001America to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisibley and justice for allbody I just want to give a friendly reminder I don't know if anybody is going to have questions at the end but just a fresh reminder we've got the format now if you have questions or comments um for at the end of the meeting you can write them down and leave them and we'll collect them and then when we go through the questions we'll be ready to go Just want to give that reminder and then thank you all for joining us. We're back in the swing of school and you know summer's supposedly over although it feels really hot. So I wore my I wore my fall sweater today to try and um so I am going to now hand over
002the waiting two hours for a minute. Thank you so much. This is welcome everyone. Um, I'm going to do this presentation from my seat because I hear from the folks at home that I am not loud enough when I present. Mr. Deito is much better at protecting my voice. Tonight's one of my favorite presentations to give. I don't usually get to give it, but I do this year because it summarizes our district's achievements from the prior year. Um, all of the ways that our students have shined in our community, shown shine, Dr. and um all the ways that we help our students to thrive in Long Beach. And I do know it's a comprehensive presentation. I do know there's a certain baseball game on tonight at 7 o'clock that some people are seeing. In fact,
003maybe that's what that's our Boston friend. I hope um but this is available on the website and I really would urge people whether here or at home if you have access to this it's something to be really proud of and I have to say the reason we're proud of it the reason we've been able to achieve that worked so hard to help our kids do so well this year. So moving right into it, we thrived in academics this year. If you look at our elementary and the 3A results, you'll see I highlighted a little bit both kindergarten and third grade. First of all, you take a look at that. Just look at the pro progression over the years. This is the number of students who meet their growth target. You look at 2018, most of
004those numbers from the 40s to maybe below 60. You look at this year, most of our numbers range from the 60s even to the 80s. So that is a remarkable progression of achievement over the last seven years. Kindergarten an astounding 84% of those students met their math targets and 73% in reading. And I credit that to this being the first kindergarten to manifest themselves. And then the other one I highlighted was third grade on NWA. The test is read to students. It's auditory up until third grade. In third grade, they have to read it for themselves. So that's a key year for us to look at to see if their comprehension levels are such that they can, you know, manage this test themselves. So to see almost 70% of our kids needing their target, our
005state proficiency rates and board members, this is hot off the press. I added something that's not even on your um copies today cuz I just found the county rates this afternoon from last year's New York speed test. You can see that in almost every area we went up considerably from the year before. In almost every area, we are above the county average and mostly considerably. Why is that significant? We're only we should be above the county average you might say. Well, Long Beach is probably in the top 20% of districts in the county in terms of I have a large percentage of students in poverty, English language learners, students with disabilities. So, for us to be in the higher end needs in the county, but surpassing the county average by those levels really significant achievement
006for us. More celebrations are elementary level. I won't go through all this. you can read them. But we had student accolades and winners at many different um avenues and many different opportunities. In our middle school, we give an I read benchmark assessment in our middle school and you can see that we were successful in moving more students to add or above grade level. 31% students who sent students more at the end of the year were above grade level. And we were also successful at moving students who were significantly below grade level out of that situation. So a success there as well. Our middle school accelerated readings exams given in grade 8. These are nth grade tests that the students take in eth grade and about 40% of our middle school students are accelerated. You can
007see that the results there. Any parent would be proud to see those numbers on those score. More accolades and honors for our middle school. um personal favorite for me is always watching one of our middle school sta uh experiments launched into space watch parties. That's something kids will never forget at our high school. So again our county averages in the last column you can see our 2025 region scores and you can see solid region scores in most areas. We have a couple of regions that seem to be tough for us. geometry. This year's chemistry was a tough one for us, a little below the county in those areas, but almost all above the county average, close to the county average in others. And while it doesn't say this on this chart, when I first started
008in this district 10 years ago, we've been significantly below the county average in nearly every region since that is remarkable progress again. And again, why is that important? Because our students come to us with a high level of need. We have a very high level of new English language learners at high school level. Imagine not knowing English and having to learn curriculum well long enough to pass a reading exam. And having a daughter who is in that situation, I know that it's really difficult for English language learners to do it and they were marvelous success students. Our ID results. So if you look at the bottom um we gave with the last column matter we gave 616 sorry 718 IV test this year pretty much you know recovered from the COVID years and we had
009616 or 86% or earning scores of between four and seven and for those of you not familiar with the IB those represent scores that earn the students credit they're the passing scores on the IB exam So solid solid results there. This is significant because we're giving these exams. We're giving more and more exams. We have more and more students being successful. And if you look at in conjunction with the next slide, we've added some AP courses over the past few years, particularly AP courses that our freshman and sophomores can access because I isn't available for freshman sophomore network. We've added some AP exams and AP courses that freshman and sophomores can take. So, we've increased if you look at from 2019 to 2025. We've almost doubled the number of AP exams that we're giving and
010we've maintained a very high passing rate on those AP courses as well. So, our students are challenging themselves more and they're being successful in New York. We had a 90 I am going to read this one. 96% graduation rate yet again. Again, that's an amazing graduation rate. You know, 20 years ago, high school's graduation rate was below 80. Um, we had acceptances into the top colleges and universities, including a Harvard. This year, 74 students earned by literacy. That means they improve literacy in both English and another language. 14 40 students earned the seal of civic readiness, one of the highest percentages in the county. That is that's a a seal where you demonstrate your knowledge of civics and community awareness. We have three National Merit Mandit students. Our robotics team, which is just four years
011old, finished in the top 10 in the region, which is a really great finish for a relatively weekend team. And we had multiple science research awards fellowships. Students doing summer research at Brown and Stony Brook and some really fine universities. We thrived in the arts. For the 15th year in a row, we were named one of the best communities of for music education by the N Foundation. We had a ton of art honors and awards. You can see all the ways that our students showcase their talents in various contests and festivals. We thrived in athletics. Arie sent me such a long list. I could hardly fit it on one slide. Um, but all the different ways and sports that our students used to see back in all the ways that we demonstrated that we have
012competitive athletic teams in high school. And last but not least, we help our community to thrive. And that's something that we've been really working on that sense of giving back to the community, making sure our students know that we pay it forward. We use what we learned and the successes that we have and we try to assist our community members in need. And here are some great highlights of ways that we've helped our community. Food drives, toy toy drives, our annual Beauty and the Beast wrestling and gymnastics tournament, raised more than $5,000. Um, Dr. Tal was the great seafood boutique that makes thrifting cool and helps our students to, you know, think about what they need and what they can give away and also helps people in need in our community. A number of ways
013to honor our service people um and working with and our athletic teams involved in community activities. Every athletic team was involved in some community service which is really a wonderful thing. So with all that said, I again have to give kudos to my staff here. This is because of you and because of the people who are in our district, in our buildings, drive our buses, do all of the things that it takes to make this district great and I could not be the leader here. So for this year, what are we looking to focus on? Now you'll see in each of these slides we focus on the um on the left kind of the vertical text the value from our fiveyear strategic plan opportunity engagement and achievement and we have a top goal which is
014kind of our big goal for that area the one that we thought was most important that we accomplished this year that's kind of the bold so opportunity we really want to increase student family belonging our partnership with families and our students and staff wellbeing. Some of you know that we just opened a wellness center at our high school. We're looking forward to increasing our wellness programming at all levels and for our staff as well. Really knowing that we need to focus on the growth of the whole person um not just the academic piece because if our students are healthy and safe and feel confident, they will be able to succeed academically. We also want to continue to increase our district's connection to industry partners. We have some great connections. We want to expand even more.
015So, we're going to be having meetings of um parents and community members with certain careers and we're going to ask you to help us tell us what we need to do to get kids ready for those careers. Um ask if you if you could possibly host some interns or if there's some ways that we can partner with you as a district. We've started doing that work already. Um Jack McMan at the high school already has tons of contacts to help with career and um you know opportunities for our kids. Our internships have been growing every year, but we hope that these additional committees will you know blind our perspective even more. We um as you may know um we'll talk about this again in a minute, but we are proposing the testable bond for capital
016improvements in all of our buildings on October 28th. Um, we hope that people will come out and vote for improvements that will help us to improve this health, safety, and programming for our children. And we are going, we made some major changes in the structure of our mental health supports last year. We want to really evaluate those changes and make sure that we're living right by our students in that area and continue our outreach to underserved communities to make sure that everyone feels that they have a place at the table in Long Beach. That's super important to us. In terms of engagement, we really want to develop metrics this year to evaluate the quality of assignments and engagement levels. We talk a lot about student engagement, performance based assessment, making sure kids are really involved
017in their work, not just kind of the old way of learning where you take it in and spit it back out. Um, so we also work some ways to measure that. It's a little bit difficult to measure that. We want to work on some ways that our teachers can use those metrics to help them design and engage in lessons and um lessons that really reflect a high level of rhythm and quality. We are going to continue both our formal and informal meetings among administrators and students. I usually pop over to the high school a few times a year and sit in the cafeteria at lunchtime and this administration feeds kids into me who has something they want to tell the administration. It's one of my favorite things to do. Um, we have a student board
018member who I think is here tonight. Grayson Schroeder will be um appointed tonight as our exeicio student board member and we're grateful for his support. And Grayson, I'm going to be tapping on you to try to help us engage more students in some things. We are going to investigate some cool curriculum possibilities. We really want to put a new bird lab in our high school. Several local high schools have invested in that. If you don't know what a Bloomberg lab is, you actually purchase the Bloomberg terminal and it gives you access to a whole wealth of information. Not just business and finance information, but research information, things that we can use, plus a whole host of curricular and research areas. We're kind of excited about doing that. I think that'll bring certainly our business programming
019to the next level and will give us some resources that we don't currently have access to for our kids in our high school. We're talking about establishing we hope as soon as next year a cyber security pathway that is a huge huge upand cominging career. It is difficult career to prepare for. It's a big college major. We want to make sure that what we're doing with our students in high school is prepping the students who are interested in that for that career. So we have that on the table and we're trying to put in more electives, more um career exploration opportunities even in Jenny's middle school so that students are thinking even in middle school what what are my passions? What do I want to do? What am I really interested in? We want to
020do some investigation of the uses of authentic reality and virtual reality. You know that always scares me a little bit and I've put on those night glasses and felt dizzy. But there are ways now these tools are being used for accommodations for special need students. Um many of you know that my two daughters are legally blind and they're um I doctor yesterday was telling me that some of these data classes actually are giving people the ability to see or to have an experience like sight. That is incredible. And for some of our students with some disabilities, we really want to make sure we're on the cutting edge of this. And it it requires us to do a little research and connection in order to do that. And we want to create more opportunities for performance-based
021authentic assessments and real world learning. That's the best way to learn, right? And that's what engages our students. And that's the direction the state is moving in with the graduation requirements at the high school level. So we want to be there for that as well. And then finally, we hope all of this leads to higher achievement. Um this year we're going to do some work on evaluating our interventions. Are our interventions providing students with a pathway to independence and a pathway to success? However you define that and all kinds of interventions whether it's academic interventions, social emotional interventions. Uh we actually are going to be visited by a critical fence group called the tri-state consortium in Denver. um made up of people from all over the tri-state area who work in school districts, administrators, procedures,
022and they're going to give us some thoughts about, you know, oh, this is something I saw you do really well. This is something I thought about from another district I visited. You might want to think about adapting. This group has been very successful in kind of helping people to get to the next level with things like this. We want to fully align um I mentioned the performance based assessments and rubrics. We want to fully align the Long Beach under graduate which you developed five years ago the new New York State profiler graduate which is pretty close. We just want to make sure that they're alignment because that's going to start to be part of the graduation requirement and we want to continue to increase our toolbox of reading introductions. We've been doing that for the
023past few years anyway. Um there is no perfect reading program. I say that all the time. Every people like to read in different ways. The key is to make sure that we diagnose correctly and have the toolkit to reach kids in multiple. And we want to encourage student participation these regional contests. It's so great to see our kids out there competing against other schools being successful feeling the the pleasure of knowing whether as a team or as an individual that you achieve something really important. So we want to continue to encourage that as well. And with that, questions and comments. Miss B. Okay, I'll go first. Um, first off, I find this so incredibly exciting. Numbers speak for themselves. But like you said, this does not happen in a vacuum. This happens because of our
024wonderful peoples, our administrators, our teachers, guys in the trenches. We appreciate everything that you do for our children and um like I said, the numbers speak for themselves and I find it so exciting and the future for Long Beach schools just looks brighter every year. So again, publicly thank you for all that you do for our children. >> Thank you. Um thank you Dr. Gallagher for your presentation. It's always good to start the meeting off with great news. Um, I'd like to echo Miss Belle's statement by thanking our staff. It takes a village. You all work hard together. Our teachers are our frontliners. You guys who work with our kids day by day. And it's because of your support that our children are feeling the confidence they need to continue to strive and face the
025challenges. Um, I do have a couple of questions about, you know, I've always had issues with the NWA. I know you always say it's the gold standard, but how accurate do we have the test results? Yes. The reason I say it's the gold standard, the reason I say it's the gold standard, it's normed with over six million students. Um, and that's almost unheard of. None of the state tests are, none of the regions are. So, we know that when we're measuring something, we're measuring against a large enough group to give us accurate data. It's statistical analysis. It's a, you know, an adequate sample size. And you know they also don't play around with it much you know with the state test sometimes they change cut points and NWA is designed by statisticians and um you
026know people who design tests and it really is a very val valuable and valid measurement of student success and growth um that we typically track the growth but if I I can show you the achievement as well. our achievement levels have grown over the years as well. So parallel to the growth, you know, you could see that our achievement gone up as well. So I think it's the best of our measures to be honest with you. >> Do you think it's better than the >> absolutely so and I'm going to say my my friends who are my colleagues know that I'm not the biggest I fan. Not curriculum. I think it's a very good curriculum, but when a curriculum is tied to an assessment, there's bias there, right? So I am always weary of taking
027I Ready too seriously. But when I ready reflects the same things that our state tests do and our NWA does, it's a a story and a pattern that we can't deny. Okay. And also when you see that our regent exams proficiency has gone on over the years which is wonderful and it's due to kids hard work and teachers hard work and administrators hard work. And then there's geometry. >> Yeah. it for some reason that's always it's like a different animal. It's a tough exam. The curve on the geometry exam is very unforgiving. It's very technically oriented. It's it's a tough one. It's it's one that we all struggle to kind of, you know, figure out how to best prepare our students for. I loved geometry was my favorite math and I was a mathy and
028I but geometry was more alive when I took it. I find geometry today to be very kind of theoretical and I think that may be part of the problem with it. So I kind of look forward to the state giving us some more leeway to do real life geometry and to make geometry make sense to kids. I think a difference in that kind of thing, but the exam is not. >> No, but all the numbers, it's beautiful to see. And you know, you also mentioned something too about I know I'm skipping a district plan. Um, but you mentioned about leading kids to independence. In my head, I really think more inner confidence. And you know, I want to thank everybody who participated in the district committee. It was a lot of parents, a lot of
029administrators and staff. Dr. Gallagher was there as well and board members. This was really it really took a lot of time and effort. So, it's beautiful to see that we're staying true to it, that we're following through and that we're able to provide our students and our families with everything in our district, almost everything in our discipline so far, right? And that goes why the bond is also so important. Know you mentioned that. And the the bond is going to be there to really give our students that need so they can continue to face the everanging challenges that our society is presenting to them in life and in the workforce. Um sports I I know that um Mr. Epstein goes above and beyond and so do our coaches. I mean if you just look at
030all of these accolades it's fantastic. In our bond, we really do some hard work, some changes for our sports kids, for sports families, so they can have access to facilities that will really help them grow in their level of sport that they love as well as providing for other for students who are more academic based or social based. So the bond is very important and our bond date is coming up very soon. So I also want to say too how our engagement with community I was going to thank at the end of our you know presentation some of the staff were here they were at the alum crisis center walk and some students were there as well to be there for our community and to show that we all stand together and we all support
031one another which just goes to show that we're teaching our children the compassion and the empathy that they need so they can become um successful adults in any section. So once again, thank you so much for your presentation and thank you again to everybody for all of your hard work. >> I I agree with everything said >> I would just add that one and thank you Dr. Galler for such a wonderful presentation and so full. The only thing I will say is that I often say this. I look at everything we offer here and I want to go back to high school. That all I see is opportunity. And I think the cool thing is that there's opportunity for academics on every level, sports on every level, community engagement on every level. You know, when
032I was growing up, I didn't see those things. And I wanted to just share a quick personal story because I think this also speaks to our staff and some of the staff are actually in the room tonight. I've got my own daughter where she needs to go. She's a senior this year. And she actually got a letter that she's going to be inducted into the um what is it called? The National Honor Society. And for my daughter, that is a tremendous accomplishment because she actually was a really struggling learner. She failed geometry regions in this course. We tried so hard to get her to pass, but school and academics were never a thing. And she has an IEP. But to the testament of our school district, nobody ever gave up on her. Nobody ever said,
033"Well, she's not an academic. We're just going to let her slip through." And they kept pushing her. And they kept pushing her. And she's taking many advanced credits this year. She's a senior. And the fact that as a senior, she'll be inducted into this just speaks volumes to what can be accomplished here. And it's not just, you know, elementary school, middle school. It's not even the early years of high school. This is a kid who's literally almost three feet above the top. I mean, she's jumping out the door so fast, but yet she'll be inducted. So, I just wanted to share that because I think it really speaks to um what we can accomplish here as a district, and that includes everyone, whether you're a community member or an administrator or custodian or whoever touches
034our children. It means a tremendous amount. So, I just wanted to share that. Um and then I'm just going to pass it on now to questions that comes from from the >> Oh, sorry. Sorry. Can I just ask one more question? I forgot a question. Dr. analogy. You said that um some of the staff would be trained in that staff. >> Oh, more staff. >> More staff. Could that also include some of the TA who work with our students in the grade in the lower grades? >> I'm not sure about that. >> Thank you. >> Um Mr. Deito, you want to go first before >> Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. >> You can take questions. >> Okay. You want to do that first? Yeah. And I'm not sure if we have any, but just opening it
035up for any questions or comments from the public for tonight's agenda so far. >> Okay. Well, if anybody has anything with the King, I want to start off by saying thank you for so much for coming over and volunteering and working with our kids and I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I appreciate what that you're sending over to the school. I don't want that kids support. I'm big on education and I'm big on education for the MLK center and I look forward to working closely with you guys to make sure not even just their education but also their behavior so we can they are teachable that we work together so we can pull these kids up. Thank you. >> Hey, good evening everybody. Um, we're going to speak a little bit
036about the proposed districtwide capital of the plan. We spent the past few meetings talking about it in detail and this evening is more just a recap just to make sure everybody remembers that. And the one thing I don't have on this is the voting. Again, it's October 28th. It's just about a month from today. Um, so we're going to have a special election where the community is going to come out and vote whether they want to move forward with this. At the earlier September board meeting, the board did take action to approve some resolutions relating to this plan, relating to a special election, and now it's up to the community to weigh in and see if they're going to move forward with it October 28th on a Tuesday, which is about a month from today.
037So, the district-wide uh plan has school upgrades for every school and it's just about shy of 87.7 million. And I just want to talk about some of the highlights. We have heating, ventilating, and air conditioning, HVAC in all buildings. Our buildings now are almost all air conditioned, but it's with room units, window units for the most part. This will allow mechanical ventilating, which means we'll bring in fresh air from vents so that we don't just have to open the windows. And it's a a more efficient way of bringing in fresh air and cooling it in all of our spaces. So, that's the main highlight in every building. playground renovations and for additions at all four elementary schools. A little bit later on, I have a couple of diagrams just as a sample of what some
038of those play spaces can look like. high school, middle school field improvement we're talking about in the back here of completely regrading, putting in irrigation, putting inside for the back middle school field turf at the high school for the ball fields and the replacement of the turf field over at the high school. So both the middle school and the high school get major field improvements. So that's going to be also very popular for our community groups because these fields are used constantly, not just from the school district, but of our community athletic groups. High school and middle school locker room renovations, complete renovation of all the locker rooms at the middle school and the high school, boys and girls. We're going to add classroom space at the high school for marine science, carpentry, technology, and
039robotics. I have a floor plan that I'm going to show you in a moment that shows you what that's going to look like where we proposed to build out the ground level of the addition that was built about 15 years ago. The last time we had a large scale capital program new wrestling room at the high school. Sorry, I skipped one. Uh high school cafeteria renovation and family and consumer science classroom renovations. So, major renovations for those spaces, the cafeteria and the back classroom and a new high school wrestling room, new high school main entrance and walkway at middle school in Lindell auditorium and stage renovations and then some basic maintenance, replacement of ceilings, walls, floors, doors, staircases, and sidewalks. districtwide, districtwide, renovation of some bathrooms, some necessary ADA related upgrades, and the replacement of
040the roof as a main example at the Long Beach Public Library because the district owns that building and we're responsible for maintaining just the building envelope and one of the main items we have in the plan is a replacement of the roof. The project will be completed in three phases starting in the summer of 2026. So, if the community approves this plan on October 28th, about a month from today, the plans will go up to New York State and there's a process of getting approval through the New York State Education Department. We hope that some of these pro uh elements like the playground renovations and additions can be fast fasttracked because there is no long time in terms of waiting for the state education approval. So we can start working in the summer of 2026
041on some of those high priority areas and then some other more complicated like the HBAC systems will probably do the summer after that and then finishing up the summer after that. So what it'll probably be in these three phases starting with summer of 2026. It's important to note that the district's building aid ratio is 42.4% 4% which means for every eligible dollar and most of this $87.7 million is eligible for this building aid not every part of it but most of it is and the district receives 42 cents back in state building a for every dollar spent which is really important to help offset that debt service. Another important feature here, there are no additional taxes to be levied to support this large scale project because the new debt service will replace the retiring debt
042service. So back in May of 2009, the community did approve about a $92 million bond and supported capital improvements throughout the district. That debt service is retiring. perfect timing to replace it with new debt service for the scope of work that I just highlighted. So, in terms of financial planning, it's ideal to have the new debt service replace the old so there's no additional taxes to be levied. What is this first floor at the high school going to look like? This right now is empty space. We have the addition for the second floor and the third floor over at the high school. So, what we're proposing to do is build out that ground floor, put in the new marine science classroom, the new robot robotics and technology classroom, the new wood shop and carpentry, some
043additional classroom space here. Outside access to bathrooms, so people who are using the field can use the bathroom in the building. So, more inside student bathrooms, new utilities for the metal shop, more interior staff bathrooms, a new entrance way so that when you go to the high school and you're on the bay side, the bay is over here. It feels like you're really entering a high school. A walkway that'll take you from the marine I'm sorry, the marine science classroom all the way to the elevators here without having to walk outside. The new wrestling room will be here which currently houses the carpentry, excuse me, the wood shop and the photo lab. So wood shop will be here colllocated with our carpentry program and the photo lab will move to another location in the high
044school and take this whole space. This is where we have the cardio room and then wait room. We'll put in some student locker rooms, some more student bathrooms, some coaches offices. So we'll have a wrestling space at the high school for those students. This is a sample of what we're thinking about in terms of the cafeteria. Some seats along the window here. Another level to give it some dimension so it doesn't feel as cavernous. And then having the service lines change building from the center so that it it really changes the whole feel of the high school cafeteria. These are some ideas for our own entry playground. We're going to completely overhaul east and west so that we have green space. It may not be turf, but there are these different surfaces now that it
045feels like you're really adding color, green, blue, soft surfaces. We're getting rid of all the wood chips because we know those aren't popular anymore. And we're going to put in new surfaces at all of our playgrounds. And here's an idea of what we want to do. Again, we're going to have committees parent input to help decide on what the different elements are for each of the elementary playgrounds. gives an idea of what we want to do at Lindell. We're not going to do anything to the actual play apparatus on the north side, but the south side where the prek and K students play, they need a new piece of playground equipment. That's an idea for Lindell. Any comments and questions from the board on this? Again, a recap. October 28th is the vote, the same
046polling locations that we have for our regular vote, Lindell East, and the middle school auditorium. and it's a chance for the public to weigh in on whether they want to move forward with this plan. Thank you. >> So, first I want to thank you for all of your hard work. I know this has been huge for the past few years. We've been discussing this on committee. I'd like to thank Mr. Pinto as well for all of his hard work on this committee. >> It's been a lot of work. We were really trying to find ways on how we can ensure that we're maintaining our buildings and providing our students all that they need so they can be academically, socially, and athletically successful. So, this is this really shows a lot of thought and a lot
047of care. I remember when we were talking about the marine science classroom and how excited some of the students were that they were actually going to be able to use that natural environment in their studies and they were using the pond and now I I mean this just opens up so many more opportunities for our students. So I really want to thank you for it. I love the way we changed the high school cafeteria so it's a little bit more open and a little more friendly for all of our students. So they want to sit there and eat and talk and hang out with one another. So what I want to ask you now is can we have signs for bon like put a big sign on the vote vote for the >> bond. Yeah.
048So, I I know that we're creating some banners for homecoming. There are signage in all of our buildings. So, that's in there already. I don't know if we can put it across the boulevard, but I know we can put it on our property and we can have banners on our property. >> So, pack on our property >> and we can do it on property over there. >> Sure. >> Right. put it on east by Neptune. Everybody could I mean if we put up these big signs and nobody can say, "Oh, Mrs. Conway, I didn't know there was a bomb vote on October 28th." Right? >> So, I could say you drive down the block, >> right? So, if we could please put up signs and also on our website just show like kids talking about
049how excited they are about the bond, advertising it, like how it's going to benefit. I know we have um you know certainly featured on the website but we can see what we can do to add some student testimonials on >> just something I mean this is crunch time it's tomorrow so >> we need it request >> thank youbody else >> I just want to reiterate everything that Annie just said great work everyone we have to really get the excitement going for this because there's so much great opportunity coming out of this fund and if we don't get the word out, people are not going to be aware. um once people see the benefits and the tax non- tax impact um they're really going to think this is a great opportunity for us to make sure
050kids get everything they need and the community gets everything they need from the uh provisions of so I want to reiterate great work to everyone involved and I really hope that we get the word out >> thank you >> just real quick um again thank you for this presentation it's it's so exciting to me I will tell you Dr. Smith, you should hear this. I was speaking to a kid the other day. I don't know who this kid was. I was walking my dog. You know how you meet people on the street. And they were talking about cafeteria. They were talking about not supposed to have phones in the cafeteria. And they said, "We're hoping we can get some foosball. >> Already it'll be delivered in great think." >> That's right. Thanks. I I actually
051do have a question regarding advertising. Um since and I I don't use it as often as some others, but social media seems to be a way that people get information out. Do we have anything that we can promote legally on social media? Yeah. Well, if you say >> but that's yeah just that the vote is happening not not advertisement but just you know bond vote um October 28 >> and I know the PTAs you know have been making the rounds and speaking at the various PTAs and they've asked for some bullet points so that they can share it on their social media >> as we all know that's the best way to get information out >> we're Yes. Okay. Moving on. Approval of minutes for executive session. Regular meeting of July 1st, 2025. Executive session
052and regular meeting on July 22nd, 2025. Executive session and regular meeting of August 19th, 2025. Executive session and regular meeting held August 26, 2025. >> Well, there we go. I have all those. Okay. Any discussion? No. Okay. Mr. Yes. >> Miss Conway, >> yes. >> And I vote yes. >> Um, >> yeah, I'm sorry. I did regret to say that in the beginning of the meeting. Um, was unable to attend as he think he was at our earlier meeting, but he had to shoot up for our appointment. So, he is sorry that he can't be here. Um, moving on. I think we are now up to presentations of Mr. >> Yes. I'd like to ask the board to consider item one. motion second. Any discussion, >> Mr. >> Uh, yes. >> Miss Con? >> Yes.
053Miss Kelsey? Yes. Yes. And I'd like to congratulate Anthony who is our new interim vice principal at Long Beach High School. Congratulations. Um, can I just I know I said no discussion, but I do have a question about Jay. >> I just want to ask I know I just want to ask a question about it. Okay. Um, how come on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, not Monday? I don't know the answer to that. >> Oh, that's right. >> Monday. We couldn't do it before or after. So, >> okay. Thank you. >> Motion second. Any discussion? >> Mr. Penc. >> Yes. >> Miss Fel. >> Yes. >> Miss Conway. >> Yes. >> Um, I'd like the board to consider item three, the appointment of the student board of education member. Well, welcome. >> Welcome. >> I'll make the
054motion. >> I'll second it. >> Awesome. Mr. Pinto, >> yes. >> Miss Conway. >> Yes. And welcome. We are very excited to have you. >> Melie, >> welcome. Yes. >> Yes. And I vote yes. And welcome aboard. >> And Grayson, usually on once you're appointed on every agenda, there'll be an opportunity for you to make um any announcements or or say anything that you want to on behalf of the student student organization. um for tonight. We'll we'll put you in the announcement section first when we get to that section. >> But congratulations. So, thank you. Um five require no action. Their first readings of a new policy on visits and memorials and a revised policy on field trips and excursions. I'm going to ask um the board to take items 6 through 10 together. Um
055before I do that, I would like to introduce and thank representatives. If you look at number eight, it's a donation from the Michael Gman Foundation of $5,000 for our new high school wellness center. And I would like to thank and president of the company. I would just like to say um the Michael Diamond Sure. It's just very quick. You know, the Michael Diamond Foundation is a wonderful community organization and we are just so appreciative of this very generous donation and we know that our wellness center is really going to use the money well. So once again, thank you so much for doing this for us. >> Okay. Um thank you. Anybody have a second? >> Second. Thanks. Um, any discussion? I think we had discussion already, so I think we're good. Mr. Pento, >> yes.
056>> Miss Con? >> Yes. >> I will. Yes. And thank you again. Thank you so much. >> Um, I think we're up to new and old business of the board of education. Does anybody have anything they want to discuss? >> Um, I have one thing, two things. Um, our next meeting is when? >> October 15th. Yeah. >> All right. Before October 15th, I think we have homecoming. >> Yes. That's a reminder for homecoming. I think it's the weekend of the 10th. >> Yes, it is. >> And then wall of fame on the 11th. So, a lot of stuff we're excited to look forward to. So, keep that in mind before our next meeting. >> Excellent. Anything else? >> I have a I just have a question for Mr. Dito. I know you have been doing
057a lot of work with our food services and I know that sometimes food gets thrown out, food that has been unused or unopened. So, I've actually looked into other schools that have this as well, and some of them have purchased refrigerators that students can open throughout the day. And like if say like it's an orange or an apple or closed milk, closed, you know, closed orange juice, kids would put it in there. Or maybe the service workers would put it in there instead of throwing it out in the garbage. And if the student wanted it, they could just take it as they're walking the class or walking outside or walking to a club >> before it's thrown out. >> Before it was thrown out. So, it's just a thought maybe we could look into doing
058something like that for our students, >> right? I'm happy to look into it. I know we can't reserve something, right? >> But I'll look into the student puts it in there and then another student can have >> instead of it being wasted. >> I'm all about not wasting. So, I know. >> All right. Thank you. I actually just have a question and since we do have administrators in the room, Dr. Gary, you could probably speak to it, but I'm I'm just kind of curious how everything is going with the cell phone ban. You know, it was a lot of talk. There was a lot of noise and then we haven't heard a thing. So, I I'm curious how it's going. >> Yeah, I can fill you in and if Dr. Smith has anything to add,
059you can jump in. But from all reports, very smoothly. you know, still have to remind some people, still have to, you know, tweak things here and there, but I think, you know, we were in good shape last year and I think our students were used to it. So, whatever we had to tweak in terms of the new policy, I I just don't think it was that big a deal. And I think, um, you know, parents knowing that there are ways to contact their students, which they know in an emergency, their students will be able to contact them, which we know. I think that's kind of cut down on some of the anxiety. Did we see anything positive that we were surprised about? >> Yeah, a lot more foosball a little bit more. >> I think
060middle school kids. I love that having the wellness center that this is maybe going to reduce a little bit of anxiety in our students. So, that's a great thing. Okay, cool. Um, we are up to I'm sorry. Okay. Uh, questions or comments from the public? Anything? Anybody stand with anything? No. >> Okay. All right. Announcements. I think we're going to start with Grayson, um, our ex officio. That's a big word. Board member. Do you have anything you wanted to share with us this evening? >> Uh, yeah. So, um, I'll keep it brief. So, we had a pretty good start to the school year. We're definitely seeing a lot more engagement in the underassman clubs, which is cool. um definitely going to help us out because we're as we're gearing up for homecoming. Um that's really
061the the big event that's coming up. So we're integrating more student sections for our home games. So in the football games leading up to homecoming we had uh America out, we had pink out. So this year for the theme for homecoming is Glowco. So it was the same one we did last year. We had school boat on it. Kids like the theme, you know, to show up all black and then we have to wear neon colors and stuff. So >> kids like that theme. We have like glow sticks and stuff. >> Yeah. Like glow sticks, you know, hairspray, all that kind of stuff. So, that's cool. >> Um, >> this year for pep rally, we um we picked our games. So, we usually do uh some kind of fundraiser, but this year we we we
062are not because it didn't really go over well last year with students because kids didn't hear about it and then wanted to participate. So, this year we decided not to. And we're just doing tugof-war and a tack race for pepper. Um, and then also the week of pep rally and homecoming be a spirit week. So, it's a way to show um a fun way, a healthy fun way to have fun in school. And then we'll also be decorating the hallways the day of homecoming and then moving all those decorations out to the field for pep rally. A picture will be taken for um PTSD. Uh for the carnival games this year, we instead of renting the games, purchased the games so we can hand down the games to future student organization clubs. So that'll hopefully
063save us money in the long run. Um homecoming king and queen nominations will be this Friday from 7:50 to 250 on the school website. So um wish me good luck. I'll be running. Um and then we'll be meeting with Dr. Smith through a round table discussion and meeting with uh Mr. Swan to talk about food in the cafeteria in the upcoming weeks and then in the club Dr. Moran is providing us with opportunities to learn about lobbying, government, voting and more. And thank you so much for the opportunity to hear the presentations and speak to you guys. Tom, welcome. >> Thank you. Good job. >> Awesome. Okay. Long Beach Classroom Teachers Association LBCA. Thank you for all the presentations. Definitely looking forward to all of the improvements in all the buildings, but specifically the high
064school. Hopefully, we'll still be to see most of them. Um, and congratulations and welcome to the new position for Anthony. And we look forward to administrative. >> I echo what Karen said. Thank you for the presentation. looking forward to bond and we'll just >> uh next up LBS do we have anyone here from um last but not least parent teacher association so I'm stepping in um first of all the PTA is very excited about the new building especially for me personally but we don't have a t so we are going to be putting the out. We're putting everything all the feelers out on social media. We're trying to make sure all parents know and that they're going to show up and they're going to vote. We're very excited about all the improvements in all of
065the schools. Second of all, as you know, the school year is getting started. Fundraising is starting to raise. So, um the elementary schools are starting a fun just had their color run. I know Lisa is having their Thank you so much Dr. Mati for showing up and Lindal and W are just having their fun. High School is currently selling all signs for 20. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Nothing further. This meeting is adjourned. >> Oh, sorry. Can I get a motion? >> We did. >> I'll make the motion to >> Thank you. We have a second. Okay.