001e e e good evening everybody and welcome to the Thursday September 19 2024 school board meeting for the enlarged City School District of Middletown uh want to welcome everybody here this evening as school is off and running for 2024 at this time if if you could please rise and our pledge of allegiance to be held by Mr pinao Mr Pino do you need a moment of silence afterwards no okay oh to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic with which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and Mr Mitch Williams with the mission of the enlarged City School District yes we strive to provide fiscally sound educational opportunities in a safe environment that continuously supports our diverse student population we will enable
002all students to graduate to reach their full potential to become lifelong Learners and to become and to be competitive productive members of society roll call Miss bere Mr estada here Mr Moore Mr Pino Mr Rett here miss Romero here miss Tobias here Mr Freddy Williams here Pastor Williams here Mr Mitchell Williams yeah thank you uh before we move on to an approval of the agenda for tonight's meeting I'd like to hand uh things over to Mr Rhett oh yes good evening everyone I just want to take a time out to um acknowledge uh our sister Denise Romero and the loss of her dad um again we offer condolences but on behalf of the district team as well as your school board team um we have a sign card here that we want to give to
003you I want to bring back appreciate love [Applause] you love like to remind everybody that this agenda was prepared in advance of tonight's meeting the final agenda for tonight's meeting is subject to change at the time of the meeting any changes will be noted at the time they are made and again after the meeting on the public board minutes which are available on the district's website and I hate to hand this over to you but can you please do this in Spanish Miss Romero okay we're good let's go if I thank you Mr Romero it's all right we understand I need a motion to approve tonight's agenda so moved moved by Pastor Williams seconded by Mr Rett any discussion all those in favor I I any opposed motion carries 90 I need an approval for
004the regular meeting minutes of August 1st August 15th August 20th August 29th and September 5th so move move by Mr seconded by Mr Mitch Williams any discussion on any of the minutes seeing none all those in favor any opposed motion carries 90 moving along I need an approval and a motion to approve Personnel memorandum 7A number one moved by Pastor Williams seconded by Mr red any discussion all those in favor I I any opposed motion carries 90 I need amoval approval for instructional Personnel memorandum 7B numbers one through 21 so move moved by Mr Mitchell Williams seconded by Pastor Williams any discussion all those in favor I I any opposed motion carries 90 I need approval for a motion to approve non-instructional Personnel memorandum 7 C numbers 1 through 11 so move move by Mitchell
005Williams seconded by Mr Moore any discussion all those in favor I I any opposed motion carries 90 I need approval for financial memorandum 7ds numbers 1- 12 so move on that by Pastor Williams seconded by Mr Perino any discussion all those in favor I any opposed motion carries 90 I need approval for special services memorandum number 7e numbers 1 through 12 two so move on that move by Mr Pino seconded by Mr Mitch Williams any discussion all those in favor I I any opposed motion carries 90 I need approval of change orders 5f numbers 1 through four so move moved by Mr Pino seconded by Mr Moore uh before we get to discussion if perhaps uh Bill did you want to give us an update on each of those certainly the first change order for
006your consideration tonight is to provide additional excavation and concrete base for the bench seats and additional concrete steps at the top of the stairs in the Twin Towers Courtyard the next is to provide excuse me to add Turf with the M logo in the courtyard in Li of Decorative Stone and plants the next is for an emergency repair of the damaged parking law and playground track at presidential and the last one is to extend the radius of the student drop off at Maple Hill and repair the paved walkway at door 25 any discussion on any of the change orders seeing none all those in favor I I any opposed motion carries 90 I need a motion to approve the district's code of conduct so move moved by Mr Pino seconded by Miss Tobias I do
007want to thank all those involved and Mr adma for all your hard work in regards to putting together the coded conduct it's an extensive uh document for our school district and I uh ask all parents to definitely go on line and be able to take a look at it at your leisure and at any time if you have any questions any discussion on the code of conduct seeing none all those in favor I any opposed motion carries 90 I need a motion to approve the board of education's goals and standard operating procedures otherwise known as our norms for the school year 2024 2025 so moved moved by Mr Moore seconded by Mr Perino I do want to thank all of our TR trustees and I want to let uh the public know that um our
008board goals this year and our Norms uh have been something that all of us have worked on throughout our uh beginning of our school year in July and in August um a lot of hours were put into that um I'd like to make sure that we get our our norms and our goals put onto our section of the website if we can on the board education tab so that way members of the public can take a look at what our goals are for this upcoming school year from a board perspective as well as what our Norms are and how we run our meetings and things of that nature so that being said are there any other discussions seeing none all those in favor I I any opposed Ed motion carries 90 I'm going to um
009skip over I for a quick second so we can just do Jay and K very quickly if that's okay with the board um so I need an approval to nominate uh our own Pastor John Williams for the New York State School Board Association area 9 directorship so move move by Mr Pino seconded by Mr Williams Mitch Williams any discussion all those in favor I any opposed motion carries 90 I need a motion if any for the approval of the nomination for John J Burns as nisba area 9 director any motion seeing no motion that nomination is not acted upon by the Middletown's Board of Education now moving back up to I something very special this evening um I know I had a picture that I sent to technology if they can put that up now
010for us as we move on to our um resolution for the naming of um fer field Gates I have the actual motion here um and then during the discussion we'll uh do something as well so uh be it resolved that the Board of Education of the enlarg City School District of Middletown hereby determines that the athletic fieldgate at the high school athletic fields shall Hereafter be named and known as the wol Slayer gate I need a motion second move by Pastor Williams seconded by Mr Mitch Williams um what I'd like to do at this time first of all if I can have um coach's family and I meet me up at the podium over here along with the athletic director David coats let's take the vote first got ahead of me so all those in
011favor I I any opposed motion carries 90 so let me go up to the podium [Applause] congratulations so what I wanted to do is there's a picture up now that really exemplifies uh what coach W Slayer was all about for us um here at Middletown with his famous quote that today is another great day to excel which was a message that he um gave to all of our um not only athletes but students as well so it's very um important to note that this gentleman touched the lives of literally thousands of our student and student athletes over the years dating back from the 1960s up until present time I did want to read um as many of you may or may not know coach W Slayer was one of our first inductees into Middletown's wall
012of fame um back last year in 2023 so I'm going to read to you a little bit about what we read on that morning last year when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame it's certainly no surprise that our first inductee this morning in the inaugural Middletown High School Wall of Fame class of 2023 is none other than dick wol Slayer indeed to many of us he's never been Mr wol Slayer he's always been and always will be known just playing as coach in fact his list of achievements as a Middletown teacher and Coach after his remarkable football and Diving career at East Stroudsburg University could fill the pages of a novel coach was enshrined into the East Stroudsburg Hall of Fame in 2005 and not just one but two sports and his impact
013on Middletown youth has been so profound these past six decades that the the City of Middletown honored him a few years ago by naming the New Middletown youth football venue wol Slayer field his legacy is both Timeless and symmetrical with his namesake field on monhagen Avenue hosting kids aspiring aspiring to be future Middletown mides there aren't many who can represent what Middletown Athletics is all about than coach wi Slayer coach is Middletown's all-time winningest football coach with 142 wins which after all these years still places him eighth on section 99's alltime win list he was named a times Harold record coach of the year three times in 1976 1993 and 1994 and his later coaching years devoted his time to all three levels of modified junior varsity and the varsity programs and he he was
014even happy to serve and assist in coaching roles when he needed everyone knows that for Coach it's never been about personal recognition but rather a soul Devotion to influencing the young players and influencing young lives with a large chunk of his own own life dedicated to the Middletown football program he's the epitome of the phrase once a midi always a midi and that's what those were the words that we utilized to induct them last year into Hall of Fame at this time I'd like to introduce everybody while I'll let them I'll let bring up coach David coat first because um on Saturday uh this Saturday hopefully all of you will be there will be the eie bell game against Port Jarvis it will be the first time since the 1960s that that game will be
015played Without coach wol Slayer being on the field so um we want to remember that we want to remember his family will be there we'll have a moment of silence along with a couple of other things that we plan on doing but coach thank you president Strada it is fitting that uh we had it we tonight we're uh honoring coach but also the JV football team won big against poor Jervis sorry sorry I know it's difficult but um just to touch on just a little bit about how cut how coach touched others in the county uh back in the 70s and early 80s um I was telling Donna that I was one of the ones that was privileged to be at Pine Bush but also there were no popcorn or football organizations anywhere coach was
016one of the original ones to resurrect that so athletes from Pine Bush Middletown Goan minin you name it could come to Twin Towers that's where everybody played and at the time uh and he was one of the original founders of the pop warner for the section for the county for all the kids to play uh youth football but now you can see what has happened today every uh Community has resurrected these programs so I call him the OG because of of what he established and what he represented for Middletown but all football players across the county so uh we're really humbled and grateful that we were able to do this and thank you to the board of educ a uh superintendent kedin for making this happen I think it goes uh without saying it's obviously
017very fitting but uh we were talking a little bit earlier about today is another great day to excel uh we're looking to have the kids uh as they enter or enter or leave the locker room placing you know some sort of uh uh signage down by the Home locker room in remembrance of Coach so I'd like to introduce to you the family for Coach we have his wife Donna we have Sierra we have Chris and we have a France so would you like to come up say a couple of words I'm gon to put you on the spot you're probably gonna hate me for this spot seriously could have warned me thank you we are midi people we came from Middletown I look around here I see some of the students we had you know
018I taught at Middletown I was the Aquatic director here for 25 years um I went to Menin after that couldn't even compare to Middletown just letting you know diversity is outstanding here I I love everything about this District about the work that you people do it's just amazing this place is phenomenal this this whole facility is just something something that people come to visit me from all over the country and just cannot believe what is here I am very sure that dick would be very humbled and proud thank you [Applause] and in case you don't know next month Sierra is about to have the newest wool Slayer down here right okay and I want to thank um the trustees here because when I I came up and asked for their um support for this resolution
019um probably a month and a half ago I think it was when we first brought it up there was absolutely no qualms whatsoever every Everybody immediately responded uh to me so I want to um thank everybody for doing that so um I'm also going to uh do a little bit of a break here because I don't want our hardworking staff to be here all night and hearing the mundane part of the uh school board meeting I'm going to move 8B to the very next item ahead of board member recognitions and Community update so with that being said Mr Bartlett if you can do the honors for our recognition for the best buildings and ground staff in all of New York State without a [Applause] doubt in the country we and we have who was custodian
020of the year so yeah in the country they are the best staff Ed and custodial staff building and ground custodial right well thank you very much um president Estrada um superintendent ceden members of the board Administration we appreciate this recognition the opportunity to come out tonight they did come I was wondering if they'd come up with me or not um I can't say enough about this team uh districtwide we got we got a tremendous great team wonderful people who are there and they step up and they come back day after day there's dedication um it's just a pleasure to work with I was very fortunate when I came here it's been going on five years now and there are a lot of good people and and key places and I'm thankful for the opportunity to
021carry on the Legacy that was started prior to my um attendance here you know it's um I one of the things that we appreciated is on the 27th of um August we hosted a districtwide walkthrough of all of our buildings and we appreciate everyone each of you for coming out and going through and seeing the conditions of the buildings um it it was um it's a it's a nice opportunity for us to be able to to show you the work that these that these men and women do and we really appreciated that we appreciate your ongoing support it means a lot to us it really does and so thank you for that um just as a quick review of our past summer we had we had summer school and three row buildings and of course
022that always provides us challenges but one of the things I also wanted to mention is we had help from the building administrators and we really appreciated that they work with us by moving classes from one room to another so that we can clean those clean each of the rooms each of the building spaces um in the past we've been doing four day weeks uh summer school this year we did five and the guy stressed to me and said this is going to be a real challenge because we usually start Thursday night we empty rooms we start going right in and stripping and waxing and so that that work couldn't begin on a regular basis until Friday night but with the help of the administration moving things around it went really well so I'm thankful for
023that and a real shout out to the administrators in the district we appreciate that sorry um another thing that another um event going on this summer was some of the capital projects uh as you guys know we had the large flooring projects at um monhagen and presidential this picture here is a picture of our some of our Halls over there in monhagen we had to empty all the all the rooms every classroom in that building so that they the Floor Company could come in uh tear out the old floor prep the floor um get the new floor down and then he had to sit 5 days before they could be waxed and reset and these are just some pictures of what the what the place looked like um this picture here was just it looked
024like this the morning of the 27th or excuse me that was Tuesday the morning before on Monday morning I I remember talking to our principal and um Dominic said I was looking out the window with this furniture thinking this is never going to happen but the guys you know the crew excuse me I refer to them as guys but with the crew did a great job and um getting things ready to go um one of the next things this is some work that was done over to uh Presidential Park some of the trazzle flooring needed to be replaced and you know when they do that type of work there's always grinding and sanding and you know it the the place was just filthy when they got done it was a it was a great job
025they did a nice job for us the floor turned out well but there was a layer of dust over everything and the teams over there just they stepped right up and they went went through it and cleaned things and reset the rooms that was another building that had most all the classrooms on the first floor were changed out as well and this last picture here um was over at of Twin Towers um this is just this picture of this gentleman lower left in the in the yellow shirt that's a little power wheelbarrow and they were bringing dirt through from the outside into the courtyard to build up the they needed to get to proper pitch and elevations and they were doing that the morning of the 27th and so that was pretty exciting but um
026the team had planned for it they had everything scrubbed and stripped and waxed as much as they could and then they just you know prep the area after they were done so when you guys showed up it looked like it should it looked like we were ready for the first day of school but it was quite a it was quite an accomplishment to get to that point and then one other thing we um they we replaced the carpet over to William Carter in their library and so there was quite a lot that went on there as far as you know if you can imagine when you have a library it was full of books and bookshelves and the staff over there did a wonderful job prior to getting all those bookshelves unloaded and then you
027know the the team was able to assist and move all the the bookcases and the furniture and get things out and then reset afterwards but um you know my last comment here is you know overall just despite the various challenges a tremendous amount of work was accomplished by this team and we're really proud of them thank you for this opportunity we appreciate it so Mr Bary can we have each member come up to the microphone and just introduce themselves to the public and let them know which building where they're at this is your just doe gentlemen you deserve this so I want folks to see your face and know your names I always wanted to know what I sounded like an audio Thomas turo monhagen great [Applause] than hello everyone I'm ladel Henderson from presidential
028more importantly the Class of 84 right Lial still not as good as class of 82 but that's all right Joe Smith from presidential real real quick real quick before before you Joe Joe's voice is so low um I told him that he could he could start doing voiceovers now that the King James CNN's gonna need a new one all right oh we need the new voice of uh Darth Vader Carlos Alisa Twin [Applause] Towers good evening Joseph to middltown high [Applause] school Julio Rodriguez Middleton High School Charles Walker Board office in stadium we have we have two supervisors here as well Paul Norton director one uh District Al Valente assistant director of facilities I'm going to pay for that tomorrow but thank you we appreciate that well you could throw you could throw me under
029the bus since I asked him to come up but they they deserve the recognition um the buildings that uh we toured um on August 27th looked outstanding um they always do anyway um but so we wanted definitely wanted to recognize you guys and know how important you are to our district and we couldn't get these places up and running each and every day without you so thank you thank you have a great night everyone you yep you guys too because I know it's a early morning for you guys I told him they had to go out in the hall for a photo op so I'll join him and return later thank you yes we got the photo up and then I think um Dave if you'd like to take the wol Slayer family she can
030do a photo of with them as well after them uh if that's possible so we'll move on to our board M recognition reports and I promised the IT department that I would start out with Mr Moore I actually don't have much uh for today uh I've been out of the scene for a little bit but uh I'll definitely have some coming up pretty soon thanks Mr Pino okay thank you I see we got the four minutes time timer up which is good what month is this September last I think it's still September National Hispanic month yes mon right from September 15th to October 15th and uh Emily Lan the district uh coordinator of Media Services is taking a lead one of the people taking their lead in this uh all the buildings will have nice
031displays hangings and uh there's some some right there and in addition to to that uh there'll be assist the she will be assisting the staff in uh collaborative assignments so I think it's going to be a very very uh good month I happen to be up to presidential for the uh uh for for the open house and believe me the uh media specialist at that building is doing a uh a great job with uh uh with various uh uh materials books and uh um also video and audio materials and so on that is uh that happens to be right there that's at the Maple Hill open open house and again I'll speak about that uh uh later on but they're doing a nice job too in addition to that um we won't be back until
032I believe October 10th am I correct on that October 10th so so the uh our Jewish Brethren will begin celebrating the high holidays slash High holidays on Sundown of October 2nd so I'm sure I don't speak for the board that's Ed's uh job but I'm sure we wish all our uh Jewish friends a happy and a sweet uh uh New Year shaa Tovar thank you for that and one I still have a little bit of time left I think um Town council meeting with uh walkill um I happened to uh I was speaking to George Sano he asked me a few questions says why don't you come over and uh speak to the Town Council so I I did that and it was very fortunate because usually the meetings of the board and the Town
033Council overlap in other words uh will be meeting on Thursday and they will be meeting on Thursday but this happened to be uh one of the rare times uh when that did not happen and um I want to express um my appreciation appreciation to Kevin wit and Amber laf freeze because they may they did a uh a good job of uh providing some materials I I spoke about the graduation rates uh the number of percentage of students who um are from the town of walkill uh also in addition to that the regent exams on and on very very re receptive uh to our meeting and I I left them uh with an information packet I thought I I thought I had that with me but I I guess I don't uh finally the welcome back
034that's the welcome back day and the custodian staff is not here now but everything was great in the schools obviously Twin Towers have will have the most challenge all the schools had food but what the administration of Twin Towers did they hired an ice cream truck and believe me the people flock down there for ice cream it was quite a warm day twin doesn't have air conditioning so good job to all I'm done I don't want to go over my time thank you great job John Mr Rett good evening everyone I just want to take the time real quick um this past weekend um I want to pay um respects to uh two of our colleagues here um Mitch Williams as well as Freddy Williams they did an incredible job um with um our um
035it takes a village it was great to see so many staff and and um District members as well as school board members out had some great activities I don't want to steal from their Thunder but I just want to acknowledge the fine job that they did um bringing that finally to fruition because we had to put it off a couple times because of bad weather I believe but and then also we had a wonderful meeting um initial meeting with um my brother's Keepers um brother um Everett as well as Kenneth Ward um we sat down and they really diligently put a definitive plan together so we're really excited about what we have to roll out for our kids this year that's all thank you Mr R Mr Bon thank you I was looking in the
036audience I don't see Andrew Stevens here okay um as most know Andrew is a survivor of cancer uh and this is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and usually he reminds all of us that around the end of the month September 30th we all wear gold in District so I'm hoping that tradition will be continued Andrew for me is a warrior he was diagnosed as an elementary student with cancer and it's a miracle that he is here today with us he graduated from Middletown High School he is now at Orange County Community College pursuing a career in technology awesome so for Andrew and all the children that are survivors of that traumatic and horrendous disease we want to make sure that they are not only remembered this month but every month and are very grateful for um
037the acknowledgement that we can give to Andrew for his I'm going to say bravery um for what he um went through during those traumatic years so thank you and that's my report thank you Mr bison Mr Freddy Williams good even thank you um I think I have some images of the it takes to Village barbecue so this is our fourth annual it takes to Village barbecue it was an amazing event um I have a lot of organizations to think this is going to be a two-part thing I have to go back to it next week because I have so many names to uh to Rattle off but um organizational wise it's uh City of Middletown Middle Parks Middletown parks and W Middletown Police Department um en large city school district of Middletown Middletown Youth Sports
038Middletown fire Department um the MBK of Middletown and six West barber shop so um this year we uh set a record for attendance I think the highest record was about 2,000 or 2100 in the previous years and this year we had about 22 to 2300 people in and out throughout the day um we gave over 1,200 book bags um to the kids um numerous things numerous activities it was it was a great time great energy um also some people donated their services um she it was uh we had George Vega he was one of the Barbers out there giving free haircuts uh Joslyn Michelle she was doing um free haircuts the music was done by uh shaie skills um and Kevin Whit from the district he was awesome getting a lot of these shots running
039around the the park all day we had a lot going on it was um amazing amazing and everyone is every everyone one of them was um this one in particular is having so many people and uh like Mr red said uh we rescheduled it was originally on September 7th and I was watching the weather for weeks and I was stressing out so I think I made the right call with that one um because it did rain like sideways on the 7th and um so we moved it to the 14th which was last Saturday and thank you everybody here who attended um your support uh Crystal um you we've been uh a gem with it also on on the administrative side um what more can I say it was just like an amazing day um and
040we look forward to uh you know building up the next one I was talking to um superintendent ceden about uh you know we're going to put our heads together and start planning the next one uh with the City of Middletown the Middletown parks and wck uh just amazing amazing time I want to thank everybody again like I said I'll get back to it next week cuz I have a bunch of names uh to Rattle off with everybody uh who helped out it looks like a heavy lift when you look at it in the grand scheme of things but it's so much lighter when you have people come in from the village right myself and Mitch um tossed around the ideas this was over four years ago now and it came to F and and every
041year it just builds and builds and builds so um also another name Kenny Malla with our to ourtown party rentals he had the bubble machine out there and the kids were going I seen some adults that want to jump in too they they were you know they were they were thinking about it uh but that was an awesome awesome um addition to the event also so um moving on I also had the uh opportunity um to go on the first MBK trip this year um it was a college fair to our BMCC we had three buses we had 88 students and it was a great time it was great being around the energy that the kids had with the anticipation to go to college and get to see the uh go to the uh there
042was army recruiters there there was a lot of a lot of table set up in the gym it was just great energy the kids had fun um and the conversations about talking about their future was just awesome to be around so um and I have not much time left real quick um quick story about Coach W Slayer um like Dave coach said I went to Pine Bush transferred over in third grade don't don't hold it against me um but my cousin Timmy Reynolds played football for Coach wils Slayer that was my first time um or interaction with Mr wol Slayer the team was amazing so I said this coach like he gets these these all these guys that just buy in right and he was like just very not militant with it but but they
043respected him but he also had like a almost like a friendship with the guys so I was like this guy is awesome so I was able to meet him maybe fourth or fifth grade coming to sports camp in Middletown push didn't have it no other schools had it and I remember walking up to him and asking him a question and he just seemed like 10t tall like his statue he was like so it was so such an honor to meet him and um lastly with the Wall of Fame induction um his words his set correct me uh if I'm wrong Edward that um Middletown kids he said you never give up on Middletown kids he said um no matter what you hear these kids are amazing and that that was so deep to hear him
044say that at that moment last year you know so I hold on to that uh i h on to that tightly so he was a great guy great coach and just overall great person so that's what I have thank you thank you Freddy Miss Romero recently I had the pleasure of meeting with the Twin Towers Middle School principal and administrators and I'm truly excited about their up coming initiatives in financial education coding engineering and their Revised Code of Conduct it is an honor to serve as their liaison and I'm incredibly proud to work alongside them thank you very much I'm sure we'll be ready with pictures and videos next time because you always got them Pastor Williams I don't have much but I I I do want to um uh piggy back off of Mr
045Rett um uh and commend commend um Freddy Williams and um and Mitchell Williams um that's those are pretty good names by the way I like those last names um uh on on on the uh excellent job they did at putting together and I know that it took a village and everybody to put it together but uh I I do want to honor both of you um for your hard work um it takes a Visionary in order to start things and so um I I I want to commend you on uh all the hard work it was a Wonder a wonderful day and everybody looked happy everybody looked happy so uh without saying a whole lot more there are so many other things that are coming down through the year we've arrived in September and we've
046had a lot of things that have happened already um I want to commend the administration and staff of all of our buildings at uh having a wonderful first couple of weeks of uh of the start of the school year uh I know that if we had our last board meeting was on the first day was near near the beginning of the school year um and there always is a lot of Kinks and things that you have that jump in but uh I I want to commend you you all have handled it well and just uh just by um uh you know example even when I'm driving into the high school in the morning in the morning uh just the flow of traffic the way that everybody is handling everything has been stellar and so I
047want to commend um everybody on those first couple weeks now there are a lot of things that's going to be coming up over the course of the next um next couple of weeks I know that we won't be able to to tap into everything um but uh just a reminder that uh also Saturday morning is town of walk Hills Community Day in the parking lot of Macy's um so that's Saturday morning now I'm I'm serving notice to town of Walk Hill I love you all but I won't be there because we're going to be getting ready for the bell game and and the hall of Hall of Fame The Wall of Fame induction so uh but for those that are not coming to the to the uh the bell game you can come later the
048bell game starts at one o'clock you'll probably need to get there early to get a parking space and and perhaps a seat um but just wanted you to know that that is going on as well uh again that's in Macy's parking lot on Saturday morning and so there's a lot of other things we could touch on but you know uh uh I I I won't right now there's a lot of different things there are a lot of hungry people out there I will add this and I'll finish um there are a lot of hungry people you know and a lot of people that are still going through and so um by the next meeting I'm going to come with a list of of the um our food service has done a wonderful job by the
049way of of uh you know with Distributing of the boxes of the vegetables and so many different things but by the next meeting I'm going to come with a list of all of the uh particular um uh uh uh pantries and um soup kitchens and things of that nature um that are going on that are um established in this area in this region um I think that is important for us to understand that um one of the as a pastor one of the one of the most important principles of of of being a Christian is is that you have love one toward the other it's a mandate it is a mandate that we care for one another and we help those that are less fortunate and so um uh I I can say this that
050this community and this Village does that and we'll continue to do that so all right I'm done thank you thank you Pastor Williams Mr Mitch Williams um yeah um just to piggyback off a few things that were said as far as with uh thank everybody thank the family members for coming out to the it takes the village back to school barbecue um I definitely just want to highlight Mr Freddy Williams Because how this thing started was you know it was a few years ago and he would already throw a give back barbecue for uh people who came to the barber shop so he was already has the spirit of giving and that's I met him with the spirit of giving if I throw a tournament he said I'll buy the t-shirts for it that's how
051I met him in that type of situation so with this he said you know I do the back school Barbe I'm do the uh barbecue give back for the community they could come to the barbecue F food Mitch you want to get down with it I said okay you know and and you know he's younger than me I mean I'm not that much older than him but and I'm following his lead his lead his giving nature and he said well let's do this barbecue and I said okay I'll do it and then he said well maybe we should just put it out because I used to work why I work Parks and Rec put it out to see who else might want to be involved and everybody just stepped up everybody we called said of
052course and I'll bring this to the table um same thing with the district go to Amy Amy is like of course Middletown Police Department said of course and we'll cook the food bring the food we'll cook the food so like somebody was saying as far as it made it makes it easy work because everybody just steps up and does what they do they do their part um I commend the vendors because you with the vendors we asked them can you bring 10 book bags you know with school supplies just to give out they come in with 50 and 100 book bags Vans car trunks full of book bags to give out nobody's selling anything it's just all about love for this community that's what that whole thing is about and everybody pitching in just to
053give and show love and have a good time and celebrate each other and it came from this young man sparking that vision and then I commend him and I commend this whole Community I commend this whole village for a wonderful experience that I'm grateful to be a part of that's my thank you thank you Mr Mitch Williams and I'm going to go a little step further we need to give both of these gentlemen a great Round of Applause for all of their efforts because that's a lot of work you know and both um all of us here at this table but um you know Freddy and Mitch you know what better way to demonstrate to um our Scholars that we care about them and when you you when you go out there it's it's amazing
054when you see you know uh 2, 2500 people out there enjoying themselves and then the students watching Everybody do something for them you know the police department cooking um you know the fire department out there you know thank you to to Mayor Deano and chief aanu Senator scus was there um Luan grai was there from the town of walkill so you know it definitely takes a village but it all of us contributed in one way or another even if it was just to go there and have a good time um because that's important uh to do and the great call you should be a weatherman because you made the right call for sure it was a beautiful day um so I do want to thank everybody who took part I want to thank the community
055for coming out because that's what um motivates these two to to go out there and um you know he wasn't the DJ but he might as well have been the DJ with the microphone did he ever let go of that microphone the whole afternoon I didn't think so you're the host okay so congratulations to both of you on another great year I do want to acknowledge uh earlier uh tonight uh the board uh approve the nomination of our own Pastor John Williams to be nisa's area 9 director for those of you who don't know what that means um the area area 9 director is a person who kind of represents all School boards within orange Sullivan olster um Duchess am I missing any green counties um up in Albany there's different areas at the New
056York State School boards I don't think we've ever um in the history of Middletown Town ever had somebody serve at that high level representing our interests at the school at at that particular uh position John Redmond who um currently sits on the board for uh uh Florida Union Free School District is stepping down after I think 14 years 14 or 15 years um and you know after a lot of contemplation I know you weren't sure if you wanted to do it but your level of advocacy both at the with the diversity equity and inclusion committee up at the state level um your presidency at the Orange County School boards puts you in line to do exactly just that so um God bless you and um you know we know that you have your heart with
057Middletown when you talk about um issues at the state level so thank you and um the way that works now is that the state um we had submitted already our nomination after I pulled the board last week because it had to be into the state on April 13 on April 13th September 13 um the state will now take all the nominations that they receive for the area 9 directorship and then they will provide a ballot for this school board to vote on later this month um to select from those person on who would be the uh area 9 director so um Good Luck Pastor Williams I I do want to say I want to say thank you um for your support um and and um for the support from around the from around the area
058actually actually got quite a few and I'm grateful and it's not the end of it but um quite a few um nominations from other school districts um all the way up in Green County Duchess County um uh you know Sullivan orange so um I'm grateful grateful and um we'll see what happens and I know the clock's about to run down but I do want to mention I do want to mention our CL our wall of fame uh class of 2024 the induction is at 10: a.m. right here at the events Lobby down uh near the basketball gym uh this year we'll be honoring seven individuals and one team they will be Sher Morris Chris Edgar Roco and Philip manuo uh Debbie cubin Steve Baron Anthony gobio and the 1961 undefeated Middletown football team so those
059are our honores this year so we'll move move on now to public participation and an opportunity to address the board the board will designate a portion of its meeting agenda for public comment for a period of up to 40 minutes each speaker will be allowed up to four minutes the public is not permitted to discuss topics under matters involving specific individuals and speakers must sign in prior to speaking and speakers are not permitted to seed their time to other speakers and as I've mentioned in previous meetings we will not tolerate any expletives or any foul language at the podium that is grounds for immediate cut off of your microphone so uh Please be aware of that as well and with that being said Mr Romero in Spanish please thank you Mr Romero and at this
060time do we have any takers hello Dr Johnson I like your outfit microphone please now I'm more shocked I'm shocked this isn't who we are I never thought something like that could happen here my name is Paul Johnson and I appreciate as always the opportunity to appear before you I'm here as a friend of the district and as a proud grandparent first grade second grade fourth grade eighth grade all living in the state of Massachusetts in what could safely be called upper middle class communities if my opening remarks sound familiar to you that's because you've heard them every day the media says every day there is an episode of gun violence in this country do I not think about it because where my kids leave live not really how could we not think about it
061every day we hear a story of a family who sent their third grade child to school Pigtails in a backpack two hours later they got a phone call your child is dead every day some teacher gets in the car with a smiley coffee mug on their way to school they went to college to make the world a better place they were going to greet their students and set about that goal two hours later that teacher was dead and I Ed the word dead not decease because we need to keep thinking about that whether we like it or not the day that we become numb to that is the beginning of the end so what's my point well Boards of Education throughout this country not just this one but all of you have a pretty difficult
062task and that's why I'm standing here and you're sitting there how are you supposed to proceed tough if you make security a very obvious endeavor somebody will say my kid feels like he's going into a prison if you make it more subtle some other parent may say you know I just heard about this in Georgia what are you doing to protect my child so you're kind of betwix in between I know you know that my point is we as parents and grandparents need some subtle reassurance intermittently you're not going to do a program about all your security measures but we as parents and grandparents need a little bit of reassurance every once in a while just a nod that this is on the radar screen and that unfortunately in a given day you have to
063say to yourself not if but when sorry to be dug Downer but it's very topical and um I appreciate the opportunity to speak before you and God bless you all thank you thank you Dr Johnson good friendly reminder would anyone else like to address the board at this time good evening I don't know if you can hear me am I good oh yeah it's on okay okay all right good evening president Estrada vice president Williams Board of Education superintendent reden assistant superintendent adma as we begin our new school year I want to take this moment to express my gratitude for your unwavering support of our Educators our students and our shared mission of academic success your commitment to ensuring that our schools are places of growth learning and opportunity does not go unnoticed the dedication
064you have shown through your decisions resources and encouragement has empowered both teachers and students to excel your continued investment in professional development Innovative programs and Student Success has made a profound impact as we look ahead to the months to come I'm excited for the opportunities we have to work together a collaborative Spirit between teachers administrators and the board is vital to ensuring we meet the needs of every child together we can build on the successes of previous years and address challenges that come our way it is often said that children are the future and it couldn't be truer every day our teachers shape the future by guiding mentoring and inspiring the Next Generation they do more than teach subjects they teach critical thinking creativity empathy and resilience by supporting our teachers we are ensuring that
065the future is bright for our students and our community events such as the back to school barbecue last weekend and the upcoming Trunk or Treat are always ways to connect school to community We Are One Middletown I'd like to thank all our Educators from all our buildings no matter what your position is no matter what you do we stand by you and we thank you and we're here to support you I am confident that with your continued support our Collective effort the school year will be one of growth success and new possibilities thank you for your ongoing commitment to our children our teachers and our schools let's continue working together to make this year memorable and impactful for all thank you thank you so much good words thank you would anyone else like to address
066the board at this time seeing none we'll move on to any letters for the board no letters thank you Miss MRE and now we'll move on to our superintendent update with our code of conduct first I believe right great thank you very much um I'm going to invite Mrs tagney um and the um code of conduct team and domains of safety team to come up and present on the highlights of the work that they've done and the key changes with our emphasis on restorative practices okay good evening everybody thank you for having us here tonight um as Miss ceden shared we are excited to be here to talk about all the key changes that um we have updated the code of conduct to be um more restorative um and include more restorative justice and while
067you're going to hear from the four of us this was truly a community effort um with other administrators Educators uh family members scholar voice so while we're going to be the ones speaking it this was truly truly um a community effort okay all right so what you're looking at here is again always um our Middletown legacy plan our uh vision and Mission this is always at the core of all we do um for many of you who joined our sessions over the summer this slide's probably familiar um but this is always at the core of all we do and all the planning and all the work that was part of the updates um and the professional development sessions that we did um for updating our quod of conduct okay um so what you're looking at
068here is um the five elements of restorative justice and this truly was um our driving Factor as we started to work through um and update our code of conduct to continue to be more assortive and so the work that we do is truly to support our Scholars both socially emotionally and academically in both the classroom as well as out of the building um and we want to take a moment to just recognize that we understand that you all as Board of Education members are truly invested in this Mission as well as we know that this is embedded in all of your goals along with superintendent Credence uh all the administrators here and all the Educators here so we are really excited to um highlight the work that the community truly did um in updating our
069code of conduct restorative practices again is an approach that really truly focuses more on um building and restoring community and relationships versus protocols and activities and so our code of conduct as it stands today is always a living breathing document and what we did this past year was truly Continue to update that document and we'll continue to do that right we will always make sure that our Cod of conduct is meeting the needs of our Scholars and what we are really excited again to share is how we spent this past year ensuring that we had restor of practice is embedded in that um and what we really come to um kind of use is our slogan through all this work and you'll hear this shared a lot tonight is that all behavior is communication and
070so as we um worked to update the code of conduct we understand that in order to support our Scholars we truly have to understand the root at what they're communicating with us through their behavior and once we can get to that root cause then we can truly support them through through restorative practices and we're really excited to share that um this information with you tonight so this summer in Fall we held 10 opportunities for community members to meet with our team review the updates and provide feedback thank you to the board members who participated in those sessions we hosted both in-person and virtual options for community members and we provided staff with additional time to explore the updates and provide feedback during our superintendent's conference day um I'm sorry during our opening day with staff
071additionally in order to engage our young people in feedback sessions our building has held code of conduct Town Halls to ensure scholar voices were heard and we will continue to engage in feedback with Scholars in town halls and student panels feedback opportunities do not stop we continue to be committed to being responsive and there will be ongoing OPP opportunities at all four Wednesday family nights to receive continued feedback from the school Community you can see those dates on the screen October 16th November 13th February 5th and March 26th here are the code of conduct milestones and overview of the actions that were taken by the domains of safety team throughout the year to review and edit the proposed code of conduct we reviewed district and school Behavior data we received feedback from Scholars Educators administrators
072and families of the 2324 code of conduct we collaborated with nid through disproportionality targeted skills group and this work will continue this year as we partner with nysid on a monthly basis to continue to dive into our data um to make adjustments and be responsive to our Scholars needs we integrated ND guidance from the recommendations for reducing disparities in and reforming School discipline in New York state safe schools task force report and we conducted professional development on restorative circles which is a strategy utilized to strengthen relationships Foster community and proactively assist students in developing the interpersonal skills Scholars and Educators need to respond to conflict all right so thank you um so what you're looking at here is a visual um this is actually in our code of conduct um and shows really the additional
073supports um but who was involved in the work so the district domains of safety team and the campus domains of safety teams were made up of educators scholar support staff such as crisis interventionists social workers and school psychologists have all been instrumental in supporting the reviewal process the teams not only ensured voice from all team members but also reviewed code of conducts from other districts such as Newberg uh Binghamton and Syracuse to name a few um the team also reviewed the district and schoolwide behavior referral data per infraction code and team directly with nysed through Target skills group work that Miss shidi mentioned uh sessions the target skills group work sessions that Miss shidi mentioned previously to integrate guidance from the recommendations for reducing disparities and reforming School discipline safe schools task force report so
074at these sessions representatives from uh such as educator support staff and administrators met regularly with Ned teams um on a monthly Cadence two of the referral trends that we were able to identify that stood out the most uh were around class cutting and vape usage um which de directly connects to the work that both our Middle School and High School have done to take the data we analyzed and be responsive to our scholar needs and in that process we developed um a class cutting and vaping decision tree uh a matrix if you will that really provide multi-tier uh systems of support when a when a scholar commits one of the infractions instead of going right to exclusionary practices um we take opportunities to really look deeper into what's the issue what's driving the issue and
075what supports and education can we provide um so this uh also ensures alignment amongst the cohort teams and support staff and really allows us to utilize what you're seeing on the screen in front of you and and really that same approach that we've been talking about throughout this it really takes a village and and putting that whole village into practice to support the scholar and produce more positive outcomes um so the work that took place um ensures the shift from punitive to restorative practices that are embed in all we do in including our code of conduct so according to n said historically schools have relied on the use of exclusionary discipline such as classroom REM removal in or out of school suspension or expulsion to address code of conduct violations and challenging Behavior presented by
076students the Reliance in this method leads to significant negative outcomes for students and fails to support the development and success repeated behaviors over and over again are not going to be suspended into compliance and we as schools in this community have an obligation to look at the deeper things of what we can do to provide supports hence restorative practices so the research shows several things that are pronounced with the implementation of restorative practices first one is a decreased likelihood of dropouts so some statistics and some research to support for ninth grade students the suspension decreased their odds of graduation uh of graduating high school by 23% in each subsequent quent suspension decrease the odds by an additional 20% again restorative practices lead to an increased likelihood of postsecondary enrollment a suspension in grade nine decreases
077the students's likelihood of enrolling in post-secondary schooling by 16% and each subsequent suspension decreases the odds by 12% restorative practices lead to a decreased likelihood of involvement in the Juvenile Justice System um a decreased uh likelihood I'm sorry when suspended for a dis discretionary offense uh aligned with the code of conduct a student's likelihood of Juvenile Justice contact with the sub uh within the subsequent Academic Year increases three-fold um restorative practices also lead to a decreased likelihood of futural Behavioral incidents so in Middle School uh youth the use of out of school suspension led to an increased behavioral incidents for four years after the initial incident and finally on this um the unattended consequences of exclusionary discipline go beyond individual students several studies demonstrate exclusionary discipline does not keep School Community safe or deter students
078from more severe violations indeed studies suggest that there is weak evidence that suspension serves as a deterrent whatsoever and we know this to be true so again restorative justice and restorative practices are often terms used inter interchangeably But ultimately it's an approach that aims to build relationships restore harm done to the school community and present prevent and respond to conflict and wrongdoing we do understand that there are times when suspension other resolutions are needed however we also know that is not necessary for all behavioral incidents the district is excited to continue this work and to provide additional Prof professional development around restorative justice and practices all right so our team really took the work that was um a basis a foundation from the original code of conduct team that did a lot of preliminary work
079right like over two years of work um so we had a good foundation to work off of with the support of nid and our entire School Community some of the changes that we continue to um make right to improve because it is a living breathing document and we learn from what we Implement um so some of those examples was um the language for rights and responsibilities has shifted to expectations right so we're trying to refrain from using legal language within our code of conduct and making it more user friendly and understandable for everybody who um needs to use it and we know it's just one tool right to really support our Scholars and our families in supporting behaviors um some of the language also is more just restorative um language that's included some of the
080wording has changed some of just the the organ organization of the code of conduct has also changed one of the big um tasks that we had was including infraction codes because the 2324 code of conduct did not have infraction code so it was hard um reporting purposes and just making sure that we had alignment um districtwide when we are identifying different behaviors and also to support our data analysis and understanding where we need to put our efforts um Family engagement and Community um service Community connections is really empowered and put um you can see it the differences um within the range of resolutions um so and then just some other things that we made sure to include it's really a focus on the mental mental health and well-being supports that we can support our families
081but also our um Scholars and also helping our Educators and everybody who works in the school Community to really build upon their own practice and be able to support with trauma informed interventions and just understanding the why for our scol oops so um a lot of the work some of the work that we did last year was inclusive of the domains of safety and identifying the domains of safety and we launched this work last year and the reason why we did it is really to be able to support community members Educators Scholars when we say we're not safe right like what does that really mean does it mean that we're not physically safe does it mean we're not emotionally safe social safety cognitive safety so that we can really dig in to be able to
082identify how do we support our Scholars right The Scholar is not engaged in the classroom is it because they're hungry is it because their parents had a fight last night is because they're not cognitively engaged right they need a little bit more challenged is it that they're having a conflict with a peer in the classroom so once we are able to identify and Define the language we can drill dig in a little bit deeper to be able to support with um identifying exactly what it is when we're saying um we're not feeling safe and we always say um all behavior is a form of communication our job as adults is to be able to be those investigators to dig deep to drill in to identify why is this Behavior happening how can we support our
083Scholars um to make sure that we have you know a great continue our great work that we're doing in Middle and so we look forward to our Wednesday um having a table stopping by providing us the feedback working with our Educators because we know this is not a oneandone work it's it's a lot of work that needs to continue to improve and keep up with the times right like what we're working through so thank you thank you so much for the presentation so does anybody have any questions for the group Mr Pino thank you welcome nice presentation uh restorative practices um let's take a couple of examples and I know the state Ed and the commissioner is for this if you read District administrator and the school board uh uh our school board on board
084uh what happens if a student gets an application with a staff member and pushes the staff member is that restorative or is that a cause of suspension so I really think it's a case by case right um position just in general in general we do use the code of conduct we identify the behavior there's a range of resolution right that we're able to identify that best meets a Scholar's needs but one thing that we always do is try to really help the scholar understand the harm that they have made to the community um or to the person so that they can learn from um their behavior and really be able to try to reconnect and rebuild that relationship so to put it [Music] in if I'm understanding correctly then that's possible that that's restored to
085practices rather than suspension so it's part of the whole picture like Mr donah Hugh shared right like it's not suspension is still an option right it still lives and breathes in our code of conduct it's not that it's never going to happen I think like one of the important things of work that the team is doing is is um not coming up with always and never you know and using each situation as an opportunity to learn and the New York State education department is really encouraging school districts to do the work to move away from you know Zero Tolerance instances so um that's why it's hard to come up with you know some scenarios because each one has you know very unique twists and turns that it might take and and if I may just
086ch to add really just going back to pretty much any example right let's say a young person has a a bad day and is disrespectful in class or two young people get into an altercation traditional exclusionary practices was the method of dealing with it so you either go serve sometime in ISS or you're out of school you come back and the expectations you learn from that and we know that doesn't address several things the harm that was caused you never have an opportunity to Circle back and have that conversation and have both parties kind of speak on that and restore the practice and restore the community and that's really what if I had to Summit down with restorative practices that serves that function too there's lessons to be learned there's opportunities for that dialogue to
087connect after the fact there are consequences as well but also it's not just a consequence that expected to change the behavior because we know and the research that I spoke about knows that does not change behavior and ultimately we're making Investments and we know young people make mistakes and we as adults are also there to help support them through that process uh and again the restoration to our school community so um Mr R so um so thank you thank you for the presentation and and and yes this is a living document that's what I love about it the fact that it is it continues to um uh to grow um each year um depending on uh the times that we're dealing with um and and this work this work for us started about six years
088ago for us for Middletown started about six years ago really digging into um getting an understanding of what restorative practices are and um to to kind of piggyback on what um on what Mr Donahue said is that and and superintendent ceden um that this is not about absolutes um the one thing that we have to understand that restorative practice and I say this all the time I think I've said this many times to to some of the boards to the board and to other people is that the always must be accountability but accountability also has to be safe and um and punitive actions without the hope of restoration will do nobody any good um I'll use it I'll use this analogy um you know back when we were younger um we we had we got
089we didn't get spanking we got whipping anybody anybody got whipping I know we don't want to talk about that I know I know that's not politically correct right now um but um a whipping without without giving me an opportunity to to know what I did wrong and an opportunity to fix it and to go forward um my dad my dad used to used to whip my behind my mom used to know how to use a switch and she was so good with the switch that she could write she was like Zoro she could write her initials on your behind with um you too at the end of the day at the end of the day there had to be the love that came behind it it cannot be just punitive there's got to be the
090love that comes behind it so that we can find restoration and so that's what that's what when you talk about restorative practices and restorative justice is yeah there's got to be a healthy balance but there has to be without question the opportunity to be able to to learn and to grow and to be restored um back to a place of of success because we're we are every student every day and just to add what you're calling out right how we we really true believe all behavior is a form of communication we often talk about an iceberg right and so when you're looking at an iceberg you just get to see the very little tip and what's so important for all of us us to do and part of the restorative practices is to really build
091that Rapport to better understand our individuals and What Lies Beneath the surface and it is our job to build that Rapport and like you're calling out have those educational conversations and have those restorative conversations because we've learned that suspension is not always the answer right and we need to do better for our kids and we are and we're we're really taking that and we are truly truly committed to understanding what our Scholars are trying to communicate to us through their behavior and how we can truly support them and and it starts with that Rapport and and understanding what's below that surface Mr Rett no okay uh yes I applaud you guys' efforts in really revisiting um the discipline Cod because um again um as Pastor said it it it is a a living document it
092continues to evolve you know with the different problems and issues that kids are going through and you have to make those adjustments and Revis um again the only point I wanted to make that as a former principal hearing um intake officer uh those um adding that those infraction codes it identifies specific behaviors and you can determine what level of punitive action you want to approach before you actually um bring forth the restorative practices so I applaud you guys for really continuing to revisit that because um again uh the goal is to get everybody on board to be learning and not interrupting other students that come prepared to learn and you don't have discipline issues with yeah thank you Mr bis yes um I think you mentioned in the beginning the initiative that was started by
093the district probably two to two two and a half years ago I would like to recognize right now our assistant superintendent for instruction Mrs adma because her leadership and guidance in analyzing and bringing to everyone's attention um how we could very forcefully but yet and I shouldn't use the word forcefully because it sends the wrong connotation but um how we can get to restorative practices without uh some of the old methods we'll put um but I I do think she needs some recognition there too she's sitting in the back and she'll be very quiet about it but um I can still see her there uh in front of the screen making the corrections as I'm trying to keep up because she was very quick with the computer and that in making and she listened to
094everyone's suggestions never a criticism of the suggestions but took it all in in a very positive way was able to lead this committee to think positively about restorative practices so I just want to acknowledge her work in this um report so thank you Camille we did appreciate it thank you Mr VI and Mr Mitch Williams yeah I just want to commend you on your presentation and commend you all on this uh living document um uh definitely just I want to definitely just commend you also for your energy as far as with this because we could put systems together but it's the people which makes the system whether it's going to go the way we want it to go so we start talking about restorative practices the reality is I'm I'm Middletown I'm a member of
095the Middletown Community so the the young people that come to the school if they're in school if they're suspended they're still in my community it's still my kids and I love them so and I love to hear the fact that we all love them you know they get caught up in the behavior you get a consequence or you have to deal with the behavior but no you're a part of this community you're a part of this Village let me say it's one family one district one Community one Middletown and and I like to hear that and I like the fact that you're getting a family members involved cuz sometimes people get a misconception okay the kid is in a behavior so let's bring the family no the family doesn't want the kid to be in
096Behavior either so it's like no we're all on the same page we're all on the same side so it's all of us working together to have to make the best community to make the best District to make the best Middletown that we can and I'm just uh feel great to hear this presentation and like I said your energy and just and I know the work that you do that you all do and I just want to commend you on that and thank you thank you Mr Mitch Williams uh Freddy yes I like the um great work you guys uh Mr donu the percentages hearing them is essential like we don't I I never really knew any of that right um so you bringing that to light is so important um also I appreciate as a
097parent um I've had conversations with people within the district so I love the revision on the language of uh some parents you know um kind of gave the impression that they felt like their kid was going to court as an adult with the language that they were reading so that revision is awesome and um to cootel off what mrb said with Camille great work great work as a team um this was refreshing um and yeah it's just it's just great work but those percentages really stuck you know cuz now you can see it and you hear it and it's it it's just um it's very impactful you know to to and it being a living uh document is so important to make those changes when when needed um it's just great I think I think
098this is awesome and and I think uh you know a lot of a lot of kids will benefit from this uh living document um you know we're not just Mr says don't throw out the baby with the bath water right all the time so that's uh that's what comes to my mind when when we see this living document so thank you guys cool um yeah I just want to add to say uh great work um just from someone has been in education for quite some time um I understand the import of the restorative practices and especially reducing the the fact that the students when they are out they have an increase of learning loss because of it and that usually sets the tone and the you know trajectory of them you know falling out and
099dropping out so with these practices in place now we definitely look to restore and repair um those you know past historical actions that have been done in the past and be able to get us in a better track so and it all comes balls down to just love right so if they feel that they're love they feel like they're appreciated then you know the restorative practice has definitely come to play and also too is the key note um the community as well and the parents with the four dates that you have scheduled hopefully they take part that will also strengthen the entire practices moveing forward so looking forward to that and uh thank you thank you Mr Moore so I'll finish up with my comments a couple things on it um so you know and
100I was writing it down just as you were saying and I turned to Amy I like did she just say um finding out the why and she goes yeah I goes this is exactly what I was writing down so I I think uh one of the biggest differences is is in the past we never tried to find out the why and I do I I I do this ex um and I bring up an a personal example of mine and um you know it involves um Kate's dad Mr Bucky um who was my princip my assistant principal at when I was a kid at Twin Towers Middle School and I had I got in a fight I never got in a fight typically but I got in a fight coming off the bus because a
101kid and excuse you know the beep word but I got called a by somebody coming off the bus and when that kid came off the bus I started pummeling the kid and we both get called to the office it's Mr Buckey's office and as soon as he asked the gentleman um you know what happened and the k I said this is what this kid called me and he turned to the kid and said did you do that and the kid said yeah and he goes okay you're suspended and then in for me I'm like oh my goodness he got suspended I'm GNA get a whooping from my dad at the time but he said he go he said to he said to me I know your father so I'm not gonna suspend you because I
102know what will happen but nevertheless it's a really a transformation from those days right to where we are now and trying to understand the why so why did that kid call me that we never really knew we just knew he did something bad and as Mitch and I were talking here a second ago on your breath is like you know what you did wrong but it would be it's therapeutic some you know to make that individual confront what they've done um and I think that's important because if we're going to treat them if we're trying to train them to adults we have to start treating them like adults you know some of our kids are graduating going into the military right away they're going into the job market right away and so you need to
103you're going away to college right away on your own independent and so we need to start treating them and have them become analytical and introspective about themselves so I think that's very important now you know Mr Pina brings up a couple of good points there are people all over this country fighting this right now right so parents out there who are listening to us that's the way it's going to be and especially in New York state that's the direcor from the state so we have to figure out a way as a school Community to figure out how to make it work in one way or the other so there's going to be a lot of dialogue back and forth uh on what works what doesn't work what can we do that's why all options are
104still on the table you know there are just some that it's not going to work work and we understand that but when there's a failure in a program you don't as Freddy just brought up that i' like to say you don't throw out the the baby with bathat we are going to have failures in instituting this program it will happen but that doesn't mean that the entire program gets thrown out because of it you know 99% I firmly believe if not more than 99% of our students under this type of of of program uh restorative practice I think they learn from it they become better individuals from it and that's ultimately what we're trying to accomplish here and we don't accomplish it by throwing them into the street throwing them back home under home and
105you know it's just you still not understanding the cause doesn't lead to a good outcome in most cases whereas um you know we have an opportunity and that that's a good communication from our superintendent to all of our employees all of our students and all of our parents is that we're going to be creative here in this District we're going to try to figure out any which way we can to get to the end goal and and not everybody does that not every school district does that there are places around this country that you know are throwing away books they're doing everything they can which is totally the opposite of what we're doing here in Middletown so I commend all of you for all of your hard work um especially Mr D I don't know
106why you're sitting way back there because you should be up here with these guys so um but congratulations on on a job well done to all of you thank [Applause] you moving on to grading for Equity 6 through 12 he that's why that's why Camille was sitting back there she's presentation Ed just before we leave this could we get a halfe report on how this is working restorative practices sure because if it's working it should cut down on disrespect in the schools it should cut down on uh fighting in the schools oh remember though it's it's not going to be an overnight fix so it it's but we'll definitely get reports we always want to know where our suspension rates are um what I mean I I think so far we've had a unless you
107know I've had different Communications but we've had a really good start to the school year um so far and I think the message is getting out there so hopefully that's the cas you got to understand the process it's a process but yeah we'll definitely do a report good evening board president asada vice president Williams superintendent Cen Board of Education trustees over the last few months we have been sharing with the community the the work that has been completed over the last two years with our Educators and administrators to revise our grading practices this evening you will be hearing from our instruction leaders at the middle school and high school level about these changes so we have H Dr norval Connell Mrs Gabriela Frederick Mr Fred Merritt Mrs Rachel coun Mrs Robin P presenting tonight sorry
108I'm kind of tall so as we have shared in previous Board of Education meetings we have dedicated the past two years to evaluating different methods uh to ensure our Scholars receive the best most Equitable educational experience in Middletown one area that We examined as noted uh was our grading system from our discussions with Educators scholar and families we determine the need for consistent grading practices specifically this focuses on ensuring our Scholars are fully aware of what their grade represents and their individualized areas of achievement or growth to that same token ensuring that we are fully transparent in communicating Scholars grades to families including what the what the grades represent their Scholars achievements and again possible areas of growth all of this is possible through the use of mechanisms like Parent Portal uh and family teacher
109conferences but lastly this work is vital in reducing biases in our grading the shifts we will name tonight both at the middle school campuses and the high school campus ensure grade books measure academic growth and Mastery and not compliance ultimately we want to ensure every scholar is motivated and sustains their e to continue learning throughout the school year and Beyond okay so there have been three key shifts uh in grading in the Middle School level uh before diving in I just want to point out some things that haven't changed some things we all kind of grew up and and and uh under and that's we still have four marking periods uh each of the marking periods are 10 weeks long approximately um the passing grade is 65 still uh we do have a 50 to
110100 so 50 grade FL already for the grades for the report cards and we also have our interm and report cards both happening every five weeks or so so that has not changed so what has changed is U the first shift is grading we want to highlight sorry um is that we are now standardizing the weights and the categories for all Educators so we now have a learning tasks assessment tasks and performance tasks uh Gabby will talk about kind of those particulars there but in previous years uh Educators had the flexibility to set their own categories and weights for grading however this led to some challenges uh both for teachers and for families and actually for Scholars as well when Educators tried to discuss scholar performance it was often like comparing apples and oranges as
111grading practices varied widely between classes so for example uh my class would have 10% for homework as Frederick would have 30% you get the idea it's really hard to understand really what the grade represented um and so it was really hard to communicate to The Scholar what was True Performance what wasn't so with these new common weights and categories we have standardized systems to ensure grades are are more consistent and provide a clearer representation of scholar performance across all of the subject areas as Mr Meritt mentioned in the previous Slide the three categories for Middle School grades are learning task assessment task um and performance task for learning task this details the assignments Scholars are expected to complete prior to the end of instruction uh this may include rough drafts homework classwork um essentially practice
112opportunities next the assessment task include any graded task that Scholars complete once instruction on that topic or skill is complete this may take many forms according to the course um so that includes final drafts performances unit projects Etc lastly our performance performance task assess priority standards taught in a given marking period in content area courses so this is a single task that is completed over the period of a mark uh over the course of a marking period okay so we have two other grading practices we want to highlight this the second so the first one was the weighted categories the second at the middle school level uh is the introduction to a credit Flor for all assignments so this means that Scholars grades for any assignment whether it's a test homework classwork Etc cannot be
113below a 50% uh so for example in traditional metrics uh if you got a 22 out of 50 that was a 44 in the grade book that now going is going to a 50% instead uh and there are several reasons for this change first is consistency so it aligns with existing four grades of 50% already that's named in for the report cards uh and so it got really confusing we'd have these abstract complicated conversations with Scholars where your grade is really this but actually report card says this if you do the work it's going to go to here but it's still there it's it's very abstract and very hard for kids to really understand and grasp which then played into some motivation uh which is my second Point uh helps Scholars stay Mo motivated uh
114one bad grade won't derail the entire quarter it allows us to stay focused on uh on the ability to succeed through some of that adversity and then uh also a kind of um you know latent benefit is that it balances the grading scale so so we look at a 100 Point grade scale that is skewed towards failure 64% of that is negative is is disproportionately uh focused on failure this now levels the playing field when out 50 points looking at a pretty even spread with success and failure and so it allows us to be more accurate in terms of just the disproportionality of how we weight our grades uh the second change uh is the elimination or the third change rather the elimination of soft skills in the Gradebook soft skills are things such as
115effort preparedness and partic participation so for example you know giving Five Points to Scholars for bringing a pencil to class that sort of thing um or trying really hard for the day um participating in conversations that sort of stuff uh Scholars will no longer receive grades on those things instead uh we suggest feedback coaching and other things uh goal setting as a way to uh ensure that those things are still in there because we really do value that that's important but the Gradebook is not really uh the way to go about it and just uh the reasons again we reduce subjectivity uh Gabby talked about bias in our grades we want to eliminate as much as possible and so soft skills are subjective how do we really know if someone is trying hard or participating
116uh it really becomes our own ideas of what that looks like and again my view is different than gabes are different than anybody in this room and that creates some inaccuracies and equities in our grading practices and also clarifying scholar performance when we start to add in things like if you bring your home your homework in on time it's an extra five points or if you bring a pen pencil and or or all these different metrics start to conflate the the grades negatively or positively and then we lose sight of really what that grade is supposed to mean which is their academic performance again mudding that conversation between Educators and families and even students themselves so it's really important to note that we do value these things soft skills are integral to success uh but
117there are other modalities I think namely things like feedback like I mentioned uh conferencing goal setting all those different metrics to really intrinsically allow kids to understand the value of these rather than similar to talk about code of conduct uh laying a punitive measure to kind of enforce that it's not really the goal here and so with that we wanted to be super transparent in terms of how final grades at the middle school level are calculated so over the course of the Year Scholars experien four marking periods marking periods as we noted before um and the categories and weights for each marking period again um we notate but as we look at the school year in totality uh each marking period um represents or counts for 22.5% of a Scholar's grade once midterms and finals
118are completed and administered they are added into the final calculation for for a full representation of the Middle School Scholars final grade and now we'll kick it off to our high school counterparts good evening so we're really grateful to our Middle School team for the work that they doing being so thoughtful about developing the grades and we really appreciate the fact that they they getting a jump start and the expectation of high school let's face it The Story begins in high school you have four years or less to write a transcript that some job the military or a college board will look at and they're going to make decisions on your life on our kids' lives they don't know them from anywhere but they're going to look at numbers and a sheet and they're going
119to decide do I accept them do I give them a chance or an opportunity do I give them a scholarship money do I give them this job so there's an urgency that we're talking an urgency in partnership with you with parents with teachers all of us to give them an opportunity to be successful when I say an opportunity I mean when I come into nth grade A score of 50 sorry sorry a score of 50 should not mean that that's my final outcome right because you are getting a number somewhere between 50 and 100 on your transcript but at 450 doesn't Define me so we're going to give you over a mark over four marking periods a midterm and a final an opportunity to rewrite your story and that's really what our grading system is
120all about right you come to high school it's not easy you're doing you're accumulating 22 credits at least and you're passing at least four region and a pathway this is challenging and we're talking about 14year old children walking into the situation so our job is to create opportunity that my first misstep in ninth grade doesn't Define the rest of the outcome that we're giving you a chance to recoup that grade to improve and to grow and that's really the story of all the things that you see on that slide we want to message that that our grade in policy will reflect will reflect that we're giving our Scholars and opportunity to write a story that in the end at the end of four years they'll have a sheet of paper that really represents the skills
121that they've mastered and somebody somewhere will be able to say Well done and that's what the high school went into this process advocating for our students and for the community of Middletown thanks so similar to my middle school counterparts um the high school also has Universal categories and weights um ours are based per content area because each content area has different things that they cover um but there are similar louies across every content um we are not grading on whether a child talked during the class period or arrived early um we are grading on Mastery and that's what we're really focused on our midterms are worth 10% including our finals across the entire school year one of the things that we do to help students succeed is that if a student sits down and tries
122the final completes in in its entirety if they do not get a 65 or a a 60 they earn a 55% um which really helps them because it gives them an opportunity to still catch up do work and be successful at the end of the school year to accumulate their credit which is our ultimate goal Rubik's are being used this school year um in more content areas Ela social studies were already using rubrics science is also using rubrics this year to really assess skill sets um we have a huge literacy push across content areas in terms of common vocabulary and all of our teachers are aware of what the expectations are in terms of the assignments that are to be graded um the interventions that should be put into place based on the DAT data
123that is collected from the assignments um we do two skills checks per quarter which allows us again to gather data and create interventions so that students are successful once we get to the end of the school year our communication has been consistent across the board um we've done in-person Town Halls we've done virtual Town Halls so parents have been given this information and teachers have also altered all of their cabi to reflect the changes that have been put in place good evening uh Middletown High School we do offer over 30 dual enrollment courses and our dual enrollment courses allow Scholars to earn both high school and college credit at the same time our College Partners include Syracuse University Santa College Rochester Institute of te Rochester Institute of Technology Mount St Mary College and Sunni Sullivan
124and it's important that we share with everyone along with our families at home that we must use the grading policies established by the college or university and this ensures that the grades reflect the grades earned reflect the standards and the expectations of our College partners and parents and families and caregivers Scholars they can all find their um grading policies on their college syllabus so that information was shared with our students and families the first year but we are really grateful for the opportunity to share the information not only about our High School courses but also our dual enrollment courses and it is important that we we note the difference between our high school course grading policies and our College grading policies and lastly we wanted to just share our um our important dates so make
125sure all of our families at home watching save the date we have our family teacher conferences at at Twin Towers and monhagen middle school as well as Middletown High School and the important interim dates and marking period dates so remember if you're looking at the portal and you and backpack and you see the interim grade that means we got to hurry up we got five more weeks until that final marking period grade we got to get all our assignments in make sure if we're missing tests we're making it up because we want to make sure we get those good grades on our transcripts or our high school resume um so that um um you know it really represents what a student knows what they've learned and um you know where where they're headed so thank
126you so much for the opportunity tonight great thank you very much since um we started on this side last time I'll go to this side first and see if there's anybody who wants has any questions or comments I just have a comment the the work is great um we appreciate you guys and that's all I have thank you great job and thank you for everything that you do and so I concur a great job um not surprised you all are a bunch of uh extremely intelligent intelligent and uh amazing individuals uh um I know that the current grading standards um are are consistent with what New York has now um um how we how we we um are are we I know we are but I'm just asking rhetorical question um prepared um for the
127the the possible shifts in um in graduating St graduation standards and uh that's proposed by uh by uh commissioner Rosa um I know that uh uh they're they're proposing a sunsetting of the of regent exams um and and and focusing more on um critical thinking and problem solving um and even um even cultural and social emotional uh um uh you know uh things along those natures and so how how are we uh I know that you are but can you explain to us how you're looking ahead uh as we move along those lines sure so so we're still waiting on more guidance from the state as to what it will look like but we already have some of those pieces in place so if you look at um middle schools talked about performance tasks so
128those are demonstrations of knowledge so it's not taking a test um so we're already um well ahead in that area thinking about a seal Civic Readiness project where kids have to go out uh find something of Interest demonstrate uh different skills from critical thinking communication their problem solving planning finding ways to support the community so that's a great example of of some of the work that the state is looking to do with assessments to show M show um Mastery in certain areas our our writing similar trying to find our our writing task so we have a lot of different um PL pieces that are already in place so it's just a matter of thinking seeing what the state puts out to give us more guidance as to what it will look like but I think
129we're in a good spot um with that shift thanks Moore um I have a quick question uh I'm actually happy to see this that the fact that attendance has not been waited um on a grade in policy um and it defin it's a direct linkage when it comes to restorative practices as well right so it's no coincidence that this is done on the same day so as far but um I don't um hope that the public understands that you know there are students that are excelling that may you know possibly miss school for certain um situations but that does not take effect to their overall skill work and their attention to the actual completion of the class so um maybe you could weigh in a little bit more why your consideration have not you know
130put that in place as far as attendance being a factor for grad in policy yes the so one of the reasons we talked about shifting was we want to show what kids know so just because a a child's not here um doesn't mean they don't understand and there as you mentioned there's reasons why they're not here so we don't want to penalize kids for reasons out beyond their control when we have different skills that we're introducing over time what we try to do is you know today is I'm not Thursday today is Thursday day and I learn a particular skill it takes time to also um learn the master those skills so we also try to talk about giving kids opportunities to find different ways to show that they can understand the skill and not
131making it a one-time opportunity so just um we again we going back to the previous um presentation not to penalize kids for for not being there because when we do that we just disc we just continue to encourage them not to come right so we penalize them because you're absent why should I continue show up at school when my grade is you know so far behind I can't make it up thank you Mr Moore thank you um a couple of quick uh questions very uh good reports thank you so much for doing that um I think it's a good idea to motivate encourage the students with uh what you're doing um if a student uh does not let let's say a student's given a paper to do and they don't turn in the paper at
132all do they still get a 50 so that's what the U so going back to the Middle School um propos or middle school policy so they would still get a 50 but one of the things that we're doing inside the Gradebook is that the way that we annotate that they have interned an in so that way so they're going to get it instead of getting we marked on the Gradebook as a m it'll still be calculated as a 50 but allows us to see that Camille hasn't turned in her assignments hey let me look at some different things I can do whether it's one1 with Camille uh calling you know calling home working with them at lunch or after school but it does allow us not to give the kids a pass right so we're
133still keeping track that they aren't doing it but how we address it will look different for the different individual and the the other question is has a staff brought into this yes they did so love last school year we did two different pilot groups One Pilot group is with our our teacher leaders so for at the middle school level our smls subject matter leaders our wing leaders at the high school our department chairs and we engaged with them at a Pilot where we talked about some of the changes that um we read about in the book so we had conversations there we also had a group of Educators that opted in you know just anyone could opt in and they would try different um practices in their classroom each marking period we would reconvene come
134back discuss you know I discuss how that worked in the classroom is it something we want to move forward with so we did that throughout the entire year getting feedback from different groups of Educators to see um the changes that recommended so the changes that um you saw were with recommendations by the Educators and finally I remember last year at the end of the year uh we had a report toward the end of year we had a report on the uh reduction or elimination of homework is that part of this program or no the we didn't um so we didn't eliminate homework we just are not going to give it a grade in the for the middle school going back to the Middle School document we're not going to give a a grade for homework
135so we are still giving homework we're just not going to be so if I didn't do my homework I'm not going to be penalized for not doing my homework but we are still given homework and then the reason for that is some kids going back to access to supports so there's different some so they leave school um some kids go home and they don't have anyone to help them with their homework and some kids they get a lot of help from their homework and so sometimes what they turn in class doesn't necessarily mean that they understood it because we don't know who's doing the homework at home but we are still believe in homework because it does provide practice opportunities but we're just not going to um penalize kids or reward kids for I'm doing
136that in the great book so in the middle school there's no penalty for not doing your homework is that correct they won't they won't be penalized in the great but but we are still given homework assignments okay Mr rep uh yes um great presentation um you know I I really like this so um I I just have like a wondering I was just wondering because um when you talked about soft skill the soft skill of participation and um you know when I was evaluating teachers one of the area that I really looked at was the area of um questioning and discussion techniques you know that's one of our Daniels and Frameworks um where we get to see what teach how teachers really bring out the the U conversations and engage kids into the learning so
137again I just would like somebody to just share a little bit to me about because I was always a proponent of loving to hear kids talk and and Express themselves and I know you can't really grade that anymore that's very clear um um expressed that very well so yes um so middle school high school we still Foster that type of discourse and engagement in the classroom um but the ultimate goal is I I was a teacher in the classroom um and you had kids who felt comfortable talking all the time right and participation points were given out the kid that was quiet didn't get those participation points but that doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't master or understand the work so our goal is to really Foster a classroom environment where all kids feel safe
138to speak but you're not penalized if let's say in September you're still shy and don't feel comfortable really engaging as much as everyone else sometimes personal outshines knowledge and we really want our grade book to reflect Mastery and knowledge of content just to elaborate too I think there's a a difference between pedagogy and grade grad practices and I think that's key here uh we as as Robin just said uh we encourage in fact we we yearn and want our Scholars to engage in in uh discourse and critical thinking and uh with you know great questioning and techniques from our Educators uh just there's a difference between pedagogy and imple implementation of things like that versus reflection in the grade book uh and so we fully encourage expect every one of our kids to be engaging
139in conversations whether whole group small group or or individually with the teacher on a daily basis I like to also add that there there are different ways to for kids to show that they are so we give we assess their participation class and have them reflect on how they're doing so there was times where I used to give a group project and asked them give yourself on a scale of one and4 and I had a rubric and they would assess how they contributed to the group and then what could they do differently moving forward so there are conversations like that are still happening in the classroom it just doesn't show up in the great book so we still want kids to think about those those um pieces that are important to learning the learning process
140but just look at it in a different way when it comes to our grades right thank you very much Robin Fred that was very clear I appreciate that that and and Camille yeah thank you very much thank you Mr estada I'm going to jump down to where you had the dual enrollment courses at Middletown High School um I'm curious as to what defines a college partner because I have to tell you I'm very disappointed in wondering why Sunni orange isn't one of our College Partners thought about that too everyone bats away from that did I so so we have we have I guess I'm I I don't okay oh okay I think about it too okay all right so we we have discussed um over the summer actually we talked about just different ways that
141we could get involved with sunor so they do a lot of work with our our community um they've invited us to events um scholarships right so we just talked we have had that conversation about how can we find different ways to partner with them as well so I add sure we have done we have partnered with them last year with their um future teachers Club so they came in um and held a workshop with some of our potential future Educators from Middletown High School um so we are trying to find more ways they've been really supportive of some of our nafies um and and some other Partnerships so hopefully that continues to grow but yeah I think you're on point Mr to bison I think that issue is not just specific to our school district
142so okay yeah Mr Williams excellent presentation um uh just love the direction that we're going in just saying it was great and with Equity um like Robin you was talking about not penalizing a kid because they might be shy you know CH shine but they understand the content you know so why would you penalize them so that's what we're talking about as far as Equity um Dr conell just definitely I can tell in your energy and your presentation in in everybody's it's just you verbalize it preparation for their future you know like all of you were saying as far as what this document is going to look like because we're preparing them for the next phase and y'all have the that mindset and even if they don't have that mindset okay but you have the
143mindset and that's even with the whole thing as far as making sure that their grades it the paperwork doesn't mess them up later because anybody can just have a a difficult marking period a difficult day a difficult week a difficult Market paper but you don't want that to reflect or hold that against you for the steps of your your life and and and you're thinking in that direction and and it's it's commendable uh the preparation also with the interventions that you were talking about okay so this person had this difficulty okay we're not just going to say okay they have difficulty and move on no we let's get with them and see what's going going on let's see what we can do so we could get over this and we can get through this and
144get past this and that's what I'm hearing and I think it's excellent and I just want to commend you all on the great job that you doing um and just keep it up excellent thank you thank you Mr Williams um what' you forget about me Mr R I know I could see um just a quick uh about how many students take advantage um of our dual program our dual enrollment program right now 1,200 kids oh wow that's if we're you if we're talking that's the size of a high school and some other at least one doing at least one course around 45% of the class of 2024 graduated with at least one College course yeah and remember remember we so we have we have revamped the middle school program so that students are taking preol
145courses in the middle school so when they come they're taking College course as early as ninth grade yep setting the pattern exactly and and you know you have the full support of this board of education we expect um all of our administrators we expect all of our teachers to understand that every student in this school district will have an opportunity if they show choose to partake in these programs not just the academically strong ones but even the ones who may be not may feel themselves that they're not that strong but they won't know until they try you know and to not give those students the same um ability to take those courses is not something this board does not you know that that's a clear Direction um from the Board of Education we encourage our
146parents to speak with their children and if to their Scholars and if they so fit they want to try it we're game if they are um so I want to thank you for that um and that's one of the reasons why I asked the question about how many take advantage so that's about almost 50% of the of of the students here at the high school take advantage of uh dual enrollment courses so I think that's really important and then you know I'm going to end with the question why again we always need to find out why things are happening so if a student is grading at a 50 or a 55 there's a why to that yes you know is a student not focused and if so why not is there something going on at
147home do they not have the same resources that everybody else those are questions that in this day and age we need to ask um you know if if a if a teacher says you know um about a homework you know does the student not have time some high school students are working right after school you know so there's a lot of factors that go into why somebody Su you know we heard a story at one time about a kid who has a hundred but is out 25 days well maybe the kid needs to be challenged more I mean there's so many things that um we need to ask of our Scholars now just to understand them you know and the past it was just different you know so um helping to understand what they're going
148through is going to ultimately help us how to um teach them and how to get them to the end point we just went over yesterday and my job I was going to ask you about it um this Pi index you know where all of us take answer questions and that's for our my bosses to understand okay this is how Mr Estrada works this is a strength this as weaknesses how do we utilize that to get to the end goal same thing with our Scholars we need to understand what their strengths are I'm the father of a special ed student of a student with disability he is has is challenged in some areas and he can tell you who the umpires were in the 1956 World Series just like that it's just two different things and
149to understand that is how we you know end up putting them in in the path they need to succeed so thank you every everybody a great job now we CL I want to thank uh Mr Pino for being the patient soldier that he has been and we are here to hear his report his board member professional development report on artificial intelligence it's all yours Mr Pino yeah well this is the second installment of of that uh just to uh review the uh Workshop was conducted by among others uh Dr Mike dhy who's the assistant superintendent uh for bosis in the uh aubony area there was also a section on policy on this and one statement and Jessica Goldstein did this who is the uh director uh Director D uh director of policy services and the
150statement is policy should do something but not too much we should have a policy on artificial intelligence but it should not it should not be a uh take away the prerogative of the administrators for operations they're the operations we set the the board sets the policy again the uh Dr dhy feels that uh learning is going to be more experiential rather than focused on textbooks he said in his report that in his Workshop that teachers should not be worried about their positions because nothing's going to replace the staff but textbook manufacturers should be worried as time goes on so what can students do with uh uh do with this well number one they can personalize learning they can get help with tutoring and homework in fact there's programs that help right now with very complicated
151mathematics courses they can uh artificial intelligence consist in language learning technology and the interpretation of data now on the other hand teachers can can help teachers with curriculum design class activities student collaboration counseling physical education and Athletics uh you know there's there seems to be almost no limit to this uh there was a article that a a Complete Dental operation complicated Dental operation was performed by robots using artificial intelligence that's quite that's quite the thing um nothing is as we know nothing is free um Dr dhy sort of concludes one section with this artificial intelligence make it a usable resource instead of shunning it embracing evitable change instead of making it something that simply should not be used in schools in other words don't be afraid of artificial intelligence be it can do a number
152of items this evening we had two excellent presentations kind of ground uh breaking on uh restorative practices uh which was most informative and as I said uh when he was in school and I was in school we really didn't have too much of this so there's no way of uh avoiding artificial intelligence so you figure out Dr dhy said how to use this to the benefit also staff has to be um instructed and inservice on this he mentions change the mindset of teachers right now it's always don't use it for whatever but if they can understand artificial intelligence and understand that there's no getting around it then it can be utilized in a correct way so again there's a balance between artificial intelligence and still making sure that what students are taught is understood there's
153always that fine there's always that fine balance um not a free ride because there are a number of legal issues uh concerning artificial intelligence um the New York State Constitution Article 11 and this is basic and we've talked about this a number of times that creates a duty for each district to provide students with a sound and basic education so in other words educate ation cannot be uneven there can be no inequities in education is the president mentioned um students should have an opportunity to take the Super courses so there's no inequity they have a right to try for example one of the questions raised one of the legal issues ra what happens if a special education student in his or her school school has a use of artificial intelligence and then transfers to a
154school that doesn't utilize this is this Equitable I don't know maybe there could be a lawsuit by the parents this how about privacy uh considerations so as you see it's not a there's no free lunch on this um it's here to stay we have to U ize this I hope we get involved in this and the first thing is uh we need a perhaps a policy on this and uh uh call our administrators and check people in and see how we are using this or how we are going to use this so that was it it was a very very informative workshop and it could go on and on but it's uh I I think everybody has the idea and I'm sure the people going to the conference in New York City there will be
155a session on artificial intelligence so good so I I guess one question I would have based on your report is has the district started looking at a policy or anything coming down from Arie W bosis and I was gonna head right to you Mr redis chair of the policy committee yes um that's one thing that's coming down the pike um and we're going to address that our next meeting it's on our agenda because um uh as um John mentioned there's a lot of positive uses of AI but as the school districts and the school systems try to get comfortable with um they call it generation AI you know that's what um they'll utilize in the schools it's a difficult piece they have to continue to fine-tune it because what's happening is you inut a little
156bit of information and it gives you a whole lot of information and sometimes you know in the wrong hands it can really get into some real problems with kids getting into things that they don't need to and then also um it dumbs down the learning you know I got a research paper on um um a book The Catcher And The Ry I just put Catcher And Ry you know it it does things a lot more expedient than and you know so that's a great point because I keep um I have a folder at work that still has the old-fashioned way of calculating different ratios for the bank's perspective I've had it for 30 years in my drawer and every time I have a new portfolio manager come in who nowadays all they do is they
157take a tax return and they take the numbers that are on the return and they put it on the computer and the computer does all of computations and I always say well one day you know the power's going to go out or whatever is going to happen and what are you going to tell your customer you have to come back the next day I said take out this little folder that I've had here for 30 years make a photoc copy of of how you calculate ratios um because one day you're going to need it but that old-fashioned way of um that that's my fear um is that you know um you know quot quote the dumbing down of it and trying to figure it out you know instead of just hitting one button all of
158a sudden everything comes out at your fingertips um and then it also goes back about the the equity and the resources that a particular student may have compared to another student um and how you know how that levels the playing field and stuff like that especially for our student population so does anybody have any questions for Mr Pino and Mr I was just going to say um to that same point you know like when we used to do research papers we used to go through the microfish and all that type of periodicals and you get all this information well and and now you know kids just on their computer on their phone they just take that little short well there too young there's pros and cons aren't you pros and cons to to to to
159all of this and you know that you know that this has been um this has been on the radar you know Mr Rett and Mr Str remember that last year a lot of the at the uh nisba leadership and education conference last year not this not this past year but 2023 uh many of the many of the um presentations were surrounding um Ai and uh and then even oxa oxa has had um presentations of AI about AI um you know it's it's still in it's still a lot of it in development and uh that's why it's important for us to have a policy policy in place as it as it continues to evolve you know here's one of the issues you know my son uh last year my son uh had an essay he had
160to do and he did the essay he worked on it he stayed up all night long working on it himself developed it and put it together and then when they when they when they uh looked at his uh essay uh it came back a certain percentage of it they said was um consistent with AI and he didn't use AI at all you know those are some of the things that we have to we have to look at too you know as we're going down the balance of it and uh you know Mr Str used the term um you know the you know Equity uh involved in the usage of it um and who has access to it because everybody does have access to all of the same things so it's and and and it's not
161going away I mean we might as well we might as well um know that it's not going away it's just going to continue to um grow and evolve and so better for us to be prepared with something ahead of time as it's going as it's evolving and growing great thank you so we're going to move on to very quickly we'll go over some uh quick committe uh reports um anything on auditing Mr bison um we're supposed to have a meeting Monday correct uh Crystal Monday will Andy be able to meet to meet with us or does he need another week or so because sometimes he doesn't have that report he approved it fine thank you audit committee is meeting Monday SE Monday September 30th at 5:00 pm oh two weeks yes you're right sorry okay
162thank you um anything with change orders Mr Pino as Bill Bartley was speaking about change orders uh we go over uh the change orders each week when there are change orders uh that's connected with the uh facilities and change order committee and what we did with both the facility and change order committee and uh uh the board sa safety health and security committee uh we set the meetings for the whole year so people know uh when they're meeting the first meeting is and we set them back to back because some people are in both committees and if anybody wants to join either committee we have we do have community members on the committee but get a hold of uh uh uh Miss meree and uh she'll relay the information I'll speak with that person so
163uh we don't want to be exclusionary here you're interested give a call anybody's watching so that's that's what we're doing with these um Mr rat on policy uh yes um yes we're going to have a policy um committee meeting um October October 88th Tuesday from 5 at 5:30 so um I believe already we um Krystal and I already sent out the um the invitation so um if you can just um accept if you're going to either um be there if you can make it or not and um there'll be an agenda coming out next week thank you diversity Mr Williams um J hello okay hey hey um diversity is also October 8th and it's um Tuesdays now at the board office and it's going to be monthly and we're going to rotate between our pre-
164agendas so the schedule's coming out this week okay yeah we'll have a schedule for for the whole length of the Year yes it's also is going to be in the district office now that's where we're going to be meeting in this year yes mhm at least for now for now so as we're in transition yeah yeah so Mitch that sounds like maybe a conflict of yeah we're gonna have to figure that Tu days October 8 is October 8th as well policy doing a policy we have a policy meeting you guys have diversity meeting I was just going to start a little bit later than yours so yours should be finishing as ours begin okay okay um District safety Mr Pino anything oh as I I said we are we set up a schedule of meetings
165on that along with the facilities committee so why our way we have uh um community members on that right now Dave Green is one of the members Sergeant Dave Green Middletown Police former uh Middletown Police who along with some members of the board on that committee so October 16th uh anything on Wellness Mr at at all not at this time okay um City of Middletown Mr Freddy Williams anything well you had a big big old barbecue so um we are I'm working with the City of Middletown for the uh coming up for the holiday season with the food drive and then the toy drive so we're working on um setting that up right now so I'll be pushing out that information um and with the district also uh we all come together like it takes
166the village so we we we do that with every facet so cool thank you Mr Pino uh anything else to add on the town of walkill we very nice folder was given out to the council members and I I thanked uh amber lefree and Kevin Whit for getting this uh uh getting this going that was the reception that you got from very good very positive from the council members and from the supervising the members of of attending as a matter of fact one person in the audience who is uh a a uh master's degree in special education uh said she was going to come and fill an application for the Middletown District so she was kind of impressed by the figures and the and the uh buildings and so on so um before I get
167to Pastor Williams for nisba and oxa um I need to take a poll for those members I believe we have seven members going to the nisba conference and um we wanted to find out if members wanted us to have transportation going to the conference which would go down on Sunday and then the transportation would pick board members up on Tuesday morning for those that are staying down there I've already indicated ated that I will be driving there and back or Tuesday afternoon whatever the end is so um are you going to need Transportation Freddy how about Denise you would like Transportation okay no I'll be going on my own Sunday's my work day okay yeah that's right you Mitch not sure you're not sure yet we're not really helping Miss MRE over here Mrs M
168we've got a little bit of time though we've got a little bit of time it's not it's not it's it's it's still it's still it's still a month away so a little more clear okay so yes you're gonna drive you're gonna stay Curtis I'm up in the a what time you talking about um well that would be up to us to for for who's ever going to go to set it up as a group so right now we have one two three four looks like four good strong possibilities right and then the other three will be driving so a small yeah do we have a district a minivan okay so like a very small minivan so why don't we do this why don't we give it um by next Wednesday is that okay so by
169next Wednesday um I guess you guys are definites right so you two need to let and Denise oh you're definite too so three are defin so it's just Denise said no cheese bus I said that and then once once you have a definite then the four of you can get together with um Crystal to decide what time is best to leave leave on Sunday and what time to come back on Tuesday you know and sound good sound like a plan so by Wednesday Miss Crystal if you don't if you don't hear from him you give me a shout good job guys um Pastor did you want to add anything regarding nisba or oxa yeah um uh so first of all um first of all get ready for um a really exciting conference it's going to
170be a lot of good things that's going on uh for those that are not going to the conference we we're going seven deep which is good last year we w we were five deep right and um this year this year this year uh seven I would venture to guess s deep say that again seven I would venture to guess is almost unheard of for a school district it is it is five was unheard of last year so um and they've got they' they've got a they've got a nickname for us so um we'll we'll take it um but um nevertheless for those that are not going there is um a virtual option that is being presented on Monday and Tuesday um so um you'll be able to tune in you'll be able to tune into
171certain um uh uh presentations on those days you can go to the nisba website and uh on the convention website and you'll be able to find the basics of the schedule it's going to be updated the closer that we get to the um to the conference uh I'm going to ask Crystal um uh to to send to each of you um the resolutions um that are being presented uh for those of you uh you know we have some new board members so what happens is is that uh is that certain districts throughout the state submit different resolutions the resolutions committees um uh review those resolutions you'll see that there will be a number of resolutions that are recommended it will have the reasoning behind it um and then there'll be a there'll be a number
172of resolutions that they do not recommend and there'll be reasoning behind it um all of those resolutions um are not only reviewed by the the nisba resolution committee but they also go through the um through the diversity equity and inclusion committee um what we do Under the diversity equity and inclusion committee is we we uh look at it through a Dei lens um uh to determine if if the resolution itself is Equitable if it has if there's something in there that fits it some some of the resolutions we we have no we have no position on some of the resolutions we say for some of the resolutions we we uh say why uh why there's a problem or whatever the case may be uh so I'm going to ask Chris um or miss m if
173we we can send out all of those resolutions you'll have um you'll have a couple of weeks to be able to look at them ask questions um uh if you have any questions I won't be here at the next board meeting which is the 10th because the 10th is the is the um nisba virtual virtual business meeting uh which is going to be held at um bosies at the Carl Anin Center and so uh isn't that when we need to vote on the resolutions that's that's when we're going to be voting on The resolutions so that's why that's why uh it'll be good be good we send those resolutions out because they're actually just kind of really finalizing everything but we send those resolutions out normally we would have had our meeting the first week
174but we're going to be we're going to be out because of the holiday um so uh that's we send it out everyone to get an opportunity to um to look at it and review it so we still have a couple of weeks and you can if you have any questions about the resolution we can we can you know discuss it back and forth you know back and forth and I'll I'll try to answer as many questions as I can I'm not an expert at any of the resolutions so but uh we but but I think definitely um especially for the new newer members definitely take a look at the resolutions booklet kind of bring you up to speed but also if anybody is interested who's even even even though you may not be a voting
175member um because Pastor Williams is our voting delegate um you're more than free to go to Bose's that day and watch and and learn in case you want to become one of the voting at four o that's at four o' day day yeah on October 10th right and there's also going to be a yeah I thought we we got board meeting I think we all got the booklet virtual like um yeah we got it in email form I just want to make sure you all have email form so the other thing though is um John and Rose if you guys want to virtually see any of the workshops that Monday or Tuesday uh maybe we can schedule for you guys to come in at the board office kind of like we did the training um
176you might want to especially see the one that Middletown's doing that Amy's doing on cell phone that's on Tuesday it's on Tuesday in the afternoon and then the other one that um you and Jay Verona and myself are going to tues that's the one that's also Tuesday that's Tuesday well there's two then right because the cell phone you're Monday you're Monday Amy's Monday they and we're I'm in Europe so I won't be no problem but John if you want to see it um speak to Crystal and then we can set something up at the board office so you can watch it very good at that all right uh there's been a number of there's been a number of courses on um offered virtually by nisba yeah now and that's good they're less expensive than the
177inperson courses and they good courses you can focus on yeah I I'd like to also offer if there um you know for for our newer board members as you're going through the resolutions if you'd like to take a um you'd like to take a time where we can come and we can sit down and sit down in person and kindy to just go over it and go through the basics of it I'd certainly be willing to take some time and we can we can meet at the board office at your convenience anybody at your convenience and just uh kind of go through it go through it you know we don't have to have a quorum just but if there's two or three of you that want to just take that time over the course of
178the next week or two and then the last do the opposition what they're in favor of and what they're um with comments it gives you the reasoning it gives the the when you look at it uh it'll give you it'll give you the reasoning behind it now some of the resol utions don't because we so many different types of school districts some of the resolutions have no effect on us so you know I mean you know if it's if something that's relevant to a to a rural School District that's not going to affect us but there are some resolutions that are really relevant to small City Schools or something we're going to we're going to um trust your judgment for sure and I want to move along because I've promised everybody that we not hold
179the meeting Beyond 9:30 these days so the only other committee that um I've dropped the ball on is our student Boe member uh committee we need to get that up and running right away um so I'm going to probably tomorrow so Mr Moore Mr Pino and M and pasor winter typically is the best day of the week I have no best day of the week it's you you it's you you you say and we'll just have to make it happen so I mean typically for me a Wednesday seems to be that's fine so I'm going to um I'll speak to Crystal tomorrow and if I don't call you you call me just remind me Wednesday Wednesday's did you say Wednesday oh yes I have to come by tomorrow anyway so did you say Wednesday no
180well a Wednesday I'll pick a Wednesday coming up or is that or would you rather do a different day no I I'll try to make it work Wednesdays is my Bible study night so so we can do a diff we can do a Tuesday if you want it's Tuesday all right we'll try to we'll make it work I'll be in touch with let us all know send a text out or something Ed there was a very good article in the New York State School Board uh and that was one question I had where are we and it has recommendation I've dropped the ball on that one because I I wanted to have already had a meeting because um Crystal did a great job in getting me all the information from the other school districts that
181have okay policy in place already and the members of the committee cuz I was surprised that some of the did we send it to everybody members that they I don't remember okay had a policy in place yeah can you can you send it to um the the members of the committee on here as you said a policy in place for what um other schools that already have a student representative oh you told me about that yeah so I know Chester did some other ones and so we wanted to get because that's going to be the first thing that the committee is going to look at is what other school districts have in place and then come back with a recommendation that an outline that we can then follow I did share it out members can
182you do it again one more time thank you and um Andrew Mr Perino myself and M and John Pastor John cool thank you very much so that'll do our committee reports um I'm going to make uh a request can we adjourn Roundtable okay I have one question very quick in that same newspaper there was an article with regards to students attendance and is the is the district looking um is there is the state looking at a new policy and I figure you know you you could fill us in at another meeting thank you thank you Mr Bon all right I need a motion to adjourn so so moved moved by Mr Bon seconded by Mr R all those in favor I we'll see everybody October 10th thank you very much for your patience