001Good evening. Welcome to the September 16, 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. >> United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice. >> Do you notice the meeting has been provided to the public and each member of the board of education pursuant to the requirements of law? Tina, will you please take attendance? >> Present. school. >> Present. >> Dan, superintendent for business and finance. >> Present. >> Amy Mclendant for human resources and leadership. >> Present. >> Dr. Alendur instruction. >> Present. >> Donio. >> Pres. member of the board of education >> present. >> May
002I have a motion to accept the agenda for September 16, 2025 regular session as presented? >> All in favor? I at this time I will pass the mic over to Dr. Sarah. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Silio. So, um you know, we want to start off, this is our very first meeting and and we're so glad to have you, Kayla, here um this evening, but we do have a student that we want to recognize, our student artists for our calendar that you see up there. So, I'm going to have Kayla give introduce and talk about the calendar. >> So, this is our wonderful calendar design and Briana Taylor was the one who created it. Um, so Brian come up. >> And you know, they were here and doing their senior Congratulations. >> You did
003a great job. Such a really wonderful message. >> Just something uh that I do want to say about our calendar. It is such a thoughtful process for our students and we have amazing designs that come up and then we vote on it. So, uh, as a, you know, all of us administrators, we vote on it. So, we're really proud of you, Brianna. This is beautiful what you created. So, thank you. >> Okay. Um, >> at this at this time, we're going to hand it over to Gary Shei and Jack Klein who will provide an update on the construction that's taking place over the summer and where we are today. We're going to change that. >> Hi, how are you? Jack Klene. I'm your construction manager for all the projects that went on this summer. Uh
004had a very good year this year. We had a whole bunch of projects in every one of your buildings and we accomplished what we were supposed to accomplish by the end of before the start of start of the school year. So, um we Who's uh operating the machine? >> Tina over there. >> Hi, Tina. How are you? You can flip to the next one. >> So, we're going to start with the with the parking lot, the Steuart parking lot. It's open and it's active right now. striped and we're down to a couple of little punch list items. Uh had uh had no major issues on it. Had some drainage issues, some of conflicts with uh some from piping, but uh it went very well and it's open. So, if we go to the next page,
005these are shots during construction. And this is the finished product. So, all grass seated, ready to go, hydro seated in, striped, and ready for ready for use. So, I ran into the principal there the other day, and she seemed to be thrilled with it. >> Right, we can do the next one. Thanks, Tina. The parking garage, uh, parking garage was a challenge. It was, uh, the soil underneath it was not very good and apparently was built on an old landfill. So the design was was a design of uh helilical anchor supports that were attached to a uh a structural slab. Uh had some minor issues getting the the hill piles down to where they shouldn't getting capacity on the hill piles, but it worked out fine and uh it's now open and we have buses
006in the garage. We could go again, Tina. This is uh the first one. This is during this is a slab during the the demolition phase and when we were pouring concrete in here. It's a structural slab. It's two layers of number five bars each way both up up and bottom and it supports itself. So, and if we go to the next one. So, and this is what we have here. The buses are in they're operating and they're using parking garage. So next one uh this is uh the HVAC systems air conditioning system throughout the school. We did air conditioning in every school in the system this year. Uh I can tell you that they're all up. They're all running. They're all operating right now. And uh we're down to down to tying in the BMS
007system, the building management system into the you know or tying the air conditioning systems into the BMS system so Rob the schools can run them on their own. So and that should be done in the next week or so. So but this is during the construction. So this is our finished product. So all done. Ceiling's back in place. the cassettes and the wall-mounted units are all working properly. We have no leaks in the building, thank God. So, it all worked out pretty well. So, uh the gymnasiums and the bleachers uh the we replaced all of the bleachers with new bleachers. We put in new uh drop down curtains. The curtains had the divider curtains between the basketball courts. And we replaced one of the basketball hoops. It's also all done and operating and students are
008using it now. So this is during construction. This is our final product. So uh the bleachers all come out. They have the logo on one side. Uh I guess that's that's the visiting team side home side, right? And the curtains come down. and they go up and automatically with safety controls on it so that in the event that they start to drop and someone walks underneath it, there is a a beam radar to stop it from coming down and goes back up. So, but it's all up and running now. High school, we're in the process of doing a lot of things at the high school. You can see outside that uh we're working on all the fields right now. the softball fields, the turf is in place. The uh all of the fill in the
009in the turf is in place. All of the concrete work for the outside project has all been completed. We're anticipating that the asphalt work that's done next week and that'll finish up. That's uh all all of the hard the hardcape. The the last thing that we're working on is the irrigation system and u and the uh what you call the um having a little glitch here in my thinking. So, no. Yeah, the grass we have a we have u we have different grasses. Some of it's hydro seed, some of it's uh some of it saw and uh we're still >> right. >> So, this is on the boiler. >> Yep. >> Oh, I'm sorry. We we replaced uh we took two boilers out. We replaced we you now have four four four boilers or small
010smaller more efficient boilers that uh that uh give you some redundancy in your systems. These uh the project is is expected to be done the first week of of uh October and we're on schedule right now. So this is the old boil boilers when we were taking them out during the demolition phase. This is the new efficient boilers. Okay. All right. Now we're back to the right one. I apologize. So, um, again, site drainage on or this is for the the addition, the new addition. The site drainage around the site is has been completed. The um the foundations have been started. Uh we did a little turnaround. We were going to do all of the foundations by the end of the summer. We made a conscious decision because there's a rampway that goes from the
011hallway down into the new project and we thought it was more advantageous for us to get out of the building as quick as we could to keep the noise down. It does get a little noisy out there now. So, we're still drilling and attaching to the building and that work should be done in the next week and a half and then we'll be outside the building. So footings are going in now. We've done the footings that attach to the building itself. And we're now doing the perimeter uh perimeter footings which will be followed by the the the structural fill that goes in the hole. And then we of course lab and get ready for steel. The works uh finishes next summer and uh we're we're right on schedule right where we should be right now.
012So this is the old uh the old area. This is where the old slab was for where all the sports equipment was, which takes up a good portion of the building footprint. This is what we have today. So we pouring concrete. Uh we try to pour concrete every week. We have a good crew and uh so far so good. It's uh operating on time and on schedule. This is uh that was just a shot of the side of the foundation. I just wanted to put a picture of the foundation walls in. So, okay, we're ready. The field work, which I already went through, but we'll do it again. So, the uh the the softball field and baseball field, turf fields are in place and they're done. the concrete work all the way around the site
013because you have a pathway that goes all the way around the site. That all ties together. All of the hard concrete work and curb work is all done. The synthetic turk for the multi-purpose field is being installed presently. Hopefully, it'll be all installed by the end of next week and then it's a matter of putting in the fill and it and the finishes on it. So, the project is expected to be done the second week of October and we're on schedule on it. Oh, that's great. >> When is the turn? >> Thank you for getting >> um >> right now we're actually running maybe a little ahead of schedule, but I don't want to say that yet, right? I'm not ready for that. So, but right now the schedule says middle uh second week of
014October and right now we're on on on at pace to finish >> at second turf field. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, on the whole thing we're he's hoping to be out of here with turf installed and grass heated and irrigated by mid-occtober. >> So, these are an aerial view of the softball and baseball. Um Kevin, I probably could have put 15 more pictures. One was better than the next. Um they were really great, but you can Um, you know, most of really the the turf work's all done. It's just the finishing work. All the saw has to be put in. We're still dealing with the irrigation and the asphalt path that goes throughout the whole site, right? That still has to get done. >> Y >> So, um, and then they're heavily working on the multi-purpose
015field, >> but um, to see these done is is spectacular. Are they going are the kids going to be able to go on the multi-purpose before like the sod and you know >> well the the multi-purpose field I believe it's going to be active midocctober that's when you're going to occupy it and use it. >> No they have to they have to vacate the site before we allow that because they are actively working. still >> and and so the it's mid October they're thinking that >> or say mid to end it depends we'll have seating done and you know I mean they'll give us the green light but you you need to stay off these areas for a little bit >> but we're hopeful >> you know that there might be some time but if
016not I mean we we don't want to boo >> yeah the baseball fields will take a little bit longer because you have turf that your grass and sod and hydro seed that goes in and it's got to go through a couple of growing seasons before you could use it. >> So that's it'll be ready for that. I think >> the intention was you know late early November. >> Oh okay. >> Yeah. We had actually set a little bit earlier towards the like in mid to late October. >> Yeah. >> They'll be done. >> Well, we want to catch the grass growing season. That's that's the rush right now is to make sure we get seed down so that it starts growing this this year. >> And really I mean I thank the high school for
017hosting most of this work. I know it's been a you know >> it has a heavy lift for our high school administrators and and also our director of of athletics in terms of just reorganizing and seeing where things go. over the summer there was um that was a heavy lift to move our art teachers because that's what really allowed us to do this work with the the um the fitness center that we were able to continue to do that work. So that was and you can't even tell that that um these spaces were created and removing that section they can go in that >> they're my roommates now and they're right they're pretty fun to deal with. So, I got to uh say thank a couple people. The school system did a wonderful job here
018and BBS did a wonderful job as did uh Gary for the pre-construction phase. You guys hired an incredibly good group of contractors. We have no bad guys. So, you know, I'm always I always try to count on one, but you never know never know where that guy's uh going to show up. But they did a great job of buying this thing and making sure that they had the right people here. And I gotta say, the school system itself has been really, really good about letting me go wherever I want and they followed me through and cleaned up after every mess we made and they did an absolute super job. So the administrators and the custodial staff were wonderful to us. So >> thank you. Thank you. >> Any I'm all good. You guys any questions?
019Okay, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you all for coming. So, you could see the work is really progressing and um it's moving at a nice pace here throughout the we had considerable I think this is the most work we've had uh over the summer major work and throughout the district. So, yeah, definitely since I've been here as well. So, >> but good work. Okay. >> Do you want to move on to uh your superintendent's report or >> uh just see student? >> Yeah, I will. But uh what I will do is uh for the for my report, I want to actually um have Kayla give the report u you know what she has collected for opening of school. I know she's been in touch with our administrators throughout the building and she'll
020also uh talk about um some of our students as well. So, I'm going to turn it over to you Kayla first. >> Thank you so much. So, um I'm going to start with the primary schools. So, Locust uh they were talking about how they have a new program called win. Well, this is actually throughout all the primary schools to improve math and literacy. So, those coaches have been going into all of the primary schools and working with all of the kids. They have something in I know hemlock and homestead called the four pillars that all of the kids are learning. So it's respect, responsibility, citizenship, and perseverance. Um they also have a lot of fun activities that have been going on with the beginning of the school year. So Hemlock has something called the Hemlock
021helmet. So you get like flowers for positive things and if you get 10, not flowers, feathers. If you get 10, you can have like a dance party or whatever the kids want. So the kids are really enjoying that. At Homestead, they're also focusing on art and they're reading books. about art. So, that's really awesome. And then at Straford and Stewart, uh I heard that the second graders are really loving it. At one of the at Straford, one of the second graders said, "I love Straford. It's like the high school." Um I was like, I'm not sure about that, but you're you're for your age, that's perfect. Um the fifth graders at both schools had focus, which is where they first get to interact with either school. Um and I heard that they had a great
022time there. Straford is also doing Frozen Jr. as their musical this year and they're very excited for that. And Stewart is doing The Lion King Jr. So, I heard the kids are very looking forward to that. Um, they have new awards at Steuart um Golden Awards. They're learning something called Steps to Success that the kids were talking about the same um four pillars that the primary schools are doing and just how to be a good uh member of the community. Um, and then just like the fourth graders and third graders at the schools are also learning like geography and just like steps that'll help them when they grow up. And then moving on to the middle and high schools, we have spirit week. The younger kids also had spirit week. Ours is a little bit
023different. So our spirit week, we had pajama day. Today was tropical day. Tomorrow is USA. Uh Thursday's color wars. And Friday we have pep rally. And everyone wears maroon and gray. um the kids at the younger schools, everyone lower than the high school, we will have kids go in to talk about homecoming. So, a lot of the sports teams and they do that and the kids love to see all the high schoolers there and talk about homecoming and then the parade for anyone who's going. Uh the free lunch program has been very awesome. Everybody loves getting free lunch and free breakfast. I hear everyone talking about that all day. The phone policy has been going good. Um, that's the best I can say for that. I I've honestly I've been impressed for how people are
024not using them. Sophomores got iPads. I believe the sixth graders also got iPads and they do I have heard they prefer them a lot to the Chromebooks. They're a lot better to use. Uh, freshman orientation went great. The freshman are really assimilating very nicely to the schools. And I just saw the field today during gym and the field looks absolutely great, the new turf field. So, everyone's super excited about that. And I would like to little shout out that Garden City is ranked number two high school on Long Island. So, congratulations. So, and then we'll go into our awards. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, the Long Island Arts Alliance Scholar artist. So Tina, these are they're chosen. There's only 20 that are chosen on Long Island. It's both for their art, but also for academics.
025So Tina 2 is honored for visual arts and Tessa Rconia is honored for dance. And then one junior scientist in Yan Explorers Meta Competition. So John Crouchley, he's his project was focused on airbearing technology. I'm not a scientist, but I'm sure that's very, very awesome. Um, Sarah Finny, hers was her words was on crop resistance to the mosaic virus and how to save more crops, and they were both honored at this competition. And your 2025 NISMA All State Performing Ensemble. So, they're going to go. We have Emily Pulver for mixed chorus, Sarah Finny for symphony orchestra, and then the rest are alternates, but they're also doing a great job. So, Clara Archer, Rebecca Chow, Ava Chen, Eton Louu, Grace Crumple, Elsie Ross, and Azera. I'm not going to cry. Um, yeah, so they're doing a
026really, really great job. And then at our next meeting, we're going to honor our national merit semi-finalist, which is Olivia Ols, uh, Sophie Lipins, and Sarah Finny as well. Yeah, great job. >> Haya, you did a great job. >> You know, I also wanted to mention as um you know, Kella's talking about our school accomplishment. One of the things that um I think we had mentioned earlier really to the board, not really uh not necessarily publicly, Mr. Stein Grubner is here. he put a tremendous amount of work him and his team for the you know there was a letter that came out about the national blue ribbon school. So we were one of the districts that uh that were asked to be um that that were recommended and there were one we were one of
02719 schools and then we were just recently told that program has ended but we did receive notification over the summer that we would be um that you know we would be receiving that recognition. So even though we're not getting that formal formal recognition, I think it's an opportunity for us to really acknowledge and um you know just the hard work of our students, our faculty and staff for our district and you know although our high school is definitely you know where everything is at a different level because it's a high school, right? You're going beyond and we're making sure that they're prepared but this is a culmination of K through 12 because our kids stay here kindergarten through 12th grade. So, I really want to thank Mr. Stein Grubner and his team. You put in
028a lot of work or I know you did all of last year when you first got that notice. I think it was in uh September or October around that time frame and and you started working on it. So, really appreciate all that good work and uh and thank you for you noticed that we were number two our high school. So, that was a nice shout out for our high school right there. So, all right. So, would you like me to continue with my repeat? Okay. So, you know, as we're talking about our students, I had the opportunity today to meet with our, it was at Steuart, our second and third grade students. I just want to mention some things that our third grade I mean, it made my day what they were saying. They had
029a whole assembly on its steward's uh step to success. Here are some things. This is their words because I want to read it to you. Uh, actually Carrie shared it with me because she was taking good notes. They talked about uh you know integrity and they knew doing the right things when no one is watching. Progress over perfection, focus on growth, not just getting it perfect. These are kids words that they were saying. Uh own your mistakes. Uh lift others up. Avoid jealousy. That was another uh uh comment one of our students made. Respect others. Use kind words. Be humble. Be a bu be a buddy, not a bully. I said that could be a nice tagline. One of our students said that and just make thoughtful choices, but they kept going on. It was
030just so beautiful to hear them speak that way and it's been, you know, two weeks of school. So, I was very, very proud of our students and along with our second graders. They're loving being in big schools. Um, they're loving it, but they do miss their teachers. So, they're they are in a good place. So, just a couple of things I wanted to mention. Let me just go here. Um, you know, we have talked about this is, you know, this is our first uh regular meeting. Our opening of schools went really well. And I do always want to take a moment to thank particularly our GCPD, our commissioner Jackson and his team for all they do uh particularly for our opening of our schools and um they're true partners with us. So, we'd like to
031thank them. Our back to school nights have started. We had several back to school nights. I think tonight was a Locust back to school night night and we have a couple more left. Um so that's going well and our UPK um back to school night I think that's tomorrow night that's coming up. So we're really looking forward to a wonderful wonderful year ahead. I also wanted to you know last uh last week CASDA presented their literacy review so we have developed a plan so you know what we're doing. So I'd like Dr. for Bowman to go through our action plan and um for the remainder of this year so far. Okay. >> Sure. So um we have assembled a committee. Uh we have also identified eight dates between now and the end of the year.
032Um one in October, one in December which will be our November December date, January, February, March, April, May and June. Um the focus of the committee is going to be to streamline and realign our programs and assessments to make sure that we eliminate redundancies and ensure that all of our tools are serving a clear instructional purpose. Uh we will be clarifying non-negotiable nonnegotiable instructional practices within our core literacy time. Um, we'll be making sure that we have expectations for small groupoup instruction, explicit grammar and vocabulary teaching, as well as a focus on writing instruction. We will be looking at our intervention supports and staffing, especially reading specialists in our primary grades um to ensure that what we are doing is matching what students needs are and ensuring that the eligibility for students to receive services
033is clarified and also reflected in our MTSS plan. We are going to be looking at our professional development roadmap and making sure that our learning cycles for professional development are as job embedded as possible so that there's some real time reflection on work in practice. Um and also collaboration so that we have a learn apply reflect cycle that is ongoing. Um we have already begun to do that work and in fact had already started to do that work before the literacy review uh was published last week and before the committee began. But it is good to know that that work will continue and will be formalized with the input of teachers and administrators who make up the committee K12. Um, we will also be making sure that we create a parent communication toolkit that provides
034actionable, transparent guidance about student progress and home support strategies. Um, as was some of as was the guidance from the literacy committee and the literacy review. Um, we expect that by June we will absolutely be able to provide a streamlined assessment suite making sure again that we have efficient effective assessments that help target important instructional strategies and needs. Um, we will be revising our comprehensive literacy framework which as you know is comprehensive but we will be streamlining it. Um, we will also be by then making recommendations for writing and grammar instruction. At that time we will also be able to um well well actually by the middle of the year by January February we will have as a committee decided whether we will be piloting different resources for possible adoption in the 206 27 school
035year. But in fact, those decisions need to be made in good time with really purposeful, intentional decisions and and um you know, a wide range of folks who are trying different things to make sure that what we choose is the best possible option for our students. >> Okay. Thank you, Dr. Bowman. Um would you also go over from last week there was um some comments made about the NWA scores, a clarification? >> Sure. Um, one thing that's important to note about the NWA is that it is a nationally normed benchmark assessment and every typically every four years those norms are adjusted so that they um so that the data that we are able to get from the NWE is relevant um and viable and the most recent norms were actually posted in the middle of
036July. And so initially when we were able to publish our results at the end of the school year, those norms were against on our live site the 2020 norms which was the most recent norm publication prior to 2025. Um in mid July those new norms were published and as a result of that some of our data has shifted. We get our data live off the NWA site and once they shifted the norms we got more accurate data I think is what you would say the NWA would report that it is more accurate because it is based on norms that are more updated and reflect nationally what students across the country are doing. Um, just for a little context, the way that NWA does that is between fall of 2022 and spring of 2024, they collected
037data on different items on the NWA at each level and that data was collected and aggregated so that they could so that they could be put together to create the norms um based on post-pandemic student achievement and student goals and student growth. So, um, one of the things that I want to point out about that is that there is a strong correlation, it's 82% actually, um, between the results of the NWA and their predictions for the New York State ELA assessments. What's important to note though is that those correlations are made based upon the national norms and the n and also statewide predictions. Typically, Garden City's students score above the predictions that the NWA provides. And so, while that is the case that there is a very strong 82% is a strong correlation for us
038and our students, and I won't pretend to be able to explain why, um, we do better than what the NWA would be predicting for our students. And so, that's an important piece of information to have. Um, another important piece of information to have is that while the NWEA is an assessment of our students reading skills and the growth that they display in reading, the ELA assessments not only assess reading, but they also assess writing and language skills. So, in some ways, these are apples and oranges and it's difficult to make those correlations. Is it on? Okay. Um, another point is that when we're looking at students proficiency levels, we have to make sure that we understand that we use, and I've spoken about this before, we triangulate data from a multiple different sources because of
039the fact that on any one day, whether we're talking about the ELA assessments, the NWE ad NWA administration, or any of our other benchmarks that we're using, there are many outside factors that may contribute to an anomalous score. And so we want to make sure that we're looking at multiple measures. Um, finally, I want to just talk a little bit about the performance levels that the New York State um that New York State publishes. And of course, they're 1, two, three, and four. And in New York State, the way that we have them um organized is that levels three and four are considered proficient. However, what I think is important to note is that for a level two, students who are performing at level two are partially proficient in standards and they're considered to be
040on track to meet current New York State high school graduation requirements. And so that's an important thing to note because it does not mean that our children can't read. It just means that they're partially proficient in moving towards proficiency. Um, while I am talking a little bit about NWA and scores, I just want to point out that um, while the assessment scores are still embargoed, we did encounter a situation over the course of the last two weeks where some of the individual score reports that were on the parent portal were inaccurate. Um we are we we contract with a vendor who does our scoring and then has the files uploaded into our portal and the cleanup for that happens both on the state level and in in Boseies and what happened was that there were
041seven students for whom the score reports were inaccurate. Um it was brought to my attention by a parent who was very clear very diligent in looking at their students score report and saw that something didn't make sense. Um, and when I say that, one example was that this student had a perfect score. Um, every single point this student earned. So, this student had 518 out of 518 scaled points and the states scored him at a two, which clearly was wrong. Um, and so when the parent called me and pointed it out to me, I immediately got on the phone and called Boseies and called the state and was in a week-long conversation with them. until I felt confident that they had gotten to the bottom of the problem. Um, they independently found some of some
042students that I hadn't f found on my own. Um, and so I'm pleased to say that those reports have been uploaded to each child's individual parent portal backpack. I'm not sure if we use the word backpack here. Um, and so those updated score reports are up there. I think that part of um the reason the embargo lasts as long as it does is that you can imagine if if we were one of five districts that I was told in Nassau County had a similar issue occur. So it wasn't isolated to Garden City um and it wasn't something that they didn't know was happening in other places. I don't know what the other districts who the other districts were. They wouldn't tell me though I did ask. Um, but I was also assured that these changes
043in the data will will be reflected in our aggregated data. In other words, the wrong scores aren't in our averages. The right scores are in our averages. Initially, that was a question that might not have been answered the way that we wanted, but um, I made sure that it was ended up the way that we needed it to be. Um, I think that's everything. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Bowman. was very comprehensive and uh much appreciated. Uh one thing to note is that about the scores with the that we were we had seven disc these were only the paper pencil. >> Yes. Assessments not >> all of them >> there were um of the seven. >> So all seven of the score reports that were inaccurate were students who took the paperbased form of
044the test. However, not all students who took the paperbased form of the assessments score reports were wrong. >> Yeah, that >> good. Thank you. All right. Just some other items that I wanted to uh bring to your attention is that you um you know in this week's agenda you you don't see a treasures report on the agenda. That's because our books are just closed. So for uh June, July and August that'll be presented in October at the regular meeting. Um I also wanted to uh you know we started our program lunch for every learner and that has been you know when you start something new there are some growing pains with that but it has um it is growing and growing. So we're making adjustments as we go along with our program and um I
045don't know Mr. Capier do you want to add anything regarding the program? Just overall, we've been working closely with our food service management company, Witson's, and um uh we've had great cooperation from all the elementary and primary schools and everyone's on board. So, we'll be making tweaks to the menus and, you know, making some adjustments, but overall it'll it'll look similar to what's going on now. >> All right. And then just a couple of other items. Um, you know, on the agenda this evening, uh, you'll see that, uh, we're, uh, you know, we're on the agenda, we have Linda Green's retirement, who's our director of transportation, and, um, you know, that's as of the last day in December, and she's been in the district. It'll it right now, it's 39 years she's been with us.
046And she started here, and she's worked in different capacities throughout the district. And I think one of the things about Linda is that her um she's very compassionate about children and the connection she makes. And I think within the department that's something that uh that I've you know one of the things that I love about our transportation department is that very much student centered and family oriented and that's something that um Linda has worked very hard for and her and her just her responsiveness. So, um, you know, we'll keep the board and our community updated in terms of next steps, but, um, you know, I wanted to point that out and we thank her for her service and, uh, we want to wish her well into her in her retirement. Also on the, uh, agenda,
047you know, you we will be uh, accepting some funds that's from uh, state ed around the distraction-free schools initiative. It's about uh $18,000 and our goal is to spend that money just bringing some speakers for our students and professional development and also for our parents, speakers for our parents. So, we're we have a the PTA continues to have a a digital citizenship committee. So, which is great. We'll be we're working together and bringing some of that to our to our um schools. Another item I had that I wanted to Oh, the uh homecoming. I know Kayla spoke about the homecoming and I just you know it's a big big effort and there's lots and lots of people to thank you know from our high school who really coordinates this with our PTA and our the
048PTA has a homecoming committee to our again our garden city police department to our chamber of commerce you know John Wilton there SEPTA there is so much involvement to make this home uh the homecoming day just the best for our entire school community and it looks like we're going to have great weather. So, I'm excited about the weather. So, um so we will um we have that coming up. And then lastly, I do want to address two things uh that has been coming up recently. So, I want to u actually address that. Um and this is uh really concerns that have been raised regarding again two recent matters. the lowering of flags and questions about the district's lack of response following the assassination of Charlie Kirk. So, regarding the flag issue, as I shared in
049my letter, our district has historically relied on formal notification from New York State when flags are to be lowered. In this case, no formal state or federal directive was issued. The announcement was made through media outlets. So once this was brought to our attention, we reviewed our policy and regulations and confirmed that flags are to be lowered in accordance with both state and federal directives. So I apologize for any offense this may have caused our community. Since Sunday, I have also become aware of statements on social media regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk and criticism that I did not issue a public statement. Please know that my decision-making is never based on politics or personal beliefs. In May 2020, I wrote a letter to our community following the death of George Floyd. At that time,
050schools were closed due to the pandemic. The purpose of that message was to encourage parents to talk with their children during a time of national unrest when our staff could not be with them in person. Over the weekend, in light of Charlie Kirk's assassination, I asked our principles to be especially mindful of the well-being of our students and to ensure that every student staff member have access to resources and support services they may need as they may be impacted by this unrest. If in if any questions remain about where I stand, let me be clear. I condemn the senseless murder of Charlie Kirk. Our responsibility as a school community is to stand united in treating one another with respect and dignity. As always, my focus remains on fostering a safe, respectful, and supportive environment for
051our students. I appreciate the community members who brought forward their concerns and I want to assure you that our actions are guided by care, respect, and commitment. At this time, are there any questions or comments from the members of the board of education? >> It's all right. >> We're going to go to questions anyway. So, we don't I don't think there any questions from the board. >> Yeah. Um, so I just had a couple questions, Dr. Bowman, about um the slides you did, the proposed plan for the what are we call the literacy review plan. Um, I was just wondering if you just could just clarify a couple of things. Um, you had talked about the committee. Could you just maybe comment on the members of the committee and then I have like two more
052questions after. >> Sure. Uh we are working to make sure that every grade level has a representative member from our teaching staff. Um and also that we have membership from each of our buildings. And when I say um every single grade level, I want to just clarify K6 every grade level. Um but all seven of our buildings. And so we even will make sure that we have a high school English teacher as well. And will that um will you also be looking for like teachers from an ICT class or those with special? >> It's a cross-section. Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. Yes, we have a cross-section of teachers across >> cross-section. >> A cross-section across a cross-section. >> Um and you had talked about a couple of things. Um realigning programs.
053Um could you I guess some of that some of those terms if you're not in the weeds uh for people who maybe not might not know what exactly that means to realign a program or the other phrase was um instructional practice. So um alignment means that what you are intending to teach is matches what you are assessing. Right? So the curriculum matches with what's happening in the classroom instructionally which also matches any assessments that you have so that you know that you're assessing what was taught and to the degree that it was learned. Um that's one way that you can talk about alignment. Another way that you talk about alignment is vertically. And when we say vertically we mean K 1 2 3. So you want to make sure that what the receiving teachers, so
054the first grade teachers have matches, that there isn't a big gap or a big overlap between what the kindergarten classes do and the first grade classes do. And that goes all the way up. We also look to see that there is alignment, an interdisciplinary alignment. Um, and that's very important with literacy, especially in the younger grades, because the research shows that um, literacy is best learned when it's within the content areas and when there's background being built. So, alignment is in a lot of different directions. Um, and I'm sure that there are others, but those are really the core ways that you want to make sure that everything is in alignment. Um, and there was a second term, >> just the phrase instructional practice. So instructional practices really um encompasses what the teacher does, right?
055So what are the moves that the teacher makes in the classroom? What are the lessons that the teacher um plans in order to make sure that the children are learning? Um what in the- moment shifts happen based on what's going on in front of them with the kids um and making sure that that is also matching everything I just said about alignment. >> Thank you. Sure. Um when you mention the um the audit of on the slide I don't have I don't know if there's >> auditing the interventions and supports. >> Yes. Um and this is at the you're looking more carefully at the primary level, right? Yeah. >> So the audit are is that are what does that encompass exactly? Are you going to be looking at um specifically at the interventions that the
056ch that the teachers are using within those supports? I'm assuming you're talking about the AIS. >> Yes. >> Reading or writing instruction that happens. And then um are we also looking at whether we may need to budget for maybe additional staff at the primary schools in the future so that we can support more of our children and give them some of that intervention early. >> Yes. So when we are looking at our intervention services, especially at the with the younger kids, one of the things that we'll be looking at is our determinations about when it's appropriate to intervene and provide supports and services. One of the recommendations was to review that and consider intervening sooner so that we can, you know, scoop the scoop the children up um address any concerns that they have early
057on and then off they go. Um, if we are going to be casting a wider net of the students who we pick up, we're going to potentially, depending upon how all of the assessments play out, need more supports in order to do that. Well, um, and so it we will be looking at that where that comes out. That's why part of it is that we want to make sure that we're ready to have those conversations earlier as opposed to later because of the implications. Um, we are also going to be looking at the assessment suite that we use >> because we want to make sure that we aren't using more than one assessment to identify the same skills gap. >> Um, we also want to make sure that there aren't any gaps in the assessments
058that we're using so that we're missing something. Um, and we also want to make sure that we are very respectful toward instructional time. Yeah. when you're assessing, especially in the primary grades, it's often a one-on-one. And so, there's a lot of instructional time that is um utilized toward assessment. And so, if we're able to as well, if we're able to assess a skill as well in less time, then that's something that we're going to look to do so that we can again restore as much instructional time as we can. >> Um, >> perfect. And um another question about exploring the last was about exploring or looking for recommendations for programs to possibly pilot. >> Yeah. >> Um how would you make decisions about which ones to choose? And is there any um like community of
059other like curriculum leaders like you or Miss Kaufman where you can talk with other districts or other educators about programs that have worked well for them in their schools? Um I don't know if there's a a way in which you can do that. >> So the short answer is yes. Um I have a community of other assistant superintendents for curriculum with whom I meet regularly but also there's a very healthy inter um interaction via email. Similarly Mrs. Kaufman has a her group with directors of literacy in the area. Um but one of the things that also we would be doing is we would be gathering information and research on what our you know what is out there that is considered to be strong. But when we pilot something we would have a rubric. We would
060have a we would have a framework that we would be measuring each of the programs or resources against so that whatever decision we end up proposing. Um we have you know a rubric that would back up the decision behind why that would be what we would propose. >> Right. We probably want to think about a program that provides um a really strong like writing component since it seems like that's where a lot of our >> teachers were feeling like they needed the most support in ways in which to explicitly teach writing and incorporate that into into the day. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, one thing that we did early on this year, and this was after the budget, we added the literacy coach for K2 particularly. And so, if there is a need during the
061middle of the year that we see, we're going to come to you with that, make a recommendation. >> There are no other questions or comments. Now is a time for citizens questions or comments. Please come up to mic. give us your name and address um and you have a few minutes to ask your question, please if you could ask all your questions and then um to the extent that there's uh an answer or we can answer quickly, we will do so. If not, we'll get back to you um and follow up some member of the administration or if appropriate principal or teacher. So, the mic is open to any questions or comments from the group. I have a question for you. Sorry. How come you are How come you're implementing rules onto students even though
062they barely have any representation on who's on this and who makes and who's put putting in these laws? How come you're doing that if you're not giving the students a voice, a real voice, not just a single person who you can easily control? >> I'm maybe I'm Can you clarify for me? What rules are you asking about? Any specific >> phone policy and multiple multiple other things I'll get to later. Mostly phone policy though. How come you're putting in something that we didn't vote for? I can't even vote on the policy that doesn't let me have my cellular device during the school day. >> I think yet. Sorry. >> Yes. I spoke to and clarify even though it's state policy, I still can't have a voice in that state policy. And here's another thing. I'm
063not saying yes, have it during class and all that stuff and during tests. I just want to be able to use it during lunch, library, study hall, free period. I want to be able to use it as a tool. Simple as that. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Thank you for for coming and and telling us how you feel. I can I think all participation in civic duty from students are are really important and I I you know we really really appreciate you taking the effort. Um so just to answer your question um sitting up here the these are state um by statute and so that's why these certain slots are occupied by us. It's really by statute. And so um your point about the uh telephone policy and that is that also is done by
064state regulation by the governor and so I think it's really important for people to voice how you feel and that is uh best directed through you know your congressperson your representative. you should reach out to, you know, the governor by writing a letter, but that really comes down from the govern the the governor herself. >> I have something for you. If even though I can do all that, I had the legal right to, that doesn't change anything. There's still there's still Sorry, I need to recollect. I can't vote for a different person who has a different policy on it. I can't do any of that. I can't invoke real change. >> And it's so important for students like you to want to invoke real change. And so that really does come through established channels like
065reaching out to your politicians and making sure that you mobilize your constituents like your classmates to write a letter. Uh making sure people vote next time. And that's and I think you're seeing the importance of getting out and voting. >> Yes. Thank you. I also have another question on the lunch policy. It's also another state policy just to be correct on it. Right. Mhm. Why should we be even giving students free lunch even though that's a very social socialist style policy? That feels like letting people who sort of controlled DMV let control the food. >> I think I think again it's a state policy. They they've decided that they want to offer all students uh of a certain age level money to provide free lunch. Um, I would agree with you in some ways, you
066know, not everybody needs it, but that's part they don't they don't delineate between our school district and other school districts. And so it's a pol it's a policy where they've given us money to do it. Um, we're required to offer it. We're doing that. And I appreciate your comments because philosophically, I think we might agree on some of that, but once again, it's not for us as a board or anybody up here to say, "Well, we don't want to offer free lunch." Yeah. Um, it's something that the state requires. >> Peter, you know, Kayla wanted to do you wanted to address something with >> completely understand your frustration. I'm in the same boat as I mean, I've gone through 12 years here and I've always been allowed to have my phone in between periods. And
067I think the decision wasn't made lightly. And it's not only New York State. I believe there are 31 states out of the 50 in America that now do not allow phones in schools. So there's probably a lot of data on it for reasons why they're doing it. I completely understand the frustration because you want to look at your phone and you want to talk to your friends and be able to communicate them, but I think they're just trying to push that we do that in person so we can be more social with our classmates without using the technology. >> Yes, I understand that with you, but thank you. I understand clearly with that, but there's still things like different like different periods. Let's say your friends have let's say your friend is in lunch period
068and you're in just like something else and you have like free time on your hands. How that would be hard to do in that case. >> Sorry, >> Peter, if I can say something to you. What we'll do is I know uh uh we'll schedule a time and we'll address your questions. Is that okay, Peter? We've met. We've talked before. We'll do that. Okay. >> All right. You did a great job of speaking. You did a great job. >> I won't take as long. Uh Tina Marcelos, 171 Garden Street. Um there was a lot of information you shared, uh Dr. Bowman, about the NWA. I just want to make sure I understand. So, I know that there were NWA data that was foiled over the summer and I know that I cited last week uh
069I think yeah, it was last week um that the current sixth graders were 47% uh 47% of them were below the 60th percentile. So, was that data incorrect? And will the full data for all grades be shared out to the district? That was what I can say. My other two questions too really quick. The other part was just around the trend with students going into MTSS. Are we seeing that that's increasing in elementary going into the middle school like is like for the reading supports and the math support? And then my last question, and I know Miss Papus was asking a little bit about it, was related to the primary, what was it? The primary grade reading specialist. I understand the need to address reading interventions as early as humanly possible. I I get that
070and I I sympathize with that. Um, but is there also a review for students that were caught later? So, like I know it's called out primary, but what about elementary? What about middle schoolers as well? Um, those are my questions. >> Yep. >> I just need one favor. >> Sure. >> What grades were you asking about? Just because I want to make sure I give you the right >> um LA in the spring they were fifth grade. >> Okay, got it. Okay. So, um the spring data that we had, you said 47%, right? >> And below 60th percentile. >> Um with the updated norms, it's 37%. >> 37. Okay. Will will it do we I can foil the request to get the full list, but is that something you put out on the district website?
071So that information will be part of my student achievement report which is um >> In November. Okay. >> All right. Thank you. >> Yeah. Um I will have to get back to you on the numbers about whether we're seeing a trend in in the number of students who are being um identified for MTSS needs going from the elementary to the middle school. And so I will look into that and I will get back to you on that. Um and the third question which is are we going to be reviewing not only the primary um reading interventions plans? Bless you. We will. Yes, absolutely. The you bring up kind of an age-old tension, right? Because when you when you shift your resources to the younger kids, you want to make sure that you're not leaving anybody
072out. which is partially why the question of will you need more resources comes up because we do want to make sure that all of the children in all of the grades get what they need in order to succeed. Um so we will be looking at that. Absolutely. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Evening everyone. Robert Hers 111 Sher Valley Avenue. Um, I'm pleased that Peter Can everyone hear me? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> That Peter came to the meeting because it's very important for people to get involved with politics. As I'm sure most of you here know, Benjamin Franklin said that we would eventually get the government that we deserve. And we clearly have that in New York State. And um I encourage Peter to meet with our state senator and um the state representative
073in the assembly um to voice um his concerns about our policies. And unfortunately um people do not get involved in terms of expressing their views and as a result the people that are active get a disproportionate say and things get implemented that might not be appropriate. Um and of course the um spending for school lunch that just has to do with our state's proclivity to spend money um and waste resources. And I and um one of the topics and this is the last thing that I'll say about the state because I want to bring something else up. Our state spends half its budget on Medicaid or the total state budget. It spends more than California and California is a much bigger state and 40% of the people in this state are on Medicaid or similar
074programs and as a result of Medicaid um everyone that has private insurance including like the teachers and people that work for private companies they have to their insurance costs more because Medicaid only pays a hospital 60% of what it costs to do an operation. So as a result there is all this cost shifting and as a consequence private health care costs in New York state are the highest in the country. So this of course is just what our politicians give us. Given the affluence of our state it makes no sense that 40% of the population is on Medicaid. The mind-blowing figure is 67% of the people in the Bronx are in are in Medicaid. Um and for the whole country as a whole it's 20%. Um, and I included one of the more recent programs
075in that 40% number, um, which, um, the current administration is going to phase out a good part of it. Anyway, I'm sorry to diverge on that. I know people are not aware of many of these things and I fortunately have lived in other states and it's just mind-blowing to me what it costs to live here and much of the cost is driven by Albany and politicians and everything else. Now, this other topic that I'm going to bring up, I've brought up in the past and um it's the topic of other post um employment benefits. And um I brought up um for two meetings earlier this year about how for the first time that it shows up on page four of the financial highlights and in prior years it show well it showed up on page
076it shows up on page >> I think if you could speak up so people can't hear you. >> The it is telling us that you're not making the recording. >> Maybe get closer to the microphone. >> Okay. Yes. So um >> is that better? So the the topic is other postemployment benefits. >> No. No. And >> let's give you another mic. >> We'll take that mic. >> Yeah. Maybe take this microphone. >> Yeah. Use that. Yeah. >> Okay. Can is does that work now? >> Okay. So the topic is other post-employment benefits which I've brought up before. Now for those of you who don't know other post retire post-employment benefits is primarily for health care for employees of the school district who when they retire. So for most of the people in the district you
077have to work 10 years to get health care and retirement and for administrators I was told that it was seven years. Um and last year for the first time the it shows up on page four of the financial highlights which basically summarizes what's important in the financial statements and it also shows up on page 44 but in the financial highlights it basically brings up things that are most important and at one meeting when I asked about this u dicapia uh dicapua um told me that it was in there because the accountants told you to put it in there. So I've worked as a financial analyst going through annual reports for over 30 years and the things that are in the financial highlights or the management discussion and analysis are the things that are most important.
078So, >> so this number obviously is very important and the number is $248 million which is 15 times the size of the school district's debt including the um energy performance contract in terms of what your bonded debt is. It's a very big number. To further dimensionalize it, it amounts to $35,000 for each um housing unit in Garden City roughly in terms of what the liability is. Now, granted, you don't have to pay it tomorrow. You pay it as you go, but in many respects, it's similar to a pension, and the pensions are pretty much fully funded. Unfortunately, due to our government, this liability is not allowed to be funded in advance. I don't know why that is, but it's not allowed to by New York State. So, the issue that I have is that when
079you look at this, for someone to work 10 years to get benefits for the rest of their life, and if someone retires at 55, the social security tables say that they will live for 25 more years. However, in Nassau County, people live for four years longer than the national average because they're healthier than most. So someone could collect 25 years of health care for working just 10 years. Now the way that I look at it, that doesn't seem to be a fair bargain between the employees and the school district. Um now a long time ago when this was first probably put into practice, people didn't live as long. And to give another point of comparison, to receive full Social Security benefits, you have to work 35 years to receive full benefits. So, I brought this
080up several times before. I don't know how many times, but I know I even brought this up at the first meeting that I came to probably um that the school district should start to try to work on this liability in terms of trying to change things. And there have been actions of foot by other organizations on Long Island, in particular Nassau County within the last two years, substantially changed their benefits for the Civil Service Employee Association. And that's one of your unions, too. It's not It's a different group probably than what Nassau County has. And I estimate that it's about 35% of your employees. That's a figure that I came up with. It might be slightly off, but that's my rough estimate, but it is a large work group. And when Nassau County revamped it,
081they were also before they changed things, they require people to work 10 years before historically, but then less than two years ago, they changed it. They now have to work 10 years. And that was done in their latest contract. And I know I gave um Dr. Cena a copy of the um of the um what was it called? uh memorandum of understanding for what they had agreed to. And also within the last year, another district on Long Island, a school district actually change their benefits to only give people 10 years in retirement. And that actually makes sense to me because the most expensive cost of providing this benefit in retirement is before the person reaches age 65 because once they reach age 65 they become eligible for Medicare and the cost to provide them benefits
082drops by half. So, I encourage you to like look at this and to try to I know you have to deal with unions and I'm sure well I shouldn't say I'm sure I know that that's not easy but there are examples of things out there in terms of um different methods and also I've spoken to the village about this and I've had meetings with them privately about certain matters uh concerning benefits Um, I do not think that you have health savings accounts. Is that correct? >> No. >> Okay. So, I encourage you to investigate health savings accounts because in my opinion, they're the best free lunch on the planet in terms of how much wealth people can accumulate in these plans. And I know that for the village, I'm not familiar with what your health
083the actual specifics are of your health plans, but the village actually meets the requirement to provide a high deductible health plan, which can then be which is required to give a health savings account. And I don't know why they're not doing it. It would cost them about 3,000 a year to do the administration and it would be a big free lunch for everyone in the village. So, >> Mr. Is there anything that you're like a direct question we can answer? I know you have like a lot of thought before. I just want >> uh this um I don't have anything for you to require a direct response other than that this is something that you will endeavor to make progress on and look at best practices or how to negotiate effectively because if this is
084presented in terms of the free lunch that a health savings account um provides um and by ear by the next budget cycle I will be providing a comprehensive analysis of the school district uh and I will provide that with you and I will write up some of these things to give you some examples or a template that you can potentially use in terms of you know what workers may need what they would get and what they would get give up. So I just ask that people have like an open mind and try to investigate these things because the cost or things well everyone here lives on Long Island so I don't need to tell you what the cost of things are and I will leave you with one f final mind-blowing statistic the average cost
085for property taxes in the country. So for Garden City that would be the village that would be the school district and that would be the town of Hempstead. For the typical house in the country, it's $4,000. So that's the number. Now, you can say that Garden City is more affluent. It's about three times more affluent than the country overall. So that means that the House should maybe pay 12,000 in taxes. Well, I don't know how many people pay 12,000 in taxes. So anyway, that's all that I have to say. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Oh, here. Uh, you can maybe had it. You can have it. >> Snap it. >> No, we just >> just hold it. >> All right. Um, hi. Sorry, Sivan Chapman. Um, I wanted to ask it. I
086did. Sorry. Um, last year we were here, we had all the kids come out. We had Miss Hower come out and stuff and we spoke about music. I've gone through a few channels and I've gotten some answers, but I mean at the end of the day, you know, we come here, we can't get something. Um, SEPTA as well as Friends of Music donated money for the special class. Um, it happened to be my daughter's class. Um, that went to Stratford to have music therapy. It was two sessions, eight classes. I think it spanned about six months and all. Um, it was about $2,600. We had a little caveat in it saying when the board's approving it, we really want this to go into the budget. We want it to be, you know, for locust and
087so on. Didn't make it through. So, these kids now no longer have music. Any >> I'll get back to you, Miss Chapman, on that. Okay. >> See, anything that we could do? We really kind of did it as seed money, hoping that we can do more. Just a little something to, you know, we've discussed that as these kids get older, they don't really get to participate in anything. Not that I want the recorder in my house, but something that's a blessing. But anything else, you know, these things matter. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Maybe you can help us find some money. >> Yeah. One more. Sorry. Hi, Donna Irwin 2094 Paddock Road Seafford. Um, I'm just uh your CSEA president. So for your union for um non-instructionals and I just wanted to
088introduce myself. Welcome to uh the new members on the board and everybody else as well. We look forward to working together uh with the school board and the administrators. That's it. Nice to see you. Thank you for coming out this evening. At at this time, to make more efficient use of the meeting time, the board of education authorizes the use of a consent agenda as part of the meeting agenda. This will allow for one motion to approve multiple items on the agenda. If anybody wishes to have an item removed, they can ask and we can vote on that separately. At this time, there's no request to pull any items out. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda which includes business of the board items I1 through I2, personnel matters J1 through J12,
089business office matters items K1 through K6 and special education matter items L1. All in favor I starting your business. I I actually wanted to me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me mention one very important thing that I forgot earlier which is um for our homecoming our grand marshall who will be our grand marshall Terry King she's our a teacher from Stuart a special education teacher that retired last year and she's had a long long career here she lives in Garden City so it'll be uh wonderful and we can't wait to have her uh be our grand marshal >> that's that's great future board of education meetings, Tuesday, October 7th, 2025, um work session if
090needed, and Tuesday, October 21st, 2025, regular session at 7:30 at the Garden City High School. At this time, I have a motion that the board have no further business to come before the board and that the meeting be adjourned. Oh, we go back session. Uh, all in favor I. Apologies. I'm going to have to redo that. May I have a motion that there being no further business to May have a motion that the board move into executive session to discuss matters leading to the appointment legal matters. >> All in favor?