001thank you I got all my income expensive [Music] thank you [Music] oh my God foreign okay sometimes foreign I would like to call tonight's meeting into order and we need a second for the clerk to call the roll thank you Miss Anderson here Dr Collins Dr jacobowitz is excused Miss Jordan here here Mr lamb here Ms Lamb honesty sir here Mr Spicer one of them please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance United States of America and to the Republic for which it says one nation under God individuals with liberty and justice for all I need to begin our meeting of the motion to amend tonight's agenda removing God reports as listed as what not about committee reports to present can I have a mission please any discussion hearing them all in favor of the amended
002agenda please say aye aye opposed nay the motion carries coming out of executive session we have no resolutions for Crime board approval so next I would like to entertain a motion to improve the school board minutes of February 1st and February 15th meetings Nation is made in secretive any discussion hearing none or in favor of the February 1st and February 15th meeting minutes please say aye opposed nay the minutes are approved unanimously We are continuing our meeting with an opening uh to public comment do we have anyone missing yes we do make public comments so then I will Begin by reading our public comments statement good evening everyone we are about to enter the portion of the meeting we welcome public comments please remember comments are limited to three minutes each and our total time
003for public comment is 30 minutes uh there's also a public comment at the end of the board meeting as well and although state law does not require that we hold a public comment period we feel it is crucial that we hear from our community about their concerns Tennessee because we take your concerns seriously we want to have time to process and research your issues making friends and questions may be addressed at a future meeting of the board bar you may be contacted by an appropriate staff member or administrator if you have prepared written statement and do not have the opportunity to present it please leave a copy with the clerk of the board while make sure all the trustees receive it please note that state and federal privacy laws and collective bargaining agreements prevent us
004from discussing certain topics in this venue these guidelines are also posted on the boarding wall thank you for the audience to the rest and The Intercept in the continuous Improvement of our districts we'll be beginning Greta Dunn a Greta on behalf of the gwpto and I brought Peace roses for all of you and glad I wanted to take a moment to explain what the GW Montessori piece rate is and she's a little nervous I want to help her if that's okay Greta can you tell them what these are that we're handing out get to speak loud Peace roses and what is what is the purpose of the peace rose in Montessori what did you use it for in school we um whenever someone was having an argument we would uh whoever was holding it would
005like would tell the other person how they felt or something and then they would give it to the other person and then they would tell them they're having an issue is for conflict resolution is what they tell us yes okay and so and did it work did you guys tell them in your classroom have you ever used a piece room yeah how'd it work would you like if somebody was upset with you what would you do uh would you say you were sorry yeah you would listen to each other yeah so we thought everybody could use a dose of a piece right that's it it's at the end of your comment s and after that we have Zoe done yeah yeah hi uh not to be confusing I actually brought a statement from a former
006student of GW Montessori who is uh currently a freshman at the University of Colorado Boulder she is a pre-med student and some of you may remember her but the point of Vivian is that she went to GW Montessori all the way through under Val starting as a kindergartner and going through fourth grader and now of course she is 19 and in her freshman year so I read this year not to be confusing hi all my name is Vivian airport and I attended GW from kindergarten through fourth grade I'm now in my freshman year of college and much of My Success since elementary school can be attributed to qualities GW gave me the drive that came from working independently at such a young age got me into one of the top 100 public high schools in
007the country having older kids in class as role models made me strive to be more like them and being the oldest in class made me want to work harder and set a good example being in a mixed classroom taught me never to be complacent about my own learning there is always more to learn if you go looking for it I kept looking for more opportunities to learn as much as possible in middle and high school in AP and honors classes and as a result I got to college this year with a sophomore level of credit hours which has allowed me to take classes not typically available to freshmen my best friend who I met in Miss Nicole's class in first grade met TW with the theme Driving School activity as I did and ended up
008graduating high school a year early and she's now a sophomore at Broad College I've never read up my search for more information and I attribute that Curiosity to GW I also learned Independence and confidence in self-driven work and actually spoke in this room not really this room almost 10 years ago advocating for a new playground and there wasn't a doubt in my eight-year-old mind that I belonged there and my voice was valued because I brought the example GW always set for me I'm riding all the way from Colorado because I believe that every kid deserves a Montessori education shouldn't be available to them George Washington Elementary School made me who I am today and it wouldn't be fair not to give it all the credit it deserves please respect this wonderful institution and keep Montessori
009in GW thank you Steve Steve thank you very much good evening my name is elect of the Kiwanis Club of Kingston and chair of the 2023 Kiwanis papers and on behalf of the Kiwanis public Kings and we'd like to thank you very much for allowing us to present our request tonight the goal of this presentation is to respectfully ask the Kingston School Board to consider once again allowing our club to use one of the Kingston Middle Schools to produce our yearly production of Kiwanis Capers our Aquinas Capers is an annual original comedy in which our members act and sing but the primary goal of raising funds for our annual scholarships over the past 75 years our scholarship program has benefited 20 high school students who will High School seniors who apply and win one of
010our now one thousand dollars per student scholarships over the past 10 years alone we've donated over 200 000 in scholarships nearly a million dollars over the since the beginning of this program which we can track back to 1966 or so plus another one thousand dollar speaker in sports scholarships and we've sponsored Book Fairs an annual dictionary a book donations to hundreds of children in the Kingston school system the Kingston High School Key Club is the high school version of Kiwanis as young adults helping at various volunteer activities in the community preparing preparing them for uh the future and and to help support our neighbors while teaching them both leadership and the value of service to others it has been for the last 20 years or so uh where we are once again asking for the
011use of Middle School because the stage there either one uh Bailey or Miller as ideal for our needs last year the district generously provided George Washington School for us and the staff there was wonderful the principal was so Cooperative was wonderful but unfortunately the school um the infrastructure does not lack it lacks stage lighting so we were forced to rent stage lights stands light boards Etc which increased our kicker's budget by a large amount and these higher expenses put even more pressure on our scholarship budgets already affected by covet for the last two years the Washington school so it was also very challenging for our seniors who are a majority of our our attendees don't have to walk from the back parking lot away on the front to the ramp side and many of them
012complained to us that the walk was just too hard and too long for them they wouldn't return if we continue to have Capers there many seniors attend our show and we relying on the ticket sales for much of our scholarship Avenues for 2023 we request your assistance in getting helping us get the week of 10 14 October 14 through October 21 this is a Sunday through Saturday we traditionally hold rehearsal Sunday through Wednesday but we have a requirement of on-site Tech needs for the shows and for and for dress rehearsals uh Wednesday through Saturday these are ideal dates horribly remain flexible as for show weeks that could include alternative weeks in September October November we extend our appreciation to the school district towards generosity and allowing us to pass to use Valley Middle School I'm
013sorry time's up and last year thank you very much uh Sylvan I'm sorry go Rush okay sorry hi um I Sylvan garageet I'm a senior at Kingston high school and I went to GW for seven years starting at the three-year-old program Pre-K kindergarten all the way to fourth grade I'd like to say how much of a big impact that had on my life um as of June of 2022 I was seventh in my class of 443 with an average of 101.3 um this isn't to talk about my academic achievements but this is to talk about how much GW affected that and how much that did for me um cabin from what Vivian said earlier uh Independence was a huge thing and us just working alone and being able to solve things and it wasn't easy
014it was never easy but nothing else in all of the five AP classes I'm taking this year is easy and I learned how to really like compensate my own emotions and figure out what I could do on my own and also learn when to ask for help Independence in my own working and learning and also being able to know when my boundaries are and when I needed to ask for a teacher that's a huge part of GW and I think that was really like shapes me and made who I am to be an academic the academic student that I am today as well as also as you see with the peace trousers working out conflict and um being able to communicate our emotions between students was a huge part um and it not only and
015academically but it shaped who I am as a friend and a daughter and a person in people's lives it's it's truly an amazing experience to be able to have that Montessori experience and be able to like um sorry being able to work with other students like that and being able to like express your emotions and communicate yourselves it's just it's an amazing experience and I think it needs to continue to students ahead of the time I really hope that you um appreciate that thank you Mariel fiori thank you good evening everyone my name is Mariel fiori I'm a parent at George Washington school Montessori I want to give everyone an update when we send a petition to all of our members and the Kingston City school district superintendent opposing the proposed changes to the Montessori
016program mainly the gray configuration and the elimination of the upk for three years old on Tuesday last week the letter had 126 signatories signatories it is worth worth pointing out that the letter came as a response to a Kingston City school district report on George Washington's school performance and attendance which apparently shows a distinct address in the Montessori method the massive outpouring of support from parents former staff and students overwhelmingly proves the contrary the signature page remained open and as of today March 1st 2023 it has 184 signatories of which 113 are parents and caregivers of current GW students joining our parents and caregivers of former CW students six former staff including former teachers and the funding Montessori principal 34 community members and eight former students I will forward in the update signatures tonight for
017your records before the Montessori program started in 2008 George Washington was the lowest performing of the 11 elementary schools in The District in the first 10 years of the Montessori program TW so incredibly incredible progress by 2017 a school overall academic performance was equal to other schools in the district GW students kept improving through Middle School while other school's performance was static in the 10 years that GW had a fully supported Montessori program it went from a school in need of improvement to a school in good standing so again the data has proven that the students at JW are more successful and are better served by a fully supported Montessori program done by a blended program and the Montessori program is popular with GW families it is our assessment that the Kingston City school district
018has failed to follow its own recommendations and now is trying to change a successful program rather than amend its own failures to support the success of the program the report presented on February 9 was a wake-up call for many parents who have seen that so many changes happening at our school in the past five years now we stand in the pandemic each small cut another little step to dismantle in the program we are grateful for Dr Paladino's letter to all Kingston City School District last week promising a more transparent process and we are standing here letting you know that while willing Partners to defend and strengthen our city school treasure our Title 1 public Montessori School [Applause] uh and I apologize again yes that's wood anywhere close after Kingston City School District administration board members
019and esteemed guests my name is jacket wood and I'm a resident of Kingston for over 16 years since 2006. I have two children in the Kingston schools both started kindergarten at the George Washington School one is now a second grader there and the other was there through fourth grade and is now a fifth grader at J.W Bailey both my children have experienced and benefited from the Montessori education at GW both of them have experienced disrupted education due to the pandemic now now as we have put the pandemic more and more behind us at fingers crossed I'm looking to the Kingston schools to renew in support of the Montessori program when I arrived in Kingston George Washington was a school in distress the transition to Montessori was challenging but was a success George Washington improved and
020moved off the state lists the investment in Montessori instruction paid off with improvements and George Washington had become a sought after educational destination for newcomers and old-time kingstoners alike now I hear that student performance at GW is down something at GW is broken and the Montessori program seems an easy target to blame with moving to a blended model and easy fix but besides inequitable suffering from the pandemic another possible reason for lower performance is that the school has neglected strong coherent and continued professional development in the Montessori model the GW staff from the administration down to the classroom AIDS are not in a uniform position to apply the Montessori method to success as it did before the pandemic I urge the school board and kcsd administration to renew their support of the Montessori method at
021GW that is not a blended program but a full-fledged Montessori thanks for listening and thank you for the opportunity to speak thank you Fabiana White fergal good evening my name is Fabiana weissbergel and I'm the mother of two children at George Washington Elementary School there's been a lot of letters in the last few weeks and I'm sure you've been reading through all of them and letters are great but action is much more important than the letters and that is why it was really important for me to be here tonight to show up to show my support for George Washington's Montessori program something that I learned during the last few weeks was that George Washington Elementary is a title one school and that because of this there are a list of rules and requirements that must
022be followed pursue it to the Kingston City School District's own policies and procedures but also pursuant to Federal rules and regulations and it is my impression that these rules and regulations and Kingston City School District policies have not been closely adhered to if at all in the last few years I'm referencing the fact that we have not been informed directly that we are a title one school what that means what we are entitled to for anything about parent and Community engagement with the school for the curriculum and for other activities in fact we found an old website from 2016 called GW loves montessori.org site was a wealth of information about a building and leadership team that had Community Representatives parent Representatives a curriculum coordinator and they had a 20-page plan for what the goals were
023for the Montessori program as had been established through a community collaboration I'm not aware of anything like that happening in the last several years at George Washington Elementary and that is deeply concerning to me I would very much like the board to take that seriously and to look into that and to also look into whether the current teachers are being provided with the training that they need to perform in a Montessori school and also whether or not they are getting the resources that they need and not to be overlooked whether or not they are working in an environment where they feel like they are able to speak up about what they need at the school to make the Montessori program work thank you I know Riley thank you all for having me my name is
024Beretta Riley and I'm a parent of two children at GW Elementary and one of my children is in the three-year-old pre-k program and so I'm I'm here to speak specifically about that and this past Friday we had a meeting with the superintendent who indicated to us that the wheels are already in motion to take away the three-year-old upk program but he said that there's a chance that we could still keep it so one of the reasons I want to speak is to tell you about how essential this program is to our local economy and to getting women back into the workforce women and men whoever is being the parent the caregiver but we are actually in the middle of a child care crisis so what I'd like to share with you first of all is
025my family's story we um we were there was uh for this year there were 35 slots available and there were 65 applicant families those were the people who happen to hear that this was available so lots of parents who have three three old children are not part of the school system already and so many of us have had to hear about it just through Word of Mouth to even know to apply for it and we understand that there are about 500 families total and only 665 applied but nonetheless we were number 46 on the wait list so my child did not get to go to GW Montessori right away at the beginning we were waiting to see if a spot would open up which it did but I'd like to tell you about what happened
026during that time when we did not yet have a slot open for us at GW I was unable to find any child care at all for my three-year-old I could not go back to work and I was just number 11 on that wait list there were 20-something other families and we were a well relatively well positioned family to find other things but all of the other programs were full and I had to write to the family of Woodstock and get from them a list of places that I could possibly go look for child care and they got back to me with a list of four names my only option which was again a wait list option was to drive to Ellenville every day to drop off my three-year-old child and this I I became very
027interested in this um and what I found out eventually when I talked to the people at the family of Woodstock is that during the pandemic Ulster County lost 33 of its Child Care Facilities those are applications that are totally gone and nobody can just step back into it's a very long drawn out process to open up additional child care facilities and you know there are so many families where one family is not able to work so I'm asking please do not kill the 3K program during a child care crisis thank you thank you Timon bait I'm so sorry my full name is Tim and Bates I have two students two students I have two daughters who went through gw's k-3 programming Montessori um and I'm here as I was in 2017. to oppose changes to
028that program it was it's similar situation to 2017 in terms of the lack of communication about what's going on I also should say I'm an educator of 20 years because I was the sole literacy specialist for group homes in Oakland California the only person going to teach Foster can read I taught is 151 in the Bronx it's out in the in Queens for six years I've graded the standardized assessment tests that are really just away from Pearson to psychonoff money from the taxpayers and so I speak from a from a platform of some of some amount of um I feel like I'm informed about what the issues are and I know a thing or two about learning an assessment my wife is also a public school teacher and thank God she doesn't share my last
029name so she's still employable someday after I speak but I was dismayed and angry at the way I heard about the concern for Student Success and the proposed changes to the model of Education we moved to the city to to take part in I've been in the city for 10 years now and I'm just going to leave you with some questions that I didn't get an answer to when I emailed um do you think it's more important to alert families to fights at KHS graffiti at Miller in the bathroom snow days which are important football and basketball events than it is to alert families to propose major changes to their kids education because I get texts about all those other things from families that I adore in the community Word of Mouth I don't think
030that's fair and I think you should understand how we might be suspicious of that of any changes you make without telling us thank you by the way even though the state doesn't require it for letting us speak publicly about our public concerns about public school even though it's not part even though it's not required my second question is do you value the immeasurable in a child's education how much do you weigh the data against qualitative information provided by families like us yeah the sign goes up quick how much training has the staff at UW undergone since 2017 when I was here last we pulled our fourth grader out of the school this month because all she got was worksheets after she was through with Miss Khalifa and k-3 and so I'm telling any parent anyone
031in the room that might have a different point of view or perceives me as someone who would kneel during the national anthem which I do that just because the way you learned 50 years ago doesn't mean our kids have to learn the same way after a pandemic why go backwards granny Newman all right hi everyone my name is Franny Newman I'm a parent of a GW student and I'm going to speak about Joy today because I am a I'm a Jewish person and in my Jewish culture we're in the month of Adar and the month of Adar is a month about Joy G dubs from gw's mission and vision we hope to instill a joy of learning that will affect their experiences well beyond the elementary Years thank you Sylvan and Vivian for bringing us
032that from Maria Montessori says joy feeling one's own value being appreciated and loved by others feeling useful and capable of production are all factors of enormous value for the human soul so these are some things that are bringing me joy while I stand here today the joy of public comment and engagement the joy of engaging in productive conflict bonus when there's flowers the joy of a classroom where differentiated learning needs are directly addressed by the student Community themselves because they are present together across ages across access and have been given the opportunity to support each other the joy of a school board members and district and school administrators who slow down and listen in moments when the community they serve is asking them to do that the joy of teachers who cannot wait to grow
033their toolboxes as Educators to best meet the needs of their students and I have two Joys to grow on School District a school and a district to engage those most directly impacted by systems and decisions in the decision-making processes and a commitment to timely Montessori training for teachers who have continued to express their hunger for this training thank you all Donna schlockman okay [Music] please sorry I wasn't able to sign in there was too many people on there good evening thanks for letting me come here tonight and speak um Sean Hefner the fire chief volsterhost company number five in the town of Ulster um I'm here tonight just to talk to you about the uh the local property tax break that was put into effect by the uh Governor hokel signed in December 9 2022
034as of you if you all know Ulster hoes uh we're the busiest Fire Department in the county last year we ran 1827 calls for service that's not counting training that's an average of five calls a day um we hold a membership of about 80 to 85 members throughout the year um and that goes up and down through the year uh I just came here today to ask uh for the the board's support and the uh the school district to look into possibly passing a resolution to give a property tax break to volunteer requirement um as we all know Recruitment and Retention is is very hard such um and with the call volume going up every year it would be a help for us to um maintain and get new members in the fire service we
035work with three schools in our district throughout the year we work with them very well we hold a lot of fire prevention details with the kids we do a lot of intervention with the kids and sometimes in the end we get a lot of kids from the high school that come and join our department um it gives a lot of teamwork it gives a lot of experience to young kids in it and it's very good for a job opportunity in in the end um so just asking for your support to look into this if you haven't um appreciate what you guys do and thanks for having me thank you very much God bless [Music] address the board uh hi my name is Tracy I'm the mother of a four-year-old at GW and a two-year-old almost
036two years um we are all reeling from three years of a pandemic we need stability now we need communication we need to know what to expect in the upcoming years now is not a time to be looking at statistics analyzing things restructuring things we need to be able to tell our children what's going to happen next year we need to be able to plan our businesses and our families Futures so I am begging you to please communicate and and really take to heart what we have been telling you all tonight thank you my wife this evening just just two quick things before we move on to uh our presentation Ally respond to the gentleman who is here about the First Responders um tax credit we will be bringing that to the board for discussion um
037in within the next couple of meetings so we are we are aware of it and we're working on it um secondly just as as I know most people in the room already know we did you know I did send the communication out to the GW Community um explaining and giving a kind of a map of where we were going including forming a GW Explorer exploratory team engaging in Montessori Consulting with who's credentials are acceptable to all parties identifying visiting other public school Montessori and Montessori online programs serving population similar to Kansas City School District and providing the staff and families opportunities not only to be part of the senior and committee but to provide further input I did meet with several members of the PTO on Friday um and I did make the promise to
038them that I would have dates and times and structures in place and out to them by Friday of this week which I will that's more will be coming to me by the end of the week so I just want to make sure that that was out there and now I will turn it over to Mrs Nelson so she's going to do her presentation on Meyer Elementary School good evening thank you for inviting me to share a glimpse into the work of our Meyer students faculty and staff this evening I'm proud to highlight and present some of the key strategies from our step plan that have helped us to improve the social emotional behavioral and academic outcomes of our students the first key strategy from commitment one that I would like to highlight is our PBIS
039initiative imagine playing a game you've never heard of unaware of the expectations and sure of what to do nobody explains how to play imagine being one of the people trying the very hardest to figure it out but the coach criticizes you in front of everyone calling out the things you're doing wrong imagine how you'd feel going back to do it each day how it can feel for students who struggle in school some students without explicitly being taught will naturally pick up on social cues build on experiences they've already had make connections and figure it out quickly others more slowly and for those who struggle school can feel like an unpleasant place imagine instead from the beginning being taught how to play expectations shared and repeated imagine your coach and teammates cheering you on each time
040you did something correctly highlighting the things you're doing right imagine if you had trouble having someone show you what to do in a smaller group or individually praising your efforts along the way imagine how you'd feel going back to do it each day then the second scenario represents the delivery of clear expectations which creates the conditions for Student Success PBIS is the structure used to deliver consistent predictable support when needed this helps students feel safe and build a positive School climate clear is most certainly kind we have been a PBIS district for many years however the refocusing on alignment of our tiered behavior supports as part of this year's step has become more important than ever an increase in off-task behavior and conflicts motivated us to invest time and realignment and reorganization of this support
041system shows that PBIS improves School climate and reduces the need for time-consuming disciplinary measures to gauge our implementation we completed a tiered Fidelity inventory in November of 2022. at that time our Fidelity score was 30 percent we just completed our follow-up TFI and earned a Fidelity rating of 80 percent schools must earn a score of at least 70 percent in order to claim that they are implementing PBIS with Fidelity and reaping the benefits listed here since last year we have had a reduction in peer conflict office visits and incidents of safety concern a foundation of school-wide PBIS support at Tier 1 is the organization of expectations within the teaching Matrix at Meyer says we are the Meyer Eagles we use the acronym store this teaching Matrix was developed to come to specifically Define the desired
042expected behaviors that constitute being safe organized accountable and respectful in different settings and activities throughout the day the teaching Matrix guides staff in systematically teaching and reinforcing the school-wide expectations setting specific posters like this example are posted throughout the school you may be thinking isn't teaching students how to behave something schools always do and the answer is yes but how this happens is very clear and organized with PBIS classroom teachers are each provided setting specific lesson plans that they teach during the first week of school every student learns the same expectations for a setting in that setting here you see Mrs Murphy or kindergarten teacher teaching her class what is expected in the cafeteria for the best behavior lesson during kindergarten orientation students were able to learn and practice the expectations on the bus for
043students in grades one through four teachers signed up for time slots to teach the bus lesson on the stage which had Chairs set up as it seats on the bus it is powerful for students to see that teachers bus drivers and all members of our community reinforce these expectations we recognize and acknowledge students for soaring with intention each morning we start our day highlighting and recognizing the positive behaviors caught the day before I announced the Meyer Eagles over the loudspeaker with the details of why they were earned as part of our announcement routine after that they're displayed in the tree bulletin board for our community to admire we do our best to acknowledge every student at least once and each quarter our tree is replenished with more Eagles representing positive behavior being exemplified by our
044students at the top you will see an example of an eagle filled out by a student who wanted to recognize her friend for helping her find her water bottle and soaring during recess at the bottom you'll see an eagle written by Mrs landerway who wanted to recognize and reinforce her students use of the growth mindset in a strategy learning the new math skill and soaring in the classroom mtss stands for multi-tiered systems of support and supports the whole Child by addressing their academic and behavior needs just as RTI or response to intervention provides tiered academic supports PBIS provides behavior supports and works in the same way when students demonstrate the need for additional support we use a team-based approach to discuss tier two and three interventions and progress toward goals pictured here is the tiered
045intervention menu we use at Meyer Tier 1 interventions in green are Universal and support all students examples include school-wide PBIS setting specific lessons and the Matrix and meet the needs of approximately 80 to 90 percent of students tier 2 interventions in yellow are specialized interventions that support five to fifteen percent of students whose needs are not fully met with tier one alone examples include reteaching expectations Behavior reflection check in checkout and use of calming tools and more tier 2 faculty meeting PD is provided monthly by Meyer teachers and service providers who volunteer to share their expertise with colleagues in addition to Shea O'Leary behavior analyst who shares additional tier 2 strategies with staff three interventions in red are intensive and needed for approximately one to five percent of students whose needs are not fully met
046with tiers one and two examples of tier three include conducting an FBA or functional behavioral assessment and development of a behavior intervention plan the core values of excellence and efficiency are often conflicting as the pursuit of one comes to the detriment of the other PBIS systems enable us to deliver both because our strong tier one support reduces the number of students needing supportive tiers two and three we are able to deliver excellent instruction for all students off task unsafe distracting behavior is limited because those students who need additional support receive it supported tiers 2 and 3 require a lot of time and resources and because most students are successful at tier one we meet students tier 2 and 3 needs efficiently another area focused this year is mindfulness this is another tier one school-wide PBI
047strategy that all students have access to at Meyer and forms part of our strong tier one Foundation mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing on the present moment while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings all of these photos show students engaging in and learning about mindfulness in the top left photo is a fourth grader teaching her classmates a mindfulness strategy that works for her students are taught and teach one another mindfulness as a way to notice how their body feels when they begin to become frustrated angry or upset and then to use the strategies to calm their bodies and minds and help with learning many of our teachers participated in after school in-service to learn about integrating mindfulness into their practice each month during faculty meeting Meyer teachers provide PD to their colleagues on
048best practices and this month Mrs Malloy our K1 consultant teacher will be sharing best practices specifically on mindfulness pedia mindfulness is also embedded into the tier 2 practice PD provided by shayolirig our behavior analyst that works with us through Boces in addition a brief mindfulness video is shared in our weekly staff memo that can be used by teachers to help students and students learn and practice mindfulness we asked our students if they like to use mindfulness in the classroom 55 said yes listening to soft music is our students preferred mindfulness activity these results were shared with faculty who embed these activities into daily practice during a walk through Myers School you may notice soft instrumental music being played during independent work and center time you will also see students practicing guided mindful breathing to start
049their day during the morning announcements in addition you will also see some students using instance and all students participating in movement-oriented brain breaks mindfulness is a tier one PBIS strategy you can see from these results that 68 percent of students feel that mindfulness helps them feel better and 21 percent are unsure together 89 percent of students have the potential to benefit from this strategy making it a valuable tier one support 100 of our teachers enjoy using mindfulness in the classroom and one of our goals is to increase self-regulatory abilities of our students and we are proud to share that 38 of our teachers have observed students using mindfulness strategies independently with your support we have been fortunate to continue our recess initiative offering all students at Meijer 40 minutes of daily recess this serves as
050another tier one foundational component for school-wide PBIS here you can see our students enjoying indoor and outdoor recess and we're currently in the hybrid model because our backfield is not accessible so we are using 20 minutes indoors and 20 minutes Outdoors we've enhanced our recess initiative this year by providing explicit instruction on recess expectations by the teachers and the monitors we have Incorporated the support of our social worker school psychologist and registered behavioral technician or RBT to provide tier 2 support for students during recess that's when the conflicts tend to emerge in addition we have been able to add the additional supervision of a new monitor and through a generous Grant through the Cornell Cooperative Extension we will be receiving six thousand dollars in additional recess equipment and Storage our students are making progress academically
051as well in this slide you can see that our students experienced growth at all grade levels with the exception of grade 1 who remains steady at a hundred percent only those students who qualified to take the star math assessment took it in grade one so we had 100 there the math star assessment measures students understanding of specific math skills three times a year the green bars are representing the percentage of our students at or above grade level in the fall and the orange bars represent the percent at or above grade level this past January and thank you to Dr elevedo by the way for preparing these for me in this slide you can see that we have already achieved our math goal projected for spring of 2023 in grade three and we are on track
052to reach our goals in grades two and four just shy of our spring goal by one-tenth of a percent in grade two it is also of note that grade four scores this winter exceed those attained in the spring of 2019 prior to the pandemic here you can see that our students experienced growth at all grade levels on the star reading assessment with the exception of grade 4 who remain the same once again our students at or above grade level in the fall are represented in green and in the winter are represented in Orange and in this slide you can see that we have already achieved our reading goal projected for spring of 2023 in grade two and we are on track to reach our goals in grades three and four once again it is of
053note that our grade 4 scores this winter exceed those attained in the spring of 2019 prior to the pandemic all of this work would not be possible without the support of so many people thank you to our kind and hard-working students dedicated faculty and staff and supportive families who make learning at Meijer so special to our Board of Education and Dr patalino whose commitment to our District's mission and vision is second to none to Dr felicello your support and encouragement provider Elementary team everything we need to Dr Olivero who does a bit of everything and makes it look easy including preparing the data slides for this evening's presentation to Ms carbon for connecting us with the financial support needed to bring initiatives to life and to our elementary principals team for your expertise collaboration and
054support and of course to shayodhiri who I've mentioned a few times and Dr Rutherford who have guided us in our work through all of our collaborative efforts together in our ongoing commitment to our school and District we are able to soar at Meyer Elementary if any trustee have any questions or comments for Miss announcer they're really excellent they presented data clearly without a lot of distraction and um I appreciate that and who helps you with that all of these people said very good answers you have any questions for thank you um I had a question just about your discussion of the multitude support and I'm curious about um sort of the structure of those teams and if you might just share with us a little bit always include a social worker psychology teacher and who's
055yeah yeah who's involved so last year we just had rst meetings we called them rst we just focused on academics and those meetings always at that point included a social worker psychologist and um a reading teacher our map interventionist and the classroom teacher and our rst facilitator but this year we wanted to integrate the SEL support as well and Under the mts's Umbrella we can provide those tiered interventions with that same exact team I mentioned um so we compared and SEL as an option we use aims as our platform for Data Tracking and progress monitoring and math and Ela are embedded but so is sel so we're able to seamlessly use the same system in the same team to discuss and often students who have academic struggles will also have some behavioral struggles as well
056so it just makes sense so we just are using that umbrella to kind of meet all of the students needs we always have provided SEL support but not necessarily through that tiered process using the rst framework and the we we called them as we call them you know we have the different name but now we're just merging everything together so it's just it's much more streamlined it makes more sense we've always had the supports but this organizes it you have the trustees how many students at the pet Meyer 213. okay thank you very much uh all gratitude to the Maya Eagles there have been many times in my life that only someone would help me find my water bottle so thank you for her one of the teachers also made a complimentary ticket from from
057Maryland she said I love that she used the concept of yet it replaces in the mind the concept of failure which slows growth so I really like that so that is really wonderful I don't have it yet it's a wonderful shift uh coming out of common isolation teaching our children [Music] how to learn together again was imagine concern for all school boards your PBS PBIS at Maya has taken on that challenge with Precision so well done and all these records are coupled with noticeable growth and academic achievement so thank you for that and thank you for this wonderful presentation Ms Nelson foreign [Applause] too early budget presentations there's still a lot of question marks out there but I do want to just quickly go through where we are now um and we're how we're steering
058this budget work that we're doing over the next month or so so we look at our budget goals every year we think well they are a couple months ago we all sat here and the board gave us really their budget priority so the budget as far as budget priorities were built into many of these roles as we work through the process and the first is always the goal that I have every year is to balance the needs of our students with our community's values and their ability to pay but in doing that we want to through this budget maintain all current student programs and offerings prioritize our diversity equity and inclusion social emotional learning and restorative justice initiatives support our growing enl population improve physical emotional and emotional health and safety and student Mental Health
059continue our commitment towards our technology have an equitable distribution of our resources invest in our communication department and its infrastructure and maintain safe and healthy school facilities very quickly going on to how we're doing this and I think obviously we're all getting used to the fact we have a new person in the business office so we have a little different presentation but let's change as usual during the year during this time of year I'd like to give each of the I really kind of the options as we see them right now um really when we look at scenario one is just how we were started our work and did not have any of the change in the state aid that we had it so we're kind of not only showing you how we what's there
060about how we've kind of process the information as we've um as we've seen it so that really shows us you know a significant deficit because prior to the change in the state aid scenario two looks at both our state aid and our maximum allowable tax levy which at this point is 3.23 this P this number right here is the big number to talk about this is the projected Foundation Aid increase this is the foundation Aid increase that was put out by the governor this is the foundation Aid increase that was promised in last year's budget process to get us to get the foundation Aid basically make it right um I don't think it is right but I'm not going to have that discussion at this point in time but this is where this is where
061we would be under the current legislative Foundation using using our maximum cost maximum tax levy and including our including our New Foundation Aid we're seeing a deficit of about 361 thousand dollars um in the scope of the entire budget of a 210 million budget that's in a different place than we've ever been when I've had this conversation with the board of education at this time of year um in in a positive way but there are many options for the board to consider and we'll be going over the finance committee as well and with each of you over the next several important meetings we'd like to look at that's at the total tax levy one of the things we've done here in the Kingston City School District since I've been here is we've been at mostly
062below the tax levy women so we just kind of extrapolated it out a little bit down for you up here we have three percent we would see a six hundred thousand dollar deficit at two and a half a 1.2 million dollar deficit at 2 1.7 and then if we looked at a zero tax revenue increase it would be about a 3.9 million dollar deficit so some really important things to point out here is that this is prior to the allocation of any fund balance to give you a little example last year we applied 4.2 million dollars in fund balance to this budget so with that huge increase in our foundation Aid we are able to look at our budget differently this year not that we don't want to apply fund balance I think as we
063go through and meet with our programmatic people and we look at things that we want we look at we look back at some of our goals and to make sure we meet them we may want to apply some fund balance to this budget to make sure that we are serving you know we are meeting our goals and getting the things in place that we need but this is an extremely encouraging First Step as we move forward in the budget process so I'm looking forward to giving you more there's not really really just giving you the kind of the the nuts and bolts here of the dollars but and and our goals really being more specific about what those goals are the cost of those goals and how we plan to fund them through this budget
064and that is it is not the right presentation but that's okay we're missing a slot but any questions what is our current fund balance well that's a that's a tricky question our current fund balance we were allowed to have a four percent fund balance of our open wall taxes economy so we are you know our tax our fund balance right now or some of our million dollars you know we are um at the end of every year anything that's unexpended we either a put into fund balance B put into reserves or different things that we that we need to you know Reserve or or see lower the tax levy again later in June and August which is something that most people don't see that we do because it's summer and it's not budget time it's
065not vote time but frequently some of that will be allocated to to tax reduction whether if we went in at three sometimes it actually would bring the tax levy down or the tax tax levy tax tax levy limit down from that 30 to say you know a 2.8 which we do frequently as well so it all depends to know where we are in this year's budget spending you know how much how much we would have in fund balance our you know unexpended funds this year we wait till we get to you know early June and then we can really make a good projection thank you between our tax revenue limit what we apply our fund balance to because if we drop it too though aren't we punished for that going forward the tax levy limit
066yes so you know that that tax let me win it is the calculator have whatever we have our tax levy next year whatever it is next year is how the cap the tax levy limit is calculated for next year and you've heard me say it's not a tax cap it's a tax levy limit it's a 13-step process it's not two percent it's different for every district and it's never never two percent uh very apparently but uh yes you're absolutely correct so to not go to the tax levy limit would mean we're not increasing our tax levy which was then the basis for the calculation of the tax levy next year so you're giving up whatever that is um you know that is that's part of so my is there a way of applying the fund
067balance to in other ways to um costs incurred in the district which would ultimately save the taxpayer money may not be refunded in the I want to say the short answer to that is no okay I could make it very long okay and expect much more coming at you in the future both in email and presentation but one last thing to the super potential course I'm standing up here and I have the microphone an important thing I think to many parents um we are down to one snow deck I think it's really important that people understand where we are um it's March 1st we all know March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb but I don't know how much of a lion we have in front of us we have one
068study left I think it's important for people to review our school calendar The View we have put a story up on the website today but if we go over in snow days one more and then another we will start losing days off of our April break starting with April 10th which is Monday after our April break so again just want to encourage people we would continue to take away from April break if we go over the snow days we're hopeful that we'll have good weather for the rest of the month and be through winter but um I can't predict that people were just aware and keeping an eye on that especially as a lot of people make plans moving forward that concludes the superintensible thank you Dr Palomino I actually have a question about the
069early thing on the report please um I wondered as part of this exploratory team if there's anyone who has expertise in [Music] a story I think we were hoping to get some help with that from both our both our in our interaction with other Montessori programs because we were interacting with the group in Yonkers which I'm assuming has a population of EML in their schools maybe if they have challenges how they address them but also working with our um the other the other Consultants that we had brought in there and they one things I learned in when we were talking to the Center for guided Montessori studies was they have a whole there's a whole network out there of Montessori and public schools and they that's one of the things they're doing now is they're
070kind of pulling their Network together to look at what our problems are and try to bring us the correct resources so they know I mean they were aware of the presentation they were aware of the data that we looked at so we're they know we're interested in how our enl population operates within Montessori and how they can we can see some improvement in those areas so I'm thinking they're going to come back to us with some either suggested that they have our suggestions of people who are experts in that area I'm curious because it's not something we heard from the public content or yes we've heard but from that group of parents I think um that I just also had a question about the dates that you mentioned around GW so originally when these ideas
071came forward there was Taco any shifts that might happen beginning in 2012 2023 afterwards I saw something that suggested we would not be making any changes by Fall 2023 can you speak to that yeah the only changes we really are planning continuing into 2023 is a change for the three-year-olds other than that the change of degrade structure or not that but we are no longer on the table though for fall 2020. no longer changing the configuration is no longer a table for like 20 20 23. so you know with that one of the speakers said that the three-year-old program is not completely gone or not complete decisions about completely I was asked if we would still consider it as we go through this process and I said of course I'm gonna close off my you
072know I can keep my I can keep an open mind about it any other trusty questions or superintendents before it just occurred to me sorry you did will those be made publicly available in some way that like um be a text to email on our website sure just some medium of yes yes okay and we are and Dr Carl cello and I are still going to the whole PTO meeting on the 14th of March any other trusty questions for superintendent's report then next on our agenda is our consent agenda are there any resolutions yes who said you said 37 right 37 537 I just want to mention that Jessica Price Is Here part of the high school and within the fourth uh Blackberry did everybody get it so well and let me clear up a
073discussion then can I have a motion to pass the consent agenda minus bre37 more than second any discussion hearing none of those in favor of approving the consent agenda as amended please say I apolog May our consent agenda as amended Asian animals we approved I need a motion to accept consent agenda item Poe 37 more than seconded any discussion now I don't have any questions anything you want to tell us though no thank you thank you for the opportunity so yes is that you have tour to um offer the opportunities thank you thank you thank you for coming nay the motion passes unanimously tonight miss Anderson please foreign County Marine Corps League I'm glad I don't have to wait all the ideas actually this would be old business um coffee and conversations um do we
074have a date for the we don't have anything for the March one yet we have reached out we talked about it this evening and we do have we do have um April 15th at the brooder Hall and May 6th at GW and delivery date for form chat Mount Academy old business any trust you have an item for a new business we have come to our second public comment session then do you have anyone watching to address the board of announcements please encourage everybody and um what are the days now it is the end of March and I can tell you exactly March 23rd 24th 25th or 25th it might have to go back to Old business so that's what we have to talk about the um the ucsba friends and lemonade committee makes their makes
075a recognition and the board I don't to my knowledge they've never refused to accept the recommendation this week president but uh any other items for a new business that's just a reminder more than an announcement so a long absence the winter carnival is back at Kingston High School for the first time in what three years 2019 2019 was the last one so they brought it back and unfortunately we've already moved it to a new snow day so the March March 4th which is supposed to be this Saturday was the was the winter carnival and we're moving it to March 11th because we're worried about the weather and we have vendors and we don't we want to make sure that we give them a long head that long long lead heads outside that is that has
076been changed on our website and the high school has announced it um something else realm so come on the 11th and Mr Carnival yeah watch out for the Goldfish actually a handout from the communication yeah thank you actually the high school kids go and visit all the elementary schools and hand out the posters and they talk it all up and now they need to know that it's changed you can't submit one okay okay all right I walked in that one last board meeting ever any other any other board or any other announcements went to the basketball games last weekend and our team smoked one last weekend unfortunately tonight um they did not but what a wonderful event and people should try to come out for some of the games and Mr lamb how did we
077keep the robotics um we are not going on to the next level we did very well and then we'll disassemble the robot maybe I'll ask them to come here and give us a robot that'd be great that would be wonderful the art they're on my schedule for March 29th yeah fantastic solid we have no issues for a second executive sessions we have not made that decision do you guys are not gonna let me finish it [Music] unanimously and to all a good night please didn't have to attention