed some intermediary um assessments that
061would allow for more structured and focused intervention um by using linkit and the um the ability to pull from the standards that we see our focus areas and really see where our students are growing so that we can focus instruction in those areas in particular. Um yeah, and Miss Cuffman will add to that. Uh in addition to everything Dr. Bowman has said, we have also done um intentional analysis with our gap reports recognizing that yes, standards 2, three, and four continue to be a strength for us, but they continue to be an area of growth because they show up over 60% of the time um on most of these assessments. But what that really means is when we do a gap analysis, we really look at the question stems um that are coming from our
062assessments and they're actually pretty similar to NWA. The wording is slightly nuanced. Um but we create a report for the teachers of these qu question stems by standard and by gap analysis so they can see um what those stems are and embed those stems into the formative and summitive assessments that they administer for our students so that they can get used to that language. Additionally, we had brought clear up through the middle school because those students who um are familiar with clear from the elementary school and that structure for writing um are also using that um in at the middle school level to continue with that consistency. So, constructed response still uh is an area of growth for us uh building stamina within our students. So parallel to their regular curriculum, uh we've also instituted
063um some independent reading projects for our students so they can continue to build stamina, have some choice in their reading um and do some interesting projects uh that will spark interest and and passion within them for reading. Because at the middle school level, we want to keep that love of reading going because when they get to high school, they're going to be uh looking at some really rigorous, complex, classic texts. Thank you. Okay. Now, last but not least, Mr. Dr. Stein Grubner will share information from the high school which as we all know is the culmination of the hard work and dedication of everyone who has contributed to the growth and development of our students from the primary buildings and now UPK all the way through senior year in high school. So Mr. Stein Grner,
064>> thank you. Actually, I'll start by uh talking about the pictures that we have up here. Uh I'll go clockwise from top left. That's our orchestra at Disney World. uh this past winter they performed and took classes there. This year the band will be going. The orchestra doubled in size over the last two years. We used to have one orchestra class. Now we have two full orchestra classes during the day in addition to the chamber orchestra which continues to wow us with their talent. Uh on the top right is our uh picture of our national merit finalists from last year. The national merit um competition is based on the PSAT exam. All right, which is the practice SAT and uh only a very few uh students nationwide actually become finalists and then uh we actually
065have some winners here and there. Uh bottom right is a science class doing a lab. In that picture is Aan Nat. If you watch The Voice on NBC, Avanat is currently competing and starting December 2nd, you can vote for her to win. So it's a plug right there. Uh and then on the bottom left is uh Anthony Assaro uh running back in a recent game. Uh New York uh state leading uh football is on a 63game winning streak. Um which is indicative of a lot of the hard work that our athletes are in. There's playoffs all week, state championships. We'll be driving up state. Uh so it's it's it's a good look at the overall experience that we offer here at Garden City High School. We're going to be focusing tonight on numbers and statistics
066with assessments in uh advanced placement exams and regent exams. But keep in mind on a daily basis that's not what goes on here at the high school. It's not just about assessments, but those are the culmination that we'll talk about. All right. So, uh let's start with graduation numbers. Uh you see the big coming soon on the right side there. The coming soon is for uh Nassau County and New York State graduation data for 2025. On the left is the class of 2024 data where we had 100% um graduates and then it shows Nassau County in the state and then on the right side uh the standalone bar is the 100% graduation for Garden City High School. And that big red part is 91% of the advanced regent diploma. So now even though we don't
067have the other schools data yet, Garden City was already in the elite band with with the advanced regent diplomas. That's uh about 85 to 90% earning advanced regions. That's only schools like Jericho, Sioid, Herics, uh Plane View, Great Neck. Uh this year we're at 91, right? Which if I know it's a stat that most people don't know about, but that's a very rare stat to get over 90%. That's nine out of 10 students getting an advanced regions diploma which goes well above just your regular diploma and taking your regent exams. They've gone above and beyond. So that's uh hard work that our students have done over the years uh and scoring well. So while our entire region is strong, we continue to lead and continue to improve every year as well. Okay. All right. So,
068we're going to get into advanced place and exam data now. So, I know it's very hard to read, but from left to right, uh the groups of bars you're seeing there is total exam, uh total AP students. Uh and we have over 600 students over the past several years. That's more than half of our school that takes advanced placement exams. Uh the tall bars in the middle, we have over 1600 exams that we give every year. Uh the next bar which are the lowest ones that is the number of students earning three and over um in the past few years last year was 566 that's out of that 635. So the majority well majority of our students are earning enough to get college credit. And then the the big graph on the right under the
069AP access award is the percentage of our students that earn three or above. And again, that's hovering around 90% for the past several years. That is a very high number. That is elite level number. Um, that is something that schools do not get automatically. We work very hard and it's amazing that we keep it at that level. Uh, these are not just local state tests. These are national advanced placement college level exams. This includes students in grades 9 through 12, including students with uh special needs as well. Okay, this is the AP honor roll, which is the platinum award. Again, there's coming soon. Uh I expect we'll get it again. The data that we're looking at here over the past two years, uh I'll explain what each of these bars are. So, in order to
070qualify for the the platinum award, which we have done, only seven schools on Long Island have earned this in the past two years. It's a relatively new award. Um and we're and we're at the top of all of those. So there's three categories that you have to meet minimum requirements for. It's college culture of the school, college credit, and then college optimization. Um the the left side bars at 91% uh we had college culture. Um and then in the middle we increased to 86% for college credit and then college optim optimization at 39. So what do those numbers mean? the the thin white line is the minimum requirement for each. So just to point out um how well our students do in meeting the requirements, we double the requirement uh for culture. We triple the
071requirement for credit and we oto decouple the requirement for optimization. That's 18 times what we need to earn. And that is a real word. Chad GBT helped me come up with that word. Octo dupal. All right. So, our next slide is our AP scholar report. We're very proud of this. Uh the number of scholars that we have is more than most schools even have students uh taking exams. Um we had three 333. So on the far right, that tallest red bar, we had 333 total scholars this year. And as you can see, there's a steady increase year-over-year. Uh that's not normal. Uh that's a system that works here at Garden City High School. The other categories there are like scholars with honors, scholars with distinction. Um and then scholars with um there's the regular AP
072scholars as well. So overall it is a ridiculous amount of students that are earning that again over uh you have to get to a point where you've taken enough exams. So this is juniors and seniors that are earning these scholar awards. Okay. So now oh you know what slide this is in our slideshow. This is slide 67. We are getting there. 67. That's right. Oh, I went there. Yes, I knew I was gonna have that. So, if you don't know about the 67, ask your kids. It makes no sense, but they have fun with it. It's okay. It's just for fun. Doesn't mean anything. It's just for fun. Uh before I I get through the the bunch of slides here with which are going to point out data for each of the individual exams, uh
073let me say this plainly. Garden City's AP performance isn't a strong performance, it's a dominant performance. Uh these are the kinds of results that shift the curve for the entire region. So you're going to see a whole bunch of different data. Uh the scores look different for each exam. But when we look at the big picture for how we're doing, uh, it's very impressive and and I'll sum it up at the end. So these are our art classes that we have, studio art, drawing, and 2D design. Students when they're in the art class get to choose which category of art that they will be uh, submitting their work. Okay, we can move pretty quickly through these. Uh, so we have AP language and literature exams. So the darker the the colors that you're seeing at
074the top, the more the students are passing. So anything in a darker color that the top three colors are are proficiency, which means enough to earn college credit. Uh which we're seeing across the board. And in just about every exam, this is AP calculus, BC. We do not offer AB, but as part of the BC exam, students can earn a subcore of AB, which covers both uh courses. So we skip uh most schools or many schools have u calculus AB and BC but our students are more than capable of jumping straight to the BC as we can see uh these tremendous numbers all all the red are the students earning a five out of five on that um and we see that continues to increase and there's a lot of students taking this you know
07585 students we had last year uh some schools might have 10 or 12 students students on a on a normal year that take uh AP calculus. All right. AP stats is uh a class with 134 students. That was up from 2024 up from 2023 where it was 121 students. So, we continue to increase the number of students that are taking this AP stats course. Again, it's college level statistics. It's a difficult class. Students struggle with it, but they still do well as our proficiency rating shows. Again, it's the three top colors are proficient and that's been pretty consistent the last two years. Uh, as we start moving into the science courses, we have a number of science courses. Our AP environmental on the left side has increased over the years. Our biology course has increased
076over the past several years as well. Again, when I say increase, I mean the proficiency ratings. Uh, moving on into AP physics. Um there's actually two courses that are embedded in the AP physics course. There's mechanical and then elect electric electricity and mechanics. Um and then the chemistry exam on the right side here as well. So these are some of the toughest courses that are available to high school students in in any high school in the United States and even in the world. Uh these are elite level students, elite level classes. As you can see the the numbers I I know you can't see uh but there's you know probably u anywhere from in the 20s to 40 students in these classes. So these are not large classes uh but but these are very specifics
077for some of the top students willing to take the most difficult classes available to high school students. All right moving on into our social studies areas. So we have AP world history which continues to have very strong over 90% of our students uh that achieve um proficiency and even mastery at the four and five level. Our US history uh scores continue to improve in a very large way which is which is great because those are some of the largest classes we have in the school. Uh uh we're talking about 140 students that are taking that. So that's more than half of all the students in the 11th grade are taking US history, AP US history as a as compared to regular US history. All right. The additional the next slide has the senior level social
078studies courses. That's AP macroeconomics and US government and politics exams. Uh you can see both of these have increased over time, especially the government on the right. uh we especially see an increase in level fives and then even level fours but proficiency has been um very good for all of these and the the macro has almost 170 students. Um so that's well more than u you know half of the class the senior class taking that. And then the final social studies uh slide for AP exams AP Euro on the left had a tremendous year last year. Almost all the students uh achieved a five out of five. And then AP psychology is one of the largest classes. Traditionally your AP student is not taking AP psychology. There's a students who it might be their very
079first AP class. They might been in regions level classes but they challenge themselves to take this and they have uh you know 90% uh earning proficiency on on a yearly basis there. And then human geography uh which what's impressive about the human geography increase in proficiency is that is another course that is open to everyone. There's a lot of freshmen that are taking that course. So, it's a first AP course for a lot of students. So, freshman, sophomores, um, coming in and taking a college level course and doing this well is very impressive. And if if you could see the numbers, that's 130 students that are doing it. So, it's not just a couple of elite students doing that. It's very impressive. All right. And then the uh last slide for the the AP exams
080is the AP computer science principles and then AP computer science A exams. What's interesting in today's day and age is that we see shrinking numbers in computer science. Uh where you think with everything with computers there would be more of that but this is a lot of coding and uh AI is really having an impact on that um because you can ask AI to do the coding for you. I don't know if that's the exact impact that we're seeing but I believe it is. U so we're seeing smaller numbers in computer science and we don't even uh run all of the courses every year. All right. And then the analysis of these exams, we're going to talk about the quality index, which really sums up something that people don't know much about. Uh the quality
081index is a combination of the high participation rates that we have with excellent achievement. It's one thing to have access. That is everybody can take AP exams, but access without excellence is just mediocrity. Uh it's another thing to just have our best students taking the AP exams. Uh but excellence without access is elitism. Uh so in Garden City High School, we thread the needle. We have high participation. We have a high scholar count. and this AP quality index that is two to three times of all the comparator districts that we know around here and that would include you know some of the best districts in the United States. So I'll explain what that means. Um it means that if you look at the bottom here some of the courses uh that I have listed AP
082stats macro literature uh BC and uh that's calculus BC and psychology we have a lot of students that take these courses in other schools they do not and we do very well. So that's what the quality index is about is that it's not just throwing everybody in AP courses, but it's about having a lot of AP courses with a lot of students and we're doing very well. All right. So that's not a little gap that we're tripling our comparing comparable schools. It's more like a big gulf between us and other schools around us. So when we look at our AP scores and we look at the platinum level and we look at the number of scholars, these are all college level courses. our students are college ready. Speaking of college ready, we'll look at our
083dual enrollment courses that we have. So, we have a number of courses that run separate from AP. As you know, AP exams. If students score high enough, many colleges will accept credit and they can place out of taking those courses in college. Uh they can also earn uh credit by taking this list of courses at our high school. So through Adelfi University, we have a number of business courses where students can earn college credit. Uh with St. John's, we can our students can learn earn world language credit and through Rochester Institute of Technology and St. uh St. Cloud University. We have our project lead the way classes and these are open to students in um grades 9 through 12. the business classes and these project lead the way classes. So students are earning credits, they
084can potentially be earning college credits uh as 14 and 15 year olds, which again in in connection with our AP exams, um they're ahead of the game compared to other places. All right, we're going to move into the New York State uh regions exams. Uh as you saw with our AP performance, it isn't luck. It's not wasn't just a good year or even a couple of good years. It's system level excellent excellence. Uh we don't stumble into outcomes like this. We build them. Garden City has built something other districts are not able to keep up with. If the AP results feel unreal, they should. They're the kind of numbers most districts are never able to present and we present them every year and we're going to uh continue that consistency when we talk about the
085regent's exams. Um, so what we're seeing over the current course of years is a change in regent exams going back as far as I know when I in the 80s uh 1980s the the the regent exams were changing every few years right we've all known it we've seen it we've seen it with math right sequential one and a and b and now it's geometry and algebra 2 and trigonometry and all those things have changed um the um social studies exams have changed, the English language arts has changed, and now the science uh and math are going through a change yet again. Uh so as these changes occur, the numbers will change. Our data won't we're still going to be at the forefront because of the preparation that we do. Gus Mgosich and the science department
086and Miss Cardella and the math department have been working on the changes before they're even in place. Uh we're ahead of the game. We're one and two years ahead with our training and the preparation that we do with the professional development that we do before these exams even come out. So we will continue to be ahead of the game as we go through these. All right. So we'll we'll start going through these. We'll go quickly through these. You're going to see a lot of red. Red is good. Uh as we go through these, red is showing mastery rates, not just passing rates, but the mastery rates. U mastery is 85% or better on an exam. Our overall passing rates are near 100% for every exam year after year. Mastery is not our exception. It's our
087average. when we show you all the exams, you'll see what it looks like when we refuse to aim for the bare minimum and we continue to strive for excellence. All right, so we'll we'll just go through each of these. These are a couple of the math exams, geometry, algebra 2. Again, you see in two colors, that's mastery and passing. Uh but you don't see any other colors because our students are fully passing these exams. Uh these are the science exams again. uh almost 100% passing year in and year out on every exam. The two social studies exams, same story. Year after year, they're doing well. The next should be our flax. These are our world language exams. I wanted to point out here very interesting. So what which one is this? Latin and and German.
088On the German exam, you see the 100% mastery on the right. That's a 2025 sophomores. I noticed on the middle school data when they showed the eighth graders from a few years ago, that's the same students, they all achieved mastery on the flax A and then again last year on their flax B. That's an amazing group right there of that German uh the German students. But over 100% mastery, right? not just passing but mastery and and almost everybody's getting mastery overall in each of these exams. Okay. And then the final slide with uh data is Italian and Spanish as well. Uh again, same proud story. Uh mastery is the norm for our students on regent exams. Okay. uh our analysis of the regent's exams uh I've said it already across the board we're almost at
089100% or at 100% for all exams uh we stand out but what we do notice is there are areas to improve right I mean we're not perfect um you always strive for perfection you never achieve perfection um and we never let up we're always looking to do better our teachers are always working harder uh we're working on the best way that we can prepare our students. I'll say we're doing a lot with technology, specifically using artificial intelligence and how we can not only prepare our students for what they're going to do in the future, uh, but teach them ethically how they can use it now in high school and not just let them loose with it, but teach them to use it in a responsible fashion. uh and that's the next level of what we're
090doing of how we're going to achieve you know incrementally um small percentages. Uh I just want to point out another data point which is since 2016 if you've taken the average of all regions exams across the entire state of New York um on Long Island we've been the top school for the past 10 years. That means all of our regions exams are are the highest average for all of our students on all exams. It's very impressive. And then our overall analysis um the ELA regent exam, which we pointed out at the beginning, that's the final overall indicator because all students are required to take that one. It's the last one that they're all required to take and it's their entire educational journey from primary, elementary, middle school, high school. Uh it's not about one teacher,
091it's not about one year. It's a verdict on our entire system. And our results show that our system is one of the strongest in New York State. Uh we know that our students do well in college. They every year our our alumni return, they visit, they speak to our students, and they tell us they're more prepared to college uh than their peers at other schools. And we know that from the program that we offer in Garden City. Thank you. >> Okay, one last time. Um so 9 through 12 we took the slides very similar to what the high school used to just give you an understanding of how our students with disabilities are doing. Um and you can clearly see um within uh 2025 we had 22 students graduate 10 of which um received uh
092the advanced regions and 10 received the regions diploma. So students are definitely um adding to and echoing um that great status that uh is happening at the high school. Um the next slide um is our region's participation. And if you look the um the burgundy is a three, the black is a four and the white is a five. So if um the first slide is for 23 uh 24 so you can see how well the students did. Nine students obtained a level five in ELA. Nine students obtained a level four. Jump ahead to this school year, this past school year, 2025, 14 students received the level five on the ELA uh region. So, just looking at this data, it's incredible. Lots of red, lots of black, lots of white. So, we're definitely uh doing a
093great job. Um, I just wanted to add that with um with this a lot of our students here in uh Garden City have a diagnosis of dyslexia and I know that at one of our um past board of ed uh meetings um one of our community members had asked how we are looking to educate our staff as a whole. Um and I just wanted to share that we are um that we just provided a workshop to our all schools PTA meeting um for our families. Uh we will be again doing a workshop for all of our new teachers as part of um Miss McGlaclin's um new teacher workshop and um we will then sharing that uh presentation with all of our buildings. Um so again um defining dyslexia, giving an understanding of the disability and
094then um really highlighting red flags that teachers could look for regardless of what they teach. Um and then finally um uh two more slides sorry. So um this slide just shows the AP exam. So we have students with disabilities participating in the AP exam. This year we had 18 students. They took a tw um a total of 25 exams um of which 14 of them they were uh three and above. So again outstanding. And then finally the last slide. Um I just wanted to just share a little bit about DESA. So this is the screener that Garden City utilizes um in order to ensure that all students are developing foundational skills um to promote academic success um to promote the attributes of the portrait of the graduate and then um to promote uh positive school
095culture. We utilize uh the screener um in order to determine additional supports through our MTSS and child find uh processes. So if anyone in the community has any questions about the screener or their students pro um performance on this uh um screener, please uh feel free to reach out to my office and I'll be happy to uh guide you. >> Okay. So thank you Mr. Sin Grier. At this point, if there are questions uh regarding the high school portion, um I just wanted to say thank you for the in-depth analysis of special education students, especially at the high school level and showing their achievement in on the regions and um in AP exams. >> I also just wanted to make um one more comment. So, um I think that when you are um part of
096a district like we are where it's a very high performing district and overall our children are performing at really high levels. I think it's also really important to keep in mind even though it is a smaller percentage but our children that are also scoring at ones and twos um and keeping those children also at the forefront of our minds as well and I think as someone who works in a in a high performing district um it's important that those children are prioritized and um that we're always looking to see how we can give them more support. Um, and not for this presentation, but it would be um, interesting to see how many of our children who are performing on our state testing in those ones and two levels, like how many of those children are
097we able to give um, academic intervention support to? And is it something that we need to look at as a district? Also, um is there, you know, as we're preparing also for our budget season and then and our next year, are there ways in which we can um you know, increase some of the support, increase the number of children that we can give, um those academic intervention supports too. Um so, just wanted to kind of keep that in mind as well. >> Like say something about school, I think numbers are students really do such high achievable students. But I did notice something I just I think it would be good to get more information on how many people use tutors because I think that's a number people don't really that's not reflected in what you're
098presenting. And um I think there's a culture and and I I don't have a good handle on how widespread it is but you know in my experience there's a lot you know you ask and all of a sudden everyone says oh here I have a tutor I have call this person call this person. So um and a lot of times the tutors are our own teachers and so I think we have to also look at that and say okay where are we going you know is this something that our own teachers in class can be handled rather than putting the onus on parents to be paying you know whatever they pay an hour the same teachers I mean I know they can't tutor their own, but then they'll tutor other >> other >> students. So,
099a is it widespread and how widespread and can we address that? >> We could look into it. I mean, we I I don't have the answers obviously right now, but that's certainly something we can look into. So it would be complicated data to >> do a survey, right? >> Yeah, we would have to do a survey. >> Do you think you're going to get honest answers in that survey? >> Maybe would that's how we would collect that information. >> Better information from some of the teachers. >> They might have a good sense. >> Yeah, I So we could we can collect surveys. Um, we can survey the teachers to see how many students they're tutoring. There is obviously a margin of error on either side because not all folks who are hiring tutors are going
100to necessarily respond to the survey. Not all tutors are our teachers. So we would be able to gather some data but we I would want to caution that whatever data we do collect needs to be understood that there is a very wide margin for error because of the fact that we'd be relying on reporting from people who aren't compelled to report necessarily to us. Um, the other thing that I just feel it's important to highlight is that, you know, I've worked in a few very high performing districts and it is a very common occurrence in a district where the students are high achievers for the culture to very much be one in which there is a high degree of tutoring outside of the school day that occurs. Um, I'm not saying it's good or it's
101bad. I'm not opining on it at all. I'm just saying that it tends to be the case. So I I I don't know that it's an exception here in the way that uh that that happens. I think that it is something that you would see a trends over many high performing districts. But sure we can we can absolutely look into collecting data >> that a little bit over the years I've gotten a fair amount of from our families to stack the homework for the entire week so that when when a tutor comes they can work with that student. So they might not necessarily need it for remediation but for an additional level of support. So there's it's not that it would help that it's just it's a way of looking at what they're using that
102support for also I think would be >> I think a lot of people probably don't need it but want the five instead of four. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Right. So, there's all different reasons why people have it, right? And I'm not saying that it's good or bad. I just think >> there's a theme underneath this amazing number that we should just be aware of. >> Yeah. Absolutely. >> Sure. It's being done pretty broadly, although I don't have high school students. I mean, we we have trainers and for everything. So, right, everything is one-on-one. So, >> sure. Absolutely. >> And I just wanted to point out, we didn't talk uh much about it, but our science, there's been considerable amount of work in the area of science in our district, especially with the changes the last
103two years. I know um Miss Rogosich has led that with um Emily Kang. she's been here a lot of professional development along with uh through the budget investment in getting resources particularly for our K5 students and then the work again at the secondary level. So I wanted to point that out because I think that work we see the difference and actually we hear from our students how much they're enjoying science. The other area that I also wanted to mention in our district is you know we look at these assessments and we also we talked a little bit about uh the technology piece of it and that's something that I think is really critical for us to continue to look at because there's so much out there around decreasing that the use of technology and really
104focusing and we started doing that about about three years ago more on projectbased learning and I think that's something that ties into the portrait of a graduate because of the different skills. >> And I think that's an area that is important for us. We don't talk about it enough, but I know this year alone, I think uh uh Christina, you were you and Victoria were creating for what grade level was that? I forget. Third grade with the math and social studies. I think things like that we need to do more of and you'll hear more about that. Um you know again it's across all um grade levels. Even at the high school we're doing science social studies projectbased for science social studies. Uh and also I think at at the middle school we're working on
105that this year and looking at our assessments a little bit differently. Um so where we're really honing in on those skills from portrait of a graduate. So you'll hear more from us about that. And again that has nothing to do with test scores but I think our students are more than test scores also. you really have to look at the whole child. >> Can I just ask a a kind of general question um about the assessments? Uh the NWAS are all here and the state assessments are all here. Is it typical that the NWA is seen as a a predictor of any sort when you look at how that goes? Could someone just maybe clarify a little bit in terms of I mean the kids take that twice a year uh three times twice a
106year? >> Well, right. So, >> so one is so I guess my my question is two parts. Would you consider the NWA ever to be some sort of predictor or do you see um correlation between state assessment and NWA scores? And also, um, do you find that because the NWAS are a quicker return and they take them more often that you have that ability to adjust what needs to be adjusted kind of in a more timely fashion than the state assessments? Sorry, that was a lot. Okay, that's okay. Um, hold on one second. and okay so first the first question is around whether there's a correlation between the NWA and the New York state assessments and what you will find is that a NWA does provide a predictor on the student on on the on
107their platform however with the 2020 norms what we found here is that it wasn't a good predictor for our students um we tended to outperform what the NWA predicted provided. However, with the 2025 norms, we really have yet to see whether that trend will continue. If we take just a snapshot, and I want to be cautious to say that the one administration of the NWA in the 2025 norms is indicative of a pattern because it's not. It's just the one snapshot. there was a greater um coherence between the scores than what we've typically seen here in Garden City. Again, only time will tell if that was a oneoff or if that is a trend based on the new norms. So, yes, but to your first question. Um, to the second question, I think it's important
108to remember that the NWA is a reading screener, whereas the New York State assessments are designed to assess, yes, reading, but also writing. Um, and so there's it's a more comprehensive assessment. The timing between when the students sit for the assessment for the state versus the timing for which we get the results on the NWA is significantly shorter. And so yes, it is certainly something that we're more readily able to employ in daily instruction. Um the other thing is if you're really a very much of a statistician then data is only really good for three to six months tops tops and so oftentimes by the you know the students sit for the assessments in April May if you go with that three to four three to six month window for when they're valid you're going
109from the fifth month to August maybe November the latest. Um because the younger the student, the faster the change, the less runway you have for those data points to still really be inform informative to your practice. Um the state assessments really give us a global view of where we need to provide professional development, what grows we have, what glows we have. Um, yes, they do give a snapshot of a student, but we have lots of data points that allow for us to make sure that we're triangulating all of the data to really hone in on um if there's a if there's a concern, what the root cause of it is so that we can be diagnosticians and address those. >> Thank you. Sure. >> Great. At this time, we're going to move to um citizens
110questions or comments. Please be mindful that we're going to focus on the presentation uh for the administrator. So, please keep your questions focused on presentation or anything that was shared today. And please state your name and address and please keep all your comments to under three minutes and list them all at once, please. Thank you. Hi, my name is Nancy Orgo. I live at 87 Brook Street. I'm prepared. Okay. Um, I have four children, a GC graduate, a senior, and two sixth graders. My children run the gamut of academic and athletic abilities. I have a child with an IEP that looks like a novel and others with academic accolades. I have children that intramural sports is their lane and children that have made it to nationals. So, I've been around the block perhaps twice and
111I know what our district offers. I've experienced it all as a mother in this district and more day and there are more days that I'm proud to say that I'm a GC. I'm in GC and my children attend this school. However, today I'm furious. I'm saddened and frankly exhausted and it is only November. I plead for you all to listen. Our church district is failing children with dyslexia. Our children are telling us that they are exhausted. They hate feeling dumb. They are annoyed that their parents gave them dyslexia. And they are overall hating school. And these are quotes from our children. Parents are spending hours daily doing homework, not checking, but actually doing it with them. Spending thousands of dollars on afterchool tutors. If our district was succeeding with these children, then our children and
112parents would now feel like they have been sucked into a black hole. Our children are not thriving. They are barely surviving. And this is all be because of how they're being taught. When parents have gone outside to redeem get testing because they've exhausted all other district testing, parents have come to cse meetings prepared with prescriptions from neurosyches explicitly stating one-on-one or in Gillingham instruction 5 days a week. Our district has squashed that over and over again. The district has been providing Wilson in group settings with teachers that are not even necessarily certified in the level they are teaching. Last spring, I asked Miss Vavona if the middle school will have certified Wilson teachers at the level that they are instructing, and they she stated yes. However, that is not the case. Not only are they
113not certified, but obtaining certification is at the discretion and the leisure of the teacher schedule. My child will likely have graduated by the time the appropriate level certification is obtained. Now, let's talk about testing. The middle schoolers in resources reading resource are being tested while other children are in the class and doing other activities. Parents have been told that the middle school quote does not provide the flexibility to test elsewhere. Children with dyslexia should not be administered tests should be administered tests with minimum distractions, not with other activity and chatter going on. As a district, how is this acceptable? And how do you expect these test results under the conditions they are being administered? And as far as level testing being administered like Wade, what is the process to determine the level? There are students
114at level 7.2 Wilson being given an AB wade while other children at a 6.4 are given a B-wade. How and what is this protocol? Last month during dyslexia awareness month, Miss Gonzalez provided a presentation on dyslexia at the PTA meeting. I specifically asked what is the holistic approach for teaching children with dyslexia in all subject. I was provided a bunch of buzzwords but nothing tangible but was reassured nonetheless that a holistic approach was being administered. That is a lie. Children with dyslexia are not being taught in a systematic multiensory approach at all. There are distinct differences on how lessons are being taught and work being dist distributed among dyslexic children depending on their cluster. You mentioned clear. This is the draft of my son's clear. He is dyslexic, receives OT, has speech and language delays.
115He was given a sheet of paper, copy, no lines to create his own clear draft. I'm not an educator, but I can assure you this is not what dyslexic children should be provided. In my child's math class, he receives a packet, a math packet of 82 pages. This is what's on it. Children with dyslexia should not be given a packet that is scrunched with examples. This is what my child has been given. This is not appropriate for dyslexic children. I'm not an educator and I know this at home parents are the boots on the ground. Homework literally takes hours with handholding by parents. There's minimum independent homework being done by students. The district continues to throw resources at parents and hopes that something sticks at home. There are only so many hours in the day
116to go through everything. A wise retired GC principal said, "If the student is not able to do their homework, then we are not doing our job." Quote, "As for class assessments this week, there were three there are three tests in sixth grade." >> Yes, >> I'm sorry. I'm finishing. >> No, because this is all goes to ask the questions that you have. >> Yes, I have I have a bunch. Three tests in sixth grade. Is it appropriate for dyslexic children on top of their homework that they've been assigned? Where is the evidence that supports this? Additionally, due to team support, reading resource, and perhaps any other pull out, these children are not able to take electives. These students are the ones that need it the most. It is up to us to find our dyslexic
117children's superpower, and we are not providing them an opportunity to find it. There's no creativity exploration during the day. They are stuck in a nine period exhaustive schedule. Now, I've told you all this because there's always a solution. I want our district to be the pioneers. realize that a significant proportion of our student body has dyslexia and should be dealt with appropriately. Why aren't our children with dyslexia class together? The middle school has clusters. Why aren't children with dyslexia put in the cluster with the children given the same instruction will have the same worksheets, same homework? We know these children need multiensory learning, explicit systemic instruction, assistive technology, break instruction into smaller steps, provide structured and predictable routines. It's hard for them even in an ICT class and even with team support. But if they
118took care of CLA, if they did take their core classes together, modified work would not be considered modified. It would be their clusters work. Teachers would have the ability to customize and streamline their lessons planned specifically for these children. A dyslexic child would no longer see their neighbor with a different test or a different worksheet. It would all be the same. As for how we implement this type of instruction, we should be engaging the best winward. There should be a team made up of our administrators and of our teachers and proactively engage the winward staff. Have a workshop. See what is possible to implement here. Determine where professional development would be needed. But what is going on now is not success. We are not filling gaps. We are not fulfilling the highest level of learning
119to these children. We are simply pushing them through. The bell curves in testing have widened and now you've captured a broader nate a broader net of what is considered normal range. that is deceptive and not transparent. And any success and milestone achieved by our children would not have been possible without the amount of tutors that pass through our homes daily. Miss Vivona, you provided statistics. You didn't compare them to the region and you did not provide how many special ed children are actually in our district. You provided me with 20 kids taking the test of how many because all the other presentations have >> Can we ask questions here? I I understand you're very upset and I I appreciate that, but we need to keep >> That's my question. What what what is the distinguish
120and what are we going to do? >> Sorry. My question is statistically out of the children that have taken any standardized test AP regions or anything of the matter. It just provided a total of number of children that took it. What is the percentage of special ed children verse how many took it? What is the comparison of our children in the district verse the region and what are we doing with the curriculum for these special ed children with dyslexia? >> So we can we can follow up on those specific statistics. I'm sure people up here can provide them after uh doing some work. And as far as your concerns, I know you provided some paperwork, so you can if you can leave that, we were happy to look at work. >> Okay. Um, but I
121just have you raised some of this stuff because I know some of that stuff seems like it should be easily fixed for you. Have you raised it with the teachers and and the classrooms? >> Everyone knows me. Dr. Sa knows me. Miss Han knows me. I've had Miss Vona knows me. Central, they know me. Everybody knows me. I've raised this. I am I I'm a parrot. I I've exhausted it. There are no problems. There are only solutions. And we're not solutioning for this population. It's 20% of our school district. And you're not addressing it. Not addressing. I want to know is anybody at this table able to tell me how many children have dyslexia in our district? What is the actual number? >> I mean, what we >> understand? I have and I have provided
122my email to the BOE and and I've exhausted it and I'm here for the first time presenting because I think it falls on deaf deaf ears. >> What was that specific data point you were just asking for? Can you just >> The data point was for the children in special ed the the the deck the slides that show the special ed. What is the denominator of children in the special that are special ed that have learning disabilities have taken it and what is the comparison to the region? >> Okay. >> And what is the holistic approach for teaching these children with dyslexia? >> Thank you. >> Hi everyone. Uh good evening Dr. Oh, I'm Cynthia Donovan, 111 Merook Road. Uh good evening, Dr. Singha, administrators. Appreciate you all being here and the members of the
123board of education. I'm here tonight in the hope that we can rethink the rollout of Chromebooks in our elementary schools. Um not to resist technology, but to protect something far more fundamental, our youngest learners ability to think deeply, sustain attention, and truly comprehend what they read and learn. What's at stake here isn't whether children can use technology. They can and they will. The real question is whether we're giving enough time to build the kind of brain that's ready for digital digital learning in the first place. I really appreciate the transparency our district has provided to parents, the ability to see how much time students are spending on devices and what trends are emerging and how those devices are used during the school day. This kind of access helps families and educators have more informed conversations
124about the role of technology in learning. A trend that I and the other members of the digital digital citizenship committee noticed was especially striking. In one light speeded student online activity report, a single student click through 31 different book flex links in under 20 minutes. That pattern showed constant movement from one link to another with very little sustained time on any one text. That's not misbehavior. That's a habit. It's what the digital environment rewards. Speed, efficiency, and constant novelty. But what it doesn't reward is depth. The cognitive neuroscientist Marann Wolf in her book Reader Come Home, especially in letter four, describes what happens inside the brain when children spend too much time reading on screens too early. She writes, "We are not only what we read, we are how we read. The more time children
125spend skimming digital texts, the more their brains adapt to that mode, favoring quick scanning and immediate reaction over reflection and analysis. Deep reading, the kind that builds empathy, reasoning, and critical thought, relies on the brain connections that support deep thinking and comprehension. Those connections don't just appear, they are built through sustained printbased reading. If we move too quickly to onetoone devices before those habits take hold, we risk short circulating that very foundation of comprehension. We're seeing similar patterns in other subjects, too. In math, for instance, many digital programs are designed to gamify learning to keep kids clicking, collecting points, and chasing rewards. And while that can look engaging, it can also train students to expect constant feedback and instant success instead of persistence and problem solving. Wolf warns about this kind of fast-paced digital learning
126as well. She reminds us that the developing brain needs time, struggle, and reflection to form the pathways for reasoning and comprehension. When we replace that with struggle with reward loops, when we replace that struggle with reward loops, we risk teaching children to value speed and stimulation over real understanding. Now, I know one concern that has come up is that students need early digital exposure because the state ELA and math tests are now online, but the current second graders, who's my son, won't take those tests for another 18 months. That gives us time to be thoughtful and really strategic. We can rethink what test prep looks like in the weeks leading up to those assessments. We can use that time to teach students how to transfer their deep reading skills to a digital setting to practice
127reading on a split screen, navigating that new toolbar, and managing their attention across digital texts. That's the right time to prepare them, not years before they're developmentally ready. Rethinking onetoone in the early grades isn't anti-technology. It's pro- brain development. It's pro- literacy and pro- mathematical thinking. They do so I'm sorry. It ensures that when our students do move to digital learning, they do so from a position of cognitive strength as readers and thinkers who can reason deeply, not just quick click quickly. So I'm asking please that we rethink the timing and structure of the roll out not to slow progress but to make it so it's purposeful. Let's give our youngest learners the time to build focus, imagination, and comprehension first. Let's let them fall in love with books and numbers before we ask them
128to learn through screens because once those learning muscles are strong, everything else, including technology, will come more easily and more meaningfully. So I ask you, can we please rethink the roll out of Chromebooks in our elementary schools? Thank you. Hi, my name is Valerie Swiki Palmo and I'm at 76 Bayberry Avenue and I just want to ask a quick question about some data. Um, and I kind of want to echo what Cynthia just spoke about. Um, it's sort of why I was here tonight because my son goes on Get Epic and in 15 minutes it's 15 clicks. Um, you he is not doing deep immersive reading. it is basically just on their scanning. Um, so that's a concern of mine. Can we please maybe get rethink these reading apps that are undermining reading comprehension? Um,
129that would be a fantastic direction to improve on our reading instruction. Um, I also was looking at data. Somebody had posted this and I know it's Facebook. That's not the most reliable place, but somebody had posted a foil request. um screenshot of 2024 to 2025 NWA data. And the way that chart looks, it's so I find it a little bit easier to read than some of the data that was here because you can see like grade two, fall, winter, um and spring. And you can see in grade two that the percent of kids 60% and below didn't change. And in grade five, it actually increased. So just by isolating that like one data point you kind of see for the kids who are the most online digital generation we are seeing a problem with reading.
130Um so again I just want to bolster what Cynthia said and just ask us to really reexamine or if someone could look at that data and give me a better way to understand that I would appreciate it. Hi uh Tina Marello's 171 Garden Street. I have a couple of uh questions. One is I know on the slide you showed the NWA data but what was the mean for the sixth, seventh and eighth grader. So how many below 60 60th percentile versus above it? >> Uh hold on one second. Yeah, >> it would be helpful to show the same >> we can come back with that but I thought it was presentation. >> I thought it was >> it's the individual numbers. I know I can do the math. I shouldn't have to do the math.
131Um and then repeat the question so that >> yeah so on the NWA slides that you showed I was looking to understand what the mean was for the sixth, seventh and eighth graders. Um, so how many are below the 60th percentile versus above? >> Yes. >> The number of students or the percent the percentages. I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. It it is on the slide. I just didn't The percentages are >> Yeah, I didn't. >> Yeah, but you're not tallying how many are above the like the two highest. I don't know how you do it, but the two highest >> we can sure >> Okay, that's fine. My other question is I noticed the full NWA uh was in the portal today. I don't remember getting a communication on it. There was no communication back in
132June when they were shared. I had a specific question on that one. I know the the cut scores or the whatever it's called the 2025 the changes on how you how you check the numbers were modified but it looks like all the prior percentiles going all the way back in time have changed on the full report. So for instance let's say my son was at the 40th percentile in uh the spring. He might be at the 45th percentile now. And that's not just for spring. That goes back over time. I can show you afterwards what I mean, but something changed on the report. We we were actually looking at that today. So, if you recall when I said that the norms prior were 2020 norms and the norms were changed over the summer. What we
133weren't able to access today was going back were the percentages that we had based in in NWA on the platform. Are they adjusted backwards so that they now are scored against the 2025 norms? >> It looks like they're all scored against 202 which I don't get that data but you actually have just answered a question that we had the >> I can show I have my I could show you after if you want that. Yeah, absolutely. I'll come find you. >> All right. And then um I want to support the question about tutoring. I think a survey should be sent out to the parents. parents can put in if they're tutoring for a specific read uh reason. Many parents do it because they want their kids not getting a 90. They want them getting a
13496. There are many parents in the district that are tutoring for basic reasons for reading, writing. I can't tell you how many parents I've spoken to that have tutors because their children just are not learning how to write. Their grammar is poor. Basic reading instruction. Um, so it would be a very I think useful across the board. Um, not just going to teachers because if teachers are making money on the side, they might not be prone to answer it. I think it's an easy survey to get out to parents and should be sent out. Um, and then I was curious, I don't know if it was on the slides, but was the average or the means um shared for the PSATs and the SAT scores? Is that information we can get as well? or do
135you know that? >> Okay. All right. That's it. Thank you. Sure. >> There are no further questions and comments. The next board of education meeting is Monday, November 24th. It's a regular session here at 7:30 p.m. at the Garden City High School. Um, at this time I have a motion that there's no further business before the board that the meeting be adjourned. >> All in favor? I