001see go all right please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance [Music] good evening everyone um superintendent daily and then agenda changes [Music] okay thank you very much moving on to board president comments I just wanted to welcome everybody and uh I think it's great that we're getting back in the groove and uh we had a wonderful financing facility meeting last night a lot of pent-up demand and I just wanted to say welcome and moving on points of interest many points of interest this evening yes Mrs coffee it's just exciting to see all the kids getting started in their activities a lot of the sports have started um you know on our end and our family we have modified Sports so it's a very exciting World here for us it's just really nice
002to see everybody involved and back doing things they love thank you very much other points of interest [Music] hearing none we're moving on to meeting every reports of meetings Mr Moscato we had our first let's say the committee meeting for Monroe County School Board Association excuse me and we started to prioritize some of our agenda items for their our state representatives of federal reps um some of them I think are pretty obvious but there was a lot of concern about the Mandate for electric buses costs purchases feasibility you know everything else there was some interest in pursuing again to continue the free lunch and breakfast for our students you know issues around that and of course there's still visuals around Staffing all over the place whether it's gay teachers non-certified staff bus drivers doesn't make
003any difference the state of New York needs to start taking a hard look at how it handles certifications um for all staffs quite honestly it's not the same you know 20 years ago 10 years ago maybe we had a plethora of people applying for teaching jobs you know well now we don't you know so the mindset's got to change some of this is with the port of Regents we know so we have to approach them and at times they they can be a little dense I think so so those we're starting to do that so if you have any issues legislative issues you want me to take to the committee and let me know if we meet again in October we're trying to decide about visits to our state reps and federal reps it turns
004out one of the holdovers from covet has been the Comfort level of using Zoom rather than face to face so we tend to execute the representatives a little better than that I enjoy the face-to-face you know I think sometimes it's the case where they can be a little more honest about it it's just six or seven people at the world where that work percent of people on Zoom but so we're looking at that and um you know again we're not quite sure how well open Albany is so we maybe not be going you know Finding trips there we always used to go in December there talked about the Pope's budget but I mean in March when they were allegedly closer to getting to the budget so so if we have anything on a legislative level
005that you're interested in let me know we'll take it to the committee thank you thank you very much Mr moscano any other reports and meetings hearing none we're moving on visitor comments we have done this evening moving on to reports student Support Services report oops good evening president potenski vice president Moscato superintendent daily members of the Board of Education thank you for the opportunity to have us present this evening about the great things that are occurring throughout the student Support Services Department we appreciate it so tonight we are going to begin with a staff Spotlight of Sarah Robinson and her role as the district transition specialist we're going to discuss our Continuum of services and the growing Continuum of services that we have we're going to highlight two summer programs that were run and led
006by Danielle Latorre and Angelina pound and we are going to end with a reminder about septo that's going to be provided by Julie Stark so I'm going to turn it over to Sarah Robinson who's going to get us started talking about transition services [Music] hello thank you for having me I'm Sarah Robinson I'm the transition specialist for the district I've been in this role so this is my 10th role or tenth year as a transition specialist at Gates Chili and moved into the role after being a special education teacher at the high school um and over the time that I've been in the role I've it's developed it's changed I would like to say that it's improved and I'm serving more students and I just kind of wanted to highlight some of that for you
007so when I began this role I was primarily serving 12th graders it is mandated by the state and federal government that we provide students with disabilities transition plans so that when they exit they have a plan for post-secondary training employment and independent living when appropriate so as I was saying when I began my role I was primarily working with 12th graders I was developing an individualized transition plan based on their interests strengths and values and making sure that they knew about different Pathways that were available for them and we were you know planning what made sense for them so for some students that's going to college and I'm helping them access student supports at College I'm helping them access accommodations for some students that's investigating vocational programs for other students it is getting into the
008workforce and possibly even accessing supported employment or job coaches in the workforce and so part of what I do is I you know link with agencies such as the state agency access VR and over time they have expanded their services also so as they expanded their services I started to realize that there were opportunities to work with students younger than 12th grade so we really began the career planning and the transition planning for 11th graders 9th graders and 10th graders in those ages I've been referring more to access VR I've been getting students paid internships students with disabilities that might not be able to go into an interview get an interview do a job application themselves so we've linked many students over the past five six years with those paid internships through Community agencies I've
009also gone into self-contained classrooms where we're looking at how we go out in the community how we you know travel in the community and navigate it safely how we use appropriate social skills how we advocate for ourselves I've been doing that in the 12-1-1 room helping those teachers develop that program and then also in our communication and social skills program with our students with autism and that's been very successful I've also worked to start to use our BOCES resources more so making sure that when we're sending students with disabilities to wamoko that they're going to the most appropriate placement that they're going to have the support that they need at momoko so that they can be successful and also using services such as work-based learning through BOCES and making sure that you know students know
010those opportunities are out there and we've had success with that also with getting students into workplaces excuse me um and as that's gone you know I've also I go into all the self-contained programs I get to know the kids when they're in 9th and 10th grade so that by 12th grade we really have a strong relationship and we can develop a strong plan and I would like to say that's been very successful um and then about 2019 I want to say 2020. Mr Dijon came to me and we started to discuss the fact that some of our students with more significant disabilities but that transition planning and that those Services for Families it would be great if they could access those younger and so that's when we expanded the role in that fun 2020-2021 school
011year I moved from being a building transition specialist for our high school students to a district transition specialist and so in the last couple years I found more demand than I honestly expected with our students with developmental disabilities in the elementary and middle schools and families that I've been able to link with opwdd Services office for people with developmental disabilities they get families services not only in their school district but to make sure that we're partnering with those services and we're that the families are able to access those Services outside of the school day and I would say that's been successful and um you know through it all my goal is really just again individualized transition plans for every student based on their values what their families want for them based on their own self-determination
012and I really just appreciate the ability to like do this every day because it's my passion that's all thank you thank you so we're going to talk a little bit about our Continuum of services and the fact that our Continuum continues to grow with your ongoing support our Continuum services does continue to grow and evolve throughout the district every single year we are committed and focused we know on diversity equity and inclusion and I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the fact that the origin of that work which has spread to the entire District really did start in this department diversity equity and inclusion our core beliefs of the department and we work tirelessly partnering with families and with staff to remove barriers and to ensure that students with disabilities are provided with the
013tools that they need to achieve both their short-term and long-term goals and I know that I say this every single time that I present to you but I truly believe that our students most often with some notable exceptions are best serviced within our own District educated by our own staff with that being said it's with much gratitude to all of you for all the support that you've given as our Continuum has continued to grow of note on the Continuum up here is a new 611 classroom that we have at the middle school this year and two 8-1-1 classrooms that we have at Neil Armstrong Elementary School for the 2012 2022-2023 school year a cohort of students that we were able to bring back to our district in 2018-2019 when we created our then newly created
014611 classroom at the elementary school has transitioned up to the middle school so we've seen their progression as they've gone up which required us to create that 611 classroom at at the middle school level so that's a great thing we also created two 811 classrooms again going back to that notion that we can service our students best when we have them here in our own district and so we are able to provide services to students that we didn't before because we have extended and expanded our Continuum and now have an 811 program at the elementary level so all of these classes are off to a fantastic start they're doing great and I thank you very much for your continued support with all of that the next portion of this I would like to talk about
015reviewing at least a portion of what we do as a department by the numbers and the first one is the number of committee on special education and the committee on preschool special education meetings that were held last school year we held 1420 meetings during the last school year they were chaired by Julie by Danielle by myself and with much gratitude to the many psychologists at the building level who chaired subcommittee meetings you can see the type of meetings that we held on the right hand side of note with all of this is uh or something that I want to point out is the manifestation determination team meetings which are a result of either long-term suspensions or in-school suspensions and out of school suspensions of 10 non-consecutive days that we need to meet to discuss if
016the behavior that a student is exhibiting is a manifestation of their disability the number of 96 is high we're hoping for that to decrease for this upcoming school year but it does signify our continued need to work on our disproportionate outcomes as as the year goes up currently we have 420 students within the district with disabilities that we are servicing you can see on the right hand side where the students currently are provided services along our Continuum that I was just discussing and we continue to monitor our progresses to make sure that we're providing students the most quality education possible and the least restrictive environment about 80 percent of our students are provided with special education services within the district and 20 percent of our students are provided with services in an outside placement and
017this is due often to the fact that they require a highly specialized program which we cannot provide um adequately within our district you can see on the right uh the agencies that we partner with to provide services to our school age students the majority of the students recommended for replacement outside of the district which constitutes about 60 percent are referred to our partners at Monroe to Arlene's BOCES our department under the leadership of Danielle Latorre also facilitates services for students who are placed by their parent or Guardian in one of our private or parochial schools within the district's border currently these 97 students come from 15 different school districts including our own and we partner with Monroe 2 Orleans posies to provide the majority of the special education or related services at these schools and
018Danielle ensures that we maintain a strong partnership with these schools as we're providing services to these students that attend Section 504 so we currently have 133 students who receive accommodations via Section 504 plans school counselors at the secondary level and currently psychologists at the elementary level act as case managers for these students and oversee the implementation of Section 504 plans Angelina pound acts as our Point person on our team regarding overall 504 compliance so that we ensure that the accommodations for these students are being adequately and appropriately implemented on a daily basis with that I'm now going to ask that Tabitha Woody come up our new coordinator of student Support Services she's going to discuss some statistics around the committee on preschool special education and homeschooling great question so an integrated code taught classroom is
019a classroom that we have that has one general education teacher and one special education teacher in it full-time mm-hmm yep yep so I think that part of that is the adjustment of students coming back last school year and um you know them adjusting to being back in school and so that's why we're hoping that this school year um will will see a different result unfortunately the state will look at that number and they don't take you know covet into consideration when they look at our disproportionality rates any other questions before I turn it over good evening my name is Tabitha Woody and I'm the coordinator for cpsc committee on preschool education currently we have 89 students that we are servicing however day by day week by week we get additional numbers this is my night
020my ninth week on the job so as my days of employment are growing so are the children so currently with 89 children we are working with different related uh service providers agencies to do the evaluations we have certainly have been met with open arms we have agencies that are ready to really service our children and our families and that's great because the time that we're living in across the county it's very hard to find related service providers speech otpt so oftentimes when we get one door closed at least two more open so very optimistic that we're going to be able to continue to meet the needs of our students as well as our families we're working with careful and Bright Start just to name a couple of them but all of the agencies have certainly
021we've been available to assist our children home school is a little bit different homeschool the number as you can see now is at 229. parents are slowly bringing their children back into the school system there's some hesitancy but to bridge that we're trying to continue what Danielle LaTour started which is building those relationships with parents because when you homeschool your children more or less parents often comment that they feel isolated and because it is their choice we also want them to feel like there is somewhat of a partnership so we've allowed ourselves to open up to them to answer any questions that we can walk in that fine line and let them know that the lines of communication are always open and that the door is always open for any questions however we do follow
022the guidelines and we just wanted more than anything for this year going forward is to build those connections because those connections is what lasts and will help parents really make the decision to bring their kids back into the schools all right good evening everybody good evening so I am going to talk about our extended school year program so this is the second year in a row that we have uh had our own extended school year program last year our partners at BOCES weren't able to provide programming for our students this year we found ourselves in the same boat but we took it as an opportunity we were able to provide six weeks of programming it was half day so our students came in from 9 to 12 o'clock and we were able to program for
023our students that are in our 611 program and our 12-1-1 program it was really great to see that not only were the students preventing that regression that we tend to see when they're out of school for so long we were able to provide the related services adamantize our autism consultant joined us and was supporting students and staff and it was a really nice combination of Staff members we had staff that were interested in working the program from all of our buildings even though we were working with the elementary students we also were able to partner with the University of North Carolina they have been working with us this year on a program called Building Bridges and it is a program that focuses on Ela achievement for our students that have the most significant needs cognitive
024delays also students who have some significant communication delays and many of them are using communication devices so this was really great to see our students continue engaging in that program and just the response from the team at UNC and how they're responding to our teachers so we focused on summer Pond that was the theme we had some fun visitors some little reptiles a couple of animals that joined our esy program so all in all it was really a great opportunity for the students and for our staff good evening everyone I won't try to move that this time I'll leave it where it is um I'm going to talk a little bit about our summer enrichment program we held a summer enrichment program for the first time this past summer in the spring we received the
025ARP homeless children and youth grant for students in temporary housing or McKinney vento so we decided at that time we would provide some summer enrichment for our mckinney-vento students we had about 12 students in grades K no I'm sorry 2 through 12 who participated in our program and we held it on Tuesdays and Thursdays after our summer program um from 12 to 2 P.M so we decided we would provide enrichment in the form of science we went to the Planetarium art the kids painted rocks and then we incorporated some social emotional learning they painted rocks with positive messages and we hid them at Highland Park I think the highlight of our summer program was that the students got to swim in our beautiful pool in our Natatorium which they absolutely loved lunch was provided every
026day and the students had the opportunity to also sample food from different cultures which was really a really neat experience so I think it was a really successful program and I know our students enjoyed it thank you thank you good evening everyone good evening finally we wanted to share with you a little bit of information about our special education parent-teacher organization otherwise known as septo this year marks the start of the fourth year of septo incepto's Mission really is as you can see to work collaboratively with home school and the larger Community to provide education support and connections for students with different abilities Robinson has had a chance to work with our secular organization as well over these past couple of years to broaden those opportunities for Community connections parent and guardian participation is always
027welcome and encourage in fact those numbers that Mr Dijon shared with our families with students with disabilities our annual review on mailings that do go home we do incorporate information about septo into each of those tried to continue to encourage that participation we also recognize and really appreciate that some of you have had an opportunity to attend an event or two and we would certainly welcome any continued participation or attendance that you may be able to if you find that you are available to do so you can check us out chili.org backslash septo for upcoming events that have been planned so far for this year we really do want to send out a special thanks to Kelly conlon and Heather Lang they have been absolutely instrumental these past four years in in collaborating with the
028district to provide this opportunity for our families thank you and at this point I'll turn it back over to Mr Dijon so thank you very much for your time this evening and I'm going to open it up for any questions that you might have for me or for the team okay I'm schooling for a while I don't want to put Tabitha on the spot in week nine so those numbers we historically were around 110 to 120. we really saw the biggest jump after Cove in the 2021 school year they're starting to come down but it did ebb and flow quite a bit last year with the pandemic any kind of new variants so it did change the hope is that more people are going to start sending the students back to school so we're seeing
029a little bit of that but Tabitha's going to be monitoring it's not really a question but I really appreciate the transition Services work going to students of younger ages as well having previously been a Medicaid service coordinator back when it was called Medicaid Service Coordination one of the links that we really struggled with was that connection for our high schoolers and middle schoolers connecting that home in school so it's really nice to see that our District's very proactive in that because there is such a big world outside of school and it's really hard for families to make those connections on their own yeah it's been a powerful difference that Sarah's been able to make by going into the to the elementary schools the middle school as well other questions hearing none thank you very much
030Mr Jones well done moving on to Monroe County School Board Association welcome Mrs Thomas that's you that's me hi everybody thank you so much for having me again this evening I feel like I've been here it feels a little bit like home all of a sudden so maybe I need to come here every month um I'm not going to take much of your time I know you have really important things to discuss at your table tonight but I'm very glad to be here I was glad to meet all of you and work with you about a month ago now on your border treat that is something that we do at Monroe County School boards but that's really my focus tonight and other nights that I'm visiting all other school districts we do represent 21 districts
031in the regional area through Monroe County School boards and for those of you who can't attend some of our standing committee meetings I'm here just to say we're here we're here to provide support resources and anything that you need what we want to do and what my goal is is to provide you the leaders of your District whatever you need to best serve your students so however we can do that in my capacity as the executive director of Monroe County School boards that's what I'm here for I'm really excited about my work and since everyone was talking about how much time they've been it's my 105th day today I just did the calculation on my so it's my 105th day I am enjoying the work I'm learning a lot I'm learning about every board every
032board looks different our Collective diversity is what gives us strength and one thing that we've learned out of the pandemic is Collective Strength how do we work together how do we work best together and I think out of that through our survey that we conducted this summer we learned a couple of things one was we had to do something about our live streaming of our information exchange and Labor Relations Committee meetings so we have I believe perfected it knock on wood we'll test it out tomorrow but we do have a new Zoom format and we've invested in two high-tech microphones that the presenters will be using so for those of you who cannot join our meetings try to join them Zoom during your lunch hours I think that it will be well worth your while
033the second thing and I touched on this a little bit earlier was we heard predominantly that that the Association membership wants to work together more we want to have more networking opportunities we will have more real-time networking opportunities for the entire board to attend we'll have two we're going to try it out this year to have two social hours for board membership to attend but really the website is something we're excited about the website is it's taken a lot of time and effort to get our web website up and running there's a wealth of information on that website we plan to use that as our Hub of communication among school boards I will be posting I have my own executive director blog we have a board president's blog we have a ton of information that
034we're going to be putting on that website if you have any trouble accessing the website feel free to reach out to us we have all of the secured um login information if you need that at the drop of a hat but please please go into the website access it if you have questions if you have comments we're looking for feedback this year we'll be sending out in December another survey just to give get kind of a pulse point from our new membership because we do have recognize that we have new board members across the board so look for that but again I'm your resource feel free to reach out whenever you have a question comment concern I'm here thank you thanks for having me thank you moving on to discussion items um Trap board goals
035and norms and that is you at your place it should have been a document of the drafts no change to the to the goals from last meeting we did change a little bit on the norms practices if you will so what I would appreciate is if the board members could read these over let me know if anything needs to be changed on either the goals or the Norms I don't think we'd like to make this an action item at the next meeting okay anybody have any questions right now nope okay thank you please appreciate it um thank you very much Mr Moscato moving on to the nisba resolutions 2022 say nice to meet again well I did send out I think an email a summary of all the resolutions where I sort of sucked it
036all out into a little table so you can look at it but the booklet is here excuse me um same issue in terms of reviewing it uh what I will do for the next meeting I will have gone through them all again thought about them and I'll offer you so my opinion about different ones from there and then we will have an area one Zoom meeting uh on October 1st I think it is so that's where we'll do some more discussion hopefully with districts from up without the area so please look it over either do the booklet or if you want me to like if you didn't get my original email and we sent it to you so it's a little table and you can print it out or whatever I think it's a it's
037an Excel file so but just look over and let me know if anything piques your interest or you want more information about at the area 2 meeting it's the best place for us to get some more information we have somebody there for the resolutions committee we usually have something there from nizva as well so you know we can ask them very like why were they doing what are they trying to do sometimes resolutions are not quite clear you don't know the intent don't know the background you know so before you can make a decision about it you know you may want to know what's in the mind of the board that proposed it more than anything else so again let me know uh my next board meeting if there's anything particular then I'll bring it
038up at the area technique anybody questions now okay thank you to consensus items motion to approve the consensus agenda motion please Mr long and Ms kais questions or comments all in favor voters unanimous thank you very much moving on to motion to approve consensus items C through k motion please Mr Bailey and Mr long questions or comments yes eventually any other questions all in favor the photos unanimous thank you very much so moving on to action items Transportation appeal of student a be it resolved the Board of Education having heard an appeal from student a determination made by the transportation department designated as appeal number one and following due to Liberation we hereby uphold the determination of the transportation department all in favor motion I'm sorry motion my name is Dr Richards and Mr Bailey
039questions or comments all in favor the motion is unanimous the vote is unanimous thank you very much moving on to superintendent comments well I I didn't want to be left out this is my 1170th day as superintendent that's what I was doing yes so here we go uh our opening day for students uh was outstanding the media coverage was extremely positive starting with a fun 6 a.m interview out in front of the high school and then racking in as the buses came in smiling faces uh staff excited new principals greeting their students we were able to get into each of the schools of their leadership team and the tremendous preparation and attention to detail was evident it was great to hear see and experience this excitement of our faculty and staff and our administration had
040to be to be back with our Spartans you see lots of smiling faces uh the high school not as many because you know they look cool but uh it was just great to see kids coming off the bus and hugging their principles when they just met him you know just excited to be here uh Mr Hamilton that experienced that as much as say uh Dr zanowski but we'll see uh excited for next week with homecoming and our Hall of Fame our Hall of Fame the ceremony will be prior to our football game uh at 6 30 next Friday night in Spartan Stadium uh they'll spend the day in the district meeting with their students in classes which will culminate with the ceremony at 6 30. board members can choose to be on the field for
041the ceremony just let me know and we'll make sure that you can be out there for it or if you'd like to hear their speeches they'll be at 9 30 in the morning in the pack uh whether they'll be sharing with their students their experience of being Spartans and how their lives have evolved there was a move not to have the dinner this year which was a question earlier but they will be at the Allowed by any concessions that they'd like supporting our booster club and again homecoming is the week of the 19th to 24th each of you have it your place of flyer of the events uh and what they're dressing up as uh so the kids are excited staff are excited to get it done and they've sent it out to all the
042elementary schools so they can first participate as well uh just another reason why Gates Charlie is a special place I received an update on one of our January graduates from last year this week our teachers Staffing Administration stuck by this young man and helped him to finish this is another story about a kid who with our help managed to get it done and graduate it wasn't always easy but it was certainly worth it in the end his mother shared with us that to quote her I'm ecstatic uh David Rodriguez mom just called to give me an update on his progress he graduates from Navy basic training on October 14th in Chicago he says it'll be easy and the hardest part is missing everyone he scored so well on the entrance testing that they gave him
043thirty thousand dollars extra for committing and are enrolling them into the nuclear submarine Technology Program she was extremely thankful for our efforts and kept seeing his success was because of the work with and belief in him by our high school staff it's just another way of going above and beyond for our kids never giving up on him and pushing him and he's another success story we recently had it at our board meeting our summer graduates their age success stories and their family and they're going to make a difference out there and it was because of the belief of the high school and our community that they're able to get there uh talked about having a team of one with Spencerport uh Dr Irving is pursued helping out Spencerport with this they are in the process
044of finalizing paperwork to request a team of one for gymnastics so by our district accepted a proposal the Special Report student would attend all practicing competitions and Gates Charlie would not incur any cost and the student would score independently for sponsor Port not impact our team of individual scores a special report will provide insurance for students participation it's another way that we can keep a great sport alive helping another kid participate and also help push our kids it's one more kid in practice that they can learn from and work with so test kits uh we received over 3 000 more test kits for covet that we'll be giving out at the meet the teacher and open house nights across the district that we received from New York State uh parents can pick them up as
045they go and they attend those but yeah we just they keep sending us test kits and we'll keep giving them out for families to have at no cost we received a notice from the gates trailer Chamber of Commerce that Molina Drive was informed this week that by the board of directors the gates Charlie Chamber of Commerce that she's been selected is this user assembly of the chambers youth leadership award the word is given to recognize a youth group or individual 21 years or younger who has provided leadership in a community service project to others and served as a role model among their peers the board applauds these youth leaders with their example set and their enormous contribution to our community and she'll be lauded at a ceremony in October where principal Hamel will be presented
046her the award uh we are blessed to have the opportunity especially since someone's here from this organization the electric bussing presentation to the Monterey County School boards Association Dr ball Mr himmel and I will presenting at the November 16th Labor Relations on are so far successful uh electric busting experience and how we got it going and implemented them and then one of the fun weeks of the year for the kids at the elementary they enjoy it especially if they have a lot of red Red Ribbon Week uh will be October 26th to 29th and last but not least I'd like to thank our faculty staff and administration for a successful start to the school year uh you walk through our buildings and our kids are having a blast our teachers are engaging our in all
047our support staff are there to help make in whatever role it is in a great year for our kids each of them have made it great for our Spartans and I'm looking forward to next week with our homecoming to celebrate everything and it's just a tremendous thank you to all our team and the board that have put together a great start for our community and I would be remiss if I did not thank Miss parato and her team in human resources for somehow managing to find even more people we were hiring someone this afternoon as we're continuing to try and fill our roster with more great leaders to help our kids and again if you know any friends if you know any enemies that are looking for jobs we have openings please go to our
048website we will interview you we may not hire you but we will interview well that is my report sir thank you very much good one question how big is the how big is a gymnastics team you know merch team right now sorry okay well good that's right good thank you thank you very much there's 13. he was 13. there on the 13th motion to adjourn Mr long Dr Richards all in favor the boat is unanimous we are adjourned