001Good evening. Welcome to the October 21st, 2025 regular session 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. One nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Due notice of the meeting has provide been provided to the public and each member of the board of education is required by law. I'll now take attendance. Josilio present. Present Kristen Papis vice present Liz Gaffffne trustee Aaron Dbridge trustee Deborah Kapani trustee >> Dr. Kassum Sha superintendent of schools >> present >> Dana DiCapua assistant superintendent for business and finance and district clerk Nan Mclaclin assistant superintendent for human resources and leadership development Dr. Alice Bowman, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. Christy Jacobson, District Council,
002Garcio and Garcio. Thank you. At this time, I would like to ask for a moment of silence for M. Mr. Kenneth Wilson. Mr. Wilson was a security security aid here at Garden City Schools between 1998 and 2009. Mr. Wilson will be remembered for his dedication to keeping our students safe. Our condolences go out to his family, especially his daughter, Mrs. Petri who teaches here at Hemlock School. Thank you. I'm going to hand the mic over to Dr. SHA. >> Thank you, Mr. Silio. So, um, tonight we have, uh, our third grade teacher from, um, Steuart's school, Miss Sherfair, Christy Sherfair, who was, um, uh, actually nominated by one of our family, Sebastian Catz, who's back there. Yay, Sebastian. And, um, you know, for the, uh, women of distinction award by assemblyman Ed Ra. And you
003know if I tell you what um you know I want to actually read a quote that was in the letter that was written for Miss Shafair. It's uh and this is by Mrs. Catz. She shared the following. Miss Shafair guided Sebastian through a challenging year and gave him constant support structure and encouragement while balancing the needs of her whole class. Patient, caring, and firm, she taught him gentle discipline, knowledge and and life and learning skills to our son and to all his classmates. She frequently took extra time, even outside of school hours, to help us with the education of our child. Her positivity, practical teaching methods, and flexibility truly exemplify what makes a great teacher. And when I and I think Miss Katz really captured Miss Sherfair when she when she wrote patient, caring and
004firm and with the uh gentle teaching him the gentle discipline and I have to tell you I think uh Miss uh Miss Hannah and I attended that ceremony and um it was just wonderful and I think what was really nice was to see Sebastian. He was glowing and he was so excited to see Miss Shaair. So would you please come up with Sebastian Okay. There's some uh pictures there from the ceremony. And we also have Miss Sherfair's kids back there, Reagan and Jack. They attend our schools as well. There they are. Okay, that's okay. But there there's Jack. >> Jack. Jack. >> Yes. Yeah. Hey, Jack. He's in kindergarten. That's right. He was in our UPK program as well. Yep. >> Yeah. Very nice. >> All right. So, um, you know, I also wanted to
005acknowledge our students here for the National Merit Scholarship semi finalists and, uh, we welcome three of our seniors who qualified as semi-finalists for the National Merit Scholarship. We have Sarah Finny, come on up. Sophie Lippens and Olivia Albert, come on up. Congratulations. All right, we'll get it. >> Congratulations to all of you. Really proud of you. >> Got it. That's what I was and um I also wanted to uh congratulate congratulate our following commended students. Josephine Yao, Andrew Burns, Henry Conlin, Allison Hush, Hannah Lamb, Everett Lenhard, Dominic Mack, Daley Piski, Sarah Chamel, Tina Tu, and Ashley Wang. Congratulations. At this time, I have a motion to accept the agenda for October 21st uh October 21st, 2025 regular session as presented. All in favor? I. At this time, are we going to have Smith do the
006>> um Yes. >> Yes. >> We're going to have Naraki Smith do our audit report for everybody. You want to use that mic or >> so before we get to the audio, if our students want to leave and go home, they can. I know there's a lot to do at home for your with your studies. So, more than welcome. >> The auto report's very exciting. >> Yes. >> I try I tried. Thank you. >> Hard. Good evening everyone. Uh members of the board of education, administration of the district. I'm Christopher Angata, partner at the firm Naraki Smith. On behalf of my entire firm, I just want to take this opportunity to thank the district, the board of education for your continuing confidence in retaining our firm as your independent auditors. This evening, I'm here to
007present the results of the fiscal 2025 audit. I prepare prepared some brief comments. Uh first just to confirm the scope of our services, Nrai Smith was retained by the district to perform an audit the district's financial statements for the year ended June 30th, 2025 in accordance with professional standards. As part of our audit, we also audited the district's extra classroom activity funds on the cash basis of accounting. And as part of our audit, we do contemplate issuing a management letter presenting any findings and recommendations on approving the accounting procedures and internal controls of the district. A few comments on the conduct of the audit. I'd like to commend the district on a timely and accurate closing of its books and records. Uh I'd also like to commend and thank the entire business office, Miss Dicapula
008and and the her entire team uh for really a tremendous efforts uh and attention throughout the course of the process. Uh there was one new accounting standard with respect to compensated absences this year under the governmental accounting standards board statement number 101 that took a lot of time and attention and was successfully implemented by the district. Um and the district's reports were filed on time with New York State which was due by uh October 15th. Uh and there was a requisite meeting with the district's uh board of education audit committee on October 6th where the financial statements were presented in great detail. There are three auditors reports contained in the district's financial statements. I'm happy to report to the board this evening that we did issue a cleaner on modified opinion. In our auditors reports,
009meaning that the financial statements of the district present fairly in all material respects in accordance with professional standards. Uh in terms of the financial position or activity of the district, there was a positive change in the general fund fund balance for the year and the general fund operations reflected positively when compared to budget. The general fund fund balance amounts were all within reasonable and legal limits. The district has uh $100.1 million invested in capital assets netted depreciation with the current year increase of about 542,000. The district's capital project expenditures for the year total $3.4 million relating to various projects throughout the course of the district. The district did reduce its long-term indebtedness by about $3 million which rel relates to the uh bond payable and energy performance contracts. The other post-employment's benefits obligations decreased this
010year $15.7 million due to changes in actual assumptions to a total of $232.2 million. And there are two other pension assets and liabilities on the district's statement of net position. That of the proportionate share of the net pension asset for teachers retirement system which totaled $7.9 million and the net pension liability for the employee retirement system which total 5.5 million. As I mentioned at the onset of my presentation, we do contemplate issuing a management letter. I am happy to report to the board this evening that we not did not site the district for any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in internal control and we did not have any current year recommendations as a result of our audit. That concludes my prepared comments for this evening, but I'd be happy to address any comments or questions
011the board may have. Thank you. >> I don't have any I don't have any questions or comments. I'd just like to thank you and Mrs. DiCapio for the nice work and her team over the course of the year. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. >> Appreciate it. >> Thank you. I think it's your turn for the treasures report. >> Back. So, as we finish the financials, we're we are able to close the books on last year, which is why we have the financials uh the treasury reports on the agenda for June, July, and August. So, um things did run a little later this year because of the new Gazsby pronouncement as uh Mr. Angata just talked about, but everything is in place and um the agenda has all three. So I'm going to just review
012the uh monthly treasure treasures report for August 2025 and from there forward we'll be doing this every month as you know. So as of August 1st the cash balance at the beginning of the month was 59,648,261. During August we had total receipts of 3,689,931. We had dispersements in August of 7,345,492 leaving us with a closing cash balance of 55,992,700. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mrs. Dicapua. Dr. San, do you want to go through your superintendent's report or >> um Sure. >> So maybe uh you know what I'll do is Kayla, do you want to give your report first and then I will give my report? >> Sure. Yeah. Um, so I'm just going to do a little report on all the schools and everything that's been going on the past month. So to start with
013the primary schools, it is AAC awareness month, which is celebrated every October to highlight any method of communication that's not spoken language. So the kids have been learning about that. And they've also been reading books to learn about expressing their emotions and just how to like communicate in different ways. And also at Hemllock and Homestead, they've also been doing a lot of they've been doing yoga, which is fun. They've been doing their evacuation and safety drills. They're very excited for unity day tomorrow. And they are gearing up for their Halloween celebrations, which will happen next Friday. Then at Stewart, we had some field trips. Uh the third grade went to the Cradle of Aviation Museum. The fourth grade went to Tanglewood Preserve to look at nature. Um they're also doing projects to learn about, you
014know, challenges. So the second grade did something called making the tallest structure. Um they're also doing uh assemblies. So in music, the second grade does a Veterans Day assembly. The third grade is doing recorders, which I know parents love at home for the Thanksgiving assembly. And they're also rehearsing for Lion King Jr. for the fifth grade. at Straford. They love their special area classes. So, art, they're doing a lot of primary colors. They're making spiderw webs, stuff for Halloween, leaves, fall type thing. Uh music for second grade, they're learning the turkey tango. Fifth grade's also learning to do uh their production of Frozen Jr. when I was at Straford. We uh had to do ballroom dancing. And we also did the Jungle Book. Frozen Junior also came out when I was in kindergarten. So, that's
015kind of crazy that they're doing that as a musical. Um, and then for band, they're also gearing up to do their concerts. At the middle school, we have 358 student athletes in fall sports, which is, I mean, really great. Um, they're also they have very big unity week celebration. So, tomorrow being unity day, but they also have like mindful Monday, team Tuesday, and they also have a bunch of events. So they've stopped the send to focus on anti-bullying. And then at the high school, we had the National Art Honor Society induction on September 30th. 40 students were inducted to that. Ava Milo is also on the voice. So I encourage everybody to watch and download the app so we can vote for her. Um our last meeting was right before homecoming. So we had the
016homecoming parade which is really fun. A lot of people marched in it. There was also like spirit um which is the cheer. So, the little kids were there and a bunch of clubs. And then just to touch on athletics, um there was a lot of athletics that won their divisions. So, you've cross country, they both won the division. Field hockeyy's undefeated. Their conference one champions. Their playoff game is October 16th. Uh football has a 59game win streak, >> 60 game win streak. Um and their playoffs begin in November. Um, cheer is also doing competition, but they also sport at the games. They are really, really awesome to watch. Boys soccer is the defending New York State champions. At the beginning of the season, I think they're third in the country, which is incredible. And they
017are undefeated in their division and they are the conference champions. Uh, same with girls soccer. They're also the conference champions and playoffs are in October. Boys volleyball has some really great performances and they're excited to get back to practicing for next year. Um, girls volleyball is also undefeated. They're also conference champions. Um, girls tennis have players that qualified for the postseason, so they're practicing. Swim and dive is undefeated. Um, they have state qualifiers and boys golf only lost one one time this season and they had a great season as well. And tomorrow is spirit day is unity day and so everyone will be wearing orange. So, >> thank you, Kayla. Okay. So, um I wanted to start off uh my report with um you know this week uh or the month of October is board
018uh recognition. And so this month the school board you know being uh with the work that you all do. I wanted to you know thank you from all of us from our staff our our community members with the work that you do and really championing for public education. there is you spend a lot of time away from your families to um to dedicate to this work. So we are very very appreciative for all that you do. So we do have a little video for you that our students with our students to thank you. >> So what do you think a board member does for our school? >> They help. I think board members helps students to be happy, healthy, and to help students learn, teach, and make the world a better place. >> A board
019member is able to take a student and teachers ideas and thoughts and make them a reality. >> I think board members um go to lots of meetings and talk on the phone a lot. I think a board member gets us more books. >> They make sure we have the resources we need to thrive as a community in Garden City High School. >> They can also help us reach our greatest potential as students. >> I think that they help the school with stuff. >> They um like plan the budgets and decide where the money should be used in our schools. >> They help garden city schools by getting school supplies. >> I think the board >> helps Um, Stewart School because they could set up special events at Stewart School. >> If you could tell the
020board one thing you love about your school, what would it be? >> The teachers are really nice. >> Really like art class. >> Um, because um, I really like drawing. >> I would say the school spirit. Um, I would say like the art department cuz it gives you a lot of like freedom with what you work on and also like school support. >> I love science and coding. >> Um, at Garden City High School, I love how many opportunities that we have. There's so many different clubs and just ways to get involved in the school and without having to necessarily be like a part of a sport or something like that. The best part of Steuart school is the principal and all the teachers love us. >> I would tell them that I love the
021school spirit of the school and photo >> that there's a lunchroom. I never had a lunchroom in any of my other schools. >> Um I like all of our sports and coaches. >> My favorite thing is the teachers. >> Uh my favorite thing is getting to see my friends every day. >> Thank you board of education for all of your support with our sports activities and our clubs. Thank you board of education for everything you've gave to us from academics to education. We appreciate you. >> Hi mom. Thank you all so much for your support. Thank you. >> Thank you mom for all you do for the board event. >> Dad, thank you so much for all you do for the board and for me. Keep up the great work. Love you. >> Hi mom.
022Thank you for all you do for the school district and for the schools and the middle school. Thank Thank you for coming to all my baseball games. Keep up the good work. Love you. Hi, Mom. Thank you for all the hard work and everything you do for the school district. We appreciate all the hard work. >> Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Mom. >> Thank you for supporting our school. Thank you for your education. We appreciate you. Thank you for your education. Thank you >> again. Thank you for all that you do for um for our entire school community. I also wanted to acknowledge back there one of our teachers um Lizzie McGold and her mom and her dad uh Mr. Jim Ryan was a board member and this library is dedicated in his name and her daughter
023was in the video, Poppy. So, she's in kindergarten and she also attends our school. Thank you for being here. Okay. So, I also wanted to um thank our principles. This month is uh principal recognition month and um you know all of our principles uh Dr. Viskovich we have there Mr. Hardigan, Miss Odon, Mr. Escobar, Mr. Stein Grubner, Miss Hand and Miss Fod. They really um you know, they're the they set the tone for our entire school district in each of the buildings and they go really above and beyond for our children. So, we definitely want to thank them for all their hard work. Uh Nashville Blue Ribbon School, you've heard me talk about this before. We just received a notification, Mr. Gner and I last week that the board of regents meeting on the the
024November 4th meeting at 11:30 a.m. they will be doing a virtual recognition of the 19 schools in New York State for the um for the National Blue Ribbon. Even though this program was cut federally, New York is doing um you know this event. I will be I'll share the link with our board members if you wanted to see that. It's on November 4th. Um our high school uh has been named once again school of excellence by the New York State Public High School Athletic Association for 20 uh for the year 2425. And this school of excellence honors honor is awarded to schools where at least 75% of varsity teams qualify for the scholar athlete team award. To achieve this distinction, a minimum of 75% of student athletes on each team must maintain a grade point
025average of 90% or higher. Really highlighting a balance of academic achievement and athletic commitment. So, um, this is our I think we get this award almost every single year. I think there was only one year we may have missed it because of the filing, but this is something we're very very proud of. I also wanted to mention that um la was it last week or the week before we had Cole Spring Harbor come to our district um and they wanted to learn more about our math program and because they adopted illustrative mathematics last year. It was a wonderful visit that uh Miss Cardella our our mathematics coordinator and our math coaches along with um Dr. Bowman put together uh a visit to our K2 classrooms, but and I went there towards the end when they
026were debriefing and it was such rich conversations that our teachers were having and really meeting more new colleagues um and sharing of our work. This is the best way we learn. So, it was a wonderful visit and they were they wanted to take some of our folks with them there. I said, "We're not doing that. They're staying here." So, it was a it was a nice uh visit, I think. And last year we also had another district that came to visit, didn't they? There was a >> Seafford. That's it. >> They've since adopted. >> They've also adopted, right? >> Contact us regularly for our resources. >> Yeah. One of the things that you know the numerousy briefs just came out. It's very uh it's our mathematics program is aligned to uh the numeracy briefs that
027have just come out from New York State. So we are um we're pleased with that. So with that, we also had um our first literacy committee meeting today. So I have Miss Kaufman here and I really want to thank her for putting together a wonderful uh meeting today. I was there for the whole session and thank you Dr. Bowman for all your work on this um you know in in supporting Miss Kaufman and getting our committee together and the it was a great session today and the plan for the remainder remainder of the school year. So could you provide an update for the board please? >> Sure. Thank you Dr. Sha. I'm happy to share that today the literacy review team convened for our first meeting to launch the next phase of our district's literacy
028work and it was a group of 16 teachers and nine administrators representing all grade levels with also secondary representation and this meeting really marked the fir the start of our first uh collaborative focus group work aligned with the CASDA literacy review recommendations as well as garden city's comprehensive approach to literacy Together, we reviewed the CASDA literacy review highlights and the strengths of Garden City's current comprehensive approach to literacy. We also discussed the key observations from the report that include a desire for a more streamlined and cohesive K to2 literacy framework, the recognition of teacher workload, and a need for unified resources, bridging phonics instruction with comprehension, ongoing writing and grammar support needs, and the importance of communication and vertical alignment. We also review the five CASDA recommendations to guide action planning and those include developing
029a unified and cohesive K to2 literacy framework, refining instructional time and practices, implementing strategic sustained professional learning, strengthening systemwide supports and resources, and enhancing parent communication and engagement. Then we broke into three focus groups to begin examining current practices and to create targeted recommendations. So there are three groups. Group A is the curriculum group and this group will be examining curriculum coherence, connections between reading and writing and potential primary resource adoptions. Group B is our MTSS and assessment group. And that group will be analyzing assessment tools and data use and tiered instruction alignment to ensure efficiency and purpose. And group C is our professional learning and parent communication group. And they'll be exploring ways to embed professional learning and strengthen communication with staff, parents, and the community. We shared what each group will produce for
030the December 9th meeting. which will be a summary of current practices and needs for each focus area, two to three recommendations to share with the larger literacy review team, ongoing documentation and communication in the Google document tab. We have a whole um area where we'll be communicating uh where all the work is visible to the whole team. This work will inform the district's comprehensive action plan and future presentations to the board of education. I just want to close by saying that this meeting uh was really a reflection of and and really illuminated the collective responsibility and the idea that it really starts with us. And through ongoing collaboration, the literacy review team will translate its findings into a unified vision and actionable steps that can advance our literacy outcomes and strengthen our K to2 continuum
031in Garden City. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Kaufman. And um you know, and you'll and the meetings are set up for each month, so we'd like to have you come each month just to give an update to the board and the community. >> It's my pleasure. Thank you. Okay. All right. Our next item that I and we have uh Miss Blum and Miss Damiano here uh to talk about the dig the work that's being done with, you know, a really good partnership we have with the digital citizenship committee and there's some events coming up. So, Miss Blum and Miss Damiano, do you want to say a few words? I I put everything up on the slide for you, but you can add to it. Yeah. Any Yeah. Right here by the microphone. Yeah. >>
032I um am a co-chair for the digital citizenship committee. Um I represent the primary and elementary schools because I have a second grader and a kindergartener. >> Um I'm Carara Stamiano. So um I have a 11th grader and twins and seventh. So I represent middle school and high school. Um and so we started this committee last year with the support of Dr. Singh. She has been an incredible um partner in this and really has helped us to grow our committee and we've made a lot of progress and we've had a lot of like conversations going around and so we just wanted to let you know like what our mission is some of the things we achieved last year and some of our goals for the remainder of this year. So starting off with what our
033mission is I'll just read it. So our mission is to raise awareness about the impact of electronic devices on mental health, guiding students and families to navigate the virtual world safely. Together we aim to reduce screen time both in class and at home while encouraging more play free play and real life connections for a healthier balanced future. So last year, which was our first year, we started off with the Anxious Generation Book Club, the Jonathan Height book, um to help spread awareness. Um we had a series of Zoom calls um and it was and we had some students come and it was it was I think it was well received. We hosted a social at my house um with all of the committee members and that we wanted to do it in person to kind
034of reflect our mission. Um we sent home door knockers for all prek through fifth grade students um to encourage playing outside with neighbors. Um all fourth to seventh grade students attended Megan Farrell um assembly on internet safety and I went to one of them and it was really good. Like she did a really good job I think at explaining to students the risks of you know for example she asked how many of them um played with strangers on Roblox and I think most of the room put their hand up which was kind of like a bit scary but um so she kind of reinforced those kind of ideas. It was really good and my seventh graders definitely took a lot out of it. Um we held meetings and established a relationship with all administrators in
035all seven buildings to discuss technology policies pro provide resources and support. We um donated games to the middle school homebased classes. That was something that I wanted to do because my my twins were saying that there weren't really enough games to play and to try and get them off Chromebooks and and um watching films. I think there had been some movies. So, we donated games and then we held an interactive workshop with parents um with reps from Apple and I went to that and it was very good like it was just giving ideas about how you can put time limits on your devices, how you can restrict what kind of students can access and that was in collaboration with parent u and then cater to 2 had my fine motor handouts and activity sheet >>
036that was last year >> and so something that came out of meeting with um our committee building rep met with all the um principal throughout the year twice. Something that came out of the primary meetings was that students were coming in really lacking fine by motor skills. One of the principles referred to them as like a finger swipe generation. Um and so in elementary and primary schools they asked for parent volunteers to come in and do crafts for the season. So instead of like a lot of them are doing peel and stick from oriental trading, we're encouraging them to start using crafts that are going to really help develop those fine and motor skill skills such as like cutting, squeezing glue bottles and that things of that nature. And some parents have asked us for
037advice. So we are coming up with different craft ideas with like different grade bands, K1, two, three, four, five, and it's going to be a shared Google Drive. So that's been um we're that's already underway. Tomorrow is our first of a three-part series where we have partnered with parentu and the district to um have speakers from design and align Keith and Jod. And tomorrow's topic is going to be digital wellness and executive functioning. Hopefully the second um series second um session will be on AI and the third one will be about um building a family contract and like what appropriate and um use of devices and social media looks like in your family. Um the wait until age was sent home to all K through five families. It was sent via parents wear and um
038put into backpacks to really encourage parents to take the pledge to hold off giving smartphones to children till after 8th grade. We have a new website where there's loads of resources. So we encourage you to take a look there. It's just if you go to the garden city PTA um website, you go to the committees drop down, you'll see digital citizenship there. We also launched two weeks ago digital citizenship um wellness Wednesdays on all the social media accounts on the PTA. So, I think that's like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Um, and they'll we'll be sending um just reminders or like for events or tips or anything that we think would be helpful for the community. Um, we're hoping to host a screening of Screenagers in sometime this fall or winter, which is a documentary about social
039media and devices. In the high school, we're going to have um an a bridge version of the NOS. So, the NOS is a no social media challenge. That's a month-long pledge to detox totally from all addictive apps and social media, but we are going to like bring that down a notch to take it to like a week and really just it's all about having um students raise awareness of the amount of time they spend on devices um and how they kind of think taking a step back and thinking about how they feel about it, making adjustments to their usage. We're hoping to get a guest speaker into the high school about cyber bullying and appropriate um social media use and consequences about that. Um we'd like to get some lawn signs up for like distraction-free
040schools at all the buildings. We're going to host an alternate device fair in the spring where parents can come and see the different devices instead of just like getting an iPhone. There are lots of options out there that are much safer for younger children in particular. Um Jonathan height who wrote the anxious generation is coming out with the amazing generation geared towards fifth through eighth graders. And so we're going to hopefully try to get some copies of those books in our students hands. We would like to hope in conjunction with parent you again a second um Apple workshop because that was like a huge success last year. We got a lot of good family uh parent feedback from that. Um and we will continue to collaborate with schools to try to reduce screen time in
041school and um discuss like edtech and whatnot. And if you have any questions, our email is digital citizenship pta.org. >> Okay. >> Thank you. There really has been tremendous work done um last year, this year and the and in our schools like tomorrow for unity day at the middle school. There'll be speakers coming in. This will be incorporated in their presentations. So it's been it's been actually very very helpful. I just have a couple more items. This month is uh also dyslexia awareness month and um with the at the all schools PTA meeting, Diana Gonzalez did a wonderful presentation on dyslexia awareness and then also uh SEPTA had a speaker that came in a couple of weeks ago earlier in the month and did another wonderful presentation on dyslexia and uh Miss Vavona um uh
042our PPS director, she also shared information with our staff around dyslexia. Um, we also have the scope enrichment that will be offered uh from January 10th through March 7th on Saturdays 900 a.m. to noon. And um, you know, we want to thank again Mr. Side. Um, he's one of our teachers, fifth grade teachers, teacher at Stratford. He does an incredible job organizing this program. He works closely with Miss Miss McLaclin to get the get our um, summer uh, program and all these enrichment programs going. So it has expanded over the years and parents should have received registration information through parent square. Our construction update um the work is amaz it's like unbelievable how much work has taken place and if you can you know tomorrow they'll start pouring the foundation for the fitness center the
043turf fields the you know the all three of them are done and the multi-purpose field and that that can be used now um you know that field. So, it's incredible how fast our work is moving and uh we hope it just continues. So, by next next um next summer, this athletic center hopefully will be completed. So, we're pleased with that. Um and there you'll see in the on the board agenda there's some change orders related to these projects. And um couple of other items on the agenda there are several policies on the agenda. One is um and I'll just go through them real quickly. They'll be posted on the website. Um because there this is just a first reading and then for adoption. Um there's our we've updated our policy, our flag policy. We had
044a uh a policy and a regulation. We've streamlined it into one and it has been updated. And so and this this clears up any any questions or confusion between the policy and the regulation. So that's on the that'll be posted. We also have uh a policy amending our students programs for students with disabilities with the age. The policy amends the age. Um there is also a new policy on the agenda um with regards to idling prohibition for buses and other school vehicles. This this policy really speaks to buses um not not idling while waiting for passengers to load and unload on school grounds when vehicle is parked or standing. uh again on school grounds during uh school or sports events. Again, this will be up on our website. It talked about the change orders. We
045also have um recommendation to accept the Oasis grant from Nassau County. This is a grant we get every every school year. It really supports our high school social worker, Miss Grapone here. Um and then there are PTA donations and SEPTA donations various and and one from Friends of Music. Um so just in terms of the PTA they're making donations to hemlock and homestead schools um related to believe it or not iPads and accessories um that are part of the curriculum focused on building essential and essential skills and oral language self-expression and digital literacy. Uh middle school there are uh two authors that are actually coming to speak tomorrow that they're supporting that. Um, Friends of Music is donating funds to you to be used towards purchase of tuba cases. And then SEPTA has a total
046of 10 grants on the agenda for various uh projects and again districtwide to purchase the um sunshine carts for hemlock and locust. There's uh a motivational system for the middle school special class. um some developmentally appropriate toys for locust kindergarteners in the 811 class, modular seating at the high school and uh digital copies of the civics books for use in the book club at the high school. Um as well as funds for a booknook at Steuart School. So we really want to thank our our um PTA, our special education PTA and also Friends of Music for the generous uh donations for our school. it really directly impacts our children. So, thank you. And the last item I also have is in the December work session that'll be focused on K5. Um, we have changed the
047time to 7:00 because we'll have students coming in. So, instead of 7:30, we'll start that meeting at 7 o'clock. >> Thank you. >> At this time, are there any questions to the board? >> None. Next is citizens questions or comments. Angela Mutoo 117 Kingsbury Road. Um, for the last 8 years, I myself and many parents have spoken at these meetings about the lack of ability of our children to write well structured sentences, paragraphs, essays across the curriculum. As a lifelong educator, I can tell you that it's very difficult to teach writing. So, I understand that many things have to be put into place to achieve this goal. Writing is still an essential form of communication and writing needs to be taught explicitly. My question is once again, when can we expect to see the results
048of the literacy action plan in the students writing? So, first what we we've already started um on some scales to make some adjustments based on some of the recommendations that we've seen um which was reflected in some of the summer curriculum writing that was done. But we this this um literacy review team is a year-long team. But I want to also say that as the year goes on as we have things that we know that can be implemented right away that will happen as will continue after the conclusion of the commit of the um team. So when we'll see the outcome in the writing of the students will be dependent you know in some cases it'll be dependent upon the student it'll be dependent upon um the nature of the changes that we're seeking from
049them. Um, so if there's a more specific way I can answer your question, I'd be happy to do so, but I just want to on the whole, I think that we'll see it on an ongoing basis um incrementally. Okay, I see Von Chapman, somebody will I'm just going to read something from SEPTA first. Uh, SEPTA is proud to approve a total grant to the district of $14,624 for programmatic items such as sunshine carts at the primaries, digital books, teaching civics at the high school, sensory tools and toys, and other items to enhance learning across all seven buildings. We thank all of the all the grantees that applied this year and look forward to hearing about the impact of these grants in the spring. So, twisting my hat now back to May. So, uh, first of
050all, no, thank you to everybody, to every teacher, thank you to the high school for pushing a little bit more. We do love to give the high school a little more money. Um, we're hoping next year we get also more grants. I think we have to push a little bit for that. So, please always encourage the teachers. Um, I know that we spoke to several teachers and we even helped out with ENL, which was great thing. That's also part of special education for us and there's so much more that we can do. um really just to help with I'd say more project-based learning and things that really help uh involve all students. Um now to flip it to me. Sorry. So we have a good distinction. Um so two things. Um I do want to
051follow up on the music program that we spoke about for the children in the eight classes. Uh music therapy. I fully again understand you know budgeting and so on but I think it's such an important um class to have for these kids. I've mentioned it so many times children like mine do not get to have this later on. They don't get to join orchestra and band and um as they continue music and art look very very different. would love to see the board support this and to bring in um different types of music therapy and maybe um uh art therapy would be a great thing for them. Adaptive equipment. We have plenty of boards um such as SEPTA and Friends of Music and Arts that we have already donated and would love to continue to
052support it together, but we do need to have you guys assist with that as well. Um the other thing I know Kale you mentioned it's AC awareness month. I do have a child that uses um a device uses three devices just for fun. Um for that I would it's so important when you have a child that doesn't speak that we learn to not speak for them and we learn to see how they want to speak and encourage that. In my time, I have had a very difficult time unfortunately with previous AAC um staff that would either tell my daughter how she should speak, tell me how we should coordinate it. We've been very very lucky with Miss Martin that has been in the district for the last few years and she's been very supportive. Um
053but besides devices, um there's a few things, you know, we do packs and we have boards that we've put up in some of the primaries, which is great. Um, as children get older, there are different things that we've discovered, things that I've never in my life thought that we would use like spelling to communicate. Um, if any of you have ever seen my daughter do it, um, and you, many of you have met Raina, I can ask her a question and she will fully answer me. She will come and she will say, we'll ask her what you'd like to eat and she will spell spaghetti and meatballs. Not something we thought that she would do. We read her something. She loves science apparently. we'd read her and then she'd go back and she'll spell things
054like uh carnivorous and things like that that we'd have to go back and see, oh my god, is she spelling this right? There's so much more in there that we can't see. And it would be really really great if we encourage the few children that we have here and the few families and we support the different types of ways that the children want to express themsel and we support it in the school as well. So, we do have a great homeschool connection and we can encourage them to continue to be able to speak because if they only do it at home, they don't know that they can do it all the time. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hi. Um, I'm Deborah Donahe, 218 Kilburn Road. Um, I just want to also get back to
055the literacy and spelling. I think we're wasting a lot of time here. I have a ninth grader, a seventh grader, and a fourth grader. I had very few problems with my eldest, and he's now moved on to private school, which is another thing because the amount of ninth graders that left the district is pretty phenomenal this year. Um, which I didn't realize till after we got into the process. Um, the seventh grader, I probably gave more grace than I probably should have because he was a first grader when we left on COVID. He came back and had a math teacher that was a certified elementary school teacher. So, he kind of lost his first and second grade and he's still sort of catching up. But I feel like with each child, the instruction or lack
056thereof has gone way down. My fourth grader to date has not had a spelling test. She can't spell most regular words. She is in the Quest program and is doing word masters now. And I found out last week when we were defining words, she doesn't know the difference between a noun and a verb. How is that possible in fourth grade that she doesn't know that a verb is an action word and a noun is a person, place, or thing? That's unacceptable. And I understand that we did this, you know, the the consultant firm and that took an a year and now we're talking about another year. So now we're talking about maybe implementing in another year. The kids are here for 12 years. That's a quarter of their time in the school we're talking about.
057She's going to enter middle school not being able to spell or any sentence structure and they're going to expect her to write essays. So, what are we doing in third, fourth, and fifth grade to get them back to speed because we've lost all of this time in the beginning and now where are they how are we catching them up because they're going to fall way behind. they're already behind and they're going to expect higher level functioning and they're not going to be equipped to do this. >> Yeah. If I can just ask because I know you had said something similar when we were at the all PTA meeting. Have you spoken to your um child's teacher? >> Current teacher. Not yet. >> Yeah, I would. They're on the Chromebook constantly, which is another issue altogether
058that somebody else will talk about, but they're on the Chromebook for hours a day, >> which I'm also not happy about, which I wasn't going to bring here because that is a teacher problem. >> But but I would encourage you to speak with your um your child's teacher first and foremost. And which building? Stuart or Stratford? At Stratford. And I will also let Mr. Mr. Hardigan know to um to let him know your comments from today so he could also um speak with you directly regarding your child's education in the in the building. I do not >> but I'm more concerned with the years of planning. I get that it's a district problem but >> well I also want to say one thing you know and I think we have to it is not that
059we have this review and there's something so drastically broken in the school system and I want I please let me finish. It isn't because if it was it is not our our students are learning and they're growing. We could always do better that that and you know and I'm glad we've engaged in this process that we are assessing our work and we're making adjustments but this notion that our kids are not learning that that you know that I have a real issue with and I think our educators would have real challenges with hearing that. So I will tomorrow I will actually I will tomorrow speak to Mr. Cardigan and your child's classroom teacher. I will do that myself. That's number one. >> This year she hasn't had a spelling test. >> But you know, so
060and I have to tell you I you know again Mr. Hardigan and and which ele primary school was your child in Okay, we'll we'll I I will address that with uh tomorrow. Okay. Number two is this Chromebook. I you know today we had this literacy committee meeting and I you know one of our teachers she actually said something that was very um from Stuart she said something that really was important. She said because we talk about not using technology in the classrooms because we have a site that parents can go on and see. She she gave us such a good example of she said you know I had the students look at maps on the on the Chromebook. their assignment was paper pencil, but she had the the maps on the Chromebook. And she said,
061you know, parents are going to think that she's been on the the the classroom is on Chromebooks for the 40 minutes, and that's not true. It's easier for them to look at the maps. There were five different maps to differentiate on the Chromebooks, but they were doing paper pencil. What we have asked our principles to do is really address it because there was an issue I heard around Stratford and uh Mr. Hart again he said he's he he's asking teachers now to explicitly tell parents when they're using the Chromebooks. So I think there is uh the you know we have it on the website it's available for parents to see how long their child is on the Chromebook but it is not that they are constantly on the Chromebooks doing work. It is that yes
062they do use it and but it's not that like today's example was a great example paper pencil but they were looking at it visually on the Chromebook. >> What they got from the classroom teacher was that this is a transition year that their writing has to be done mostly on the Chromebook because they need to be ready for fifth, sixth and seventh. And I said well my daughter needs to write her thoughts out or whatever. And that was not she was like okay but sometimes most of the times we need to do that because then they go into their computers to see what they're doing. So again I would really if that is the case if you have spoken to your child's teacher and if you've sp spoken to Mr. Hart again then then then
063it hasn't been addressed then that's an issue which I'll address. But I'm I'm assuming you've spoken to Mr. class. >> I haven't spoken to him about that specifically. I'm talking I'm talking about the global part of this that for years there haven't been spelling tests that we have changed things over the years and it has not necessarily gotten better. So I don't >> and I and I apologize for this but I'd have to look into this further. I will schedule a time with you and Mr. Hardigan and your classroom teacher. Okay. Uh, hi. I'm Julie Mason, 131 Mebrrook Road. Uh, I like Deb have three kids in the district. I have a high school senior, I have a seventh grader, and I have a third grader. Unfortunately, like Deb, I have a huge issue with
064how writing is being taught. And I'm using the comparison of my oldest child to my middle child and to my youngest. And my middle child, unfortunately, like Deb, had COVID. So, I gave tremendous grace when in fourth grade, he couldn't spell basic words. I noticed that there were no spelling tests. In fact, there were no spelling tests ever. Kindergarten, first grade, second grade was a loss because he didn't have a proper teacher. third grade. He had a great teacher, but we were making up for almost two years of full loss that no one acknowledged, but we had to make it up. We're now in middle school. My son wrote a letter to his aunt this week. His aunt lives in Utah. He couldn't address the envelope. He had no idea. He writes dates. Doesn't know
065that you have to capitalize certain things. You have to use commas. Those are pretty basic. That's a seventh grader. My daughter in was in 12th grade was writing multi-page essays at that point. My son, if he wrote a multi-page essay, I could assure you you wouldn't even know what he was trying to tell you. He's smart. He's in all advanced classes. He's getting 96 97 in every class. That's what's happening. That's what's under the hood. He's not reading his books. They're listening to audio books. My daughter read the books. Now they listen to the books because the teachers are not certain the kids can read the books. So the reading and the writing they're both off off the rails. But I brought some examples if I can hand them to you. >> This is from
066my writings today. Just a small example. There are three exercises in writing that he did today. Matthew's a good student. Um, every day I get three or four pages that look like that. There is something missing on those pages. That would be any mo any form of correction. None. If I sat in front of the piano and banged on the keys for hours on end and no one told me I was doing it wrong, would I become Mosart? Would I ever learn to play the piano properly? That's what's happening. My son, my eldest, and now my youngest are never corrected. Spelling, grammar, proper sentence structure, just the basics. Forget nouns and verbs. Write a sentence properly, form it properly, punctuate it properly. My son asked me today, "What is this? A question or a statement."
067He's in third grade. He's frightening. They never correct it. So the kids never know that that's something they actually need to do. So my seventh grader, just like my third grader, writes phonetically. He writes it out the way he thinks it sounds. There's like eight different I encourage you actually to pass it along. There's words there. He doesn't know that he's spelling them wrong. He doesn't know he's making mistakes. No one's telling him. I urge the literacy committee to hear what the parents are saying. We have older kids. I'm an attorney. When I work for clients and they don't like the results, I have to take the criticism. I understand the teachers don't want to hear things aren't working. I've spoken to Mr. Hardigan. I've spoken to everyone of my students teach teachers since they
068were in second grade all the way through. It's falling on deaf ears because you know what they tell me? That's the curriculum. It's out of our hands. Well, you guys are the curriculum. Fix it. You can't change the standards when they take the SAT or the ACT. You're going to get a total shock when these kids take these tests and they can't do it. Vocabulary spelling, they just haven't done it. They're now introducing vocabulary words. And my teacher, my son's teacher told them, "Don't worry, you don't need to have to spell it." If an associate wrote me a note either on chat, on a post-it, wherever on an email, and they spell the way my children spell, I'd fire them. The judge would throw out the brief. You're not preparing them, and I know you're
069trying, but hear us. Please make the adjustments because it's not working. Hi uh Tina Marshall's 171 Garden Street. One, I want to thank SEPTA for bringing in um an OG fellow to do dyslexia awareness presentation. Thought it was very uh helpful and I appreciate that the PTA had Miss Gonzalez speak as well. My question relates to so my son started middle school this year and the amount of information and the amount of studying needed is a bit overwhelming for a child that has dyslexia. Um I know that there's team support. I know there are other you know there's resource room other services like that. I'm curious, I forgot who said it that um I don't know who spoke to some teachers to explain more about dyslexia, but what can be done to educate our teachers
070further to know how to better maybe modify some materials or better help their children? I mean, there there's so much information on Google Classroom that even myself as a parent, I'm overwhelmed. So I can just imagine how our students feel. Um so that that's just one question I have. The other thing I want to comment on and I know they talked about spelling. Mine is different, right? Everybody else will say a dyslexic student spelling comes last, right? I get it. Um but I have seen a difference between my sixth grader over the years with spelling book reports and whatnot than my current ninth grader over the years. My ninth grader came home spelling tests every week, exercises for spelling at home at night all the time as well. I didn't really see much of that
071with my younger uh son. And right now in his resource room using Wilson, the the fifth grade the sixth graders are struggling with spelling like at a very low level of Wilson. So I do think that's something that needs to be looked at. um probably Miss Bavona maybe that's something we can talk about too because some something's not right um around how that's administered. So I would like going back to the first question I would like to understand what can be done to keep educating our teachers because they one in five students has dyslexia right so every class has one or more students I know my son's class has multiple so what can be done to keep that conversation going and the education going too continued professional learning for our teachers we do that every
072year and um you What you're saying is how can we expand it further for our regular education teachers as well? >> Yeah, I mean the speaker that spoke of that SEPTA had >> she does training for teachers or Gillingham training. I know you've mentioned letters before, Miss Papis. I don't know if that's as helpful for dyslexic students, but anything that can be more targeted and expanded would be appreciated. Thanks. Thank you. To make eic efficient use of the meeting time, the board of education authorizes the use of a consent agenda. The president of board will ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda. We'll ask if the board members wish to have an item removed or voted on separately. Upon the discussion, uh the board can vote on a consent agenda motion. Um, at
073this time I have a motion to approve the consent agenda which includes business of the board matters I1 through I2, personnel matters J1 through J10, business office matters items K1 through K36, curriculum and instruction matters L1 through L2 and special education matters items M1 through M3. >> Second. >> All in favor? I. Any new business from the board administration? >> No. >> Thank you. Uh future board of education meetings, we have Wednesday, November 12th, 2025, board of education work session at the Garden City High School. Then Monday, October 24th, Board of Education regular session here at the Garden City High School. At this time, I have a motion that there's no further business to come before the board and that the meeting be adjourned. >> All in favor?