001in special 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. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Do you notice if today's meeting has been provided to the public and each member of the board of education required by law? Tina, will you please take I'll take attendance. Uh Joe Silio, present here. Trusty Janeo, present. Trusty Odanio, present. Trusty Gaffne. Trusty Papis. Dr. Kasum Singha, superintendent. Miss Daniel Dicapu, assistant superintendent for business and finance. Present. Nenine McGlaughlin, assistant superintendent for human resources and leadership development. Present. Dr. Alice Bowman, assistant superintendent
002for curriculum and instruction, present. And we have we have many others, but we'll we'll uh announce them in their attendance when they speak. Thank you. Tonight's presentation is the instructional components number two. Dr. SA, will you please take uh take the mic in the presentation? Thank you, Mr. Silio. So um you know last time when we met we uh we had discussed uh instruction part one where our building principles presented on our programs and this evening is instruction part two where we will be um going through the technology budget the pupil personnel services and our athletic athletic budget along with PE and health. In addition to that, uh, Miss McLaclin will be going over the staffing. And so, you know, you'll hear about, um, you know, the increases or decreases within our budget with staffing
003and what our particularly with the middle school. I know that was an uh, interest for our community and our board. So, we'll um, talk a little bit more about that. So, with that, let's start our presentation. Let's see. Do I need Oh, I don't know if I do I need Yeah, this one. Oh, yeah. Good. Okay. So, we always start off with our mission and vision and you have that there. And again, when you hear the presentation tonight, you'll see that it's in line with both of those. And um as I had shared earlier for um you'll get the budget overview, technology, PPS, athletic staffing, and then Mr. Capio will go over the instructional codes and then uh we'll discuss what's on the ballot and address your questions. So this number you have seen before.
004Nothing has changed with the, you know, with our proposed budget, which is 137,760,845, uh, which is a budget-to-budget increase of 2.82% with a tax maximum allowable tax levy of 2.42. And, um, we always have to present our budget in this three-part uh, format. And so again this evening uh we'll be talking about our programs and those are important because that's what touches our students and this is the pie chart and the numbers and you have seen this also before and now I'm going to turn it over to Miss Maguire who will be going over the technology budget. All right, good evening everybody. So I always like to start with this slide because it shows the two sides of the technology department. One of which is your traditional IT side of things. Thank you. Which is
005where we manage our network, our mobile devices, our hardwired devices and the like and everything else that sits on our network. anything Wi-Fi, anything like our telephone system, security cameras and things like that. We also have the instructional technology side of things which are anything related to applications, integrations into the classroom, professional development and support for teachers and we have a team that supports that. But ultimately, all of this is about student learning outcomes because that's what we're here for. So just a quick status update on some of our um priorities from last year and I've added some additional ones at the bottom of some other things that we added on to this. Basically our biggest priorities are cyber security and maintaining a safe and secure infrastructure which is not just about the network itself.
006It's about the data privacy. It's about the information that is stored on our network. That's what this is really what we're focused on. We updated our information security plan this year, actually created one from scratch um and completed it earlier this year. We updated our incident response plan, our disaster recovery plan, and we conducted a tabletop exercise with our security officer, our district admins, and our IT team. And that was a good way for us to run through a crisis scenario in the event of that type of an attack. We completed an rate infrastructure project, which is very detailed. I'm not going to get into, but it was uh funded through federal grant funds we applied for about two years ago. It anything that's -ate is something that is usually funded for a big infrastructure,
007a large expenditure, and you get about 40% back the following year after the project has been completed. And we did that completed that last summer. We completed an uh interactive board installation at the middle school that was half of a project we started beforehand. We continue to expand our asset inventory system and some other updates as um suggested in a state audit audit about two years ago and we continue to support the construction projects that are ongoing in within the district because most of that involves some or a lot of technology coming up for next year in the IT side. We are planning to con continue to uh secure our security posture for the district. We'll be conducting a pent test. We will continue to align with uh the new frameworks that are out in
008terms of cyber security protocols for not just school districts, but these are the NIST frameworks are for any business for everywhere. It's a worldwide kind of consortium. Um we'll continue. We're planning to do another project. We're in the process of hammering that out right now, which is about our firewall and infrastructure. We're hoping to do a phone refresh this summer. continue expanding our interactive whiteboard refresh, which is part of a long-term planning process. We've been going building by building over the last few years. The good thing with those boards is they are a long-term uh fixture. We they usually give us about 10 years out of it. So, once completed with the primary buildings, we'll be good for a number of years. Uh we're going to start refreshing or continue the refresh of teacher devices,
009uh student devices. We usually try to do about two grade levels per year. um and really a continued focus on our data privacy and security throughout the district tied into our cyber security initiatives. Now to the other side of things which are is our instructional technology side and we really put this slide up just to really talk about whenever we're doing anything with relate relationship to instructional technology technology in a classroom it's always been about effective technology and so we really and I appreciate our tech team here uh Lauren Lavell and Mike Davola coming up with these three tenets so to speak that we talk about when we're doing professional development and that's making it intentional appropriate and balanced. So last year's instructional technology priorities were really to focus on the implementation of the New
010York State computer science and digital fluency standards. Uh we knew that this year was the first official year of New York State CBT. We've been preparing for this. We've been rolling it out. We were already three through eight last year. So this year we knew was going to be a second year for it. But we learned a lot in the first couple of years of doing this and knew that there were certain things we wanted to continue to do to ensure that our students have some practice on a similar platform to what they would be taking this computer based testing on which is where linkit came in and taking some sample uh tests on there. We also were able to uh invest in a typing program which has been a great great at the two
011through five level for this year and we're hoping to expand it into the middle school for next year. Kind of learning the keyboard helps them when they're getting on to tests onto a platform online where they can get their thoughts down and they're not so worried about hunting and pecking for the keys and where the letters are like trying to help with the fluency on that end of things. We have done a spectacular job if I do say so on uh professional learning and on demand support for our teachers. We our tech team has designed some wonderful programs some on demand during the school day tech bites is a success here especially at the high school where during lunch periods come in drop in learn about a tool have a little bite to eat um
012usually pretzels. Um we the biggest thing that I think we've been had success with has been our pajama PD and that has been run by Lauren Leel and Mike here and they decide they do this at night and teachers log on to a virtual platform well to Zoom and they take these one-hour long professional developments focused on some type area of technology integration. It gets so popular there are some nights that there are over a hundred people on the call and that's at night from 7 to 8 pm something like that 6:00 to 7. So um and they've also developed a platform that you can check out here called PD Flicks which is where all of the recordings are done and teachers can go back and watch them at another time. Uh we had planned
013this year to reconvene the technology committee in service of developing the New York State Technology Plan. However, that plan, New York State pushed it back another year. So, instead of it being for 2025 to 2028, it will be 2026 to 2029. So, we'll reconvene that uh in this upcoming school year. We've continued to support new technology and steam courses because we're not just technology, we're also do a lot work of work with steam and design thinking throughout the district. And we create we did create a student advisory group here at Garden City High School. They're members of the student council. We meet with them every other month. I bring food. They have added so much to our conversation about technology, especially at the high school level, but they've been given us a lot of feedback
014and insight, and I really look forward to a continued partnership with them. Moving forward for next year, we'll definitely reconvene the technology committee. kind of a two-parter where I'd like to have it in service of the technology plan, but I really want to work on something that we started this year kind of an AI roadmap where we talk, you know, it's here to stay rather than avoid it and rather than we need to talk about it, we know need to talk about it in terms of how are we what are we allowing and this is a lot of based on a lot of the feedback with the gu the high school students is, you know, when do we use it? they don't the guidance surrounding that and really about right now they're getting some experience
015with some uh platform that we purchased called magic school which allows them to participate and learn a little bit about prompt engineering and learn about uses of AI with guard rails so it's a very locked down kind of scenario for them so they want to know we want to know we want to talk have a discussion with the high school staff like what is acceptable for them we want to design our own guidance surrounding this we've been working on policies this year um policies for AI policies in our accept part language for our acceptable use policy that includes language around that I know there's discussions the code of conduct so where does it all come from we started doing some work with our administrators we surveyed our teachers we even surveyed our students for feedback
016and we want to continue that work next year uh we want to continue our amazing professional development and professional learning program for teachers we want to continue to expand the curriculum that has been developed for the computer science and digital fluency standards for the state and really expand it more into 612 which right now it's been more embedded where in K5 we've been able to do some more direct instruction isolated and embedded in curriculum because we have a lot of support down there and more flexibility than you do in 6 through 12 but we want to continue to expand that into the upper grades a little bit more. Um we will be exploring some other options. This is again based on feedback from our high school students for student devices. Um, Chromebooks have served us
017fairly well. They've been a fiscally responsible choice over the years and they have um done the job. They've been easy to manage. Um, their request has they're and I am this was exactly what they said was we'll never use a Chromebook again once we walk out the doors of Garden City High School. And they're not wrong. So, we're exploring different opportunities for that and we look forward to a continued partnership with the PTA. Um, I think we've had a lot of uh good times with them this year in terms of supporting them in some PTA functions, supporting them in meetings and kind of sharing and giving them some insights into the technology that we're using in the classroom. Uh, our tech team has attended some of those meetings. I know we'll be partnering um well
018they've taken it on which is wonderful for parent university. I know there's an event coming up on the 24th um which is kind of been an outgrowth of some of the work together. So I'm excited about that too and continuing to do that and expand some I think some knowledge for parents. I think that's somewhere where I'd like to go more next year because and provide some things kind of like we do for pajama PD for teachers but expand those offerings to parents as well. That's really technology. Do you have any questions for technology before we move to the next section? I just had a question about um you mentioned these techfree zones in all of the buildings. Can you just be more specific about what that exactly means? So I I know I put
019it on one of those slides there um on the slide about instructional technology. It's not exactly a zone. Um it's not, you know, a roped off area necessarily where in the middle school it's more of okay, not in cafeterias, not in the gym, not in home base areas like that. Um we're in the elementary buildings, they're kind of in the classrooms all the time. So it's really more about setting the time aside where it's not in use. And that's the majority of the day to be honest with you. I've been able to look at the an we have analytics platform within class link that allows us to kind of get a guideline guidance on how much time per day is spent per building um and it's based on login into class link and it's a
020very small portion of the day that way and then I know um Hokll's been talking about that bellto bell she's been proposing that if that were to be something that passes how would that impact like how would we um respond to that and how would our buildings manage that? Well, I think that's actually something that's we're already starting to address even though it hasn't been directed at this point. You know, it's the belltobell is really about the um the exceptions I believe are tools for instruction, assisted technology devices, and there was a third. Um, so it's really about we're being mindful about it and I think that's why we initially last year began taking devices, not sending devices home and really speaking with our staff about when to use them. You know, this shouldn't be
021something that they're on all day and we can monitor that and that's what we've been doing. But I know at the middle school they have been they they have no phones, you know, that's in their lockers for the day. So they've already been addressing that. So that's that's there. I know the high school has been doing a lot of work on that area. I think they have the pockets and I know the kids walk in and they put them away during that time, but I think that's a more of a building question. I'm not sure in terms of, you know, uh, lunch periods or library time what where that lands right now. We we are well positioned for that if that what you know if that goes through because already our kids again at the
022middle school and even at the high school I know um we've purchased even more or Mr. Stein Grubner has for the classrooms. So um so I think it it won't be a difficult transition for us and you know I know um if there are no other questions but I do want to say I think our technology department it's probably the most evolving and with um you know with practice and with the um policies and I know we did the first reading of the AI policy last time when we met and we'll go through that again but I really have to say the uh Miss Magcguire and her team, they do a fantastic job of building capacity with our administrators and our faculty and staff, which has been really wonderful for us. Miss I think Miss
023Bavona, you go next. Yes. With PPS. Yeah. Evening. Okay. So, thank you for the opportunity to present the latest data to highlight our achievements in the PPS office for the past year and to review our key priorities for the 2526 school year. Our first slide features photos taken by our incredible staff. These images showcase primary and elementary students engaging in community outings, reading to four-legged friends, using a sunshine cart to build skills, and interacting with grade level peers for both educational and social activities. just a small sample of the opportunities provided to our students here in Garden City. As we move through tonight's presentation, you'll notice some slides that may be that may look familiar. We've also included some new data points that both Barbara Nelson and I felt were important to share. Um the
024second slide depicts the three committees that PPS oversees that provide students with services and/or accommodations. the committee on preschool special education for children ages 3 through five. Uh the committee on special education for students um aged 5 to 22 and section 504. The next several slides will give us an opportunity to take a closer look at each of these committees in more detail. We're going to start with CPSC. We created a CPSC to CSSE transition chart that talks towards the total number of students. Currently, right now, we have 115 students. Um 64 of those students turn five by December 1, so they'll be rising CPSC to CSSE students. 24 out of those 64 students uh receive services whether they be in a center-based or requiring additional services through CS in a general education preschool. And
025as of right now, our cse annual reviews are currently being conducted. So we don't have the number of students that transitioned from CPSC to cse but you could see previous years. Next we'll move on to 504 plans. This is a new data point we're sharing. Since I started in July we've conducted a review of the 504 process and have updated our procedures to ensure greater consistency across all buildings. This data includes district residents who are par parententally placed in non-public schools. The home district is responsible for the development of 504 plans for students who attend non-public schools. So again, just giving you a 2-year peak. This next slide breaks down the number of classified students who reside within Garden City. Specifically, the number of broken down is broken down by students attending district district programs
026by level, primary, elementary, middle school, and high school. It also includes out of district placements showing students who attend Boseies, other public schools, and non-public schools. This information does not include the additional 110 non-resident students who are office services in the three non-public schools that are located here in Garden City. Next is a breakdown based on classification. In order for a student to qualify for services through cse, they must fit one of 13 classifications. So this just gives us a comparison from last year to this year. This is a new slide. In the student achievement report, our special education students were included in the high school numbers. So, Barbara Nelson and I decided to drill deeper down into the data. We wanted to see how our students with disabilities fared when it came to diplomas.
027So, just to talk a little bit about this um chart, last year we had 272 students who were in 12th grade. We had 20 students of students with disabilities. So each of those 20 students had an IEP. 19 of those students graduated. Three of them received a regions and advanced regions diploma. 16 of them a region's diploma. None of them are local. None of them received a non-diploma um the CADS or our um our SAC diploma which is our just our credential. Um and there is one student that is considered still enrolled. So whether they're considering taking the fifth year in order to graduate or um they continue up until they're 21 22. So you can see our data for the past few years how well our students have done. This is a quite an
028accomplishment. Okay. Again another new slide. In previous years, there was a generic diagram using a pyramid to depict the continuum of services. We continue to provide the full continuum of services, but thought it might be more helpful to inform the community of where in our district programs will be located for the 2526 school year. So, these locations are projected based on our projections. Um, not all of our annual views have occurred. Um but you could see in the chart it indicates um the individual services across all of our buildings talks towards what's available um and then what location specific ones will be available next year given the numbers. Okay, this is the last slide um for data. Um this is our Northwell slide. Typically, it's presented using the colored wheel. This kind of shows a
029little bit better the the numbers. Um we continue our partnership with Northwell this year. This is our fourth year um partnering with them. This year so far, we've had 32 students h who have utilized the Northwell services. uh 14 were school referrals, 18 were family referrals where they went straight to Northwell themselves. And this just gives us a good picture as to what our students are are experiencing currently. Mental health continues to be a concern, especially in such high-erforming districts as Garden City, and it continues to be a focus moving forward as we look to expand supports with Northwell to include access to parent workshops on a variety of topics that impact the mental health of our students. Okay. Um status from from this school year. um our PPS priorities. We executed the recommendations provided
030by the special education advisory committee. We developed dedicated areas on the district website for families to easily access information and resources. Thanks to Miss Hand and our IT department, uh Lauren and Mike for that support. Um we also facilitated opportunities for open dialogue with the community. We had several chats throughout the year. We just had one last week where we provide forums for parents to come in and ask questions and just sit and talk about whatever topic they'd like. So, we're looking to continue to do that again for next year. Um long-term plan to support OT and PT needs. So, within this budget, we're looking to hire two district staffed OT providers um to provide support throughout our district. We've also been working on building relationships with individual agency providers. If they like to work
031within our schools, then it'll promote them to want to stay. Um, so really trying to foster those relationships. And then finally, working collaboratively with the curriculum office and building staff and administration to strengthen the MTSS process, an area of social emotional, we use the DESA, uh, speech and language and the motor development. And then for next year, implement five uh K5 literacy review recommendations. Invest in curriculum training assessments that align with New York State standards. Professional development for diver diverse learners. Focus on inclusive practices and student support strategies. Strengthen community engagement. improve communication tools and increase family involvement, enhance mental health and SEAL supports, expand services and use DESA Northwell data to guide us um and our efforts moving forward. And then support our new uh assistant director of PPS, Miss Alonszo is here um
032ensure a smooth transition with um staffing tools and training. And then finally, one last slide. I just want to share um this is a picture of um Miss Mancky at the high school. She is our special class teacher. Um once a month on Fridays, uh she does collaborative community Fridays um where the students um push into GenEd classes and they do a cooperative learning activity. They've already been um involved in Spanish. Um the this picture is with Mr. um Hager, the science teacher, where they worked collaboratively on a forensic DNA activity to solve a crime. Um in April, they'll be pushing into Mr. Bleello's market class. Um in May, they will uh take on the role as a zoologologist um with u Mr. Calbur's living environment class um at the Queen's Zoo. So just another
033example of some of the amazing things that are happening here in Garden City. Thank you. Any questions for Miss Vivona for PPS? The one thing I do want to point out is um you know the and I really appreciate um the slide on the graduation and taking the cohort and really looking at students with disabilities and you know it's it's wonderful to see that our students are you know majority of our students are graduating with a regent or an advanced regions diploma and I know it's not on this slide but I I remember this from our student achievement report many of our students with disabilities take advanced placement classes as well. So, I appreciate you putting that in in the uh presentation. Thank you. Right. Anything else? Kristen, did you have a question? I have
034a question. Um the the number of students that are um the students with 504 plans increases um you know from primary to elementary, middle school to high school. What is some of the reasons for um the increase in the number of students with 504 plans as you go through like for primary to elementary to middle school to high school? I think as uh students get older um we open the door for more diagnosis that then lend towards um the ability to support students in creative ways. Um, and the 504 really provides us the structure to ensure that those accommodations occur. I also just wanted to say too, as um I think that we've really made some great progress um as a district with um our special ed programming. I know when Haley first started seven
035years ago, I'm I don't even know if there was an integrated co-eing classroom. there may have been, but the fact that we have, you know, one at a kindergarten level, one at first grade level, and that we have it two through five in both of our buildings, um, you know, and up through middle school and high school. But it's just wonderful because especially in our elementary schools, then our children can have the program that they need in their actual home school, which is which is great to see. So, thank you. I think we've made some great progress. Thank you. Is there any new um programs that have been added or being added for next year? So, no new specific programs to our continuum. They just might be located in new buildings. So, it's it's shown
036on that. And thank you, Miss Bavona and Miss Wilson for being available for the community for those chats. Um, I've heard through friends that they really appreciated having time to talk to the both of you and I think it's important that we um continue um that dialogue and it's great for other parents to also connect with other parents who have children who are receiving, you know, special support and um to be able to have those conversations with each other, too. So, I appreciate you making yourself available for that. Great. Thank you. We enjoy it. All right. Thank you, Miss Bavona. Mr. Ramirez, you're up next. Right. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Uh, I am Ed Ramirez. I'm the director for physical education, health, education, athletics. And a lot of times the first two parts of
037that get lost. So, I'm going to spend some time tonight talking about fizzed and health as well as athletics. First slide is physical education and our status. Um to sum this up, it's really our goal is to equip students with the knowledge, the skills, and expose them to activities that will help them lead a long and healthy active lifestyle. Uh we take that focus K through 12 building basics as they work work their way up through our uh secondary schools and hopefully they pick up some activities, lifelong activities that'll keep them active and healthy. our health education program. Um just like in any community, it needs to be specific to the needs of our students and that changes from school community to school community. And in this school community, um we focused a lot lately
038on the riptide education because the students spend a lot of times uh working at beaches, um recreational activities at beaches, spend a lot of time with nutrition, um and one of the national uh pandemics, underage gambling. So, we've spent a lot of time uh discussing those, incorporating those into lessons, and making sure that we focus on the dangers of underage gambling with athletics. Uh I'm just going to highlight I'm not going to go through each bullet, but I'll highlight a couple of things. Uh this year that we're very proud of. Uh we've done a lot of work with branding our facilities, our display cases, windcreens outside and they all uh reference character, leadership qualities that we want our students to associate with their participation here in athletics and as part of our program. Uh we've
039also spent a lot of time increasing our communication to parents, coaches, uh and athletes. We have a preseason coaches meeting before every season to go over regulations, rule changes. We meet with parents. I have an overall athlete meeting before every season and we have a captain's breakfast where we invite the captains down uh early in the morning uh early in the season to talk about leadership, leadership styles and how to make them the best leaders they can be to improve the program and the student athletes that are around them. Uh continuing with a athletics, we've established a uniform replacement schedule so all our teams have a schedule and know when when to expect new uniforms uh so they represent the the school and their teams properly. Um we've introduced middle school cheer cheer uh in
040the fall as a sideline cheer program. That is new this year. We've collaborated with the Garden City boosters to create designated family seating areas at our athletic events uh so that families that come down with young children can sit down and enjoy the games uh not necessarily in the bleachers uh but near the field. Uh, we continue to work with our web-based certification tracking system to make sure all the coaches meet New York State Ed requirements for coaching and we use a web-based coaching evaluation system so that we can evaluate coaches uh at the end of every season and it increases communication between building level administration, myself and district uh administration with those evaluations. This slide here, best way to sum this up is we win a lot. Um, this year just alone uh five
041Nassau County championships. We've had uh state championships, two Long Island Championships. We do a early commitment ceremony in October for our student athletes. We had 26 students commit early to continuing their education and their athletic experience at colleges. Uh and this just really talks to the number of students that we have here that are nationally ranked. Um, our programs are nationally ranked and we have a lot of coaches that receive national recognition uh for their work with athletics and students. Uh, that's a lot to be proud of. This next slide is the display cases that we talked about and you'll see um they highlight past accomplishments, current accomplishments, uh individual and team and they are all centered around core concepts that we want our student athletes to leave here uh not only being familiar with
042but owning excellence, uh leadership, legacy, tradition, culture, and understanding what that means to this athletic program and the community. So, it's important that they not only hear it, but they see it. This was a multi-year project that we put together. This is our digital hall of fame. There is one in the lobby and one in the cafeteria. It is an ongoing uh project because we add to it every year inductees uh from the Hall of Fame as well as our current athletes who reach all county levels or better. We put them in there with a bio. It's interactive. Uh there is a link there but I won't do that now. If you have time it you can go down that wormhole and research garden city athletic history. So we are in the business of students
043and it is a people- centered business. So it's important to see what their perception is uh of their athletic experience and their experience here as a student athlete. These are some of the seniors that will be leaving us this year and they're uh I just simply asked them in two words, describe your experience here at Garden City. Um and obviously they are positive experiences. They talk to being competitive memories challenging uh and the school spirit that they share. So I think this is a positive way of gauging the effectiveness of what we do. This slide here represents all the teams that we offer for both male and female, middle school and high school. 96 teams, which if is not the most, it's certainly at the top of Long Island in terms of what we, you
044know, offerings and opportunities. Um, and keep in mind that many of these teams uh overextend in terms of the numbers that they keep so that we can allow for maximum participation. So the only change from the year before to this year is the middle school ball cheer team participation numbers are either even or continue to grow which is unique to Garden City because many teams or excuse me many schools are still struggling uh with post effects of participation from the COVID era. Uh here at Garden City that is not an issue. uh our numbers continue to grow in some sports and some seasons and others are stay balanced. So this just represents the numbers over the last three years of students participation. So our priorities moving forward for physical education it's just continue to go
045down the path we are with exploring opportunities and activities for our student athletes. Uh we've reconditioned our bikes here. So we have our biking unit back at the high school which we the kids have really uh enjoyed in the fall and we hope to uh grow that program. Uh we work on pickle ball here at the high school and middle school and introducing it into the curriculum and exposing students to that activity. and K through 12. We have really worked hard to make sure that we provide mindful moments and opportunities in fizzed for mindfulness activities. And all our activities, our lessons are geared around the six New York State standards. Health education. Here are many of the units that we cover and there are several activities within these units that the teachers plan for. We
046continue to explore health topics that address the needs of our students within the community and that changes from year to year. There's a link here uh of a video we used our high school athletes this year. Um they created a video about underage gambling which we put out to the elementary schools and the middle schools. Um those are the students they see at you know on a day in dayout basis and they respect. So it's important that they see it from our students giving that message back to the younger students in the community. So, so if you get a chance, um, again, one more time, take a look. This pie chart just really breaks down the expenses, uh, for the budget, the upcoming budget, and you'll see that uh, the majority of the budget goes
047to supplies for middle school and high school athletic programs uh, as well as Bosey's fees. So, all the money is uh, going back into programs. priorities for athletics. Continue to evaluate our programs, assess needs, uh, evaluate, recruit, hire, and retain coaches, which is a challenge in this era. There are two shortages, officials and coaches. Uh, so we make sure that we continue to work on how to retain good young coaches and recruit new coaches. Ensure that all our coaches are certified. Um there's a list there of things that we are including in next year's budget for athletic programs. Spotlight banners, uh wrestling mat, brand, uh branding panels, uniforms for baseball, boys soccer, tennis, soccer, volleyball, baseball, and wrestling at the middle school. We are adding an assistant varsity cheerleading coach here at the high school
048to support that program. And we will continue to work on how we can increase communication for our school community. One of the upcoming priorities will be to work with uh administration and staff for the upcoming bond project. There are a lot of things that will that'll entail for us in terms of troubleshooting challenges that come. Uh working out schedules for practices and game sites with the ongoing work. Uh we'll be limited in space, so we'll have to relocate some of those teams. There'll be events, uh games, things of that sort that you know might not be available in traditional sites. So, we'll have to think out of the box to move those communication with athletes and staff to make sure everyone is clear and consistent on updates essential with projects uh and make sure that
049schedules, locations, equipment, all of that is available to our students and programs. Some things to think about in the coming years. Um, and we did poll our students uh at the middle school and the high school to to gauge interest. Um, just some considerations. girls flag football and girls wrestling, which are two of the largest growing sports um in New York um and in the country. Uh explore middle school bowling as an activity to help as a fetal program for our high school program. Uh middle school bad mitten. Currently we have 90 students that came out for bad mitten at the high school. Um so that's obviously an interest that's growing. So we going to gauge what to do with that at the middle school as well and continue to maximize whatever areas we have
050for our programs including in the new facility. Thank you. Any questions? Facilities and the bond are the fields going to be impacted during the year while we build or are they not? Yes. So, I've already started working with our coaches to develop a plan. Um, we won't have all our fields available. We'll have some of our fields, so we will have to relocate. So, we've already started a plan for that in the fall. Um, and and work from there. So, it start it'll start in the fall, the the work or our relocation of teams. Yeah. So I what I what I envision is that in the fall we will have to relocate uh any of the teams that use that back grass area because that'll be un unavailable for the fall season and then it
051will be done in fall that right um so the plan uh it's expected to be done mid October to early November for the multi-purpose field that's going out there. The baseball and softball fields, that area should be done um by September, but there are other parts around that that won't be completed. So, that'll still be unavailable. Of what year? Of next year. Oh, of. Yeah, of the fall. I just I just warned that I know these are planning they never get done on time, Janelle. They're they're planning schedules, but we're opening up bids this Friday. Awesome. So, you know, once we could award, once we have all that in place, we'll be able to give better information. But those are the deadlines that we have been working against as far as our planning and the
052completion in best lane plans. Yeah. Um, for the fields, for the fields, it should be so the softball and baseball infield should be completed early September. Yes. The multi-purpose field early uh mid-occtober to early November and the fitness center is a much bigger project. So, I'm not even going to throw a date out there. The fitness center is is over a two-year period. Yeah. Yeah, the the one thing that we have done is or Mr. Ramirez has started is the plan for where we our students will be playing. So, it's really maximizing our other buildings and moving some things around. So, that has um he has a list already of that schedule. Um is there any other questions? Any other questions for athletics? No. I one one thing that I do want to point out
053with athletics is um you know the participation rate in our district is unbelievable and it's nice that uh we're at you know that we've added more even to the middle school and and this and you know the particip uh the student participation rate um it continues to be high for our district which is wonderful and um now I'll turn it over to Miss McLaclin to go over staffing. Thanks Dr. Sinha. So um the first slide talks about our enrollment and board of ed policy 4421 uh which is our class size guideline and that is 25 from grades 1 through uh five except in kindergarten well where it's 20. So there's always a lot of questions around this and the way that the policy works is that when 1/2 + 1 of the sections on the
054grade level reach the max number, we break. But what I thought I would do this year is something different is show you our average class sizes for the past three years. And if you take a look at them, you can see that in most cases we are well below the class size guideline. Um we talk a lot about this at central office. Um we obviously don't have millions of classrooms. So you know space is definitely an issue for us but wherever we can under Dr. Shinha's uh leadership we we keep class sizes low. Um you know going back many years when I was a high school principal and I would sit at these the numbers didn't look like this. So, it's something that we really take very seriously. Obviously, we're very fiscally responsible, but we
055try to keep those class sizes as low as possible. And uh for next year, as of today, our projections are quite comparable with this. In fact, in most cases, it's even a little bit lower than it is right now. And the board will continue to be updated on our projected class sizes. So, I I hope you find that helpful. Um the next slide is just an overview of some of the things that we are adding in this budget and m maintaining. So um as Miss Vavona explained before, we've got a KICT section. That's a new hire for us. That's an increase. We have a 1.0 FTE increase in grade 6. A 1.0 increase for middle school science. 1.0 0 increase for high school ICT. As we heard from the PPS presentation before, we are really
056excited to be able to have two occupational therapists who are district employees. That that's our plan. We will be hiring our own employees. Um, as you probably recall from previous presentations, what we currently do now is that we work with agencies and we're really excited about uh bringing two OT's into our district as our own employees and this budget maintains our literacy coach, math, math coaches, and our K5 science support. So, those are all things that we're really excited about. So this slide shows you the overall staffing changes. And the reason there's 2425 and 2526 is that the the SL the 2425 changes happened postbudget presentation last year and so you know we have to pay for those. So they they they file they sort of funnel into the total number. So you can see
057that last year we added a uh a secondary psychologist. So now both the high school and the middle school have a 2.0 FTE. Uh we added a first grade section at Hemlock. After the budget presentation last year, we reduced a point 4 with um specials at Hemllock because we were able to schedule in a more efficient way, but we needed.3 of those specials at Homestead. Uh we added a 1.0 0 FTE special ed teacher for the new sore uh section that we had this year at hemlock. Uh 1.0 special ed teachers that was districtwide resource room and speech. We dropped 6.5 paraprofessionals last year and we added a teaching assistant at hemlap. So that's what's in place now. In addition for next year, we're adding a 1.0 0 FTE for ICT at the high school,
058a 1.0 FTE for special class at Stratford. We're down a 1.0 fifth grade at Stuart. We're adding a 1.0 sixth grade at the middle school, 1.0 science at the middle school, a 1.2 for high school sixth period assignments, the 2.0 occupational therapists, and a.5 clerical at the bus garage. So that's a total of a 5.1 FTE increase. The last thing that uh we added, this is new, was just a little bit more of a detail about the middle school. Obviously, that's something that we've all been very focused on. Um our goal is to keep the average class size in all academic sections at 28 or less next year. So I thought it would be important to showcase um what we did budget for the middle school for the current year. Some of it was used
059and some of it was not used. So as you can see we had a point4 for English, a 0.2 for math, a point4 for science and a point4 for social studies that we budgeted but the middle school did not use. Uh so that um but then you can see that we budgeted a point4 in art and a point4 in music which they did use. So total that was a 2.2 FTE budgeted but only a8 used and I think that's important for everyone to note. So obviously we've spent a lot of time uh working on this for next year. One of the changes um the middle school blueprint uh is very rigid and um Dr. Bowman used to be a middle school principal who has expertise with the schedule. And so we've been working with the
060middle school to preserve what's important to them, what they value, but by being a little more flexible with the scheduling, they are able to um get their resources to go further. Okay. So we are finding finding a 1.2 2 FTE that they currently have just by scheduling slightly differently. So what h what's happening right now at the middle school is the core teachers the academic core teachers teach four core classes and one support or elective um by using the um you know scheduling is a formula. It's really it's very prescribed and basically you know you have a certain amount of students. If you want a certain amount of uh children in each class you need a certain amount of sections. It's it it is very complicated but that part of it is simple. And so
061um without with Dr. enrollment support. We realized that they we could free up academic sections and have fewer electives and support classes and by scheduling them more efficiently and not keeping everything so lock step, we could get 1.2 FTE of additional academic sections. This is a big deal because when you add it to the 1.0 in science, the 1.0 know in grade six a.3 overage in English and a point4 overage in math. It gives them 3.9 FTEES which is 0.1 short of four additional teachers and that will enable us to keep their average class sizes for all academic classes at 28 or less. Um and so we're really excited about this and obviously we are watching the middle school enrollment as well as the rest of the enrollment weekly. Uh at this time of the
062year it is a once a week thing. I get the um enrollment numbers in real time out of school tool and from the registar for kindergarten registration. I update the spreadsheet and we talk about it every single week at cabinet. We do have a 2.0 no contingency built into our um budget. Uh and so um which is helpful because that's the wiggle room we need. If we see something that um you know if two weeks from now we get a few extra kids, we have the resources to make certain decisions and obviously the board will be kept informed about all of that. Thank you. Right. Any questions about staffing? Yeah. And um you know I have to say um with the scheduling that has been a work in progress right from the beginning of this
063year in preparation for next year and um you know Alice has been working diligently with middle school in um in with the scheduling. So again, it'll look different next year, but our main goal was to ensure that our core classes, they weren't as high as it was this year, particularly for seventh grade. All right. So now I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Capua. Thank you, Dr. SHA. So this slide um has not changed since last week uh which shows our total budget at 137,760,845. This is the budget broken down into its major uh functional components and it just gives the detail of this current year to um to next year's proposed budget. Starting with the 2250 codes. So those are the codes that Miss Bonus spoke about earlier. This is for special education
064services. This is direct instruction for special education uh special ed needs attending both public and private schools. It includes uh teacher, teaching assistant and teacher aid salaries, tuition costs, contractual expenses for services, equipment, supplies, materials and the increases here are due to salaries. In the 2280 codes, we have our career and teched education. Uh these expenses are for career and technical programs operated through Boseies. Bosses builds us on a three-year average enrollment and the decrease here is I'm sorry the increase here is just on the three-year trend. The 2330 codes is for special is for continuing education. Uh these codes are related to that program that we uh that we run through Miss McGloin's office and the decrease here is an instructor salary expenses. In the 2610 codes we have our school and library media.
065And here we have the costs of operation of school libraries in the media centers in each of the buildings. Expenses include salaries for the library staff, library books, materials, database expenses, equipment, supplies, and other materials. And the increase here is in salaries. In the 2630 code, we have computer assisted instruction. So 2630 is half of what Miss Maguire budgets for. uh she presented on the instructional and the um administrative side tonight. Um in the 2630 we have those expenses related to technology in our instructional program. During the administration administrative presentation that we did a few weeks ago, we reviewed the 1680 codes which is the administrative side of her budget. In 2630 we have expenses related to hardware and software for instructional use, staff and staff developer salaries, classroom supplies and materials and the increase
066here is primarily due to software and toosis. In the 2810 codes, we are our guidance codes and in this we have guidance c guidance counselor salaries uh their office and clerical support for those offices uh supplies their materials and the increases due to salaries in the 20185 codes are for our health services. The district health services codes cover expenses for nurses salaries, consulting physician expenses, health services to other districts which garden city residents if they go to school outside of Garden City were required to pay for their health services. All supplies and materials. The increase in the nursing is due to salaries and some contractual expenses related to the health services. The 2820 is for psychological services. And here we have um psychologists salaries their supplies and materials and the increase here is due to
067salaries in the 2825 code is for our social workers and these are expenses related to uh those people social worker salaries supplies materials and the increase here is also due to salaries in the 2850 codes is for our co-curricular activities uh here we budget for advisor stipens for our co-curricular uh clubs, supervision for special events including prom and homecoming, plays, performances, and much more. And the increase here is due to programs club stipens. And in the 2855, which is our last is for our intercolastic uh athletics. This is what Mr. Ramirez presented on tonight. These include salaries for our coaching staff, engineerial activities, supervision and referee costs, equipment, supplies, uniforms, all for athletic program. The increases here for a variety codes including salaries, equipment repair and supplies. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Capua? Um,
068actually more of a comment. uh just looking at the change for the career in technical education uh with that massive increase uh Kristen and I had attended a webinar and uh the people at Boseies so eloquently put that their costs go up so our costs go up and we're like okay so they were just sending us a bill and that's pretty much that. So I I know that that kind of jumped off the page at me and they kind of prepared us for it, but that's the reason for the increase. I I will tell you that we work very closely with the high school and with um Manny Ste and Kevin. So just to go through and they really take their time to look at who those programs are right for. So I think it's
069a very thoughtful process and um but we are aware of the expense with it. Um they have some good programs there. They are out there. I I went um with my daughter and it's very impressive. Yeah, it's a very very impressive facility. Their CT programs are very nice. Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Capio? Okay. So, um, you know, the two propositions that will be on the ballot on May 20th is the school district budget and election of two board of education trustees. And our next meeting on April uh 23rd is where we there will be the adoption of our district budget and then we'll have a budget hearing May 13th with a budget vote and election on May 20th. likes to put the picture up. Those of you can see that. It's a nice
070picture of our band students, marching band. Is there anything else? You can move to questions. Any citizens questions? Hi. Um, my name is Aaron Dbridge, 90 Huntington Road. Um, thank you for the presentation. Specifically, Miss Favona, thank you for all that new data. We appreciate that very much. Um I actually had a question about MTSS and I was just wondering if there is any um numbers that PPS can share about the percentage or the number of students who go through MTSS. um how many students the multi-tered support system works for or and then kind of conversely how many students then it doesn't work for and they end up being evaluated and then placed in uh special education. So currently we are working on a system to ensure that we have that data um and we
071will be back in touch with it but at this time it is something that's still in the works. Okay, thank you. And Miss McGlaughlin, I was wondering, could you just ex, it was a little in the weeds for me. Could you explain about the way the teachers are going to work at the middle school? So, the way it has always, well, I don't know about always, but for like a really, really, really long time, the way it's been at the middle school is that a teacher teaches five, but they'll teach an academic teacher, you know, a a math, science, social studies, English. Um, they teach four of the core. So they'll teach like if I'm a sixth grade teacher, I'll teach four sixth grade classes or seventh grade social studies, I'll teach four. And then
072my fifth class is either an elective or some kind of a support class. The reason that it's not magic math, I swear. But the reason why we're able to get more out of the same FTEES is because instead of they have this thing they call a blueprint and it's very lock step. If Dave Prada were here, uh, he he would explain this better. When, you know, when you're trying to fit everything into a master schedule, flexibility is key. And at the high school, they they will place things wherever it's best for the kids and we maximize resources. At the middle school, it's not that it isn't placed where it's best for the kids, but it's rigid in that it fits into this blueprint. And so all the core classes are these periods and all the
073electives are these periods and the speech is this and this. When you do that, you're limiting yourself. And when you limit yourself, the the $10 you have or the 10 sections you have, they don't go as far as if you just put them where they work best for the kids. Um they've they've operated on this middle school blueprint for a really long time. So by by having some of the teachers do four plus an elective or support, kids still get electives, plenty of electives, plenty of support for the kids who need it. But by removing some of those people from doing that fifth period being support or electives and making it a math class or a social studies class, that plus the extra FTES we're giving them is enough to bring class sizes down for
074everybody. Okay. So, it's not necessarily that you're losing support teachers or losing elective teachers. It's just that you're reconfiguring how Got it. Yeah. Exactly. We are scheduling more efficiently. Okay. By not being so rigid in this blueprint. It's like we're getting I mean really it's like we're getting free sections, you know, because the 1.2 is a 1.2 we already have. We're just scheduling it differently. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hi, Ivon Chapman 7. Thank you for explaining that. We were trying. We saw you. It looked like it made a lot of sense in your head. We were excited, but we weren't sure. I thought Yeah, I was a master scheduler, so I have to realize that people don't speak. No, I mean, the high school does it to a team. So, questions, just
075call me. That's perfect. Thank you. Um, thank you so much for the special education thing. Thank you so much for putting those 504 numbers in there. We have been waiting for those for a long time. It really shows a great picture and thank you for asking the question. I do agree. I think, you know, we always see it. The older the kids get, the more we find they can't coast as much, so the numbers go up. Um the just to touch base, you didn't write um there wasn't any like kic or another 12. This is just because you guys didn't do the CC meetings or the projection of 2526 or did I miss that? K ICT. Is that what you're asking about? Yeah. Kindergarten ICT will be at Homestead. Is that what you're asking? And
076then first grade will be at Hemlock. Okay. It just wasn't on there. So I wasn't sure if it was Am I No, it was. Yeah, it's on there. You know what? It was in black, so it might have to be. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. So, was there uh projected the other 12 that you're looking at for Stratford or No, I didn't see that on there. Because it's where where they're moved, but this year they're in black. So, we can So, in the print out, it didn't show. I'm sorry. No worries. When you see it online, you'll be able to see it. Yeah. All right. Perfect. That's good. Thank you. I tried to highlight it. Yeah. Yeah. Are there any other questions? May I have a motion that there's no further business to come before the
077board and the work session be adjourned and the special session be opened? So move. Second. All in favor? I I special session is now open and all members of the board of education are in attendance. Um, do you want to say a few words before I go through that? Yeah, just on the agenda, you know, u you know, we have um we have some um uh personnel items and I wanted to really point out too, we do have uh Miss Amanda Hower. She's with us. She will be she's on the agenda. She'll be our our assistant principal at the high school. And just um you know, we're really happy um that Amanda will be taking on this role for a couple of reasons. She started out her um in 2014 at the high school as
078a teacher and then as our coordinator of music and art and the arts and she's done an outstanding job in that area and to say see her coming back to the high school and taking on the role. Um and this was you know Mr. Stein Grubner brought that to us and we were really thrilled with um with seeing uh Amanda in this role. So, Amanda, we're um you know, you're on the agenda, so we're happy to see, you know, see you and support you as the assistant principal for our high school. And um also we have uh uh Miss Jamie Alonzo. She's also in the audience and she's also on the agenda um and she comes to us from Glen Cove um school district and she'll be our next um assistant director for people personnel
079services. and she also brings in um you know solid experience into this role. I know there will be a lot of learning um because it's a new district and uh you know just getting to know our community and our programs. Um so we want to welcome you also Jamie. Thank you. Thank you both for being here tonight. At this time I have a motion to accept the agenda for the April 8th, 2025 special session as presented. All in favor? I Are there any questions from the board on the agenda? Anybody in any citizens or anybody in the crowd? Seeing nobody uh raising any questions. Um at this time, we're going to use our consent agenda as many are aware. Um if anybody wishes to have an item pulled out or removed and discussed individually, um
080please flag it. If not, we will use the consent agenda to vote on all of the agenda items uh as mentioned. Now, may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda, which includes personnel matters E1 through E2 and business office matters items F1 and F2. So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Next. Board of Education meetings. uh will be Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025 here at the Garden City High School at 8:15. Um like to congratulate uh our two new appointees. Thank you for coming tonight. Um at this time, may I have a motion that there's no further business to come before the board that the meeting shall be adjourned? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Thank you.