001Five work session of the board of education. This is Joe Culio, president of the board of ed education speaking. Thank you for attending in person or through Zoom. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Due notice that the meeting has been provided to the public and each member of the board of education as required by law. Tina, will you please take attendance? >> Present. President Superintendent >> pres. >> At this time, we'd like to ask for a moment of silence in honor of Dr. Alan Groman, who passed away. Dr. Groman was an interimm superintendent here in Garden City and we'd like to honor his contributions to education in Long Island and for his service to Garden City Schools. Also, we would like to have a moment of silence for the victims of Minnesota school shooting.
002Thank you. Tonight we're doing a presentation on the literacy review. I'll hand the mic over to Dr. Cena. We'll do some introductions. Thank you, Mr. Silio. And um tonight we'll be um sharing with the board and our community the findings of our literacy review uh that which we started way back in December. And the process has been pretty extensive and I really want to thank uh Dr. Bowman who really led this with um Miss Kaufman, our director of literacy. There was tons of work behind the scenes that both of you really um you know provided to to the caster group along with just coordinating and scheduling. There was a a lot of that going on as well. So really want to thank you you all and also all the administrators or principles that are here
003and also in the audience our curriculum coordinators, our assistant principles. you guys have um you know really supported this process and and and for us to be learning from you know the all of you but then also um giving so much of your time to this um the literacy review and um and I also want to thank our uh parents. We had parent participation in this process. I want to thank our parents and our students. Of course, we had um students who gave us great insight um you know as we were going through this uh review and um you know so tonight we have Mr. Tim Bachis. He's from the Caster group and he's going to share the findings of the literacy review to uh for us. It's also has been posted on our website
004on our literacy review page. So I'm going to turn it over to Mr. >> Bakus. up the stand here. >> This is on. >> It is on. Okay. Um otherwise, I'm sitting at the table and all of a sudden it turns into a congressional hearing where I put my hand over the mic and ask Dr. Bowman whether or not I can answer that question or not, but you will. Yes. Well, you'll tell me some things. Um thank you very much for taking the time tonight. I appreciate it. Um you know, this has been uh quite a journey. The first phone call I took from Dr. Singha was on December 13th, 2024. Um I remember distinctly I was driving to Newark airport uh to catch a flight with my wife. Uh we went to Germany for
005a week if you get a chance. It's really fun during the holidays. Anyways, um so we're talking from December 13th to the time I show up here today on September 9th, 2025. Uh it was a collaboration through the entire process. I can tell you that. Uh we'll get to some thank yous, but you know, Dr. SHA kind of mentioned the hard work that the district had to do. This was very much a collaboration of, you know, documents and processes and meetings and focus groups and an awful lot of stuff that needed to happen. Um, I am the executive director of CASDA. If you're not familiar with CASSDA, CASDA is a study council uh that is chartered by the state of New York. We are actually the oldest uh don't tell scope. Um, but we are
006associated with the University of Albany. That's where we're located. and we are basically the K12 arm of the University of Albany. We do everything from college fairs to program reviews. I was in a district yesterday doing a fizzed review. Tomorrow I'm going to be talking about a sped review. We have done district office functioning reviews. Um my job is to find the best consultants possible for each one that comes up. For this one, we were able to secure Meg Rooney. Meg Rooney is a former state ed reviewer. So she has been out in districts across state uh New York to review their um programs particularly related to early literacy. So Meg has a lot of experience in being in districts. And we also had Dr. Donna Scanland who is retired out of the University of
007Albany but still does quite a bit of consulting. In fact, her and I were on a call just about a two or three weeks ago with a school district out in um uh Colorado that is looking to some things similar to what you folks have done. Uh so that's what we were able to secure for this and as we say uh we start from the methodology of December 2024 to um June of 2025. We start with initial meetings with uh Dr. Sha uh Dr. Bowman. We also had initial meetings with the board of education to kind of get what their direction on this was and their insight and they basically then turned us loose um to kind of set in motion what we thought we needed to do. We um put together 11 focus groups.
008So I'd like to thank uh Tina and Pam for getting those all together. Um that was like hurting cats, but we were able to get them everyone in. All of that was done virtually. Uh we had interviews, focus groups are a lot of people, interviews is one person and we had interviews with staff, parents, community. One of the very helpful things we did was we sent out surveys. Uh we had 102 teacher responses, over,00 student responses. Uh just at the 36 level, uh 630 responses at 79 level and just under 320 uh responses from the parent level. We spent two days doing observation. Again, a big testament to uh district leadership as well as building leadership to be able to get us in 34 different lessons across K6. Um and that would include the middle
009school as well. All right, we start out with a document review. First thing we take a look at obviously is the Garden City approach, comprehensive approach to um literacy. the guide. Um, the first thing we know is it's very comprehensive. There is a lot to it. We also went through some ELA documents uh through K6. We also reviewed your MTSS plan, which in my opinion is one of the finest I've seen. Um, right now, if every MTSS process ran as well as it does in your district, I would have probably lost about a half a dozen contracts because I'm embedded right now in a few districts trying to help them out. I tell them you can call Garden City because they got a really good program, but your MTSS program is really second to none.
010Um, mainly because your teachers and your administrators are getting the services to the kids and everyone tells us that all along the way. Uh, we took a look at your professional development plan, another excellent plan with an awful lot to it. And we also looked at your state and local data, which included your Hagerty, your state assessments, your student achievement reports, as well as your universal screeners and assessments. So we took a look at all of that. We then move on to our focus group and our interviews. There are some common themes that come across within our focus groups and our interviews. People really value particularly your uh teachers the work that has been done with foundations and Hagerty. They see the value with it. They like what they see. They appreciate the streamliness to
011it. And honestly, that was probably the number one thing that we heard from the instructors. We also heard a common theme of streamlining the literacy curriculum that there's a lot out there and over the years and times we've collected a lot of things in Garden City and what we want to what we've heard from people is a need to streamline that very comprehensive approach. In addition to that, we've heard with the emphasis on phonics and the um use of the different phonics programs of how does that translate into comprehension and what does it look like going into comprehension. This is nothing new in education, nothing new in um any district. It's always looking at how does that phonics, how does that comprehension are the students understanding? They can write, they can do this, but can
012they get the comprehension? We also heard loud and clear from different groups about writing and grammar and the necessary being necessary to making sure we're emphasizing the mechanics of it, the the writing, the grammar. We also heard from teachers about the professional development around writing and grammar. We also heard about vertical alignment and this is not anything unusual. What do we mean by vertical alignment? Does third grade know what fourth grade is doing? Does fourth grade knows what fifth grade is doing? So on and so forth. Do we have an opportunity for teachers across grade levels to sit and talk about what they're doing? Obviously, if you particularly with literacy, you're not doing one thing one year and not doing it the next year. It's more of building on those skills as you kind of
013go along. And we heard a need for a vertical alignment. We also heard some things related to resources about the number of resources that are available about the amount of resources that teachers are creating themselves kind of how is that working out and what is the um the amount of time that's going into some of that. We also heard a lot from the parents about the communications they were receiving from their school and whether or not it was enough particularly related to um literacy instruction and instruction. I will say this, in talking to the district, we saw an awful lot of communication because we went back and asked this is what we're hearing. So, I think it's a case of being able to show people and making sure they're getting the right information at the
014right times, but there does seem to be a lot of information out there of whether or not it's getting to the parents in a digestible fashion. We're not 100% certain on that, but parent communication was one of the things that we heard from the parent groups in particular. some of the survey responses again a strength in instruction particularly relation to foundations Hagerty uh some things related to spelling and vocabulary and grammar your students I worked with administrator for a good couple of decades who says you can't fool kids and dogs your kids can identify sound instruction they like choice they like collaboration and they like to be able to say that they have some structured writing time they don't like works they're not interested in uh they don't like being read too. But that was
015more of an older grade thing. Obviously on third grade they weren't so much against it. But it was really kind of interesting when you boiled down what your kids were saying what they enjoyed or didn't enjoy. You're like, "Oh, okay. I guess I didn't have to go to college. I could have just asked you guys." Because they really did. They came back saying that choice collaboration were their two biggest things. Another third survey response theme was to streamline things that we've heard before and you'll see it as a constant kind of theme through this and also assessments. One thing we heard through focus groups, one thing we heard through administration and to be honest with you, when we took a look at the K1 um assessment calendar, uh the number of assessments on that, we
016were concerned about redundancy and how that would kind of work out. And we heard it from different people, but we also heard it from district leadership when we started this that that was one direction you folks were already going was to take a look at that. There was also a realization is that when you look at a calendar, it doesn't mean that every student is taking every assessment at those times. There are kids that are at different levels that aren't taking those assessments. So, we kind of had to have a lot of conversations with the district about assessments. This isn't any different. this review than you would have at your own review if you were in a you know a workplace where you were getting an evaluation. A lot of the worth is it is
017the conversations that you're having around what's happening and there was a lot of conversations with us and district leadership around the assessment frequency. There were survey responses and themes around communication to parents and what parents thought of that. As we mentioned, there is, you know, a need for them to be able to say or be able to realize how much is out there and where they can get it and the district is working towards that and has done a lot towards that. Uh there was also particularly from the parents that whole idea of consistency. If you have multiple students who've gone through the system and they have different ch or different teachers at the same grade levels that they had different experiences and what does that look like? age-old issues that are in education that
018we all deal with regardless of where we are. There was some review in the documents themes that are associated with it. First and foremost, a real successful district, very very impressive, strong exit outcomes at your high school at all levels to be quite honest with you. Shows that things are uh really working well and you know kind of a value added. your students and your children really understand that and know they're getting a good education. There are some notable gains from intentional uh instructional shifts. There's some um uh excuse me, some scheduling things that we've done or the district has done over time uh that they can point to and say they've seen gains uh in testing and other places. To be honest with you, I will say again uh that the MTSS program really
019I I prodded people to see if I could get them to say that they had difficulty getting uh you know services for kids or if there was blockers, if there was barriers in the way and not one person would go there. Everyone would say to me, "My kids will get what they need. We have a strong system and you do." Um truth be told, MTSS pretty much drove me to retirement. Um, but that's a whole other story. You guys have a really good term. You have a term that's called tier one enhanced. People all know that you have tier one enhanced. The thing we found is if you were in the unique position that myself and the reviewers were in, what we found was that if we asked people to define tier one enhanced, we
020got slightly different answers. We're not saying we got completely different answers. We're not saying it's missionritical or anything. People know that Garden City has a term. They have an approach that's called tier one enhanced. If we were to look at and suggest something, it would be to have everyone at some point clarify what your tier one enhanced is. It'd be neat to have everybody kind of do a post-it note, put it up, and see what you come up with for some of it. There will be a common theme. It's not going to be that far off, but you would look at having a clarification of what tier one enhanced is criteria for interventions. Uh the reviewers in the report put specifically about intervening sooner uh than maybe some things we saw in the MTSS, but
021to be quite honest with you, when we brought it to leadership, they were already identifying and working on it as we were. and you also have an a group of assessments so you're just not relying on one thing uh to kind of work through the MTSS process. As we looked at the comprehensive approach, the guide we would say the same thing that we heard from a lot of the focus groups in the surveys uh that it's very comprehensive but also needs to be streamlined and we would look at that as well. You have very broad extensive professional development. We asked teachers what they thought of the professional development. Most of them had very good things to say about it. You faced the same thing that every district has faced since 2020. You started initiatives, you
022got things in place, you got rolling and then we all know what happened. And then we all know the survival that it took to kind of move through that and then get our legs under us again. I think some of what we saw in professional development was part of that. But also what we identified, which is excellent professional development, includes job embedded individuals in classrooms, coaches, things along those lines, which this district has been adding over time. I think the, you know, director of literacy, the, you know, new appointment on the assistant superintendent, the um literacy coaches, I'm probably missing some things. Those are the steps that we would have said to be start putting in place that are going in place already. We all know that job professional development is going to do much
023better than a standalone. Think of extremes. I go off to one conference that's not really going to do much of anything for everyone else. But if you have somebody going in and reinforce what's going on in the classroom and what the district expects, it goes a long way. We were in 34 different lessons across the primary buildings, the elementary buildings, and the middle school. Testament again to be able to pull that off in two days. Not only did they pull it off that we were able to have a two-day schedule. We had to call and make an adjustment of when those two days were going to be. And you folks were very kind to us to shift them over. Um, so we much appreciated. We saw a lot of what goes on in your building.
024You have great teachers. You have great administrators. You have great students. I walk the halls because there were too many people in observing and the kids couldn't have been nicer. They couldn't have better stuff on the walls. Just really a good environment. Support staff couldn't have been nicer all across the district. And that starts at the top and is reflected all the way down to everybody involved. There's a high level of dedication across the district. There's a high level of purpose. To be honest with you, we did not see a lot of wasted time. The teacher student rapport was very positive. The student rapport overall was very positive. High level of student engagement. Classrooms have what they need. Not only have what they need, they look good all across. There are important routines that are
025established and support learning. When I walked the halls, my uh observers might have been in one classroom, but I saw the same thing going on in other classrooms. I saw a seriousness of purpose going on in other classrooms. So, it was very much evident. You folks take it for granted to be quite honest with you. You know, this is just kind of how we do things. I'm in a lot of different districts. Runs very, very well. One of the things we noted was about differentiation. And this is what I would say. I would say two things. One, we were in there for a short amount of time. We don't know the kids. The other thing I would say is anytime in my 35 year career in public education you went in to uh observe someone
026they usually want to have control over it. So they may not be trying to put out a lot of differentiation on it. So I wouldn't take too much to heart that over the course of 48 hours we could have seen more differentiation. Focus on the first ones. Don't focus on the last bullet. If we look at next steps, we would say you you're going to have to take a look at your comprehensive approach. The whole guide needs to be taken a look at and it needs to be a systemic district-wide representative group that takes a look at that. The word comprehensive is correct. You folks have picked up along a lot a lot along the way. It needs to be streamlined. It needs to be looked at. It needs to be agreed on. And that's
027what you need to move forward on. The other thing we would say is we heard it a lot from teachers, we heard it from administrators and even our own observation. You have a lot of assessments in 2025. What are your most valuable assessments in 2025? And what do your teachers think is your most valuable assessment? And probably as important is what is the balance between time in those assessments and what do you want to do moving forward. So take a look at an assessment review. As always, it doesn't matter where the district is, what the district is, there's always that alignment across grades, which in some ways is easier to do because there should be time built into days and schedules for people to meet at grade levels. The one that's more difficult is what
028we call that vertical integration to find time to get teachers together to talk about it across the various grade levels. That one's going to be a little more difficult, but we would encourage you to take a look at that. Instructional time and practices. Continue to protect your literacy instruction block time. I don't want to say literacy block because that carries a different meaning in this district. A lot of waxy nostalgic about that time period. in looking into it deeper. We still in this district have protected literacy time. But I think it needs to be looked at from the building level, teacher level, grade level of what does that look like and what does it include? Does it include all parts of that literacy? Does it include only some and then a break. I just think
029there could be more discussion about it. My reviewers um recognize the value of it and also recognize that the teachers value it. We think it should be revisited to take a look at communicate clear and consistent expectations. I think that goes in the streamlining. Our mantra by our reviewers is that students become better readers by reading. And the more they read, the better they're going to be. So ensure high volume focused meaning or meaning focused reading for students. That's really what we're um bottom line. If we're going to take one thing away from it, kids need to be reading. The reading in schools, the readings outside of schools, outside of classrooms in 2025 is different than it was 10 years ago, 15. Don't even get me started on 30, 35 years ago. It's a realization.
030We all understand that. Doesn't mean that we're not doing it. And you need to have that high volume meaning focused region reading. Balance foundational skills with application. Is your writing backed up by good sound grammar instruction? Those types of things. and also focus on writing your systemwide supports. The only tweak we would say and you folks were already on this is an MTSS your criteria for intervention. One small thing at the lower grade levels again it is where people are at with that. So they were already working on it. The review instructional resources, the staffing allocations, any good district is going to look at where their staffing allocation is. any good building principal is going to be advocating to keep their building uh staffing resources. There's always that um pull and push, but you need
031to continue to take a look at it. My folks would put a you know a plug in always and most people would for the earlier grade levels and also look for ways on the things that you're doing for the community engagement uh that you have going forward your professional development. You have already moved in some ways to the model that we were going to outline for you which is job embedded. You have your coaches, you have your uh supervisors, your instructions, you have direction from district office. Keep that job embedded. Keep it ongoing. Keep it the cycles of learning and reflection. Also, just keep it focused on what it is you're trying to accomplish and continue to offer that. One of the most difficult things is where do you offer it? How do you offer
032it to be able to reach all your teachers and continue to carve up that valuable time around your superintendent, conference days, and your other places within your contractual uh obligations to be able to do that. Uh, another area of focus is on your MTSS. You already have the data informed decision- making about where you're going to be and the tweaks to that. Your tier one enhanced is just going back and having everybody agree and this is what we have. even if you have it in writing now, you're reintroducing it. One thing I've noticed as you hire new teachers, sometimes we're not up to speed on um you know, kind of what some previous who owned it more. Uh I've seen that in other districts. Look at the bridge between phonics and comprehension. What are we
033doing with phonics? How does it lead to what what's going on with comprehension? And when we surveyed the area that teachers most want professional development in 60% of them said it was writing. So at some point the district needs to address that. The teachers feel they need more u professional development more support on writing. I will say this I am presently working with another district on a smaller literacy uh review advisement. They surveyed their teachers, 58% came back and said they wanted more re writing professional development. So it's not unusual. I can say I only have two points of data, but I'm taking it. In summary, I'll tell you right now, this is a very high achieving, very competitive district. It does a great job. I am usually called into what are called DIPS where
034you're on a list and you need help and you need to put into a grant that Tim and his group are coming in. It was a pleasure being here and seeing how all of this works and how the community, how the teachers, how the administrators, how district office and the board all work through that. There is a strong foundation for literacy in here uh from the lower grade levels all the way through up and all the way through up the grade levels. And we'll go back and show you a couple slides on uh some things related to what the kids think. A systemic and structured approach. The things we're putting down here is if you go and you look at this within, let's be facitious, two weeks and try to put this all through isn't
035going to work. There needs to be representation. There needs to be conversation. It needs to start from the district level. It needs to be formulated in that way. And it's going to take some time. There is a high level of commitment to education by everyone associated with this starts within your community. And like I said, I can go through it again to the administrators, the teachers, the kids, all of that. You are well positioned to deal with an alignment with the new portrait of a graduate. You are also already pulling apart the New York State literacy briefs and working with that. So all of that looks like you're in the right place. It's really a question of being able to streamline things and balance consistency with teacher autonomy. So where do you get one agreed
036upon um approach but also have with it uh that teacher choice and student choice that they had in there. One of the things I forgot to move in this, so I apologize for that, is when we asked your students, and I also wanted to get this on bigger screen. My 58-year-old eyes don't always line up on this one, but we'll do the best we can. When we asked your students what advice they would give to lower grade levels, I think I I Yeah, whatever. Bif focals, we used to call them. Anyways, we asked the students what advice would you give to lower grade levels. In other words, in, you know, reading and writing, what would you tell I think the kids would say, what do you tell your younger self? That type of thing, right?
037So, your kids, I'm telling you, your students were very introspective. And I really went through these because I was waiting for that, you know, half a dozen kids who wrote the funny stuff and, you know, really wanted to, you know, make a name for themselves. Couldn't find them. I was a little disappointed, but I wasn't disappointed in how thoughtful your kids were. To be quite honest with you, the advice I would give an elementary students who are learning how to read and write would be to read your favorite books. Expand your vocabulary through that and honestly just have fun growing as a reader. As for writing, you can read learn a lot through reading books. So that would be my advice. Kind of a yoga barra type of thing. You can learn a lot about
038writing by writing, you know, type of thing. Um, but pretty concise and pretty insightful. Reading and writing can seem pretty hard and annoying. Not exactly a word I would have picked, but I like that. I like hard and annoying. But if you find something you're really interested in, it can be fun and feel easier. You can learn more and spend time doing writing about something you like. For kids learning to read and write, I would give them the advice to read at home. Write at home. You will go farther in life if you learn by yourself. Spend 15 minutes a day reading and you will be all set. I want to remind you that at best that's a ninth grader, not something an adult, not something a teacher told them on the way out the
039door. They might have heard this before, but no one was looking over their shoulder saying this is what you should be saying at this point. Totally anonymous from the surveys is what we had. Your end product, your students appreciate what's going on. your students know they're getting a good education and they can verbalize it by telling the younger kids what they should be doing. I think that's an an awful lot. So, you have some things to work on in a very good system, but I think you're well suited to be able to move towards that. Mr. Sios >> maybe is this working? >> I think we'll start. I know some of my colleagues have some questions, so maybe I'll let them start and I can kind of work it at the end because I know
040you've you've asked some of them or listed them out, so I don't want to steal the mic. >> Um, so one of the themes that you mentioned from the focus groups was to streamline the curriculum. So would you mind just being more specific about what some of those responses look like that led you to that theme? like was it teachers asking for a curriculum that was that more effectively included reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary? Did they feel as if they were doing a lot of supplementing to provide that type of instruction? >> One of the things I would say is we looked at overall kind of themes and know literally everything you mentioned we read. So you did have people who were like hand me something that on Tuesday I'm teaching this, on Wednesday I'm teaching
041this, on Thursday I'm teaching this. Okay, I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but you can kind of read within that. If I were to say what we saw when we condensed everything and went through to look at the major theme, it was over time we have collected so many things as a district under one umbrella of literacy. We're not always sure what we should be keeping, what we should be dealing with, and maybe what we should be jettisoning. I think that would be the most accurate way to portray what saw as a theme throughout it. I can find examples of everything you just listed off as we went through surveys and things like that. I will say to borrow an oldfashioned phrase, there was no one who was really like throw the baby out with the
042bathwater. Maybe a percentage of that, but it wasn't the overall overright overreaching theme. It was more we as a district have to say this is what we're doing. We have to get it down to a manageable approach and understanding and we'll do it. But we got to get there is what we have. >> Um can you hear me? Okay. Um, I was wondering if you could comment a little bit more and just explain a little bit more about vertical alignment and what what that looks like out in the real world of education. >> Yeah, I would say that one thing that I've always done is any group that I've taken over in education and I've had a lot of different groups. Some that I knew very well, some that when I was thrust into, we
043all know how this goes. At some point someone leaves at the last minute and someone's got to take over department. What I would try to find always advocate for is that time for different grade levels. So fourth graders to talk to fifth graders, fifth grade fifth grade teachers to talk to sixth grade teachers, second grade teachers to talk to third grade teachers. The reason it gets a little more challenging is it's team meetings, grade level meetings in a building are ingrained. We all know those. Everybody has them. To find and carve out time for ver vertical alignment discussions takes a lot more effort. And we find it's a little more cumbersome. As I also mentioned, this isn't a case of like doing it in science and social studies where you have different, you know, um,
044topics in each one of them. It's a question of building on skills. And within ELA and literacy, you need to be building on those skills. probably the most important and the um most concise way to answer that. It's not easy, but at some point the district needs to find ways to have people being talk talking to people across grade levels in facilitated discussions about what goes across and what is happening across grade levels. Uh some of the most interesting conversation I've been in sometimes is expectations, perceived expectations on part of middle school teachers to what the actual expectations are by high school teachers. That is one thing that I've seen over and over again of what people see. Now didn't get an end out of here because we didn't go above sixth grade, but what
045does it look like in the primary and what is going on in the elementary would probably be the equivalency of it. And there wasn't a lot of specifics to it when we talked to people who are in surveys. There was just a desire to have particularly where those transitions happen for those groups to talk to one another. >> I I I also just had a couple of questions um in terms of maybe just some of the specifics of what you saw um and what was seen in terms of the types of classes that you went into. Um, how many of them were kindergarten? How many were first grade? Um, I I know um that might be a Johnny on the spot question. Um, >> we got it in here, >> but information like that. Um,
046even maybe how many teachers participated in the focus groups or the interviews. Um, just to get a a bigger picture of >> I would be real hardpressed on the number of people involved in the focus groups. I would leave that to the people who set them up because, you know, some of the teacher ones, some of the community ones, you were looking at 15 or 20 or so at each one of those times, but how many we had each time I I don't think I could tell you that, you know, with during 11 focus groups over I think it was four to six weeks. Alice has it. Of course, Alice has it. Um, but I'm sure she can share it with you at some point. When we look at um you know buildings, we had
047six classes in Stuart, four classes in Hemlock, four classes in Locust, three in uh the middle school, four in Hemstead, and five in Stratford. That's from lessons, right? Yeah, >> in terms of uh visitations there at Stuart, there was one second grade class, one third grade class that was also an ICT class, two fourth grade classes that one of which was an ICT class, one fifth grade class which was had an ENL coat class in Stratford. There were two uh second grade classes, one third grade class that was an ICT class and one fifth grade class as well. In the middle school, there were three classes that were seen in sixth grade. And that was so that there was one class seen on each of the three teams in sixth grade. In the primaries, um,
048we had, you just said it, didn't you? In the primaries, we had four and made sure that we had kindergarten and first grade representation in each of the buildings. It's just it didn't equally go through. >> That's the number of lessons that are on each grade. >> We we had a cross-section. I can't tell you we're everywhere. The other thing I would caution you though is what we were looking for is kind of a, you know, an overall feeling of what was going on with the instruction and all of that. We're not claiming we were in depth here for, you know, three weeks, you know, in 40 minutes worth of classes. We weren't. We really weren't. So, >> I just wanted to get a feel for how many you saw, if you saw, you said
049ICT classes and gened classes. There was an ENL uh component to that as well. I was just curious as to grade variety and then the diversity of the students you saw within those grades as well. >> Our observers were very tired. I can tell you that. >> Yes. >> Question. You know, I think we all just as parents want our children to be better readers and writers. That was the whole like genesis of this, you could say. And so just looking at this um I think as a parent, so particularly the slide that says instructional time and practices. So it says ensure high volume meaning focused reading, focused on writing. And so I don't you know I don't think it's any great secret to say to be a better reader to be a better writer
050you have to be a good reader you know so what does that actually mean for for us as parents how like what did you see did you see like how much we are doing now and do you feel like I'm sure you've been in you know many um high performing districts and so I'd be curious to hear how that compared with what you're seeing when you were like evaluating how much we did and then what would be your recommendation for that type of you know I think you said like someone said 15 minutes like >> well it was a student though yeah I'm not we're not going to dismiss them but I just be careful where my sources are from. Yeah, >> exactly. >> They did hold them up. >> That's not enough. But what
051is enough in your professional opinion? >> I can't give you in in my professional opinion is I go find somebody who can answer that unfortunately. Okay, so that's my first answer to that. The other thing I will say is I have my reviewers have been in a lot of different types of districts. What they saw here was a big emphasis on reading, a big emphasis on writing, maybe more perception of people having more things related to mechanics. But my reviewers are going to tell you regardless of how much reading's going on, more should be going on. And it should be going on not only in the school, but also at home. I can't tell you because I know that it gets down to a two-edged sword to be honest with you. If the district comes
052out and says every kid at what such and such a grade should be reading these types of minutes, it also puts some things back on home that can we get all of that and also the not blind to the pressures and you know ins and outs of homework around the table. I think the only thing that we're saying and it was a mantra that is I agree with you maybe a little too general for us to come back to you and say every kid should be reading this this you know time period at this grade level. There are certainly parameters out there. There's, you know, research, but there's also research that will tell you anything. The mantra from my folks was that these, all kids, no matter who they are, what they're doing, what performance
053they are, should be reading as much as possible, and that's going to help them read better, write better. That's all I can tell you. I can't tell you from where I stand that it should be a certain amount of time. I don't think that's exactly what you're looking for. When we observed, we didn't have big concerns about it. And when we reviewed your programs, we don't have big concerns about it. We just would reinforce with you that don't lose sight that that is one big part of what you should be doing. >> Should be able to discuss best practices. I understand every child is different. I've got three. They're all different readers. I get that. But it would help as a parent who's not an educator by yeah profession >> to know okay generally we
054know the most successful kids on standardized tests read this much >> it would help just to know that and I think parents here would even though okay give or take I can't do that yes I can >> right >> you know >> but >> I think you know your answer >> that's okay I so because it's so individualized you have to start with where the child is. And there isn't data that would suggest that X minutes is the silver bullet that's going to propel you forward. It's getting to frustration. It's getting to where the child can't sit and do it anymore and then tomorrow try another two minutes and then see how it goes from there. But I think the takeaway, the question you're asking is what are we going to do in classrooms to
055ensure that we're increasing the number of minutes that students are reading in school and also how can we have support from the community to make sure that that work and that reading happens at home as well. Um, and so there are some things that are underway that are going to be part of the committee that's being convened throughout the course of this year to address that very question, but also understanding that there really is never going to be a one-sizefits-all approach to what that is. The idea of like the 10,000 hours to mastery, it doesn't exist in this context. another um focus for you know that from state education department particularly with the uh the literacy briefs literacy across content areas that is uh a focus and I think there's a reason for that to
056your point uh Miss Gaffffne around how much are kids reading and how do we embed literacy in all content areas we've started doing that we started that really um last year much more intentionally and we we're going to continue to do that >> and maybe just to key on one of your com comments, I think it was on on the screen or something you'd mentioned earlier, phonics to comprehension. So, we've heard from community members and people throughout the last 18 months, you know, maybe they're reading but they're not comprehending, they're not understanding. Um, that's something we should obviously evaluate how we kind of bridge that gap because you've heard me say it, but if you're reading and you don't understand what you're reading, you're kind of wasting your time. But is there anything that you
057observe that maybe we're either missing the mark on or things we could do better or there's new best practices given some of the challenges that kids have nowadays? >> I think as you move through some of the things with the literacy briefs as you move through some of the directions you folks are already headed with that as we've talked to it. I think you're on the right track for that. I will say this that a a common theme among the teachers and the reviewers was the strong phonics instruction here that you had basises for it in the lower grade levels for that standpoint. the age-old issue of that versus comprehension is that it's been around a while. Um, but I think you're it's just a question again. I don't we mention it because it stands
058out to us, but if we were anywhere, we would be saying the same things to people. You know, it's things to keep in mind and things to work on as you go through. You know if we are talking to you about best practices and again you know we had people who were reviewers of state ed we had academic they like to debate and they like to talk about the various things they would say to you you have good strong phonics make sure it's moving into comprehension I think again with the different structures you have in your leadership right now I think they're going to take a look at that I know for a fact they analyze an awful lot of assessment data around here about how your kids are doing I think they're going to
059be able to look at that from the standpoint of, you know, where you stand on certain, you know, assessments that measure comprehension, uh, and be able to guide you in the right directions. >> And maybe just to follow up, I know just to reiterate, some people are here, maybe we talked about vocabulary a little bit, like some people have, you know, made the argument we should be doing vocabulary books. I know there's some best practice that say not. I guess where do we stand for everybody once again just on vocabulary in the classroom because it's part of comprehension obviously. >> Yep. So uh particularly in the middle school this summer we had curriculum projects where the text that we use in the classroom there were vocabulary uh units you know extensive vocabulary units where there
060are common words that will be uh utilized across classrooms. So when we're talking about like horizontal alignment and making sure that's in place now thanks to the hard work of the teachers over the summer that Miss Calfman helped to coord coordinate it. Um and so what we find and what research shows is that when vocabulary is taught in context but also with repetition and and in different instances and so that you have repeated um exposure to words in different context then that's how vocabulary is learned. And so being particular in the text that we choose, being particular in the words that are taken from those texts that students are exposed to time and time again in different ways is how you build vocabulary. And we're on our way to doing that. Um not that it
061wasn't happening before, but having it happen in a much more organized systemic way um as time goes on. So that again the vertical alignment when the students go from sixth grade to seventh grade there's a there's a group of words that they've all been exposed to and a and a group of texts that they've all been exposed to a group of skills that they've all been working on so that the expectations of the seventh grade teachers can be that if you've come from our sixth grade we know you know or at least were taught X Y and Z. One more just maybe just anformational question. You said we have literacy blocks in our classrooms in terms of time spent on literacy in the classrooms. Is that >> something we should be considering adjusting? Is it
062sufficient time? How does it compare to maybe other >> I would say we're kind of getting into a a area here that because here when you start talking about a literacy block you're talking about an historical time period that was at one point instituted and then there were some changes to it. I'm getting a little too far out on a limb here. I would say you folks have a a real good approach to and an awareness of protecting literacy instructional time. when we start talking about a literacy block, there is a um a a meaning in this district a little different than other districts is the way I would look at it. So, there's been some changes there, I believe, at the lower grade levels. How am I doing? But right now, you do do
063you do a a good job of it. If my reviewers were looking at it, they would like to more assurances that that time frame is being as protected as well as they would like it to be. They're also reviewers. It's like being a grandparent. Building principles is like being a parent. you guys got to balance all the other different things with your schedules and people coming and going and when your teachers are available and all those types of things. Um, but I I know in talking to district leadership, there have been things done and restructuring to be able to protect that time. It's just a question of being able to have district leadership work with your building principles to work with your teachers to make sure that's being realized. >> But it's funny after nine
064months here or so you're like literacy block. Oh no, let's let's go back to instructional time. So, >> um I was just wondering if you could clarify a little bit or or maybe um Dr. Bowman could in terms of the adjustments making made uh being made to the MTSS criteria. Could could we just have a little bit more information about that? >> Basically, it's the amount of time waiting until you um provide interventions. Am I right on that? That that was the suggestion of it. You want to kind of because you folks were already kind of down this path when we were pointing it out to you. It was an adjustment you made. If you look at the MTSS plan and then when you start to talk to people, people are like saying we kind
065of know what's going on there. So if you want to give >> just exactly what Tim said, which is reducing reducing the number of you know reducing how long we wait or reducing the gap between where the level should be versus where the student is and intervening maybe sooner. So at at the younger grades so that you can scoop up a student when they show their first signs of struggling and you know take you know take the time that is needed to fix them up and then off they go. Um and that's really the the goal here >> yeah as as Dr. Scanland uses a very technical term, the little ones, and she would say, "You got to get the little ones quicker with that." When we brought it to the attention of the district
066office in particular, they said, "We're already looking at it." They said Lauren was working on some things along those lines. It was just the documentation we had. That's something else different, I believe. I But it was well worked on when we got to it. So, okay. Um you had mentioned that um something that the teachers had expressed um needing more support or wanting to spend more focus on was writing. Um do you find that to be in your experiences? I'm assuming that's probably not necessarily unique to Garden City. I mean, I'm going to speak as an educator myself. writing is one of those areas that I think is um sometimes the most difficult um area in which to teach. So um in your experience, have you found that that's not unique to Garden City that
067they're under struggling with that work? >> In fact, I referenced the district that I'm in the middle of collecting responses from right now. they were almost aligned almost exactly with you folks and it's a different type of district and they came back with if you looked at the graph of what they were looking for. Um I can tell you writing is like in the middle because that's where it crests almost like a bell curve. Um so I've seen that. I have also seen it in reflected in districts I've worked with where um you know you have reading teachers and you have reading support and things like that. Um, I know in districts that have had five through eight middle schools, they have put in writing labs so that there is a dedicated person addressing that
068writing lab. Um, if you can carve out that type of resource, it's great, but I can tell you from the district level to be able to retain that type of resource over time can be a little more difficult. Um I am in you know like I had mentioned other school districts that are on uh state list for a variety of reasons. They also talk to us about what they're trying to do with writing instruction what they're doing with MTSS a whole variety of things but writing instruction is always coming up. In fact, it's one thing I'm asking my people in charge of programming and the university to look at is to see what we can offer that is you know even a clearing house of this is what you know the research says on construction
069is related to it you know uh writing so it's not I wouldn't say it's not only not unusual fairly common I would go with >> maybe a question for the administration and for you Tim given the information you provided us can you lay out kind of the groundworks for next steps uh what's going to be done how it's going to be done maybe any preliminary expectations of timeline I know this is going to be a pretty fluid process but can you outline that for the community >> sure you know we we've already started talking about um you know we'll be forming a committee the administrative team and uh Dr. Bowman and I we and of course with Miss Kaufman we met and um we will um start that there'll be monthly meetings to really dive
070deep into the recommendations that have been made and try to see what are our short-term things that we can implement right away and things that will take a little bit longer of time and our goal is we'll be meeting once a month. It'll be after school with teachers, administrators, and some staff members, the internal group. And it'll be a monthly meeting after school for about an hour and a half. And every month when we have a board meeting, we'll provide an update to the board around that. And the themes that um was presented tonight in terms of looking at our program, that's exactly what we'll be doing. Where are we streamlining, looking at our assessments? Um those are were the two main areas that um that we're going to start with right away. I know
071we hired some literacy coaches. I mean, any any first um impressions or anything that you guys can share on whether that's been um a success or it's helped and something that we maybe in this process should consider maybe doing more of if we have the uh use of resources for that. So, um, as you recall, um, last school year, that was the first year that we had, um, we had one literacy coach. And remember, just kind of historically, our, um, you know, our district, our our coordinator for ELA was 6 through 12. That was made districtwide, and that was done in the last few years. And then we added a literacy coach last school year. And then this school year we added another literacy coach to really focus in on our K5. So I know
072last year with with having somebody in that role was actually we heard from our principles that it was very effective because they were going right into the classrooms. Exactly what we were talking about job embedded professional development. That's what was happening. So we saw some great gains with that and that'll continue into this year. And I could tell you over the summer and already the number of professional development that miss it's only been not even full two weeks of school but the professional development how many how many of those sessions have already taken place. So that's on its way. we if we see success with that or if we think we need more than that, please bring that to the board again because I think that's something that you know having more resources available obviously
073makes it easier for the teachers and helps kind of with all the challenges or all the things that we're trying to you know improve upon. So um definitely do that. I know it's something we noted we talked about in the past that other districts had it. It was something that we all talked about and decided it was a good idea. So I think if if it's working let's do more of it. I just want to share if if it was um just a recommendation if it was possible to get our um both of our coaches letters trained. I just was thinking that might be a really good um comprehensive program that's not also specific to phonics covers all of the aspects of reading and then would just provide a good um foundation. I know Boseies
074is offering that. So, I think it would be great because then they can use what they've learned to go into the classrooms and support their teachers with that work. Um, much more cost-effective than having all of the staff be trained. But I think what's great about Letters is that it's also not specific to any curriculum program. So, you can apply what it is that you learn to any work that you're doing, whether you're using foundations or what other, you know, the other programs that you're using. So, just a recommendation if it's at all possible. And um I guess my question was about um communicating with parents uh at this kind of first juncture of um that changes or some changes discussion implementation is going to happen. I did um I have a first grader um
075and I received uh an email from um forgive me it was definitely Miss Klene, but I'm unsure who the other teacher was. and it was a book that was both connected to literacy and math skills. And I thought that was a really nice resource that I could it's in my Amazon cart um to work with him at home for reading. So I guess um I wondered were there any other ideas like that that are being floated to to kind of bridge the gap for parents at this time? um or other ways to communicate with parents that we know these changes, you know, we've had this review, we we we we see some of the suggestions, we we see the recommendations and here are some things in because I know this can all overall take a
076while. So, I guess for some parents of us who are anxious about our little ones and their reading skills, what can we do? And just I guess to if we can be mindful of that and and um if you have any any other things to send our way, please do add to that. Whoops. So Erin's saying all the right things about sending uh communication to parents, but also don't send communication to parents because we're overwhelmed. So Tim said right information at the right time. I know I'm just put a load on you, but it is overstimulating to get all of this. And thank you so much for making an actionable report that was very thorough. >> You know, it's been a very collaborative process as we've gone through this. You know, a very collaborative process,
077but also a long process. Um, you know, my staff will tell you that in recent memory, we have not had uh as long as we've done this, but that's that's a case of things come and go out of this. So, it wasn't like every single day we were on it, but it really was coming back. And there were times where I'm certain that district leadership was not thrilled with some things I had to say, but they were very willing to listen. And there were things where we had to get more explanation, but I do appreciate it. And it's it's been fun. has been a learning experience for us as well. It's also been very very interesting. So, but thank everyone for and you know also I would say this too. But I would say there's
078a willingness here to take a look at this. You know, folks could sit there and say, you know, whatever your rankings are, I'm not sure. I'm sure you folks can do them and good because you should be proud of that, you know. So, you know, from that standpoint, you could, and I know districts that are that way, but you folks said, "Let's have somebody else just take a look and tell us where we're at." And I I you know, it starts right at the top, but it was all the way through. Everybody we talked to was very willing to say to us this is what's going on and this is what we think. What do you think? You know um I also if I could give a real kind of I guess we was what
079the kids would say probably don't say this anymore but shout out to um Tina and Pam who a lot of the nuts and bolt. We had 11 11 focus groups that Kazzer for some reason couldn't host the focus groups which means you folks had to host the focus groups which means I think it was Pam on each one of those wasn't it? So Pam was on each one of those. That doesn't sound like a lot until you're trying to juggle 11 different times in your own job. And it was it was masterful. And the whole scheduling of the two days, I'm still just completely amazed that we were able to pull that off. And I was able to get Magg the Observer healthy in here to pull it off. I'm like, if you get sick,
080I don't care. So, but I I want to thank the district and everyone for it. We we actually learned a lot. And it was uh it was a long uh at times enjoyable uh experience. Uh so thank you. >> Nice. >> I guess at this at this time um it's uh time designated for uh citizens questions or comments. Um so please step up the mic. Be mindful uh you have three minutes and also be mindful that we'll probably not have all the answers if any. So we'll take those questions and answer them. As you can tell, this is still um a working uh working session for the board and the administration. So, mic is open for anybody if they have any questions or comments. I'm super concerned about my eldest was a Catholic school child.
081So I have huge my son's her ability at my son there's a challenge and my sons are good students. They do well in school. They get good grades. They get my children not he can't spell word friends he rarely writes last night he wrote a four sentence took more than I'm not sure what's happening he rarely reads he had no reading assignments last year they read he never actually put his face a book I don't My daughter in sixth grade wrote I think she wrote seven novels. Michael was my third grader. I mean, he's just started, but it's in the same so absolutely no he never writes. We were lucky enough that again, very minimal. My son, my oldest son did three book reports in six years. It's like I always basically I was recommended
082by the teacher elementary school because when he was reports they were given the was doing writing or a craft project. I commanded that a writing project every So I don't know what to solve. I'm not an educator. You're educators. But whatever's going on, whatever's being used and now my third grader. So she's not sure because mom work all the year. I'm sure The district in reading and writing 2020 that's when our current year research has shown And this is 47% of our sixth graders for reading. There was a parent in August and other things that I've talked to special So my question instruction can you share and what And then the last mostly it was tier one support course which is our regular core curriculum. >> Was there We have that information. >> We It
083wasn't part of this report, but we do we look at that. We look at our own data. So that's a data point that we do look at district. so that they can. >> Thank you. that you have uh an accepted curriculum across the board that also allows teachers to be able to bring a certain amount of uh individuality but also response to the learners that are in front. >> Yeah. What we um what we do do is with our feedback is always taken from teachers after professional development through really through surveys to see you know what they have gained from it and what we can do even better in terms of their needs. So we also take stock of our teachers with what their needs might be in along with our principles. >> Can't remember
084specific part of the plan and how you might evaluate professional development part. We did look at I can't say it was a topic going on but we had quite a few questions in survey that related to what teachers perceive thought of the professional development that had happened both what they thought when they were hired and what they perceived ongoing >> I we had what you saw from the standpoint of more of the what they looking for was writing um they were also looking for what already is being moved towards that job embedded I was telling people that there was um that's where people name names because they said they really liked well not to put you on the spot but what the Laurens did which I came to understand Lauren K and Lauren too and
085they mentioned things like that uh that they appreciated there weren't too many things that came up though that were that detrimental but there was a realization that the split and I'm not using co anymore as a excuse we're beyond that it's just a marker you know, and that's what it that's what appeared to me as I took a look at the district also still has access to they're surveys, but right now the district still has access to them. I know that Dr. Bowman has looked at some of that. The district or the district does not have access to individual type of level. You can look at what the overall surveys is, but you know, we have anonymous surveys. We're not going to have third grade and this and that type of thing. I have buttons
086I can push to make sure that doesn't happen. Um, but certainly go back and take a more another look at what we've had for it. So from their perspective maybe more than us looking at it kind of outside. >> There's also two separate ways or even as people tapping into My question is how much time my experience getting writing performance test. Um that also follow this one that I just said which is tremendous. It's a lot of work to build. Let's just summarize vertical alignment a little better too. >> I got a spot for you. >> Hey, I'm always looking. I'm always looking. Well, that's what I usually priorit So there we already heard of six% that's tremendous amount progress. I feel about this one. It's based on teachers not what actions are. Why is
087it that we only have years ago and our kids did better. Why do we have classated and there's no criteria for success to make sure that our students are getting what? Why don't we as parents have to understand what we need for our kids to do well? Why that our They're not very popular, two I have no insight performs other class and therefore I just welcome any thoughts. how we can actually make the committee that'll be meeting, they'll come up with some um goals, short-term and long-term goals, as I said earlier, and that's the route we'll go. And if you have any specific questions about your children, I really recommend um making a making a appointment with the building principal and the classroom teacher. They can address your specific concerns about your children. two possib
088That's going to help us be able to better support them is to This football has so So my question is Google as a parent. I want to know what words my child is actually learning. The short answer is yes. Um, as I mentioned earlier, there has been s significant summer curriculum writing done to ensure that there is consistent vocabulary work done across different classrooms in the middle school level. Um, and so part of that whole um project included opportunities for assessment of those words as well. Um, we are making a shift to provide more time in texts. Um, but there is also a place and a time for when it's appropriate for students to hear fluent reading and also to be reading out loud to one another. So, there won't be zero opportunities for teachers
089to be reading to children, but it there won't be full texts that are read aloud to children, which I don't believe is what exactly happened last year either. Um but moving forward moving forward some shifts have been made so that there is more time on in texts for kids. I I'll just repeat what I just said which is that we're making a shift so that the kids are spending more time in the texts but there will be opportunities for some for reading out loud because that is part of what you know that it's reading, writing, listening and speaking. And so the listening and speaking part is going to absolutely include reading out loud. Sometimes it will be the teacher who's doing it. Sometimes it will be students who are doing it, but it'll also include
090more of a focus on having kids in texts. So, one of the things, one of the um Right. Okay. Um, one of the things that helps people learn is to be to use different modalities in relationship to the words. And one of the things that research shows is that for some students utilizing images helps to have them solidify the understanding in their mind. Um at this point in the year, it's September 9th. One of the things that's happening is that students and teachers are getting to know one another. So before you allow before you as a teacher allow a child to go and choose one mechanism for helping to learn vocabulary versus another, they have to go through enough of a process where they've tried it on. And those decisions have been made in concert
091with the classroom teacher. So will it always be mandatory? I I can't say. It's September 9th. Is it good practice to start off the year with that? Is it researchbased? Yes and yes. So as I said there's going to be a focus on increasing students time in texts and so by doing that that will just by nature reduce the time that there are other mechanisms used for um students with books. Yes. At this time, if there are no further questions, we just have one announcement. The future board of education meeting will be next week, Tuesday, September 16th, 2025, regular session, 7:30 at the Garden City High School. Um, if there are no other questions and comments, may I have a motion that the there being no further business before the board that the meeting be
092adjourned? Second. >> All in favor?