KCSD Board of Education Meeting 3/4/26

001[laughter] >> It is 6 minutes past 7. We have returned from executive session. If we could please call the roll. Mr. Spicer? Here. Dr. Collins? Here. Ms. Anderson? Here. Mr. Ryder? Here. Ms. Corsones? Here. Mr. Lamb? Here. Ms. Kerns? Here. Dr. Bernabei? Here. Ms. Collier is excused. Mr. Jackson? Here. And if we could stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We have uh two actions coming out of executive session. BOE authorization for defense. Be it resolved that the board hereby authorizes the defense in the case of Fitzpatrick versus Murray Anderson, Commissioner of Education appeal number 22667, pursuant to the provisions of the retainer agreement between

002the district and Mr. Counsel Shaw, Brachfeld, and Lambert LLP. So moved. Second. All in favor of BOE 36? Aye. Any opposed? No. BOE 36 is approved. The second BOE 37, approval of a settlement agreement. Be it resolved that the board authorizes its president to sign settlement documents with plaintiff Doe 2 and the district's insurer CNA as presented to the board at this meeting to resolve pending litigation in the case of John Doe and John Doe 2 versus Cedrick and the Poughkeepsie City School District. Ulster County Supreme Court index number 2020 1189. Regarding Doe 2 as presented to the board at this meeting. A copy of said document shall be incorporated by reference within minutes of this meeting. All in favor of BOE 37. Aye. Any opposed? BOE 37 is approved. Our um I'm going to

003get to the page. Our minutes from the February 18th meeting. Do we have a motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion on the minutes from the February 18th? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The minutes from February 18th are approved. The minutes from the special meeting of February 24th. Any discussion on special meeting minutes? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The minutes from February 24th are approved. That brings us to public comment. No one signed up. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to the board? That brings us to the superintendent's report. Thank you, Ms. Henson. First on our superintendent's report, we have our curriculum report from Dr. Oliveto and her team. Good evening. Thank you for providing the opportunity for my team and I to present to you an update on some of

004our implementation that we've been all working on this year. I would like to introduce my team, my very dedicated team. First, we have Ms. Jenny Griffin, director of E&L, oversees world language and arts and music. We have Dr. Sarah Holbrook, our director of humanities, also oversees library. And Mr. Stevie Pratt, our director of math, science, technology, also oversees business, tech, and finance. So, our agenda tonight, we will be providing some information on the superintendent goal of the implementation of some of our educational initiatives of i-Ready, the CKLA, which is the core knowledge language language arts, and our Educlimber, which is our student data platform. We'll provide an overview of our initiatives. We'll go through some i-Ready growth data from fall to winter, uh how we are supporting our English language learners and how are we

005supporting our teachers with these initiatives through our professional development and how we have included opportunities to build awareness on our initiatives with our community. So Dr. Patalino's goal that is tied directly to this team's everyday work includes the implementation of three major educational initiatives. So our i-Ready Diagnostic and our i-Ready Classroom which is our math curriculum, we are in year two for grade five six and year three in K4 and 78. Our Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts CKLA, we are in full implementation K5. Our last year was a pilot or a trial with 22 teachers and this year we are implementing or in the beginning stages of our rollout of our Edu Climber which is our student data platform. I do want to give a brief shout-out to Mr. Tomczyk who couldn't be here tonight.

006He has done a lot of the back-end work that is involved with building our Edu Climber platform. So before I hand this over to Mr. Kraft who's going to talk a little bit about our i-Ready initiatives, I just want to share that although i-Ready is fairly new to our district, 5800 districts across the country use the i-Ready Diagnostic for for supporting students on where they are at and 1900 districts use i-Ready Classroom which is the math curriculum of which 133 districts in New York, including part of the big five, Rochester, Yonkers, and many of the New York City schools. I am going to hand this over to Mr. Pratt. Good evening, everyone. So, uh many of us know a little bit about i-Ready. So, I'm just going to give you a brief overview of what

007i-Ready is and and what we do uh in our district with i-Ready. So, first of all, i-Ready, we use their diagnostics uh three times a year. Uh it is our universal screener that shows what students know um and what they're ready to learn next, and where we need some extra support uh whether it's in reading or in math. Second, i-Ready Classroom Mathematics, um just so we know what we know there's been a little bit of confusion about what it means inside the classroom, but uh this is our core teacher-led instruction. Um this is an evidence-based system that gives our teachers and our students hands-on tools, uh student workbooks, and use diagnostic data like the prerequisite reports to plan for upcoming instruction and upcoming units. And then our third part that many uh may know is

008our My Path part of the uh software system, and that is the uh the personalized instruction phase of i-Ready. It's based on the diagnostic results and can help with our teacher uh assigned activities in that space so that students get targeted support exactly where they are, uh where their gaps are, and help them to kind of build uh bridge that area. And then for our students who are a little bit ahead, they can move forward uh into other spaces as well. So, one of the big things that I want to share here is that i-Ready is a a a continuum of work. There is continuity that happens in this space, which is great. So, i-Ready gives our uh our teachers a consistent learning path from grade to grade so that skills are built intentionally instead

009of restarting every September. Practically what that means for our teachers, they can see exactly where the student left off and then target the prerequisite skills and keep instruction moving forward with a shared language across grade levels. So when I leave from first grade to second grade, the books are very similar, the spaces are very similar, the tools that we're using are very similar. So I don't have to start over from scratch each year with teacher. So, speaking about our professional development over the course of this year, um we have been working with our our partners at Curriculum Associates where we're our approach has been complimentary in two different ways. First, there's the lesson study model that we're using. This is a kind of a condensed experience for our schools at Chambers, Crosby, Meyer, and Graves

010where teachers plan together. They teach, they observe, they refine instruction in real classroom experiences. And then second is a little bit more intense and that's happening at GEW, JFK, Edson, Miller, and Bailey. This is a structured learning sequence that builds teacher skill over time. The practical goal in this is a stronger daily instruction. We actually have the coaches in the building with our teachers walking them through the steps, having that support in real time with our our our professionals in that space and working with the students so that we can iron out any issues that we might see as we go throughout the process. And that's a two-wave cycle so there's actually two coaching cycles that they have with the professionals there. So what we've learned over the course of this uh experience is that

011our biggest gains come from strengthening the everyday moves in instruction. We saw improved routines in our three-read method and this is one of the strategies in the toolbox that we have in i-Ready. And what the three-week strategy is is basically intentionally taking our students deeper and deeper into the understanding of the math work. So, if I give you a question that we're going to be solving, we read it three times intentionally so that the student, before they just jump right into the work, have a better understanding of what the math that they're going to be doing in that in that unit or that space. So, uh one of the other things that we looked at is what we're seeing as well is structured launches. Our our class times and our pacing are getting a lot

012better and more tighter and a clearer lesson flow as uh students enter into their classroom environments. Again, I know moving from second grade to third grade what to expect when I get into the space. So, I have an idea idea of what I need to do as a student. Uh one of the big things that we're seeing as well is higher student engagement and willingness to explain their learning. I can tell you how many classrooms I go into and you see the students light up and they want to share what I know. And that, more than anything else, gets them excited about being math learners in that space. Uh teacher openness to the coaching and reflecting on the practice within a lot more uh engagement in that space. They feel that this is something that's

013helping them uh know a lot more about their students and then also uh engaging them as they they plan for the next units. And then a growing alignment between i-Ready, uh what's going on in the uh My Path space, and then also what's going on inside the classroom space. So, the teachers are seeing that connection that work happening. So, our priorities uh moving forward, uh consistency. That's the big thing that we're we're doing across all of our buildings in that pacing space. So, looking at our units, making sure that our students benefit when learning in sequence and it's steady across all classrooms, all buildings. Uh the second strategy is uh select and sequence uh comparison select and sequence. Uh we want to see our students doing more than just getting the right answer. It's nice,

014but a calculator can do that, but I want to know why you know that's the right answer. So, we're working deeper into diving into that space. Then, third, visibility of student thinking. So, getting our students up and active and mobile in the classroom as they work. We have a ton of new manipulatives that are in the classroom spaces where we're actually seeing our students engage in the learning and not just have learning happen to them. And then finally, uh the fourth is assessment uh to instruction connection. So, we're using i-Ready data not just as a data point, but as a flashlight to see where our students really are and really target the learning that they need, not necessarily just giving them a test for testing. So, to have a continued pulse on, you know, how

015are we doing with our tier one instruction besides what are, you know, our in-classroom uh unit exams, and so we also first look at our diagnostic data. So, I'm presenting here tonight the fall to winter growth data. So, this is a reminder to everybody, when we look at this data, what we're looking at is we kind of combine those green areas, which are your early on, mid, and above grade level. So, and then in the in the middle, we look at our red areas, which are our two and three grade levels below. That yellow area is like that transitional um one grade level below, which we like to see our students moving from the yellow into the green, of course. Um but remember, at the start of the year, i-Ready measures um based on the

016end of the year. So, if I'm a third grader, remember, I'm coming in and I should be ending If I'm on grade level, I will be in the yellow. I'll be one grade level below because I I received that instruction yet. Okay, hoping that makes sense. So, when we look at this data, we're looking at that growth of our green area. So, we did see a 12% increase from fall to spring in that green area, and we had a significant decrease in those those red areas of two or three grade levels below. Although I didn't include a slide on our subgroup data, I had a feeling that you might ask. So, I um I I took a look at that data, and we did have some increases in those green areas in all subgroup areas

017with the most significant increases found in our white and our Hispanic subgroups. And I'd also like to highlight the significant decrease in the red areas for our English language learners. And this group of students is all of our ELLs except for the first year entering ELLs. Okay, and Ms. Griffin's going to tell you a little bit more about the first year entering ELLs, but the data is showing that 29 There's a a decrease of 29% from fall to winter in those red areas. So, they are moving from the red area into the yellow, maybe even into the green level. Okay, and also we saw a significant decrease in the red area for our special education students as well as our Hispanic students. And I'm going to hand it over to Ms. Griffin. Hi, everyone. So,

018just like Dr. Elevado mentioned, the first year entering ELL students are the only ones not included in those diagnostics. It's just not appropriate for the ELA when they first come into the country, so they're exempt from that state exam. similar to that we've sort of molded our diagnostics in the same vein. We had STAR previous to this and we actually didn't even test the students because they wouldn't get a score. I mean it would be zero, it wouldn't be worth it, it would be more gut-wrenching to see. And with i-Ready we've been able to actually use the uh i-Ready math diagnostic in Spanish, which if that's more comfortable for the student, they can take that. So once again this year we did what we did last year. We started it last year. We did three

019diagnostic windows for that That way I could also pull the data that way. So we did a fall, winter, and spring once again and I was able to look i-Ready has great charts and I can show you that on the next slide. So we just took our first year entering EL students and of course if Spanish was their dominant language, they were able to take the math in Spanish. So they have the opportunity not only take the i-Ready math in Spanish, but then they can also have instruction in i-Ready my path. So if a teacher or an EL teacher or both or even the students are not comfortable taking it at all, that's perfectly fine, too. Because they start with a my path. But the my path starts at the lowest level and students go

020up based on what lessons they get and what other work they do. If you have a diagnostic, it sets you at a certain level. So it's really nice to get that level and more teachers have been inclined to want to do this with their students now. Okay. So this is just the chart to show the difference between the fall and the winter and strictly for our first year, meaning first year in the country entering EL students. So again, this piece is the the best possible example of the growth. So it just shows how that's gotten a little smaller. Now where they go, hopefully in here, the goal is is to get out of this area. This is the two and three grade levels below. It's progress. It's not grade level, but it's absolute progress. So,

021it's at least showing something for the first year you know students taking the math, not the reading. At this point, we don't have it for the students in Spanish, so we didn't want to give that option unless they wanted to take it in English. Okay? So, in a moment we will be reviewing some New York City assessment projection data based on the i-Ready diagnostic data. So, the data used to calculate these projections are based on the analysis of the 133 New York state district data that that they take to the diagnostic. So, it is really important to understand these two terms. I know that we've reviewed this in the past, but I thought this was an important slide to kind of just go over once again. So, typical growth is the average annual growth of

022students at that grade level that have the same baseline. Okay? Stretch growth is a multi-year approach for students to close that gap between performing below grade level and reaching proficiency to on grade level. Okay? Although that is a challenging goal, it is very achievable. So, if we took the math state assessment the day after the winter administration of the diagnostic. Okay? So, that would be about two months ago. Um and no more growth occurred, the projection of our proficiency on our New York state assessment would be 28%. But, that is not the case so don't worry. All right, so our students are growing, they are reaching typical and even sometimes they're stretch growth. So, we're looking at a projection you using diagnostic data. We are going to probably have a projection of 40 to 45%

023proficiency in our New York State assessments this year. Um our last two years um were they're about 35% or were 35%. Although there was not growth between those two years, it is very important to understand that we had 197 more students taking the state assessment. Okay? And that was um I think the work of the district leadership team, uh building principals, uh PTAs, PTOs, everybody was on board with that. We also did a parent night on that. And that was even after two days of the New York State CBT uh platform crashing too. I'm going to hand it over to Dr. Holbrook for our CKLA update. Thank you. All right, CKLA. So, um just as a brief reminder, CKLA is our new tier one ELA program and it is um stands for Core Knowledge Language

024Arts which is a content-rich literacy curriculum that is designed for kindergarten through fifth grade and it combines systematic foundational reading skills with sequential knowledge building in um both history, science, literature, and the arts. So, the reading and writing skills are embedded into the content so the students learn about something and then at the same time they um learn how to read and write. So, we um last year we piloted CKLA and the decision was made to roll out the program come this school year. So, in March 2025 at our superintendent conference day, all classroom teachers, including our special education teachers and ENL teachers, were and our reading teachers as well. They got a training in CKLA. We're all trained that day. We felt it was very important that the teachers left that school year knowing

025what September looks like. So, we we made that happen for them in March so that they could walk in the door in September knowing what to expect. In September on superintendent conference day, we did a training for teaching assistants, which is especially important in our self-contained and in our self-contained classrooms where they're helping to be with the students and that they have an understanding of what the curriculum is. In October, CKLA was back for professional learning in the buildings. They did strengthening implementation training and looking at instructional routines, and they also modeled different lessons. Then again in November, we had superintendent's conference day was utilized to do more in-depth training with the teachers. And again, they were here in January for more coaching, refining practices, and addressing some challenges that have come up as you

026know the implementation has rolled out. So, ongoing support that happens constantly is most of our grade level meetings have all been kind of re-purposed for that, for meeting with grade level teams across the district, meeting with myself or CKLA if need be, and the teachers as well. So, some of the um the makeup of our coaching sessions are the model demo lessons that CKLA will come in and they'll model demo lessons for the teachers. They We over pacing. Pacing's been a big Uh talk a little bit about that in a minute, but pacing's been a big topic. Supporting all learners, lesson internalization protocols, and engaging all learners as collaborative planning. Um So, what have we learned? We have learned that um CKLA has strengthened our systematic decoding, knowledge building, and content and coherent literacy instruction

027across all classrooms, but also across all buildings, which has been really great. We have seven elementary schools here, so you know, getting everybody on the same page has been very helpful. Um We have also learned that our teachers' knowledge in the science of reading and how explicit systematic instruction in language has increased greatly over the over the course of the last 2 years, specifically in where we spent the We spent a lot of last year learning about the science of reading, and this year was a lot of that implementation of what is the science of reading, what does that look like in your classroom, and how do you take what you learned last year and apply it to what to the children who are sitting in front of you. Um So, the shared curriculum has,

028you know, reduced variability of our variability across classrooms and schools, and ensuring that all students have access to grade-level materials. And I think that has been one of our um our biggest wins is that um all students in the classroom have access to uh an explicit, systematic, evidence-based tier one curriculum. Um and that's, you know, something to really celebrate. So, when like with anything, there's always room to get better, right? So, areas for growth, what we're learning to do better. So, as we move forward into year two and finish out uh year one, we're looking at supporting implementation depth, not just the fidelity of teaching the program. What does it look like as we go deeper into the program? Um teachers need continued support with pacing and time management as this really CKLA really changed

029the way that they were teaching. So, um we're learning how to keep up with that pace. Um so, working more with that as we go through the year. Some differentiation within the CKLA lessons and um making, you know, informed instructional decisions without over modifying the curriculum. So, with those things in mind, it became really apparent to us that we needed to really increase our coaching capacity and our and our own internal expertise. So, what we're looking for um as we look ahead to the 2026-2027 um PD plan is we're looking more towards the train the trainer model, where we're looking to train like lead teachers in um staff that we already have and lead teachers that who can help with um job-embedded support, bringing on new staff, coaching, modeling, planning, um who could lead conversations

030at grade-level meetings about um let's look at the next unit. Let's plan it out together. Where, you know, where where can we enhance it? Where do we can where can we maybe um skip and like go a little bit quicker and slow down, things like that. So, what does all this mean for our students is cuz this is what it's really all about, right? So, our students now have more consistent access to high-quality um literacy instruction. They have a stronger foundation in skills like decoding, fluency, and vocabulary, um increased exposure to grade-level texts and knowledge-rich content. Um we have an improved instructional supports for our struggling readers and more equitable literacy experiences across classrooms and schools. So, um I want to share two things that I feel like are are really important that are some

031things that I hear that are um what it really means for our students. So, one little anecdotal note that I got from a teacher after teaching a CKLA lesson in the beginning of the school year is she came up to me and she showed me her bathroom sign-out sheet and she said, "Look, nobody went to the bathroom." Mhm. So, I felt like that is like really just really just speaks volumes as to the I don't know. the the importance of the program. I think they were sports grade. And then, um but even more important than that, at the grade level meetings in in January, I had a self-contained special ed kindergarten teacher come up to me and say for the first time in all of her years of teaching special education, her entire class is

032reading. So, I thought that was very important to share. And I'm going to turn it back over to Dr. Oliver. I think the best way to gauge um the CKLA implementation is um our our students are having birthday parties around the units this year. >> [laughter] >> Okay, so everybody knows how to um read these charts now. So, um looking at our fall uh to winter growth, our green areas, we had a 12% um increase and we had an 8% uh decrease from fall to winter in our ELA or our reading I-Ready. So, to support our English language learners with CKLA and also in English language arts. So, as Dr. Holberg mentioned, we went through a very thorough evaluation of three curricula. CKLA was chosen in part, major part, because it was the most culturally

033sensitive. So, this way it would be hopefully best for all of our learners. All elementary and L teachers received the same PD as the collaborating classroom teachers. They've been in all the PDs that CKLA has given through the classroom visits, grade level meetings, etc. Just as Dr. Holbrook said, I think this is the big difference that at least I'm noticing. This is my second year working in this role, but I've worked with the ENL department before and we've piecemealed as much as we can finding different resources. None of which were bad, but not connected, seemingly disconnected. And I think what this has done, at least what I'm noticing with CKLA, is that there is a unified approach. There is a connected There's ENL teachers pushing in, which they normally would do, but they'd sort of

034be on the side. And there's a little more co-teaching going on. There's a little more skills being brought into their stand-alone time that they work with the students. So, using CKLA resources and other resources that I'll talk about in a minute as well. We didn't really talk much about the secondary level, so I'll just skip that, but obviously the same general idea. The classroom teachers are working with the ENL teachers, reading teachers. It's more of a unified approach. So, again, they're either pushing in through the skills or the knowledge sections. And we were just having a conversation actually before this presentation this evening that it's really through surveys, which I actually have just surveyed the entire ENL department to see what's working best for them, what do we need to fix, and we'll make adjustments

035based on what we get. We originally wanted them to push in through the knowledge because it might be a little more difficult, but the ENL teachers are finding pushing in through skills is actually making them more useful in the classroom. So, we'll really tweak that, we'll look at that as the year progresses. Same thing with uh trying to get PD brought in to assess. We had Dr. Antonio Fierro, um based on Dr. Holbrook's relationship with him and Tony Newbold provided an introductory PD uh to all ENL teachers, K-12, reading teachers, speech and language teachers. And we also got these guides and these cards and I'll talk more about that as we progress because we have Dr. Pierre coming back again. But, it was so well received. I mean, it was just something that teachers have

036been just been waiting for. Just other ways where they can work more with their students. And I've spoken about these other resources well, but uh Dr. Holbrook had gotten UFLI and uh Hegarty too for classroom teachers, reading teachers. So, this school year I was able to utilize Title III funds to get these for the EL teachers as well. And again, through their stand-alone time, not when they're integrating into the classrooms with the teachers, but when they come back to their rooms, they're using similar approaches to what the classroom teachers are using, reading teachers are using. So, there's this connectedness for the for the uh students and for the teachers getting more familiar with it. So, those are at least two of the other resources that we've gotten. And um you know, of course, we're always

037looking. I mean, reaching out to other districts, seeing what they're working on, what's working, what's not working. Um I know uh Ms. Criscione, you had mentioned a website to Alyssa that she told me about that. So, I'll check that out too. Thank you so much. Uh Dr. Olivarro again. So, before you write down the questions of the subgroup data, which I skimmed over and which I didn't even do that. Um I just I really just skipped over it um by accident. So, going back to our fall to winter subgroup data uh for reading, we did have a significant increase in our subgroup of black with a 20% increase moving it to our red level and a significant decrease in that red area in our subgroups of our English language learners of 22%, special ed of

03816%, and Hispanic by 15%. So, sorry I didn't mention that earlier. Moving into our projection um data, again, if we just see ELA New York State assessment the day after the winter diagnostic, our proficiency would be 35%. That's not going to happen and we are going to probably fall somewhere uh between if our students all reach our typical growth and stretch growth, um the projection is somewhere between uh 42% and 47% um proficiency on the ELA assessment. We had 183 more students participate this year in the ELA assessment and we increased our [clears throat] New York State proficiency from 2023-2024 um to last year by 5.2% with a proficiency of 37.6%. We are going to move into our last initiative. Um I'm going as fast as I can. I'm going way over time, Dr. Green.

039Um and for that reason, I am skipping over the video that you can all watch on your own. I just gained 2 and 1/2 minutes. All right. So, um speaking of Educate Climate, what is it? It's a centralized data platform providing a comprehensive look at our whole our whole trial. Uh one of the things that we've been talking a lot about tonight is all the initiatives that are going on and there's a lot of data that goes with that information. How do we see it in a quick and meaningful way as educators, as administrators in order to shape our work? This is what the platform Educate Climate allows us to do. Uh given each of our students a data profile and almost like a Have you ever seen a baseball card? You can look at

040the back and see all the stats for our students. It's very similar to what we get inside an Educate Climate environment. Uh it helps us to uh deal with our MTSS uh support. It helps us to identify our students' needs early. is a big thing. Uh, we want to identify them early, monitor their progress so they're not stuck in a space uh, longer than needs to be. Uh, helps us to choose the interventions that properly meets their needs, and then evaluate the results. So, we're not just, you know, setting and forgetting, we're actually seeing and following through with our students to make sure they're getting the supports that they need. Uh, the data allows us also um, to uh, pull in data from all the different software spaces. So, instead of having to go as

041an administrator from i-Ready to Educlimber to I mean, Educlimber is long, but all the different data spaces, I get all that information in one rich space, improving my workflow. So, uh, with this, we've been doing professional development in Educlimber um, as Dr. Albeto mentioned, uh, this is a lot of work that's been done by uh, Mr. Tomsic, head of IT, to kind of bring all this and bridge all this data inside Educlimber, but uh, we've done uh, overview uh, task with our administrative team, so they've gotten not just one, but multiple rounds of training to get them uh, into the system and having a better understanding of what the workflow looks like in that area. Uh, we worked in August to do an overview in Superintendent's Conference Day, and that was primarily towards our school

042counselors, RTI providers, and our literacy teachers, and they're helping to shape this space as well. This is allowing us to again, look at their workflow, identify what can help their their uh, process be uh, streamlined, and then plug into the space to kind of make their work a little bit simpler. Uh, in November, we had in-person training for our administrators, our school counselors, RTI math, and literacy as well. And then our next steps, we're going to be continuing that training, uh, overview training for our RTI facilitators, that's going to be happening soon, our CSC chairs, our related service providers, including our uh, school psychologist, our school social workers, our lead teachers, and um our second grade specialists as well. And then fall, uh the prediction there is that we're going to have a full roll

043out of teachers, where they too will get trained. And this training is also being provided through our uh partners in uh Renaissance as well. Okay, so we are building in our EduClimber system, um our progress monitoring in our NCSSSI. So, within the EduClimber Dr. I would Could you tell everyone what NCSSSI is? >> Multi-tiered Systems of Support Integrated. Thank you. Yes, I'm sorry. Um so, for the academic progress monitoring for our literacy specialists and our RTI providers, there is now a built-in notification letter that will go home uh to her at the start of services, um and then for our reading and our math, we are we've whittled it down to four different areas of focus. So, for reading, um we have fluency and decoding, phonemic awareness, language comprehension, and letter and sound. And then

044there's interventions that are targeted for each of those four areas. And for math, we have defined it into number and operations, algebra and algebraic thinking, uh measurement and data, and geometry. And so, consistent monitoring from our providers uh will be uh be is being conducted, and progress monitoring um graphs are also being now associated with those report cards that will be going home to parents. Our final part of tonight is our uh curriculum initiatives that we have provided parent nights for our community. So, we held parent night on November 13th 13th that provided an overview of CKLA in action. We had 12 teachers come with us as a teacher panel, which I think was a very impactful way for the community to learn about what CKLA is. They were answering questions that we gave them

045as well as an opportunity for the community to also ask questions. Some of those questions uh the teachers answered during that night was how is how has implementing CKLA changed the way you teach reading and language arts? What have you noticed about your students' engagement or participation during CKLA CKLA lessons? And how does CKLA help students build background knowledge and vocabulary learning across different subjects? It was a very powerful night. I think our parents really learned a lot that night. We also kind of replicated that >> [cough] >> for for the i-Ready classroom experience on January 27th. We did an overview of the different parts of i-Ready because there was a misunderstanding that i-Ready was just a digital component. So, we brought all of our manipulatives out. We brought our workbooks out and and parents

046were able to kind of you know, really see what happens in the classroom. We also had a teacher panel that night consisting of about eight teachers. Um we also provided how to support your child at home in math, which was a very powerful conversation. Some of the teacher panel questions included what does i-Ready look like in your classroom? Um sharing out of how i-Ready helped identify skill gaps you may not have seen otherwise. Um what's the most helpful way families can support i-Ready at home without turning it into a nightly battle? That was a great conversation. And what would you say to a parent who's still unsure about it? So and we also had some additional questions from the community. And those are also all live streamed and we've gotten a lot of viewing through

047that. Our next Parent Academy is March 25th at 5:30 to 6:30 at Miller. Um and the topic is going to be how to read an i-Ready data report. We are going to be working with communications and having parents sign up ahead of time so we can provide their own child's data report to them that night. So when they follow along they are going to get some very useful information. We will also couple that night with the information that we presented last year to make sure that our participation rate for our New York State assessment stays high like that it was this year. So we'll be talking about the importance of the New York State assessments. I know that was long. Mr. Ryder and Mr. Wayne. Thank you to you and your team. Great presentation and

048the work you do. Question about the Parent Academies. Um so the one on the 25th at Miller they're not necessarily meant just for the parents at those schools, right? Anybody in the district can attend Correct. >> any of those schools. Yes. And >> if they register you still will have their data. Correct. And I will also make like a a fake one so they can still follow along to understand how the data report works. Um but that night would be specifically for K8 students. Or parents of K8. Mr. Layne? Thank you. That's a lot of information. Um, there are a couple things I've got questions. If the i-Ready math from fall to winter for the ELL shows are year behind growing and our top going down, which has me concerned because that's that's in the

049wrong direction. But the the the chart and it took me a long time as I looked at this um, before the meeting. The chart is different than the one for the general population. Yes. >> It would be helpful if they could be the same because I'm a I'm a music person. I'm I'm looking at the graph and I want to be able to read what the graph says without anything else cuz that's that's how my mind thinks. And I'm I'm I am concerned about the ELL. So, that is that is the first year entering ELL. So, it's good to remember that. So, I can also say that I think it might even have something to do with how many too. How many took it as well. And again, I I get what you're saying. You're

050saying from here to here, right? Yes. Yes. And then this increasing meaning this has decreased. That could have more to do with maybe that there's less students, but yes, it is absolutely worth looking into because it's not a discrepancy what happened here. So, I'll look more into that. I'm wondering if that's possibly part of it, but I'm also seeing this increasing from what I'm looking at from the red to the Right. Right. And yeah, and Jenny made that point where if you look at the number of students taking this first year entering else is not that large of a population. So, you know, we could have had students moving away. We could have had students transitioning out of the first year entering L into the next level progression which would not show in this graph.

051This for someone this is Kerns and Dr. First of all, thank you for great presentation. Um I really feel like we're moving in the right direction. I'm thrilled to see that we are talking about doing embedded coaching with our teachers because it is very as a teacher it's very hard to change our instructional practice and the only way we can do it is with support from colleagues who know how to do it. So, I'm thrilled to see we're going in that direction. I have a couple of questions. Not all connected. First with our L's, how many site students do we have because I can't imagine we have a lot of students taking the math in Spanish just because I would think we have a fairly high site population. So, site just from my annual review

052that I just did is actually fairly low. Okay. It's at oh, sorry. It's 22 to begin with. Um it's it's 14 students. Okay. And that again goes from grade three up technically >> And how many of our um L's do we have that actually take the math in Spanish language? So, we start strictly with our first years. So, that's this is honestly mostly all are taking this >> Okay. And then it's really it just depends on how long the students have been here. I can certainly easily get that data from I-Ready because the ENL teachers will give that form to me because I put it into the system that way. So, it really is dependent upon their level of comfort. For first year, we really we don't make the recommendation, but the teacher always makes

053the recommendation Spanish. Again, bearing them on the fact the most dominant language. Obviously, if it's not going to work for another student, they won't even probably take it at all because it's just not worth that down there. That's That's Thank you. And then um one of the things that I mean, as I said, I'm thrilled because I think we're heading in the right direction. One of the things that um I'm wondering about is because we do have a lot of data available. We're clearly heading in that direction. Are we going to start to develop re- resurrect uh the data protocols data inquiry protocols at the grade level building level without so that we actually can see those recommendations those very targeted and specific interventions happening in the classroom? And what's our vision for actually accomplishing

054that and doing that? >> No, I'm I'm glad you brought that up because with the implementation of EduClimber, it is now really at our fingertips to have all of our data in one place. At the building level, they are doing data meetings. I think we could do a better job at that and in as we're progressing into identifying our students for our tier two and our tier three services and interventions and how that progress monitoring is going and having data meetings on that progress monitoring. So, that is definitely an area of growth. Um but coupling it with the implementation of EduClimber, it kind of goes hand in hand with that protocol. Thank you. Mrs. Kern, thank you all so much. It's like a massage for my brain. I love hearing you all speak about your

055areas of expertise and really as a parent and as a board member, I feel so proud when I hear you talk about um the educational models and the constant innovation that you're bringing to the table when it comes to um academic academia and curriculum. So, thank you all so much. I had a couple of questions. My first is I've also heard a lot of things about CKLA out in the wild um that it is really um transferred from the in-school experience to what children are talking about outside in their day-to-day, which is such a beautiful thing and so representative of that learning to love to learn. Um I'm curious if there's been any moves in partnerships with local libraries to share the themes that are ongoing regarding the literature that's out there because with the

056extensive growth of literature available on these topics it specifically um those free resources are really essential to keep that hunger um >> [laughter] >> satisfied when it comes to the the themes of of reading. I'm really glad that you brought that up. Actually, Ulster um public library um comes to our parent nights now and they have created um with the units of study in CKLA the the library books that are available for students in our area to take them out in the levels that they are at. Um so, that that is a partnership that we have now created and they have been to our last [clears throat] um two parent academies. Oh, that's wonderful. It is. Shout out to the libraries. We love you. Um I have two more questions. My next one is EduClimber

057and Rubicon they spoke about. Um that one in particular just because it's it's um always been a pattern of um my investigation in the in the school I'm going to to understand what information's transferring about individual students in terms of differentiation and also just accommodating any needs they have. So, I'm very interested in this and really excited about it. I'm curious because I didn't see it specified and I didn't want to assume um when when do you does the the data start to be collected for those students? Is that from entry point like kindergarten all the way through 12? Is there Is it when they start to test? What is the So, when we actually step up what is being fed into EduClimber, so that is the work behind the scenes that Mr. Tomsic has

058been working on very hard where we have given him a plethora of data points and and where they're coming from. So, all of our local assessments like our oral oral fluency assessments, all of our Words Their Way assessments, all of our unit assessments in our math um all of our diagnostic data, state data um and all of our progress monitoring. So, everything a child will take will be available in one location. And And are there um any sort of directives for its use when it comes to teachers adding anything that's not personalized for students? When you talk about the whole child, I imagine is there some social emotional learning involved? Yes, there is. And then also in that space as well. And these are the interfaces that we're currently building and mapping. So, we're in

059this initial phase in the first year getting it all rolled out. But, one of the things I can say to that space as well is that as the um look at progress monitoring or even a student who's been identified for an intervention, the interventionist can see that work happening there, the teacher can see that that intervention process has been taking place. All of again, that data is stored in that one space. So, instead of again, as an interventionist or you know, district leader or building leader, I have to go and hunt all this information down, it's all right there for our students and all right there. And it even gives us the opportunity in phases to come. Uh give you a little projection here, but where we can then have for different units, different groups

060like the board, uh opportunities for you to even step into that space with data that's pertinent to what you do here in this space. I mean, I literally want to try. This is like a really big deal for a school to have and to really see the child. Um, I'm just so excited about this. My last one is Parent Academy. I don't want to again make assumptions. It Are there any notes um, like that one particular um, question what's most helpful in families can support i-Ready at home without it turning into a nightly battle. I wasn't aware that nightly battles were um, were a a theme or a norm to be honest, especially when it comes to i-Ready. But I certainly as a parent um, often look at that information in order to understand where

061I can enhance my child's experience at home to be in good partnership. Um, but what what did that discussion lend and is there any place where parents who just simply can't make it um, can look for a thing? Yes, so we did live stream those and they do live on our website and thank you to the communications department. They do live in the parent corner of the website. Um, so you can just look at those. Um, we did also go into real world um, math experiences for parents to um, utilize. So as you're grocery shopping, we gave them some ideas on how to you you know, give a math lesson while you're grocery shopping. Um, but the the point to nightly battles and i-Ready math, our teachers were like, we don't want you to battle

062at home. We you know, tonight's not the night to to battle about this. So we don't want any battles at home. Thank you so much. Just going back to that Just going back to that to TK or not TK, like to our um, EduClimber. And we can also create dashboards for administrators. So while teachers can see in depth for students, like I I they created one for me. So there's certain things I want to see that not not everybody else wants to see. So I can go on to my dashboard and I can see attendance, this you know, all the things that I want to see. And and even sometimes the board will say, will you tell us this the time?" And I'll call Mr. Thompson and say, "I need to know this for the

063next time. I need that up on my dashboard." And and he can put it up there. So, I have a dashboard with all kinds of information. So, it's it's not only, you know, helping with each individual student, but it also helps us run the district. Awesome. Is it taking the place of eSchool? No. No. Okay. Okay. All right. Yeah, that's it. We have something called Edge of You right now and we have and we have AIMS and other things. So, we're kind of taking those and they're they're and they're a little bit outdated now and then this this is a much better platform. Uh Dr. Bernier, um thank you so much, all of you. Really appreciated the presentations. Um two just two requests and they don't have to be tonight cuz we're getting close to

064we want to hear from um Ms. Carbon etc. but um if you could in in the terms of the disaggregation, um keep them consistent across with with whatever you can share back. So, for example, I would like to see black student data for the math that wasn't presented out on. Um and also, if you wouldn't mind um breaking out the ENL folks between Spanish and non-Spanish speaking so that we can check out those data as well. Um doesn't have to be down to the obviously individual student, but we know we've got our K'iche'an speaking families in the community and so just wanting to see what those those scores look like if they're captured cuz I know you're saying they're not always captured cuz they're not always tested if they're new. So, thank you. No question.

065I was just curious about the attendance at the parent family >> meetings. It well, our last one was the the highest one yet we've had. So, it was about 35 parents. Um we do have quite quite a lot of views on our the live stream. I would love to see more. Yeah, I would, too. But, something to work towards, I guess. Thank you. Any other questions for Dr. Alavender? Thank you very much. And next we have Oh, sorry. Excuse me. personal privilege I wanted to attend tonight's meeting, but this I um situation I'm I'm getting is getting away from me. Okay. Okay. So, I I need to ask you um to leave. Take care of yourself. Thank you. So, next we have um Ms. Carbon with a quick budget update. Take care of you. Take

066care. Good night, everyone. Take care. Take care. Hello. Hello. This works out well because this is a brief update. And I do [laughter] have slides um because I feel like it's more of it's just a conversation if I can point at something to illustrate what we're talking about. So, um for those of you who aren't quite familiar with those who may be watching that aren't quite familiar, even though we're in the first week of March, we still are in the preliminary phase of our budget process because there are so many moving parts and things are still changing very quickly. So, focusing on our revenues, this, just to give you background, this is our 25-26 uh revenues budget by category, just so that everyone is familiar with where our money comes from, our revenues, and what

067percentage is. So, as you see, about half of our revenue comes from our tax levy. Thank you to our community. And then between foundation aid and other state aid, we're now at 42% from state aid. But, foundation aid alone is just over a quarter of our revenue budget every year. So, these conversations that we've been having for the past several months and now into our second budget cycle about changes in found- uh foundation aid and the impact to us as a district and how we plan and move forward. This is what makes it vitally important. In addition to that conversation, layering in the fact of this other state aid category, because we don't talk about it very often, but it also is important. The other categories of state aid, they're what's called expense-based um aid,

068and just to um keep it simple, it's basically reimbursement for what we paid this year, we'll be getting aid on next year. What's also shifted, and we'll talk more at our our next conversation about this, those reimbursement aids, I'll just call them, they've been shifting downwards for the past few years because the um reimbursement factors that that calculate how much you get back have been declining slightly because of different aspects uh development, like our wealth, how wealthy our property values appear to be in our uh community. So, this shift is significant for us and why it's such um not just a hot topic, but why we have to be very careful about how we project, how we focus, and also how we advocate um to the state for uh what we need to support our

069our students and our mission. And then as you can see, the rest are miscellaneous revenues, interest income, also about 1%. Usually um even less than that. We just had um higher interest rates, so that really can't be counted on. Other tax items um such as PILOTs, and uh fund balance and reserves in this budget cycle we use 4%. So, just giving that illustration of what we've been talking about, so people can get a better idea of um the different factors that we're looking at and how they affect our budgets. Moving on to our tax cap uh maximum levy for this year, as we currently say every year for the past 4 years, there are four key factors because the tax cap calculation is extremely long and convoluted. What it boils down to the nuts and

070bolts, starting with our current year tax levy, where we end up is where we start next year. So, that's why it's so important. Our tax base growth factor, which is set by New York State Real Property Tax, we have no control over it. Each individual municipality gets their own rate set on set basically the growth in that jurisdiction. CPI or inflation, but it's capped at 2%. The only place we see 2% in the calculation, PILOT payments, and our exclusions. So, basically uh impacted capital retirement hasn't been affected, but our capital projects and things of that nature. Those are our five main factors that drive our maximum allowable levy and our percentage increases. So, for 2026-2027, I'll make sure you have um I've shared this with Karen, so you can have it in the library later.

071But, this is our tax cap calculation. Just to be transparent, this is the entire calculation from soup to nuts. Mhm. In the middle, this is yellow because 2% This is the only place that you will see 2% because of that inflation, which is maxed at 2%. And we all know that we're well above 2% in actual uh inflation and how it's affecting our wallets. Our tax base growth factor has increased year over year, so that's a driving factor. PILOTs are basically flat. And then our capital project exclusions because as you know, we're working on our capital projects, so that's the shift year over year. So, our maximum allowable levy for 2026-2027 is $120,877,575, which is an increase of 4.04%. An increase of $4.7 million. Just to give you a big picture, also in combination with

072the shift in state aid, foundation aid, we've also had declining enrollment like other uh districts statewide. However, ours has pretty much been milder, gentler, and the school back to 2021. I did not update it for this year, but this year is pretty flat. It's 2024-25, but just to give you a picture of where we're going and where we've been heading, because these are the factors that we consider as cabinet team, a leadership team in terms of um what is needed to have best to support our students and the resources that we need to do so, and how to allocate those funds. So, back to foundation aid. This is the uh executive budget for the city now. The middle middle column here is 2026-27. Because we've been talking so much about it, I wanted to share

073uh this year-over-year comparison. So, our foundation aid right now, according to the governor's budget, the executive budget, is basically $69.6 million, an an increase of 1% and just under $750,000 on a $250 million budget. There have been conversations. People seem to be very um hopeful that the minimum increase will be 2%, but realistically, um any increase is welcome, but for us, that's just an additional $750,000 on a $250 million budget. Then we have our building aid. The areas in blue because some I do recognize that some of our board members do look at our um aid points, so I wanted to make it as uh comparable as possible for those who are looking. So, the additive view are the items that the district we have our own adjustments and estimates based on what we spend,

074so those have been updated. So, then our total state aid estimate right now, based on the governor's executive budget, is $106.6 million, which is an increase overall increase of 2.4%, but most of that are reimbursements based on what we are spending in our current year, and our largest bucket is transportation aid, BOCES aid, and these two buckets of excess cost aid are the reimbursements that we get for educating our students with special needs. So, where we are and where we're going in terms of our next steps in this budget, we are currently, because this work has been ongoing, we are currently looking to identify opportunities for shifting how we do things, how we operate for the 2026-2027 school year because to make our mission work educating all of our students all the time in the

075budget constraints that we are facing, some things we do have to shift and do differently. So, you will be hearing in the coming weeks and months different things such as transportation that we may be shifting operationally in order to accomplish that. We're also looking at retirements, class sizes, our BOCES services, special ed projections, and other opportunities to reallocate and refocus, so to speak, on current funding that we do have and see where we have synergies, connections that we can maximize the effort and impact. Where we do need to cut and what can be cut. And then finally, finalizing our fixed cost estimates for areas like our insurance that we don't talk about a lot, but if they change unexpectedly, there's a significant impact. So, our insurance, our utilities, which have been increasing along with transportation

076and BOCES services and insurance, we have been and continue to look at data, have conversations, see what we can analyze and reallocate. So, when we come back to you with our next presentation, we will have both a status and the major changes, what has changed, and what needs to happen to move forward. And that's it. Like very good. >> Questions? Thank you. Mr. Glenn. Just a quick clarification. By staying under the tax levy in the past, we have penalized ourselves in a way on the budget coming up. Am I correct with that? You are absolutely right. And and so, being responsible to the taxpayer, the state takes that out on us as a as a negative. Yes. All right. Thank you. I can one thing I forgot to announce for you who are watching, this

077board and especially New London approves an increase in our senior tax exemptions, being mindful about our community, our senior population in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and also in New London and

078also in New London and also in New London and also in New London Yes, when money is people might say called money left on the table even though it is keeping in mind the taxpayer base, then next year there is there's starting with a deficit basically in the amount that was levied lower than the maximum allowed to levy. Mr. Ryder. Can you just go back to the um the pie revenue sources. Just have a quick question. So, I think the levy was state aid. It was like 92 This one? No, go all the way back to the the graph. >> The pie chart. Here we go. So, it's like what, 92% is tax levy and state aid. Yes. You were going through and our maximum tax levy is 130 million. and our state aid is

079106. So, that's 136 that is basically 92%. So, actually of our budget like so that's not a very I think that's not much cuz we know our budget is not going to probably be 249 this year. That's what it was last Um just want to highlight that. There is not a lot of wiggle room when you look at that. 249 by 92% is not I mean I think it's like 200 and 29 million, 230 million. So, we have a little bit of growth, but not not much. And those other ones don't move. Like we're not going to be we don't have 4% in fund balance this year, correct? Like if we tried to we would have that amount. >> So, yeah. No, no. Yeah. We would not have the ability to use We have the

080ability We have the ability to apply some fund balance to the board. Not like 4% like we did last year and I'm not going to make promises on a percentage right now, but we have Yeah. And then that's kind of that's kind of the point. Like you look at this and you know, you can just sit here and quickly do the math. Um but that's kind of that's our that's our how we have to look at what we So, we'll come to you with what we think our budget actually is going to be the 249. And then, you know, look at where our our other areas that we can kind of massage around revenues and then come back to you with a real with the real hole and that's when we have to make some

081of some of those hard decisions that Mr. Corbin just mentioned that I've mentioned in the past. It's okay. Just wanted to add one comment to this particular conversation. When we spoke about the town comptroller's office and their fiscal monitor and just emphasizing the fact that we're not in financial stress, the reason why the monitoring flag is because they have a broad scope of what they look at. My point in mentioning it is we made a conscious decision as a district and board of trustees, a conscious decision to utilize a significant portion of our balance and reserves, which is why we have significant reserves in addition to our 4% fund balance to be able to preserve for a rainy day. It started raining last year, but like this winter has been very difficult for many people

082who don't like the snow and the ice and all the snow days. So have these past two budget cycles, but my point is this. Dr. Oliver and her team just shared a significant amount of information and work that has been done from our administrators to our teachers to support our students, the whole child in multiple aspects and all of our children. This investment to invest with fidelity and provide our teachers, not just buy the curriculum materials and say we have that, but to make it a strategic investment and to be able to implement with fidelity and provide the support is just the example of what this 25-26 budget with that 4% supported. So then as and part of the conversation just to give you all and especially our our viewing community an example of the

083things that we look at and that we examine and talk about is how do we maintain what needs to be maintained with fidelity and things like our arts and our excellent arts and music program, our athletics program, maintained but still within these new constraints that we have, which is why I know people who live in other districts or have friends that live in other districts, oh their budgets are up and out. We are a large district as you all know. We're a unicorn in our area and we have a diverse population with many moving parts happening at the same time right now. So these these are the conversations that we have, the work that we've been doing. It didn't just start now, but also with the commitment to do what we need to do for

084our students and for our staff as we support our students. But, a long-term strategy is not 4% with the balance of reserves. We do have money, but a long-term strategy can't be to apply as much on a long-term basis, but we are prepared staff have been asked to to do what we need to do and do the work to get it done. That's that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Just a couple of quick last things. Um I do want to just bring it to everyone's attention that yesterday we went over officially over in snow days. So, we are minus one at this point, which in our calendar is the Monday after Easter. So, we are at in session the Monday after Easter. Um not um a little bit of an extended spring break. Obviously,

085a very different conversation than we had last year when we were adding days to the calendar. Um Just uh I know there was um a couple of questions about our board resolution that that um board members shared with me and I wanted to make sure I reported back on that. So, our So, we have our resolutions are out in the in the buildings in English, Spanish, and K'iche'. So, they're out there. Um I have a meeting with UIDN on Friday afternoon to start scheduling um know your rights uh workshops with them. And um we're we're just waiting on some the postings that we committed to in the um resolution are these the ones that they're now temporary. So, we're we're working on the more permanent ones. This is going to take a little bit longer,

086but they're out there. So, I just want to make sure that we're all aware that we were moving forward with the the recommendations on the on the directives on that resolution. Um school calendar, I'm hoping to have a school calendar in your hands for uh approval at our next board meeting. So, that's we've been working on that and I'll finish working it out with the teaching and learning team and get back going. Um, lastly, just two very quick things. Our boys and girls basketball teams play tomorrow night. Boys are here at home at 6:30. It's first come, first serve. We have a limit of about 1,000 students. No, we have a limit of 1,000 people. So, just like that and our girls team plays over at Lourdes in Poughkeepsie for also for the sectionals semi-finals.

087Um, and our musical is the March 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd. The 22nd is at 2:00 p.m. Say it again, Mr. Razzano. Oh, and I don't want any of you vaping. We have What's that? What time is the Lourdes game? The Lourdes game is at 7:00. Over there. And The Kingston High School game will be streamed, correct? The Kingston High School game is live streamed and and there's a there's a post on our website as well as on our Facebook. When there there's a link right to it. The boys Is the girls streamed or not? I don't know cuz it's in their gym, so we don't have that. So, it's I I went on their website to see and I think there was no information. But, I'll um I'll ask I'll ask Mr. So, which

088night are you going? Um, lastly, we had our first meeting um, walk through our presentation in in connection with Ulster Prevention Council, which I guess we did a fantastic job. Like like we just said with Dr. Aliberti, we'd like to see more people there. We've got posters and and you know, information out all over the place on that. Our next one will be on the on the 12th, March 12th. So, so we have three opportunities and just like Dr. Aliberti's things, they're not um, exclusive to the building where they are. So, if you were if you are if you're a high school high school parent, you can go to if you can go to Miller or you can go to Balor. And Balor to Miller etc. So, you know, we're putting that out there. Again,

089Who's facilitating that? Also Brent Council. Um but I mean our team, our administrators, Ms. Bond and her team worked really hard to put this together. And it's a and it's again, it's a part of a bigger campaign, but this is the this is kind of that that showcase. And I'm just Dr. Squark said it was fantastically presented. So, um we want to keep that moving and just trying to educate our parents on some of the things that are that that's good that are going on so that our students are healthy. But that is all I have. Any questions for Dr. Bernadette? Dr. B. You can say B. You don't have to say the whole last name. Um it's like it's Just don't say Dr. P too close to Dr. P. >> [laughter] >> Um just

090a question. Um there was a another element of the resolution about informing um contractors Yes. about the resolution and just if you wouldn't mind giving us Yeah, so we started doing that. We're shipping through the list as we have hundreds of them. >> it. Oh yeah, I'm sure. So, we so we started that with with our more intense people in the you know, the in our buildings. But I I'm working with Ms. Carbon to get that whole list. There's just so many contractors. Great. Thank you. So, is that where I mean did you already inform them the bus companies? Cuz I think that's one of the main >> Those are Those are big Yeah, those are those are big ones. So, our bus companies are you know, are embedded people who come in and you

091know, work with our students. Yeah, they're being they're being informed this week. And then just one more. Um has any notification gone out to parents about the resolution from the district? Um we did a news story on the website and it is in it lives on the website under the Board of Education right near your goals. Okay. So, I I've just had a few people uh reach out to me and ask me where it is and I keep pointing them to the website. So, I feel like it might Not that it not that it needs to be on the front page, certainly, but I'm just curious if there's a way for us to do a more effective communication about it. Um so, just needs to consider. Uh and I don't know I don't have a

092specific ask at the moment, but Thank you. This is Kim Jones. Yes. Um I had um something that I wanted to uh request for consideration, which is some sort of music uh curriculum presentation. I'm not sure if that has ever been done, um but I think it would be really important and powerful to understand um how that uh is built into the overall curriculum model, how many students are participating, um and I wonder if there's ever been consideration for doing some sort of data-led study about um students who uh enter into the music programs and how that supports their academic growth. Um and it's such a strong piece of a district. Thank you. I was going to bring it up. I know that you are at some point are going to do something on personal

093finance with a graduate. Um and that you're working with uh also this on that. However, and we've got a longer time frame as to when that comes into effect. However, next school year uh the personal financial education is going to be required both at middle school and high school. So, if you could just um let us know how that's going to take place. That's like what content area it's going to be in or if it's going to be its own standalone because the topics are very different than financial literacy. Hey. Uh I know you said that March 12th was for um student parents. Was that also open to students by chance? >> Yes, absolutely it is. Yes. Okay, thank you. Depends on who ask. >> [laughter] >> So, Some of the family members Some of

094the Some of the Some of the administrators are why are we going to tell the kids what we're telling them to do? >> [laughter] >> We're telling them what we're telling the parents to look out for, but Mr. Ryder We've gotten some emails requesting a co-educational model for our Um My biggest concern, and I think this is my ask for data-wise, is that we have co-educational models at the middle school, and I believe um that when that transition happens, we see our female participation drop significantly. Do you have that data that you can provide to us for maybe the next meeting? I don't know how much I have of that, but I'll look in I'll see what I can get. Okay. Maybe we can even just bracket a little bit, and and because it's an

095easier place than fifth and sixth, the students cannot yet participate in the modified program, but um I believe there's significant drop-off for um that, and then research I've also done shows that that that there's a drop-off generally in areas that go to a co-educational model um of girls participating. Dr. Burnett Um just I just wanted a clarification. I think the email was talking specifically about elementary, correct? Yeah, but we So, right now we don't offer co-ed in the elementary level, and we offer co-ed at for for fifth and sixth graders, and there is a large drop-off in female participation from elementary, even though it's easier because it's after school, and transportation is provided. Yeah, I'd like I'd love us also to consider developmentally where kids are at in elementary school and sort of if it

096was co-educational in elementary school, would that then not produce a drop off in middle school? So again, we could have lots of theories about it, but I think as we we should we should look into it um because we also know that there's data that shows sort of um co-educational models at in younger ages produce more of an understanding around gender and sexuality as kids get older um and a little bit more I I'm I'm I'm going to find I'll find it and send it to folks because I was just reading about this myself, but um yeah, I think there it's an interesting data point and um let's let's note that the request is at the elementary school level and not at the middle school level where we have a lot of other issues too,

097right? That pop up. Any other questions for the superintendent? That brings us to our student report and I don't know if you have anything you'd like to share. You do? Okay. >> So this would be a continuation of the last board of education meeting based on the protest of the on the Riverdale team. And since the protest that happened at the current Riverdale team students and all students have who have participated in the protest have been individually pulled out of class and you know, had had a conversation with administration administrator, specifically Mr. Lamar. And the last time I talked to Mr. Lamar he said that a common question or a common statement that these students that were interviewed by him said was that why aren't we just allowed to leave for protest? And I think

098it's been made clear that the district cares about all of our students' safety. That safety is the prioritization of this district. And I think at a certain level that we understand that this district won't support walkouts. But we haven't been provided any certain alternatives that we can fall back to. And as students, we're generally uneducated about the ways that we can seek advocacy. And the simple thing is the vast majority of us don't know the Board of Education members. Some may be Dr. Halpin knows. The vast majority of students don't know our mayor. They don't know our representatives. They don't know our senators. They don't know any of these people. And despite this, we lose the greatest weapon of advocacy. And from this uneducation, we risk having February 13th and that event occurring again. So,

099I'd like to present to you guys how to be an advocate when you can't vote workshop. And I can't take credit for this because Ms. Sagan reached out to me and she watched the Board of Education meeting and she was like, "We need a way for these students to actually know how to properly advocate." These students can't vote and they generally don't know how to advocate for themselves. And so, with a collaboration with Ms. Sagan, Ms. Collier, and some of the club members of my club, Hudson's Tomorrow, and so, our plan for this workshop is to incorporate a sort of letter writing in it as well in order to write to our senators, our representatives, and to understand the people who represent us, their policy, and how to contact them. This isn't an assurance that

100this February 13th won't happen again, but it's a start on how we can act educate students to advocate for themselves. Great and great idea. I think it's wonderful. All thanks to Ms. Sagan, by the way. So, Danny, do you have any um knowledge of the code of conduct committee at the high school? Yes, I know that I've I've been aware it and I know um Are you a part of it? Have you been involved? Okay. >> of it. >> Okay. Um because we did pass on um our discussion from the board to the uh to the committee. So, you may want to touch base with um He's the president. >> Mr. Grant. Okay, yeah. I'll let them reach out. >> Yeah. And as just a follow-up since the last Board of Education has there been

101any changes in the way that we're trying to educate students that part of our core values is that we also protect? So, is there any, you know, because we talked a large amount about getting these students to understand our policy or the district's policy with ICE? And I just a general question, if there's there's been any progression for that right now. Well, I think part of the progression for us that we just discussed was the the resolution that the board passed and getting that out into the buildings, seen publicly, you know, in a conspicuous manner, make sure that you you all people come in know who can come in. You'll walk in the door and you'll see, you know, who the protections that we provide as well as the the resolution that we that we

102that the board has passed. So, I think those talking to our you know, making sure that we're talking to our vendors one of the other things that was brought up. But everything was in that in that resolution, making that public, making that making sure that you all know about that by having it like you just pointed out having that up there on your walls when you walk into that building. Are we able to do an announcement at all by chance to make sure my old students get the message? I can work with our building principal staff and make sure they're communicating well to make you so much. Mr. Grant. Can I just make a suggestion that if you're working towards this workshop, you maybe reach out to the League of Women Voters because they they

103are non-partisan. So, that's part of the hard part about public advocacy is like we as school board as a district can't push you towards any specific, right? Partisan, but the League of Women Voters is a good resource and they are non-partisan resource and they would probably help you or even provide a workshop for the district. Thank you so much. That's a great It is a good That's a good partner idea. It's a good Great. >> good resource. Thank you, Benny. Thanks, Benny. >> Thank you. That brings us to our consent agenda. Are there any items that you would like to be moved from the consent agenda? Hearing none, if we can have a motion to accept the consent agenda. So moved. Any discussion? I just have a one question about we lost a Spanish teacher.

104So, do we have a replacement for that person? We do not have a replacement for that person, but we do have Well, we have we have a replacement for the person. We don't have a permanent replacement, but we have a substitute in for the rest of the school year that is that is a certified qualified Spanish teacher. So, yes. Right after the last time? Yes, don't worry. Thank you. Any other discussion? All in favor of accepting the consent agenda. Aye. >> Aye. Any opposed? So, our consent agenda is approved. We do have a couple of donations. Well, we are so grateful as the Board of Education of this Kingston City School District to hereby accept with grateful appreciation the following donations. First, to Ernest C. Myer Elementary School from the Community Foundations of the Hudson

105Valley, a grant for a mural, fantastic. And to Ernest C. Myer Elementary School's third-grade field trip fund from Myer PTA, a donation of $678.56. Thank you very much. Thank you. Brings us to our uh board committee reports, beginning with policy. Policy met on February 6th, and we have for second reading and vote, first one will be policy 2350, board employee communications. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Second policy would be um policy 2410, uh um policy for formulation, adoption, review, and amendment. So moved. Second. Any discussion on 2410? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? 2410 is approved. Next policy is 2 um 2521, attendance by board members at conferences, conventions, and workshops. So moved. Any discussion? All in favor of 2521? Aye. Any opposed? 2521 is approved. And last policy

106is policy 2710, communication between individual board members. So moved. Second. Any discussion on 2710? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? 2017 is approved. Our next policy meeting is Friday, March 6th, this Friday at 9:30 in this room and we have a full agenda. Thank you, sir. Teaching and learning. Dr. Collins. Thanks. So, teaching and learning committee finally met after two snow days occurred this year. Okay, so third time's a charm and we met just two days ago. Um and it was a very data-rich and information-rich meeting. So, I'll try and be as brief as possible. Our teaching and learning committee has been very busy with data based on what we learned tonight and um on top of what was just presented at the T&L meeting. The emphasis of the meeting um is really on special

107ed updates as well as um state assessments. So, um our special ed, as you may know, has that department has welcomed new members and new leaders and so it was really wonderful to get to interact with Ann Boca and Bernie Green who are new to the team. Um they were giving an overview essentially first about the update on the 30-60-90 day progress um that that is um based on the special education audit evaluation. And overall, the the goals from the 30-60-90 day are the main drivers um that were really aimed at ensuring compliance and improving efficiency have largely been achieved. Um including updating policies and procedures around referrals, evaluations, standards for CSE meetings and IEPs, and evaluation review and reporting processes. So, I really encourage you to look at the slides that are in the

108presentation because that was I just gave a very succinct um uh sort of summary of probably three slides worth of information. Um they've really been busy. Um Ms. Wong also shared Joyce Wong um shared the goals and the status of the 90-day plan. So, these are things that we're still working on and and aiming to complete by June 2026. And the list of these specific goals, also on the slides, are broadly aimed at ensuring alignment with the nice of regulations and improving instructional and operational consistency of all of the CSE processes across all of the districts. Um several again, a lot of those 90-day goals from the audit have been completed. There are some in process and really our discussion was focused on those, including developing criteria for bilingual evaluations. The meeting I mean, a

109barrier to actually moving forward with some of our assessments for those students. Um professional development of staff, particularly in the context of co-teaching models in the integrated classrooms. Um budget preparation, you heard a little bit about it, still underway. Um and some ideas around vocational training for secondary students. Um we also discussed methods for communicating with the constantly changing um NYS CSE I um policies to the building building teachers and sort of making sure there's information flow through uh department meetings, principals meetings, and the new Ed Plan software. Um Uh we discussed other ongoing efforts, not specifically in relation to the audit, but just generally what's happening in our special ed department. Um so, there's a lot of revising and developing programs um that we can offer in district for students that would currently be

110sending out of district. So, sending out of students out of district is really expensive, as you know. Um and um we are all There is also discussion of developing possibly developing a parent teacher association focused on special education um continuing audits of IEPs for compliance and correctness to state directives. Um identifying barriers to success for our integrated co-teaching classroom. We will target those so that we can break them down. Um and um using a And we just got an update that there was a checklist from the state that's being used to ensure that students are in their proper placement, including identifying whether alternative assessments versus diploma track is a better fit. Um we were then we got to look at this data. And just so everyone knows, our current classification rate for this year is

11129%. Um we are keeping more students in district. Um we see particularly high classification rate right now for the middle school. Whether that's a bubble or or exactly what's going on with that, it just was something that we briefly discussed and our attention was drawn to. Um declassification rates have been increasing though annually for the last three years. And um other data that we didn't actually talk about in the meeting, but it was in the slide that um when I was reflecting I found that the suspension rates are down substantially, 50% of the students with IEPs and all both ISS and OSS. So, that didn't come up in the meeting per se, but I wanted to kind of mention that. For my school district. Um we examined data on disability classifications. Um by classification and

112and risk factors. School anxiety and ADHD are two of the biggest in our school. Um and then we also discussed at length this mandate that students be educated in the most least restrictive environment possible. Um so this is to promote social and academic outcomes and it is is a mandate by the state. And so the idea is if a student can be placed in an integrated classroom, they should be. And in general, more students are being moved from specialized classrooms to these gen ed and integrated classrooms. Um and so in response to that, um we also talked a lot about the importance of supporting gen ed teachers um in these classrooms to make sure they have the development and other types of support around classroom management and curriculum development as well. Um we examined data

113on ELL students who are classified and this can be very tricky, I think, to tricky to identify classification for students who are classified in English. Um the numbers are highest in those in the transitioning and expanding language proficiency language levels, or at least that's when we're detecting it in those students. So we discussed that certified dual language evaluators are a major problem in actually classifying these students. And it remains so. Um our lack of certified dual language evaluators in the district. Um interestingly, saw a map of where students travel. I just thought this was a um up to 2 hours travel for some of our out of district students. Um so that's again, we brought back seven students from last year from or sorry, seven students are returned to our district this year that were

114not in our district last So we're really working as the district is working to build capacity to bring more students home. So that means working with those students to get training and support and think about about these specialized programs that logically serve those students in house. Um we know that those costs are high. Um We got a brief update on our partnership with Advocates for Children. So there's six of our buildings. Um though there's been some turnover in those positions, the clinicians that are in those six buildings have very full case loads and just a note they work with families, not just students. And so there's um that just just something we should be making our families aware of. Um and we heard as a committee that there's a need for more counselor support just

115because they need it and it's always expressed in those words. We then got a an an update from Dr. Holbrook of with respect to reading as it relates to dyslexia. And she was talking a bit about the ongoing work to help teachers know how dyslexia um impacts learners as they get older. So that we could very early on give them the ability to read and and teach reading to students who otherwise might be struggling with it. Um All all kids are um oh, but Gadsden from the reading section, which we again heard some thoughts tonight, but all kids are learning to read who are learning to read in the early grades are getting phonics. Um but fifth and sixth grades, kids that did not get explicit phonics instruction as we now know it through Calloway,

116um are getting a well, are um being exposed to multiple assessments that are used to identify specific target skills and that's what's helping them Mhm. place [clears throat] into the appropriate groups. Um so the idea is to catch those students who didn't have the phonics training that we're now offering all of our students. Um in addition, we have two reading classes in ninth grade that and summer reading in the rising ninth grade classes to help address those deficits. So, we're seeing it in all of our students. Um, so we discussed possibly using summer school hours for some of this literacy work. Um, and in particular, importance of summer for meeting learning trajectory goals um for children for students for students in third grade and fourth grade instruction. That's what a lot of our meetings are.

117So, we basically then talked a short time about the New York State assessment for a shorter amount of time. As Dr. Arvella mentioned today, 167 more students were tested last year than 2023-2024. So, um, in particular, so fewer students opted out in general, but more students in all subgroups were showing up for their exams. For math, in um, there were while there were some gains in proficiency, we saw some marginal losses across sectors. So, we were looking both as a district as a whole, but across our sectors. Um, it's optimistic to see that our third graders showed the highest proficiency in math that year than 50%. Um, as in previous years, we see a drop in scores at the fifth grade level. And we talked a bit about why this this might be um, and

118looking at the cohort data, we can see that some of that those fifth graders rebound, but not all of them. So, really thinking about how to tackle learning in our middle grades. For the ELA, our um, some of the efforts I used as though even through the pilots to see if they made some of those efforts are being born out and our exams as we had increases in proficiency, so students that are scoring a three or four in every single one of our subgroups. Um, so that is promising for sure. We did not get to talk about the honors thing, so we revisit it in and we have our honors and our classes for the next meeting, which will be on March 25th. Hopefully. No more snow. On a Monday. Winter's over. Thank you, sir.

119So, that was a lot. Can I ask one question? Did the fifth grade drop happen in other This is Did that grade level happen in other school districts, or is it just us? Like, I'm I'm I'd be interested to see if it happens in every school district that moves the fifth grade to the They change buildings. I'd like to know if it's every every district though it was a different task, you know, it was a test issue, or whether it was just something in our I had Dr. Olivella pull pull data on fifth grade across the state and that since since 2020, that has been the the trend has been fifth grade test scores in New York State are down. And so, and that and that you know, down from where they were prior, not

120not like we're we're still below the state average, but the state of There's a There's a downward trajectory on the But, it has no correlation to whether fifth grade is it a K through Right. No, we don't have those data. The The state doesn't collect data that way, so But, were you Did Were you looking at fifth graders every year since COVID, or fifth graders that are well, those that are fifth grade last year, and therefore were three years younger? No, fifth grade Yeah, so so no, not not tracking the 2000 fifth graders up to the jump to that. Fifth grade fifth grade period. of this. Different groups of fifth grades, but the fifth grade test in general. So, we saw it in the state wide. I have the I have the chart sitting on

121my desk. I should have brought it. Well, we have actually seen it in our district almost every year. Mhm. But, it's it's it's interesting to see. Um one other thing we did discuss or Dr. Holbrook uh brought this up is that um we are seeing growth towards closing the gap, but we still are below the state average. So, what do we need to do to accelerate so we get our our students where they need to be? That was another discussion. And you may see with the curriculum innovations that we've just made in the last 2 years. Yeah, I I mean, I think what's very optimistic with the the younger grades, I mean, often our middle schools are stronger anyways, but just they seem to be We're seeing it at ELA. We're not seeing >> moving

122in the right direction for sure. It's it's really not good. It's really exciting. I think it's a one advantage >> question if that's possible. Um since the decrease of the reported like ISS and OSS, is there like a do you have a reason or like an explanation for that occurrence? You know, like I said, we didn't actually talk about it in the board meeting, so I'll hand that over to maybe someone else in the cabinet or Dr. Holbrook, do you have an idea about um students with IEPs having such a reduction in their ISS and OSS? I don't have it. We can do some more research on it. I can bring that back. No, I don't have that information readily at hand. Unless Dr. Williams does. Yeah, I don't have an exact rationale in this

123moment, but I will say that the principals and their team have been doing a lot of work around restoration. Um there is character strong now and um at least one of the middle schools and we've done a lot of work with Dr. Jacowitz and the restorative justice program, which is talking about trauma informed practice and supporting teachers with understanding what that may look like in behaviors. And so, I would imagine that we could attribute some of those, but we can look deeper in I would I guess I might also add that I think I said earlier suspension rates have dropped across the district. So, this meeting was really focused on the special ed updates, but it may be that that's a mirror larger for our students and the population of that group. I just wanted

124to note that that T&L committee report has a lot of the data that you were looking for in terms of the breakdown of subjects. Thank you. Appreciate it. And I believe I can go with that. Great. Appreciate it. Any other questions for Dr. Thoms? Thank you very much. That brings us to old business. And we do have the um communication conversation uh in terms of the hour suggested list and how we bring that down. Dr. Bernabei. I um I apologize that I was sick when this conversation uh well, actually we didn't have the conversation, but the data was collected. Um so, two things just to remind us that this is part of a survey that myself uh Dr. Collins um Ms. Criscione's and Mr. Spicer uh began from a larger conversation that the board had

125had. So, there's two parts of this. One is um Dr. Collins said that she would lead on the tech like using the technology the district already has to develop a short survey and that the board would populate um a por- a portion of it around potential topics that the community wants to talk about. So, we did our best to just not pre-populate totally, but just to have a a few options and then there's a of course going to be an other um area where people can write in. The other thing to note is that we have also, in order to have to have our open public community sessions, we need our board norms. So, just to say that after we talk about this and just talk about the themes that have come up from our

126collecting of these data from our board members, um I would also like to propose um a norms workshop that the public could come to and we could build out those norms so that we're then prepared to effectively have topic-specific, site-specific, community you know, some of community-specific conversations using what the community gives to us. Um so So, for for these themes and I know both you and I, Marie, both looked at the data and kind of systematized it. Should You want to report out? Should I? Why don't you go ahead and then I'll because I'll list them here similar. >> Okay, great. So, I mean I have a side by side. So, we have one theme obviously around academics. Uh you know, all of the beautiful data that was given to us tonight, but folks interested

127in those various C Cal KLA program, etc. That would be the top one that we think the community is interested in across the board. Another top is um really around taxes, budget, dollars spent, dollars coming in, etc. Another high um swinger for us would be um board role, accountability, district, that whole vibe. So, what does the board do? What does it not do? How do we communicate effectively, be accountable to the public and vice versa. Um Another top topic is I'm not going to just say DEI cuz there's a lot in there, but uh it includes things like um challenges that our immigrant community is facing, um, topics specifically, um, important to the LGBTQIA+ community, um, and I would include in that potentially some specialized topics, although those might be part of academics. So, it

128really just depends on how people are thinking about that. The final big bucket is safety, safety and discipline. Um, I would keep it at safety. Um, that includes uh, really a just a couple a couple of us thought that would be important. Things that didn't rise all the way to the top, but the public is welcome to write in the write in would be things like sustainability, um, and mental health. Those those did not rise to the top in terms of topics, although I would say are connected to a lot of the other ones. So, we could consider adding those in since we have but we could add two extra slots for no reason. For I mean, the it doesn't cost us more to have two extra little boxes, so. Does it, Dr. King? in

129the survey? Okay. So, that my proposal is that we take those topics as proposals the community can put the check box next to or do a fill in and then begin our and schedule our norms conversation. If my topics were the same, pretty much identical. >> Yeah. I took yours and mine and I did a little dance with them so that they didn't >> the mental health cuz I do think that's a an important one could probably fit under school safety. Sure. Great. I love that. I love it. Wonderful. So, it's the Yeah. Oh, I was just wondering, is it Could we have essentially a two two question survey? The first question being these categories that says, um, you know, were if we have a a meeting, what what topic would you most like to

130talk about with the board? And the second one just being something very general like, what's on your What is What is on your What's on your mind? Like that's totally open. Not necessarily pages and pages of things to write, but something like we might then get a word cloud of things that and we might have a common mother. Yeah, and we might then also be able to get more nuanced breakdowns for if instead of just academics, Sure. maybe really interested in what people think. Sure. I love that. >> And then it comes organically from our community and not from us, but this because it's open. I love it. Yeah. Mr. Ryder. So, my question is about like even with academics and some of these like understanding that is district literacy, understanding math. I mean, that

131feels very much like uh the Khan Academy topics and not what they should be communicating to the board. So, sorry. I thought we were going to kind of siphon down these 17 in this meeting tonight. So, I'm not but I like there's several that at least for me I if I were to pick 10 or however many we have talked, there's a lot on here that I wouldn't necessarily pick I would propose that because we do have an issue with um we haven't yet effectively communicated with the public like all of the distinctions between board role and district role that if we find that there's a lot of desire around things that are not our role, that's information that we can share here and then say, this is something that obviously the district is either

132planning to do, we can highlight it, or if there's policy specific questions people have, we can take those. But, I would just say because we haven't done our job as well as we could to make those distinctions that doing it I would rather gather the data and redirect it than not gather the data. Mr. Ryder. I actually think we're doing harm there because if we're saying you want to what like we're actually un-teaching them that because we're saying do you want to meet with the board about academics or this like things that are actually aren't in the board's roles and responsibilities like it doesn't make sense. We're not Then we're going to say well what we're going to actually do is teach you how like what the board does. What we should do is only

133offer topics that are relevant to the board. Dr. I thought that maybe some of this was about a listening session where whereby we were hearing from our community what they may think about these topics but it's not that we would necessarily be responding board members who have direct operational I think I that was my my My sense is no matter how you survey or what you ask most of what is going to come back is not necessarily for the board to answer because it's going to be about the curriculum or it's going to be about safety and um but I I'm not opposed to finding out what those issues are and then we know where we have to direct Well I think also just from an administrative standpoint if you get that kind of information

134then that gives the board the opportunity to say to me hey you need to communicate more about this stuff this is what people want to know. So that that does do that but I mean in meeting with thought exchange we were just kind of batting things around them I mean you also don't want to necessarily lead people. So you don't want to ask leading questions like this is all you're going to talk about and you know it's very simple I think what the way the board was talking about at the very beginning it was very simple what do you want to know about the board and how do you want to know how do you want to hear about it? You know, so what what do you what do you want to know about the

135board and how do you want to hear about it? So, it's like I want to know what the board was you know, what's the board's role in in um supervising superintendent and how do you want to hear about it? A coffee and conversation, you know, something like that. And so, it's just those those kind of things and then you get you get that rush of data and you can pull through that and say, "Oh, this is this is administrators who can do this and this is the stuff that we can do." And so, And this is parents and then doctors. I just was I might be conflating multiple entities, but um just to remind me, was there a thought exchange done a few years ago? I did >> one, right? Cuz I remember participating in

136and watching it. It was like kind of exciting to see how it was developing. >> That's how we found out about air conditioning. Well, when we got the when we got the the ARPA funding Yeah, okay. We got the ARPA funding. We put out there and basically it said, "How would you like to see us spend it?" Really, it was that simple. The question was, "How would you like to see us spend it?" And there was a couple of things in there, but it was Yeah, there was a couple of things. I just wonder if that's been looked at because I don't like reinventing the wheel. Like I it would be great to see how that performed and what questions were asked and how the community engaged just as a way to improve Well, we

137still own it. I mean, we're And we use we use thought exchange like kind of in internally externally use it regularly. You know, I won't say on a daily basis, but we use it regularly. I think So, I know I've said this before, I'm just going to reiterate. Um part of why we're doing this is not just to gather information. Um we have named the themes from our communications workshop, I believe it was called. Um that A, we have missing norms. B, we have a miscommunication to the public about the role and legal obligations, restrictions of the board. C, we don't we don't we haven't internally had a lot of clarity about how we use different forms for different purposes, right? See, we mistake strategies like world people wanted to have us in the in

138the space and even if we can't answer, at least we're there versus things where we actually can. It You know, to your point about what's the board's role? How do we You know, we can speak to that. Um and that sometimes feedback has no good structure. It's unilateral, right? It's in one direction or the other. So, um and then again, there are other community you know, there there there's there's reasons we want to do a survey beyond just gathering the information. Um and it's like this first at least this this this go round, a step towards saying we actually want to hear from you. And then whoever responds and again, we know it could be very limited saying, "Okay, we are producing structures that you've also helped us develop including the norms where we can

139attempt to have these conversations. So, it's actually like a a repair process a little bit as much as it is and a transparency process as much as it is data collection. I doubt we're going to come up with anything that folks haven't come to this podium or but it's possible that we will. And if we if we we're wrong on the themes, I hope we're I hope we're wrong on the themes. I hope we get all these right ends of things that we didn't think of ourselves but um I just want to say that like we talked about root causes that are a lot deeper than the root causes that we might if we didn't have the information. This is not necessarily only about getting the information. Is that clear? Um just jumping back to

140like it being a listening section session. I I just I think we could have like we were going to have an other topic, right? So, we would still get that information. I just think we shouldn't have a listening section on something that's not within the board's realm. And if some I mean, we could, if that was overwhelmingly what people ask for, but let them ask for it in other. We're still getting and then I think the way this works is if someone did add like an other, people can like thumbs up it and down it, right? So, like if someone writes in other and has a topic that's different than our 10, people can give that a thumbs up or whatever and co-sign on it. I just think ours should be relevant to us. Is

141this going to Um, I first want to backtrack and thank you three for working on this. Um, that acknowledgement wasn't really made. Thank you. Um, I'm wondering, I think so for me to better participate in the conversation, I'm curious if it's an established beyond the idea of listening sessions, what would be the action that would come out of this? Because another I I am in favor of putting it all out there, but also I'm very concerned that we do that, we're not going to be able to we're not going to be able to and maybe the administration is not going to be able to keep up with the responses needed to things that come up. So, what are we committing to the community through this practice? Are we going to issue responses to their concerns?

142Are we going to immediately put listening sessions for the top three themes that come up? Or are we What is our action? Because I think we have to all be on the same page with that. Dr. Collins, Mr. Lamb, and then Dr. Burley. Yeah, I think um my my understanding the reason why I sort of landed on having two different questions was one of one of the driving purposes of the survey was again to take the temperature of the community and just um open the lines of communication in a way we have have not done and and maybe to the point that Dr. Burley was making, establish a two-way street in some way that we have we in a way that we have not done recently in the last few years. So, that's really just

143about establishing contact. Then, the second was providing a context for this list that was around the board would be hearing concerns in person at some point. What would the topic be if it were your choice? And that was my understanding when we first started throwing around these ideas. And so, the listening session or coffee conversation would follow, but it wouldn't enumerate in terms of there were three necessarily before, something like that, rather um the goal of seeking this information from our public was to better tailor that meeting. So, that we would be responding to our community's needs instead of enforcing or imposing, I guess, our perception. And that was So, just one meeting to start with. How I understood it. So, when That's how I understood it. I thought we were going to take and

144have one. And you know what? That list, after you have one, you may want to take the temperature again because that list may change just by what the the the conversation is at that first meeting. I I feel like this list is a living list and you and you you work down it, but okay, once you had one topic, maybe this one lost some importance because it brought up this topic, you know, but but if but if we don't start somewhere, we never will have any. That's a fair point. Um when um I think it was I can't remember if you were on the February 4th meeting when we met, but it might have just been you and I and um Mr. Spicer. But um what we talked about is similar to what Herb is

145talking about and what Dr. Collins is talking about. So, what we talked about was polling the public about what they want to talk to us about. Okay? Then, and and concurrently creating the norms. Then, board members could actually create a schedule where um different people, based on our relationships, our topics of content area that we know about, etc., might lead a particular session with maybe two board members. Not like it doesn't have to be all nine people all the time, plus Dr. Paladino, of course, and any other administrators. Um just to say that and then the venue and the topic and the style of the thing and the people that come from the board that that is like it's like designed, right? And so, let's say we have a topic and then, right? So, we

146have these conversations and then I think um Ms. Collins' comment is really important. It's like we have these conversations and then as a the the goal is that as a board we actually are now saying this is how this will help guide what we do as a board. Um and that's what I mean, the district is clearly guided by what parents and students need and this is a way for us to get into not just I've said this before, not just to have the district be beholden to that, but for us to also have that direct line in our role to to do that same thing. I do think it would inform policy and practice and all kinds of things if we did it right. If we don't do it right, it it's dead in

147the water. And then we break trust. So, those are the options and you know if I get, you know, if I if I'm on this board for a long time, like I would just keep beating the drum until we did something with the things that we received. That that would be my commitment and I hope we could all commit to at least try. This is perfect. That's That's good to hear now. Thank you so much for answering our survey accurately. Now, the one thing that I would add is that I think maybe a third question regarding after-school students. For Westborough families. I love that. I think if we're going to talk about students and families, I think it would be a really nice way to invite that conversation at home and maybe create as much

148as we can a student voice. Of course, you know, we we hope that everyone honors that question will be very pointed towards what a child can say, which could range from, you know, we know we might get anything. But, I think, um, you know, that could be a beautiful experience. It keeps going back to connecting with the students and, um, seeing them as as a population really served beyond the family unit. And, I think it would be nice to cultivate that communication. So, our next step. Um, You know, I'm going to let you go ahead. I was just going to say the same So, I just want to know that, um, the survey that he's provided us with is completely different than the question that or the how it would work. And, so we just

149I think need to provide you all with the exact verbage and then you manage giving the survey to that population exactly. Yeah, we'll we'll meet with Nicole here the the survey writer from, um, Westborough she'll help us put put it together. And, all we do is press a button and it goes out. So, I'm unclear on what those questions that we're all agreeing to are. I I mean, I thought that's again what we would get out of tonight, but like, what is going to be the topics that we offer? What are the questions? What is the survey going to say? What is the survey going to say? Yeah, I can't speak to that. And, what we want to reduce it to is five questions. Academics, board role and accountability, DEI {parentheses} And we could put

150parentheses or not. Um but it includes in this case LGBTQA+ immigrants and potentially Um yeah, we'll leave it there. Safety, including mental health. And then I'm I'm assuming that inside of academics has special Um and those would be the topics. I'm I'm The only thing that's missing that somebody wrote down is sustainability, which I think is really important, but it's it only had one vote, so that's why it's not Well, we could keep we could pop it on. There's no difference. But those would be the topics. And it would be stated like Here's a bunch of things, you know, and what are the top one, two, or three of these that you I'm not, you know, I thought the I thought a thought exchange, just cuz I'm trying to now connect the dots. I thought

151a thought exchange was to prompt like, what's your top concern in the district? Right. And then they fill in those things. I mean, I think Are you suggesting that it's kind of like a Are you all suggesting that it's like a leading section that like shares the [snorts] different Or that that each category it will be more for each category. I'm trying to visualize it. Sorry. You had an idea. I I can't remember where the idea came from for topics. Do you remember? You started the discussion. What's the comments that you started the discussion with several minutes ago. What helpful in terms of how we could structure the survey. >> it's actualized. Yeah. Um I'm not sure what We said two questions. You said two questions. But I mean, but that's my point. Question one

152needs to get passed out. Can I just interrupt for a second? Doug was trying to use the force to tell me something right now. I just want to I just want to remind everyone that our district leadership team on in our school improvement plan surveys for families are going out from all of our buildings to the entire school community tomorrow. So, I just wanted to put that on You know, we're always conscious about over surveying because I just wanted to put that out. It's going out to everybody tomorrow. Thank you. It's open every third It's open It's open until March 16th. That's a common Did I I may have been it, but I don't recall. I actually don't have a preference as whether there's topics or there's like or it's open an open spot. For

153me, I actually like open-ended. That's actually how I That's the kind of reason that I do so. That's I'm interested in that, but if it's So, if we do feel comfortable with it being an open-ended question, that's about you and your kid, I'm good with that, too. It's up to you. Yeah, I think that's right. What's on your mind? Regarding And what kids might Wait, that you want to ask the school board specific to the school board. Right, specific like like what topic like even like what topic would you be interested in talking to the school board What what topic would your kid be interested in talking to the school board about? It's It's awkward cuz kid may not know what that is, but it doesn't matter. Is that okay? Could that be the opening

154salvo? This is the school board is we have three responsibilities. We can distill it pretty quickly and say based on these, what are your Yeah, I'm just not sure we'll get any different answers from if we include like that you would want to talk to the school board about or you just include that phrase. I mean, Well, let's It's given that people have a hard time answering. So, we can still provide those Yeah. things. Yeah. Sure. So, I I'm not thinking about the verbage. So, do we have a Do we Do you want us to come up with the verbage or do you You said something about a survey, right? Yeah. The one we worked on was speaking Absolutely. >> And the first question is what do you The school board does these three things.

155The school board creates policies, school board approves the budget, and the school board oversees the superintendent. Those are the three things the school board does. What What would you like to talk to the school board about? What would your kid like to talk to the school board about? That's it. That's the whole That's the whole survey. Yeah? >> It works for me. >> Yes? I think we have to take the word talk out. I What do you want to know more about? Because some people are not going to answer that cuz they don't want to come talk. They want the information, but they don't want to have to Some people are not comfortable. I I We've said that many times in meetings, but we're going to put them in a place where they're not comfortable.

156What topics >> So, what what would you like to know about the district? Boom. Yeah. Yeah. If you can If you can have it Yeah. If you can Now, we're going to England, but I think what I hear is it Sorry. Marie, may I see? Yes, sure. >> Okay. I'm sorry. Um Mrs. Hanson, sorry. Um okay. So, but what I hear is to some of us it's important that there is some noti- notification to the person answering the questionnaire that this is a school board survey, and you're asking the school board. You're sharing with the school board specifically what you want to talk with them about or discuss or know more about or whatever. And so, even if they disregard and they say, "I want to know about what's happening in X, Y, and Z

157classroom at 9:00 p.m. 9:00 a.m. on, you know, Tuesdays. Like that we're not going to answer that question, but they can still write it down. You know, that it usually starts off with a little paragraph, you know, the school board the school board is actually saying, you know, we would like to hear from you and blah blah blah. This is the main role of the school board. Here's questions. What would you like to know about the school board? How would you like to hear about, you know, whatever. Perfect. Love it. Great. We did it. At the next meeting I'd like to just get safe that I would like to figure out if there is a date that we can have a workshop with the public is invited and as many school board members as want

158to be there to talk about public meeting public conversation meeting norms because that will be the thing that needs to be done in order for us to actually have any conversations. So, I'm putting that in your minds now about this norms conversation and that I will do research on norms using other districts not for that conversation, but for the public conversation so that we can start that. That's all. Thank you. This is chance. Uh I just wanted to go back to old business um cuz we jumped right into the comms conversation. I know we didn't start with old business, but oh, look at what's a separate line item. So, I just wanted to make sure we didn't skip to new business. Um I was hoping we could um I wanted to suggest I don't think

159this is a motion because it's a an existing proposal for um a retreat of the the school board retreat um from uh ETC um Eva Consulting. Um I'd like to request that this proposal um be revised that we request that it be revised and sent to us and that it be on the agenda for the next four meetings to approve. There's some requirements for advanced meetings with individuals in order to collect information to make the retreat more successful and it does in the scope of work include uh co-creating clear communication goals. Right. So, I think that it might um achieve that goal. It might Although That's internal. That's internal. Of course. But that has to start somewhere. Yeah. No, but it could help, but it's not the same as co-creating with the public. But I

160I agree. That's right. Okay. Then we'll put that on to the next meeting. Thank you. Any other old business? Any new business? Any um board member announcements? I do have one. The Ulster County School Boards Association is meeting next Thursday, March 12th. Um we will have reps from State Education Department present to answer questions or hear comments. Um and I believe it's at 5:00. Um you should let Karen know if you're interested in attending because there is a uh safety, I think. Isn't it too late to RSVP? I think we could still She sent out a reminder yesterday. That's what triggered it for me. >> When is When is it, again? It's 12:00, March 12th. 6:00. And you know all this, Karen. Yes. You have to You want to Yeah, but you want to let

161them all know that you I can't go. And I want to go, too. Oh, Karen. Yes, I just wanted to um two things. I wanted to acknowledge um all of the parent volunteers who are helping with the Farm Fresh Project in the schools introducing um nutritious and seasonal food. Um I just think it's important to note that they're um uh parents um and grown-up participation are going want that happen, and I really want to show my appreciation to those um books. And then also Crosby has their school musical performance coming up on March 12th and 13th. What are they doing? Winnie the Pooh the musical. So cute. And it's a very small audience, so it's not like a huge all public come, but I want to acknowledge they've been working very hard as a school.

162Thanks to Mrs. Ivy. So cute. Any other announcements? Anyone that would like to address the board from the public? Seeing none. If we could have a motion >> I'll make a motion. >> Second. >> [laughter] >> All in favor? I. I. Except your common card. >> I. I. All right. I was going to say, is it Come on. No, no. I saw him. I met with you a long time I know. Good to see you. I know it was. That's why I bought it. Oh, that's all. No. No. What is How do you do that? I I can't function. You got It's so small. It's really cool. It's a small Nice thing. Oh, the city. Yeah, I can go there. Did we have quorum yet? Did you have fun? Everyone knows if you have fun.

163Yes, I do. I had fun. No. No. I. I'm about to turn in the kitchen. I. I. Thank you. I pass it. But I don't need it. Yes, yes. I am that Well, try again. What? I like it. Try again. I don't believe you. You're a pro.