BOE Budget Discussion | April 30, 2026

001Mhm. >> Good evening and welcome to the Rochester Board of Education's second budget deliberation or discussion this evening and today is April 30th. I want to first and foremost level set a bit around how we will be having this particular discussion. We recognize that in our last conversation, we identified some priorities or areas in which commissioners and community voice were looking for additional clarity and understanding and we expect and will from administration this evening be presented with some brief presentations or additional information or insights around pre-K, community schools, parent centers, home and hospital team and questions regarding RIA. We also have our budgets in front of us as well and so we do have the opportunity to ask a couple of questions there as well. The board again will have opportunity to ask questions while

002this is not a formal deliberation, we recognize the governor had another extender which was as of yesterday which is going to bring us to May 4th and so we are still waiting for our for confirmation on those allocations. So this again, this opportunity this evening, this conversation will present a time for the board to enhance its understanding again around the the and planning regarding these key issues. And on Tuesday, we will conclude with presentations that will include social emotional learning, information regarding special education, food service, and athletics. Again, on Tuesday, that will also include the closing deliberation on financial or final budget items. On Tuesday, May 12th, the board is expected to vote on the adoption of the 2026-2027 budget. And at this time, I'm going to turn the mic over to Superintendent Rosser. Thank

003you very much. If you can just give me a few minutes. I'm just trying to um get my information together. Okay, while Superintendent Rosser um pulls that information together, um I can also just reemphasize for those who may be tuning in. We've extended our board vote, which was originally supposed to be on May 5th, uh to May 12th for our vote. And all of that is should be online so that the public can keep up with how these conversations are going and where we are in the process. So, May 12th is when we are expected to take a final position as a board on the recommendations that have been presented to us on the budget as it stands. Um and it looks like the Superintendent is ready, and so I will give you the mic

004at this time, sir. >> Well, thank you very much, um Board President and Commissioners for um calling this meeting so that we can continue to work on putting together our finalized budget. I can really appreciate the conversations that we had this past Tuesday that really um highlighted those areas by which the Commissioners wanted to get more information as we are working to finalize our budget. Um first slide, please. So, one of the things I want to do is just sort of level set. There's two things. The one is talk about why our budget matters and and what we are looking to make investments in. So, of course, our budget reflects the disciplined strategic decisions aligned with the district's strategic plan and board priorities. It directs resources to classrooms, strengthens literacy, expands student support, and sustains

005safe, modern learning environments. Of course, we see investments um in the amount of funding that is provided for each of our pupil populations. So, students, general education students, students with exceptionalities, as well as our L students. In our budget, we also have enhancing literacy supports, expanding community schools, strengthening teaching and learning, as well as safe, supportive, and modern schools. So, as we all have discussed that there are a number of things that are reflected in our budget in the course of a number of things that we are challenged with at this point in time because we have not identified a revenue stream to be able to support certain areas. I do want to sort of share with our commissioners, as well as with our community, or reshare with our commissioners and reshare with our community

006um the fact that we are facing some major challenges moving forward as a school district. Based upon our projected revenues, as well as our projected expenditures, as of today, we will be requesting the use of roughly $23.9 million in fund balance. Next year, we're facing a $61 million deficit. The year after, approximately an $85 million deficit. In 2030, a $110 million deficit. And in 2031, a $129 million dollar deficit. Of course, this means if we do not do anything different today, that there will be impacts on staffing. We will need to have conversations around school closure as well as changing our footprint throughout the district. And of course, when there is limited funding, it does place pressure on student programming. We currently, of course, in our budget have identified areas where we do not have

007an identified funding stream by way of a reduction in the number of social workers, the reduction of a number of school counselors and the reduction in the number of home hospital teachers. Once again, we have not identified a funding stream to be able to support those positions so that they are no longer reductions. We do have options before us. We can most certainly look at some of our contracts such as Center for Youth and potentially eliminate that Center for Youth contract to be able to support more social workers as well as counselors. And we could also look at funding that we do have set aside to be able to address compensation increases for staff in unsettled contracts for next year. So, we do have some options that we can choose from at this point in

008time. Those options, once again, would be to reduce and or eliminate the Center for Youth contract altogether and take the 1.7 million dollars that we have allocated for Center for Youth and reappropriate it to social workers, school counselors, and home hospital teachers. Or we could also look at reducing the amount of money that we have set aside for contract negotiations for contracts that will be up next year. What we are planning today, of course, in our presentation, is to give board members more understanding around what we are doing and why we're doing things at the pre-K level. We want to talk about home hospital. We want to discuss RIA. And we also want to discuss community schools. So, with that being said, what I would like to do is to call Chief Cody. There she

009is. Chief Cody to the microphone to go over the elements of pre-K and why we are making recommendations to expand our pre-K programming throughout the school district. Chief Cody? Thank you. Uh good evening, commissioners, and thank you for the opportunity to share tonight more about our pre-K programming. Our projections for our pre-K programming support our district's maintenance of a mixed delivery model. So, you'll notice that both for this year and projected for next year, we project specialized early childhood centers, district-operated pre-K classrooms located within our elementary schools, as well as community-based organization partnerships. So, you'll notice that in the 25-26 school year, we currently have 22 classrooms within our CSD centers. This includes the current RECS Center on North Clinton, as well as the Florence Brown Center that's located at school 33. We have 86

010pre-K classrooms currently situated within our RCSD elementary schools and 60 classrooms with CBOs. At present, uh the bottom chart shows you enrollment possible meaning the seats that we had allocated and projected for this year, which was 2,821, and the actual seats filled, which was 2,598. We know that pre-K funding is allocated based on projections, but ultimately it's contingent upon enrollment, which is verified twice a year, once in October and once in March. This March we were in a position where we were expected to return funding due to the unfilled seats. So, you'll notice some of our strategy around the reduction in overall classrooms accordingly. For the 26-27 school year, we plan to maintain that mixed delivery model. We value providing our families with options, whether they would like their child to be at a early

011childhood center that is purely focused on pre-K or in one of our elementary schools or in a CBO. So, we are again maintaining that mixed delivery model, but projecting 30 classrooms in RCSD centers, which would include the current RECC relocating to school 39, maintaining the Florence Brown pre-K center at school 33, although with some uh fewer classrooms, and then opening the new center at school 44. We also project 68 classrooms to remain within our elementary schools and 63 classrooms within our community-based organizations. So, the reduction in seven total classrooms, you see what the possible enrollment um would be, which is 2,693 seats. And so again, we're we're right-sizing the projected enrollment more around our current enrollment so that we are not positioned where we have to give back funds uh later in the year. These

012changes to pre-K primarily stem from three main current needs. One being the limited space in our elementary buildings based on the required special education classes. And I know you'll hear more about special education tomorrow, but essentially based on the incoming special ed ed classes, there were not we were not able to maintain those spaces, which is what displaced the 18 classrooms that you see projected to be reduced from RCSD schools and then have those move into centers for next school year. Additionally, um considering our future expansion readiness. So given what we know about the potential impact of early learning on our long-term outcomes, pre-K is a major lever in our strategy for academic improvement. And so the 2026-2027 proposed configuration and budget do represent the beginning of a phased restructuring um that I'll talk more

013about. The considerations that you see there are sort of again just to give you a window into some of what we considered um the primary decision-making guardrails, if you will, as we had to make some of these difficult decisions because of the um inability to keep these classes in our elementary buildings due to the special education needs. One thing we had to consider is that this pre-K funding is earmarked targeted funding. This is not something that can be reallocated to serve some of these other um priorities or needs um that we're talking about within the budget. Also, again, as I talked about, the actual available classroom capacity both within the RCSD as well as within our CBOs. We did explore with our CBOs the possibility of opening additional classrooms with them as well to keep

014classrooms in the neighborhoods. And so that is why you do see the increase of three CBO classrooms for next year because the VOA, we are grateful to them, they were able to take three additional classrooms to keep classrooms in a neighborhood where we had to reduce classrooms in that elementary school. We do continue to work closely with the office of special education and building leaders to monitor the availability of classrooms. Um and so we were recently able to restore both the pre-K classrooms, monolingual and bilingual at school 22 accordingly. We also strongly considered, um and I would say this was a quite a high priority, is continuity for our currently enrolled students. So when we were looking at reducing classrooms, at no time did we want to displace a child who has been enrolled and

015experiencing, for example, pre-K 3 from a school for pre-K 4. So we maintained the pre-K 4s where we needed to so that children could roll up and remain in their current school, which may have then meant a reduction, even if a temporary reduction, in the pre-K 3 in that building so that all current kids can roll up, can experience pre-K 4 in their buildings next year, and then in the following year we would look at restoring a pre-K 3-4 pathway in those schools. So there's some short-term strategy here as well as some long-term strategy to serve the needs of our families. We also worked to ensure equitable access, including geographically, within the city, and I'll talk about that in a minute when we focus on the two centers. We looked at locations and sections where

016there has been consistently high and sustained enrollment or family demand. And so we tried to preserve those classrooms where we were seeing that high enrollment and demand. We looked at alignment with school specific context, so preserving bilingual classrooms and bilingual schools, special ed classrooms that align perhaps with the continuum in those schools, etc. And again, short-term maintenance and those long-term expansion considerations. Again, as part of this phased restructuring, we want to maintain equitable access as I've discussed in the short-term. But our plans do include the two center locations this year with a limited number of classrooms, 11 at one and 12 at the other, but with physical space beyond that at those locations 39 and 44 so that we are growing out in this next year in a right-sized way with projected enrollment. And then

017with the capacity for that more strategic upscaling in future years. So thank you for the questions around and wanting to understand more deeply our strategy around the two opening of two centers. The opening of the two early childhood centers is really a strategic decision that addresses multiple needs and priorities within the district in one single sort of focused strategy. So one would be the need for a more safe and welcoming environment for the children currently enrolled at our existing Rochester Early Childhood Center. So the 11 classrooms at RECE currently on North Clinton would be projected to move to school 39. Also, as we already talked about, there's a physical space need for classrooms that have been displaced from our elementary schools. And then as I referenced before, really the equitable geographic access is an important

018factor in considering the opening of the second center. And it was a major factor as seven of the classrooms that were displaced out of schools were within the south zone. And so our intent in opening school moving Reese E, which is in the northeast zone currently, to school 39 maintains access geographically within the northeast zone. Our concern with putting the 12 classrooms that were projected for school 44 also at school 39 and only opening one center is that that is going to limit the geographic access to families to have the option within their zone. So opening those two smaller programs now gives our families that equitable geographic access while at the same time positioning us for that phased expansion that we want to lean into in future years because we know the impact that early

019learning can have on our children. Some of the anticipated impacts that we expect from this, obviously relief of those K-6 space constraints within our elementary schools. Um our families will experience a shift in site proximity for some of them if they were wanting a local elementary school at which perhaps there are now not classrooms at, but again trying to balance that with offering a center in each zone so that there's still relative proximity. While it might not be right down the street, they still have proximity within their zoned neighborhood. School level adjustments to programming changes, obviously there'll be some impact on our schools that have those classes. They'd like to take them in at three and they have them and support them as they grow up through elementary school. Um so some adjustments there. We

020do expect there to be improved safety and facility quality given the move of Reese from North Clinton to School 39. More efficient and sustainable use of resources as we are able to concentrate some resources at these centers um to support that developmentally appropriate education. We expect that we would be able to see increased access to high-quality pre-K as we sort of take this again, step back in order to take two steps forward. And ultimately, we expect stronger early learning outcomes, which lead to stronger long-term success. So, this includes a future impact on all four of the board goals as more opportunities to engage and strengthen foundations with our earliest learners is indeed going to lead toward all students reading by third grade, students in grades 3 through 8 being more proficient in math and ELA,

021and students earning five or more credits by the end of ninth grade. So, pre-K is our first opportunity to really engage our learners in ways that positively impact all of these goals. And if I can add, thank you very much, Chief Cody. If I can also add that one of our strategies also was to make sure that we were providing opportunity for our families who may have 3-year-olds or 4-year-olds by providing additional seats. We are providing opportunities for them not to have to worry about child care costs. So, that was also a factor that went into our thinking around expanding our pre-K opportunities throughout the district. And given the fact that the governor in her executive run is indicating that Rochester is slated to receive an additional $8 million. We We felt that by doing

022this, this would be in alignment to the funding that we're receiving, as well as, you know, our ability as a school district to provide greater opportunities for our community's youngest learners to be engaged in meaningful learning opportunities within the Rochester City School District, our CBOs, um and our CBOs. So, with that being said, are there any questions that we would like to ask Chief Cody as it relates to her presentation? Okay, thank you for unpacking that and providing rationale and thoughts around that. We're going to open the floor for a little conversation and questions, and we do have, again, about three or four other presentations, so I do want to um make sure we get thorough understanding around some things. Uh I do want to lead, and you may have touched on it, and I

023might have missed it. I also, before I do that, I want to acknowledge that we have another commissioner online, and so someone will let me know if a hand comes up. And also, this is a presentation wonderful, not on BoardDocs, but I'm my understanding is that we will have this published for It is now? Wonderful. So, the public should be able to see this as well. So, this is wonderful. My question is, did I miss um any type of um anticipated transportation barriers that our families may um run into? So, we recognize that Reeces is in its current state is not in the most safe or ideal space. Um and so, going to a green space is going to be powerful and helpful for families. However, if transportation was getting them the access, how are

024we supporting that? Do we have that understanding? >> Yeah, so right now, as a school district, we do provide um bus passes, from my understanding, to families who may have transportation insecurities. Um most of our parents, many of our parents do transport their children to and from pre-K. So, our thought is as we are developing these centers and we do have some numbers on the number of parents who have elected thus far through the lottery to participate in either of these centers that our parents would continue to provide the transportation. We do know that there is legislation in Albany, which I'm hoping is part of the conversation in Albany where it would provide reimbursement for the school district for pre-K transportation expenses. We have not heard if that has received any momentum or whether or

025not that's going to be, you know, available to school districts across the state for this upcoming year. But, that's one of those unknown things that we are anticipating anticipatingly waiting. Yeah. And and I appreciate the clarity around the mixed model that you're using. It really helps to clarify some misnomers that even I may have had around the fact that not all elementary schools they will have some pre-K classrooms, that CBOs are in fact increasing in their pre-K capacity at least by three and and that there's not multiple pre-K centers opening but one is opening while there is a relocation and we know logistically If I can also add that one of the things that's in our proposed budget is that we're looking also to increase the allocation per CBO. So, right now it's at $10,000

026per student. We're looking to increase that with the additional funding that we're receiving from the state to $12,500 per student. And then my last point and I'll be quiet and then you guys get to have as many points as you want to, right? I think I did is this my third one? And then I'll make sure that everyone has three points or what have you that they'd like to present is on um I didn't realize we had the gap in the um like 233 unfilled seats. So, that's good because we do recognize that early childhood learning and access prior to uh kindergarten does accelerate a child's ability to be ready for school, which are the things we want to see in the learning process. So, thank you for um giving that information. I'm opening the

027dais um for additional um questions and I do have one from Commissioner LeBron. Yeah, and I'll I'll be honest, I don't know if if I'll personally be staying for the remainder of these. I didn't I I don't want justifications for what I've already pointed out and I will publish actually after I leave here. Um I have just want to put that out there, but um I just want to point out, School 44 is not outfitted to take in a pre-K. And what has not been mentioned is what the cost factor of that be. You guys are over here talking about dollars coming theoretically we we I in politics, I believe it when the vote has passed and the money has flown out. I am not believing words out of the governor without a vote and

028that money coming in. So, let me just be clear on that. But no conversation and in past historically, that is like a 3 to 5 million-dollar factoring in at the actual move, right? To then outfit classrooms, bathrooms for pre-K. None of those things are cheap. And we're doing that at a time where we're also saying we don't have money, so we're going to cut staff. And it's that imbalance and I don't know you and I want to be clear, this is not personal to you, Chief. I I don't even know your last name. Um but you're here representing pre-K in a space that I have been at for a very long time and I've never seen you ever in the community CBOs table, at the Children's Institute at the None of these spaces where pre-K

029has been intentionally developed and communicated and talked and worked on and that is the one area that we always tell that gets it right in this district not just on how we're educating in pre-K but how we even do partnerships in that space. We've always had great collaboration, great partnerships. And so for folks who are not experts and not have been leading in that space for this community again to come in and make these big sweeping recommendations and changes and not bring the community along. I I just cannot vote for this type of stuff. Um, but I do want to point out that there is cost factors to adding, moving, uh, including schools, um, and swing space, right? The swing space will cost us to move families. Um, and then I just this is going

030to be my last comment as a I superintendent mentioned a lottery. We can't do a lottery on pre-K. You are not legally allowed to tell parents where they select what pre-K program they go to. It's one of the regulations that we differ from K-12 where we can create policies to sort of say we're going to create a zone and that's our policy, but the law says parents have a right to pick wherever they want to go and a bus pass doesn't cut it. So, if y'all think that we're going to get these monies and we're just going to continue to get bus passes, it doesn't cut it. It doesn't cut it for my daughter. My daughter who has four kids, two that are were enrolled in the district, one who got disenrolled because my daughter

031cannot get her there every single day and I tried, but I also have another child to get all across in a whole different location. And that child is my grandchildren are at school 33. I have two more that are coming in this school year entering pre-K 3. So, I want to be clear like this these conversations are going to be directly impacting my own babies. And I can't imagine that my daughter would have to have my grandkid who by his IEP has to be at 33. That's not even the closest school to her by the way. There are two schools she can walk to, but she is at 33 because we put kids based on IEP at a school. And then she's going to bring two more kids to enroll and you guys are going

032to put her at like like 39 to get to for an overflow. Like I hear what you guys are saying, but logically when we start to apply what this looks like for real families on a day-to-day just doesn't make sense. And so with that, I don't want to get upset. I I know that there are other commissioners. You have six other people to convince for this budget vote. So, with that I yield the mic and with that good night. Thank you, Commissioner LeBron. Did you want have anything any clarity that you could provide or I'll step. All right. So, we have any other commissioners that have anything that they'd like to >> Griffin has her hand Thank you, Tom. Commissioner Griffin. Yes. I mean, I I think Commissioner LeBron said most of everything that I

033would have said. >> Uh Commissioner Griffin, can you >> thing I wanted to add to it was I have a vital concern in how we in the past how some of the doors or classroom doors have been closed off and we building up the district with the kids when there's open doors at our CBOs. And which is affecting them economically and affecting our children in those neighborhoods that would like to go to those CBOs. So, I I have a problem with actually the numbers and saying that we need these kids to we need the space because we have a lack thereof space for our children to learn when actually some of the CBO's doors and classroom doors are being closed because the district is holding out putting the kids in those CBOs. So, that is

034a big concern of mine, but I think again Commissioner LeBron basically touched upon all the things that I would would have said as well. That's why I'm against it. Thank you, Commissioner Griffin. Do we have any other questions regarding pre-K? Uh Vice President Maloy. Yeah, I I would like some clarity uh similar to what Commissioner LeBron said about the cost that's involved in making these moves and where that's being absorbed. Um it's got to come from somewhere. What How much is this costing us? Yeah, um Chief Scott is out today. Uh we can most certainly get that information, but the cost right now are being allocated to the pre-K grant. There are things that we can use in the pre-K grant for moving and doing some other things that we can do some outfitting for

035these centers. And currently, School 44 does have model pre-K classrooms in place. Um a lot of our our our teachers have gone over there to receive professional learning. Um but we still would need to do some updates to many of the classrooms over there. That is my understanding. I'm not certain. Um Chief uh McDowell, I know that you've had conversations with Chief Scott about the costs associated with um these moves. Yes, we did. And uh for both of those schools, the costs were um somewhere in the $900,000 range. And they were going to be um uh taken care of um starting May 1st to be make sure we're ready for September 1st. And just a follow-up. I'm so sorry. Um so that would potentially could be paid for out of Was it the $4.9 million

036for pre-K? >> $8.1 I'm sorry. Okay, and so a portion of that could be used or I would love to see the breakdown. I know it can't happen tonight, but I would like to see the breakdown of where exactly the funds are being drawn from and how much of that fund is going to be used for the move. Okay. Thank you. Lastly, all you said that there's one space was at 44 does have the pre-K space, but there would need to be changes to the other classrooms and so there's confirmation that the others centers or spaces mentioned will need reconfiguration and and modeling and and so probably in the weeds. I'm just wondering what that timeline would look like and that was that something that would be ready for the start of the year we're

037anticipating or Yeah, most certainly. You know, so we've already begun planning particularly for the transition the North Clinton Reese's over to school 39. We've also begun the planning for the opening of a pre-K center over at 44. Okay, thank you. >> There's been considerable number of conversations associated with that. That's included not only Chief Academic Officer Cody who ultimately as the Chief Academic Officer has responsibility of pre-K, but Eva Top, Dr. Eva Thomas has been a part of of those conversations and if I would say that Dr. Eva Thomas would be here today presenting, but due to some other things that she's not available to present today. But she's been a part of the conversations and continue to be a part of the conversation. >> Right. And I can lift a little bit of Commissioner

038LeBron's thoughts around if if you were around like you say you were around and I know you were then you know Robin Hooper and those type of things and so those were very familiar faces and I can appreciate um perspective and I'd have a last hand from Commissioner Santiago before we move on to um the next uh presentation. >> Yeah, just for clarity, were you saying 900,000 each or 900,000 uh together? Each. Each. So, about 1.8 million dollars. Yes, sir. I know in the beginning we were having conversations about possibly having to cut um the budget or the contract from um Center for Youth or even in our contract negotiations and so that's just about the same amount that was given a little bit earlier and so I'm just These are just thoughts to put

039out there. I know that it's important for us to to get some things done. Um we have to prioritize uh certain things and that's all I'm saying. >> that some of these dollars as as Chief Cody opened up with, these dollars are targeted for pre-K. Right, but I'm not entirely sure if that grant is covering us us fixing some of our buildings. Okay. We can get that. So, I think that that's some of that has to be explained. Um and from what what I'm hearing that that's not entirely what's what will what would be available, so. President Simmons. Yes. Commissioner Griffin has her hand up again. All right. Um well, that we're moving So, that was the last one on pre-K. Did you have something on pre-K, Commissioner Griffin? Yes. Yes, I'm walking in, but

040I just wanted to know if you have numbers of the availabilities for all the CBOs in that area and any vacancies or any recent doors of being closed for their classrooms and while you're saying that we need the space, I I'm I'm I want to be clear in knowing that we do really need space or is this something that we're doing to grow the numbers in the district? I guess that's a big concern of mine along with the cost. Does that make sense? So, we'll see you You said you're on on way into the building and uh I am on my way in, but I just want to know if we can get the numbers from the CBOs and and and and and the availability of space. And if they had to close their some

041of their classroom doors because um the children were not being released to their buildings because this is these are some of the things that I have concerns about. >> Correct. We heard you and we are capturing that for the log and we'll see you when you get in. Okay, thank you so much. Um Superintendent Rossier. Okay. So, we're going to tran Thank you very much, Chief Cole. We're going to transition to our next presentation. Um presentation will be led by our Deputy Superintendent. Deputy, if you can sort of take us through conversations around home hospital. Good evening, President Simmons, Vice President Malloy, commissioners, superintendent, colleagues, community members. I want to begin grounding us in the regulatory framework that governs home hospital instruction. So, my presentation will be rooted in what does the law say? What

042do our data tell us? And what are the best practices that research has yielded regarding how we need to move forward with our very fragile population of home hospital students. Under the New York State Education Department Regulation 100 .22, this service is not discretionary. It it is tightly tightly defined and requires clear medical documentation. Specifically, a student must be unable to attend school for at at 10 days within a 3-month period due to illness, injury, or a medical or mental health condition. Additionally, the parent or guardian must submit formal documentation from a treating health care provider. Also, the parent must sign that the school has permission to communicate with that doctor. Unless we have all of these elements, legally, the district cannot approve services. Now, this matters because it ensures that home hospital instruction is

043used appropriately and consistently across the system. It is not an alternative placement for students. It is a medically driven instructional support. And now, as we think about our redesign moving forward, we are anchoring our work in compliance first. We have to do what the law tells us to do. As we move forward, we have to make sure that every single decision we make is aligned with state expectations because it protects the district and most importantly, it ensures that students who truly need and deserve home hospital care, home hospital instruction, receive those services in timely and an appropriate manner. Move on to the Thank you. So, let's look at our data. So, we talked about what the law says. So, let's thoroughly examine the data that we have here in Rochester City School District. Now, when

044we look at students receiving home hospital services, what becomes immediately in apparent is that it's not a one-size-fits-all. Medically, home hospital services can be given to students who have extreme medical fragility. Babies who have cancer. Babies who have significant autoimmune deficiencies. Students who are hospital-bound. After that very specific set of students, we also have to look at students who have some short-term illnesses. Our young mothers who may have been on bed rest because of their pregnancy, and now they need time at for recovery after giving birth. An athlete who may have had a an injury and now needs 6 to 8 weeks at home or in the hospital to recover. These are short-term illnesses. Additionally, we need to look at our group of students who suffer from anxiety, significant mental health issues, agoraphobia. So, we

045have three distinct groups of students who are in these categories, and when we look at the research, we need to be very clear about the model of instruction that we are giving to the students based on their medical needs. Let's look at our data. The range of needs requires a differentiated support. Medically fragile students require something that's very different from a student who is experiencing anxiety. And both are different from a student who may have to recover from an in- injury. Now, equally important is understanding that home hospital is intended to be temporary. So, our students should enter, receive support, transition back to school-based environment when appropriate. So, as we re- redesign this model, we are intentionally building a system that is flexible enough to respond to different student needs, but structured enough to ensure

046that entry and exit points are clear, appropriate, and consistently applied. Now, this slide provides a snapshot of our monthly entry and data ex- Oh, I'm sorry. Could you go back? I'm so sorry. So, we see in September, October, November, December, on through April, numbers of students who entered, numbers of students who exited. First, we notice that there is consistent movement. Students are entering and exiting services regularly, which reinforces that this is not a static placement. It's transitional by design. Second, we see demand across the entire school year, starting in September and ending June. We know that we will have students entering and exiting this program. This tells us the need for services really and truly are ongoing and predictable, but not isolated. Third, in several months exits meets or exceeds entries. Now, this is important.

047It shows that students are returning to school, which is exactly what we want. Now, however, the challenge that we have is that the numbers of teachers that we have far exceed the needs of our students. That's what our data are telling us. When we did a deep dive into the data, we noticed a few things. We noticed that we have some medically fragile students with some short-term illnesses. That's about 11 kids. And per the regulations, 11 kids can be and should be serviced by about six teachers. If they're all in high school, because a student in high school receives 3 hours of instructional services, a student in elementary school receives 2 hours of instructional services. And we're talking about our medically fragile students, they may not be able to experience the full 2 to 3

048hours because of the nature of their conditions. So, when we're looking at our most fragile children, we only need approximately six teachers. When we look at our students who have uh maternity medical um care, we have three students. So, that will be short-term. Those students will exit and return to home schools, or they should. Unfortunately, as we were uncovering the data, we have been allowing students to stay in our most restrictive environments without medical permission. That's a clear violation. So, we have to do a much better job tracking our students because we know what the research says. I could give you a list of research articles, but we don't need that because we are still dealing with what happened to our children from being isolated as a result of COVID. So, I don't need to

049explain to you that when at all possible, our students need to be grouped with their peers so that they can receive instruction. And if we're looking at that model, we would not have teachers working one-on-one with students who have short-term conditions. We would want our teachers to service those students in small groups whenever possible. So, right now, we have two teachers who have three students each. We have 19 teachers who have two students each. We have eight teachers who have one students each. >> [snorts] >> And so what we are saying is according to our data, there is a far more efficient way to ensure guarantee that our students who require the sensitive medical instructional model receive exactly what they deserve and are entitled to. This model is not an efficient model. Can we move

050forward? I appreciate that. Thank Yes, I'm going to finish this. Okay. So now as we think about instruction, our approach to maintain what is required, so we want to maintain what is required. We never ever would ever take resources away from children that deserve them. These children deserve them. But we want to expand what is possible and what students need in order to be emotionally healthy upon their return to school. We want to group them in small environments whenever possible. Our most vulnerable students, particularly those with IEPs that mandate it, we will continue to provide the one-on-one tutoring. We currently have 17 students who require that level of individualized support, and we will remain fully commit compliant to those mandates. So what that means, 17 students would require eight teachers if they're all at the

051high school level. Now, at the same time, we're expanding to include small group synchronous instruction. So, if I'm an athlete and I have a a broken tibia and there's another student out who has mono and there's another student out with another issue, we can all learn synchronously together in a small group online instruction while sometimes receiving one-on-one. That's what's best for kids and that's not the model that we are um fully implementing currently, but we are proposing that we would move to that model. So, this allows us to use staffing more efficiently without compromising quality. In fact, we would be enhancing quality for our students. So, we would be building a tiered model, highly individualized support where required, and structured group instruction where appropriate. This would ensure that we're meeting student needs while also creating

052a system that operates effectively and sustainably across the district. So, the goal is simple. We remain continuity of learning, we reduce isolation, and we support students transitioning back to school environments when they are ready. So, that's what home instruction can look like. So, at this point of time, we will entertain questions. So, board president. Thank you. Um I do have a question. So, um and and I appreciate um bringing us through the legalities of the program, the sensitivity, and the the needs of our children that are taking um advantage in of that service, not even taking advantage. They need that service in that way. You mentioned, I'm just going to jump toward the end. You mentioned online services and um although I don't require home hospital instruction, I know that for myself as a learner,

053I'm a visual learner. I'm also a learner that appreciates being in person and with people. That connection helps me learn. So, I'm wondering with the online piece, although it can be helpful um in some cases, is that a mandate that that children have that or is that an option that families will be able to say you know what, my child or the child says, I would like to do this online or they you know, do they have an option there? >> Yeah, that's something we most certainly can explore. One of the things that we were pulling from, particularly as it relates to the online um programming for this population is we were pulling from the highly success the high success of our Virtual Academy program. You know, currently throughout the district, we have students who

054are highly engaged in the VAR programming that's been developed over a number of years and has proven to be extremely supportive and successful for students who for whatever reason, you know, are not able to receive instruction one-on-one. Excuse me. Instruction in a classroom um with a teacher. Additionally, there are some students with severe anxiety. They may not want that one-on-one. They may not want to be in a physical space with other students, but would have a greater success if they were in an online community together. So, to your point, it would we would be opening options for families based on the needs of their individual children. Okay, last question. What if like no families opted for the online? Then would we need to maintain the staffing structure or would we have enough staff to accommodate

055if no student opted for online if that is truly an option? We would have enough staff because as we saw in the slide previous to this, we have eight teachers with one student. Additionally, all of the teachers aren't captured in that slide. So right now there are 33 teachers who are assigned to home hospital and through the calculations here it appears that 29 have assignments where the other four do not. Currently. And this does change from from month to month. So when we look at our trends, you know, there are more students in certain times of the year that may qualify for home hospital, but it's most certainly important for us to make sure that if we're providing this service, that it follows the outline that is given to us that's prescribed by the law.

056Thank you. I want to open the day to ensure that any questions are taken care of. Thank you, Commissioner Finnesole. Commissioner Santiago. Yeah, if if we can go Oh, no, that's actually the slide right there. Um so overall, what we see from September to April um is 92 students who were enrolled um and by the end of exit I I also don't like the way that the the data was put up there cuz I believe it's kind of misleading. There should have been a total, you know, it looks like, you know, there's not a lot of children there monthly and and stuff like that, but the total really is 92 students who were enrolled in this home hospital program uh from September to April and 73 students who exited, which is part of this the

057regulation that they stay for 3 months. Um, but I know the conversation was that there there really only needs to be six teachers. And so, my question to you, and I and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but how are six teachers going to be dealing with 92 students throughout the school year who have different needs? And I'm not totally against having an option for students who may want to do it online who may not. But, this regulation does have a lot of specifics as far as what we're expected to do as a district. Within the first 5 days, we must already start their instruction. And so, my question to you is if there's 92 students and only six staff that you guys want to remain in this department, how are we going to

058uh make sure that we're following this regulation and also providing the supports to our students as needed? Thank Thank you for that question. It allows me to clarify a few things. So, when we looked at our data, while there were 91, 92 students enrolled, legally, that number was significantly reduced because we didn't follow the law. We didn't make sure that we have the necessary documentations. We didn't follow up to make sure that students still have the right to remain in the program, but we'll clean that up moving forward. So, when I when I use the number six, I was only referring to the students in the medically fragile short-term illness that component. We have budgeted approximately 25, 26 moving forward. We have a full complement that would be able to service 90-something students. However, what

059I am saying, what we are proposing is that we be very careful about relegating every single student to the most restrictive environment. We never want to do that unless it's medically necessary. Wherein we have the opportunity to put students with their peers in small groups, that's always the best way to help students remain connected to the school community and have an easier transition back into school with their peers. Okay. I Okay. I I just I do have some some concerns about that. And certainly even speaking about um trying to use the the online method as like our our main method, I mean, that's not helpful. And I think that we even see that happening sometimes with our suspended students. And it's not It's not helpful to have them on online instruction compared to in-person with

060another human being who's there to support them. And so, those are just some of my concerns. Thank you. >> I if I can I I agree with you that that may not be the the We're not saying that that's the total solution. I think what we are saying is that we need to really think out the box. I think we need to provide greater opportunity and access for our families to then be able to make those decisions. But, as Dr. Wright indicated that some of our students have been relegated um to this particular model, and this model could be limiting, you know, to what our children need. So, what we're saying is that what we would like to do with the revisioning of our home hospital um program is to also revision the model so

061that our children, their families, their needs can be met holistically versus any child that an the or or has a doctor's note has to receive instruction this only way here in the Rochester City School District. I may comment at the the city council hearing that, you know, we have school districts across the state. You know, I may reference to Syracuse, I may reference to Buffalo where I had the responsibility as an associate superintendent to build this program and to oversee this program as one of my my my many things in the portfolio. And we have a hybrid model. We had a group of teachers who were providing instruction during the day and then we also provided opportunities for other teachers after hours to be able to provide the instruction making sure that we were meeting

062the needs of our families. So in the event that a family you know, could not provide a child during the school day to receive instruction from that core group of teachers, but they could provide them after hours that we had individuals who were then available to provide instruction to students after hours. Sometimes particularly when we talk about our medically fragile kids, sometimes they may be undergoing, you know, medical procedures or they may be, you know, at doctor's appointments during the day. We provided opportunity for them to also receive instruction after hours. So, you know, we're looking at a model that most certainly will expand the opportunities for our children and not simply remaining with our current model because it is limiting opportunity and access for varying learners because some students do learn best in a

063group setting, some students learn best in a one-on-one setting. So we want to make sure that with this revisioning of home hospital offered through the Rochester City School District that number one, we are following the law and then second to that, we are providing multiple opportunities of engagement to our children versus saying to our children and their families, the only time that we can provide you with instruction is from this hour to this hour. Yeah, and it's good to see a plan or at least, you know, some kind of um reasoning or thought behind this, but I think it's important for us to know like exactly what it is. Um and I know that you guys are talking about possibilities of this, possibilities of that, but um it's kind of like being asked to vote

064or to to commit to a plan that we don't fully know until after hand. And so I think it's just important that we know these things before and I know this gives some concepts, some ideas, but it doesn't give like a clear plan on how if you guys vote on this budget with the cuts, this is how we'll be handling it. Um and so it's, you know, we we need that information before we vote which solidifies our commitment to that. Well, thank you for your um contribution. Um I don't know what word I want I'm looking for. I just Excuse me. I do have a question though too as far as um that we were looking at We have how many do we have in our program currently? 33 Um I believe um Dr. Warden,

065do you have that information handy that you can provide? 36.5 36.5 Yeah, I was looking through the Oh, we're talking about the number of staff. I'm sorry, I thought you were talking about the number of students who were currently enrolled in the No, I'm asking about the staff. We have the 36 cuz I was I had something >> 36.5 36.5 And with this 21 potential the conversation you're having, how many staff will we have? That's 30 We have 33 [clears throat] staff that were cut from the budget, but some of those staff that are in the book also reflects, I believe, a social worker, clerical support, and things of that nature. So. >> 27. I just wanted to take a make sure I'm just understanding that right. And Mike, this is is this one of

066those function things, or is this the actual number of teachers on page 127? Because individuals are categorized sometimes by function. They may or may not be a teacher. They may be clerical support that is in that area. So, when you look at home hospital, it indicates that 36.5 And what we are proposing is 21, which That that would include your any clerical other supports. That's Yep. So, they have a nurse. They have >> have a nurse. Okay, thank you for that added clarity in what that what that line incurs. Um and I towards the nurse. So, I do apologize, Commissioner. Um I meant So, I know you had a hand for question. I jumped in front. Yeah. Um thank you. So, on this slide currently, it says long-term suspension is not allowed in that under

067the regulation, and I understand that. I'm just curious where they are getting their um education. That's one question, and I'll let you answer and as I keep going. Okay. Currently, the homes So, right now, um we have a system that engages the hub under the leadership of Jessica Norquist. Every single student who receives a suspension, she connects her inner team connects with the family and the school to ensure that they are receiving virtual instruction. Virtual. That's the current model. Okay. We We are building out a new model for next year. Um So, I can I can only speak to my own child, um who is in the process of getting our paperwork so that she can enter the school system again. My own daughter has been out of school since October because she has we'll

068call it agoraphobia and leave it at that for then. So, she is so far behind because she's not been in school since October. So, for her to enter a program where she was engaged with other children, she now needs to relearn algebra from the very beginning. And one of the reasons we're talking about placing her in HH, as what we like to call it, at home, is because she has to If she were to walk into a classroom right now, they'd be doing quadratic equations and she doesn't remember what x + 2 = 7 means. So, I struggle with understanding how my daughter would be placed in an in an environment where she had other kids. Where if we have all these multiple levels and multiple students, my daughter is a very quick learner. They

069don't anticipate her even being in there for 3 months till she's caught up, thankfully, but at this it is the only way she can enter school is through this to get her caught up so that she understands where she's at so she doesn't walk in blindsided and overwhelmed and go back to the beginning again. So, my struggle is if they were to put her in in a virtual program, which by the way, she would love, but >> [laughter] >> with other students, I don't think she would get the support that she needs. And I struggling with understanding how you can put more than one child in a group setting where they will be all over the place. You wanted me to respond to that? >> Yes, please. >> Okay. So, I I think that it's

070very it's very um we have to be very careful not to base the concept on one story. So, every single child's needs are unique. So, for a child like yours who has a particular condition, if the best course of action because that course of action, also according to the law, has to be co-designed with the family and the school teachers, if that best course of action for your daughter is one-on-one, we would say one-on-one. And after 30 days, revisit with you to see if maybe she's ready to go into a small group setting because if you want her to go back to school, you may want to consider allowing her to start first in a small group setting. After that, we re-evaluate, we talk with the doctor, we rewrite the plan. If that's not working

071for her, she goes back to one-on-one. If it's working for her, she moves forward, and then we talk about a re-entry plan. Yeah. And if I can just say real quick, too. So, what what Dr. Wright is describing is a very real example that we experience in Buffalo. We found out in Buffalo that we had two children in the family that had never set foot in the school, and and one child was 16 years old, and one was 13 years old. Parent never registered them from school. So, what we did as a transition plan to support the children through of course having the the script written from the doctor because they were frightened, they were terrified to go into school. We then developed a plan where we were able to provide the one-on-one instruction. And

072then as time went on, we slowly integrated them. And by the end of the school year, because this We learned about this at the beginning of the school year, we were then able to transition the younger child into an actual school in which they began to flourish. And I I understand and appreciate that, but if you have a child I'm just I can only use mine as an example, who is going to flourish and is going to be okay, but she's at a high level, and she's in AP classes. And then you have another child who is in gen ed in a different class in a different grade level at all. I mean, how are you going to group these kids? Because the beauty of HH program is that it allows that one-on-one. And you

073have all these diverse grade levels and uh experience levels and academic levels, how are you going to merge them into a small group? That's what I don't understand. Yeah. Just okay. So, we rely on the expertise of the teachers to make informed decisions around which students would work best with um a one group for math, another group for English, another group just so that they can sit down and talk with each other. We will rely on the expertise of our home hospital teachers to make those highly informed technical decisions that they are really being paid to be able to do because that's why they're in this role. And I appreciate that greatly. So, I also want to make sure that if we experiment with this and we don't find it to be successful for some

074kids that we definitely have the kids the teachers available for the one-on-one. Um I'm just I'm that's my biggest concern. My last question and do you want to ask it? The last question is the teachers who are being reduced are they being placed back into the buildings different buildings? Are they being let go? What is the plan? >> So, let's Yeah, let me let me provide some clarity just so that we're using the same terminology. Currently, we don't have funding and we don't have a revenue stream to support the the remaining teachers out of the 18 that we have been able to identify a funding stream. Based upon the certification areas of those individuals, um each of those individuals for the most part, um and I have a listing of where they're currently at um

075as it relates to their number of years of service. Right now, we're not we're not seeing that any of the teachers who currently we don't have a funding stream for will be displaced and without a a job. They would be placed back into a classroom setting. Last question and this is a question I've had on the diocese for several months. Um H&H brings money into the district. Um they work in partial and I'm just wondering I've asked for clarification on where that money is and when do we get it? I was told it's approximately a million dollars and it's not in any I haven't seen that yet. So, I know that with the increase in partial in the program on South Avenue, um we provide for those children to be educated and not all of

076those are from Rochester City School District. Yeah, so that's something that we're trying to track down as well. We're trying to track down if there is truly a revenue stream. What I shared previously that historically the school district in which a hospital was located was responsible for providing the instruction to students who were in that facility. In years past what has transpired particularly here in Rochester was that the hospital in which we used to provide the instruction for all children, be them Brighton kids, be them um kids from wherever that the hospital has created another model by which those students who are not Rochester City School District students are being instructed. So, that no longer exist. Right. So, yeah, what I'm saying is that no longer exist at the major hospital, but if it still

077exist here, we're trying to figure out and track down what the revenue stream is that perhaps, and I will say perhaps, we haven't been able to to sort of clearly put our finger on it, but perhaps we have not necessarily been billing or the funding has not come, but given this eye-opening information, as I mentioned when we spoke before, we are trying to identify, you know, what the funding stream is for Home Hospital at this point in time. The revenue funding stream is for Home Hospital at this point in time. Thank you, Commissioner Fineman. Vice President Maloy. Yeah, thank you so much. First and foremost, thank you for all of this information, and I also want to thank my board colleagues for asking all of these, you know, questions and bringing up or raising so

078many concerns, cuz I think I shared many of those concerns. So, thank you. This is quite informative, and again, I think would have been helpful maybe to have this prior information, but thank you so much for having it now. Um, my question is mostly around staffing and I'm coming at this just from the teaching perspective. I'm a full-time teacher. Um, and you know, since 7:30 this morning until 3:45, I had to rush to get here for the 4:00 time. There wasn't a moment of my day when I wasn't with students. Um, I really didn't get to use all my free periods or anything. I was with students um, throughout the entire day. So, I'm trying to understand what I'm seeing in front of me up on this chart. And if you could maybe talk about

079what is a standard caseload for a home health instructor? Because I I am not a home health instructor. Like, are these people part-time when we say there's it looks like you have Let me know if I'm understanding this correctly. So, we have with caseloads of student, you have eight of our current 34, 35 home health instructors who only are serving one student? That is correct. But, sure certainly like and I don't know are are these instructors under the same contract? Is there a different collective bargaining agreement for these instructors? Like, or perhaps they're working at another school like to make up cuz that's like it could potentially be 2 hours if it's just the elementary that they're working with. Are those elementary teachers or are those high school teachers who have maybe a 3-hour caseload?

080>> Not necessarily. Um, so they are members of the RTA and they have an 8-hour work day. For the contract. Okay. And a student who who in high school is entitled to 3 hours per day, 15 hours per week. An elementary student is entitled to 2 hours per day, 10 hours per week. >> Okay. And if I can just say that this was a regulatory change that happened, I believe, June of 2023 to take effect of 4 July 1st, 2023. >> But I guess I want to follow up with um I know that some of these teachers though, obviously you have to go to students' homes, they're traveling. We have to account for the fact that I don't know what travel time looks like for our instructors. So, you know, if we're talking about eight

081teachers who have a two or three-hour that's class time, right? But then there's other time that they have to spend to maybe travel to and from those other locations. So, that that takes up more time. How is that How are they scheduled? I don't know if I'm making any sense here, but I I just want to understand what a typical caseload is for a home health teacher and what like if we are taking into consideration that travel time for those people and if you have two or three students, I mean, you could be traveling all over the city to different locations. >> the way that we have factored in is if you're a home hospital teacher and you're teaching two high school kids, that the most that you can have on your caseload on any

082given day is two children because the secondary kids need to have 3 hours. Okay. >> So, in an 8-hour day, because per the contract, the home hospital teachers are scheduled or should be scheduled to work 8 hours, they can only do 6 hours. >> Okay. But if it's an elementary school student, then they can have up to three because it's 2 hours each. So, that's 2 hours elementary, if you have three of them, that's 6 hours. Okay. So, I guess then, thank you so much for these answers. It's really helping me better understand. I guess my other question then is of the eight instructors that only have one current student on their caseload, are they also maybe part-time in another school in another capacity to make up for those other hours, but are they considered

083full-time employees? >> Yes. Mr. Miller is expert at these questions cuz you know, like Aiden this is good though. Thank you. Well, they're I'm just trying to better understand the the data that is in front of us. And I'd also like to know how I can get this gig. No, just kidding. No, no, no, cuz like I'd love to work only 2 hours per day. Um no, I'm joking. I just I I really value the work that our employees do and um if these are certificated teachers, I can see the need for them in other places in the district. So, thank you. >> I can provide some clarity too. And of course, these numbers include students who technically may or may not qualify for home hospital based upon the legislation, but in September, the count

084of number of students that we had that needed home hospital was 27. October was 40. November was 39. December was 35. January was 29. February was 31. And then March it was 24. Yeah, thank you again. That that was I actually listening to the conversation it was very fluid and it took me on a journey and I I started to see a little more, so I appreciate the questions that were raised there. Um looks like I have two more hands. Um Are you all fighting down there? I'm sorry. Commissioner Griffin. I guess my main concern is with with with um with dealing with this area of cuts in our budget for home hospitality is home hospital is that there isn't enough information um solid information for me um to to make a decision to cut

085something when we don't have a a perfect plan at all. I think the plan is not well thought out. I appreciate the work that's being done, but I just think there's more work to do. I do not want what they say blood on my hands with something that I feel has not been thoroughly vetted. Um we have uh a lot of new staff here and I appreciate the work that is being done, but I have to say as a member of this community, there is still a lot of work to do when we come to cutting things like this in this nature for our students and our teachers. Um I again appreciate it, but there there is still a lot of different moving pieces to this that doesn't sync with me well, doesn't sit with

086me well. Um I think we have more to do, more work to do in this planning um before I can make a conscious decision that could affect um the future lives of these children. Um and and our staff. So I I I would appreciate um for myself and I don't know how my other board colleagues feel that we go back to the drawing board on this and and rethink this through. I I just don't see where we are solid in this. There is too many I I and and and and please please understand the the the laws that need to be corrected, I think we need those need to be addressed. I think we need to make sure that those T's are crossed and I's are dotted, but I think that we should set this

087to the side because it it's not something that I feel comfortable with at all. These are decisions that can make or break a child. Uh we also always we still have social emotional issues with our children, and this can add to it if they're not getting the proper care and we and we decide to make a change like this drastically, I think we we need to just table this. But, that's just my thoughts and I just wanted to put that out there for the listening public. Thank you. Thank you for that, Commissioner Griffin. I just want to be very clear about the math. Even if we chose not to move away from the one-to-one model, even if we chose to not move away from the one-to-one model and engage in best practices, with the number

088of teachers we currently have budgeted, we would still be able to meet the needs of every single child based on data. Thank you, um Commissioner Griffin. Commissioner McCollum, Yes, thank you. Uh we'll have one last follow-up and then I'll go over to Commissioner McCollum if you have a last question. And I guess the problem is the data. Um the data [clears throat] is to me seems to be skewed or inaccurate. So, we we me me as a commissioner, I thoroughly have a problem with the data across the board in every department. Um so, I think that if we had clear data and if it was believable data, um and consistent data, we wouldn't be here today. We wouldn't be here in this budget hearing or budget session today. So, data is a very big concern.

089So, it I think we need to review the data and make sure we have accurate data and then we need to come back to the drawing board on this. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner McColl. Okay, thank you. So, I do appreciate the information and the data that you presented today. Um this was something that Dr. Rossler had presented when he when we first brought this up, he was talking about some of these numbers and I don't know where they went or why they went over heads, but he did mention some of this from his very first initial talk conversation about this to show that the number of students that we were seeing in these programs were not matching up with the number of teachers that we had. Um one thing that I would like to

090say and I heard a couple commissioners mention it, when it comes to doing new strategies and trying new programs, you're never going to know it works until you try it. When you have a strategy, you have to implement that strategy before you know if it's going to work or not. So, by them telling us, "Hey, this is what we're planning." we have to give them an opportunity to actually put it into play. Because we're never going to know if it's not or will happen or work or be good. So, I like to see what strategies and what ways you can come up with to help make this a fuller and more effective program. Because what I've seen based on the data is that it's not been effective and we're losing out on a lot of

091potential teachers working in other places where we need teachers instead of paying for people to come in and do something when we already have teachers there available to do the work. So, I like what I saw and and I do believe that with the proper strategies, this could be a full program that's effective for the kids who actually need the services and not just kids who don't want to go to school. Thank you for those comments and I would say that I appreciate the presentation. I do want to level set as commissioners and people in the community all of the things that running organizations and things of that nature is difficult and at any point when you have a plan or strategy or something that needs to be implemented. I know we all want to

092make sure that our children are well that our staff are well that things are as they should be but we also have to recognize that every I is not going to be dotted and T crossed in the moment. A well-laid plan we do want to see as far as what does this look like conceptually and we need to know that it'll operate well but I've never been in a space where someone has the A to Z spelled out and all of the logistics um in that moment and so I've never seen seen that happen in in that manner. So I do want to make sure that we do get the information that helps us make the best decision because this these decisions are very very important that we get it right. With that said we

093finished that but we will have opportunity for additional discussion on this particular topic because we are not done deliberating but we are I'm going to go back to you superintendent Rosser to for the next >> Yeah so thank you very much Deputy Wright for your presentation and the research that you and the team have engaged in as it relates to our home hospital program and let me just emphasize that the purpose of course is to make sure that when it comes to our students that our students have the services that they need but we're also providing enhanced opportunities for students to also avail themselves to services outside of the current model that we have. So what we have next is a presentation on community schools. Um, there were some questions that commissioners have raised around

094um, community schools and to get a better understanding as to what um, our steps are with expanding our community schools as outlined in our strategic plan. Um, we wanted to make sure that the presentation that was provided back in the fall that we come back today and provide opportunities to provide updates to where we're at with the um, the um, community school initiative. So, we have before us Chief Wilson who will be providing the presentation and if we can um, hold off our questions until she completes her presentation, that would be greatly appreciated. Chief Wilson. Thank you, Dr. Rosser, President Simmons, Commissioners. Good evening. Tonight, I'm just going to give you some highlights about our plans for community school expansion. As um, I presented, I believe, in October as Dr. Rosser mentioned, the implementation plan

095for community schools. Before you, you see the list of current community schools. Um, and as you know, community schools is a model, it's not an initiative, it's a way that we are working to improve um, continuous improvement across our buildings. Um, so as you see, we um, already have been doing the work um, for quite some time and as I've done my research on community schools, I'm sure you are well aware of um, the effects of community schools and the strategy itself. So, for the um, 26-27 school year, we have identified schools that will be working through um, on the implementation plan. So, next year, you see before you, There are seven existing um schools that we are working to expand and have already started that work with principals and leadership. The implementation plan uh

096as mentioned in the strategic plan goes out to 2028. So, we have identified cohorts that would happen across those years. Um I would say that 2028 is um a um aggressive goal. And so, we'll come before you and talk about some plans to extend that, so it gives us time to make sure that we are implementing the model with fidelity and that we're being intentional about how we set our schools up for success. So, implementation across the community schools will be grounded in continuous improvement. Uh we will be regularly reviewing the school level data, family feedback, partner performance, and that's key. So, we're we're looking to change the evaluation tools that we use for community-based organizations to ensure that they're um adhering to the goals that we set before them. Each community Each community school

097will have a community liaison specialist central to the model. This is the person who will help coordinate partners, connect families to services, support needs assessments, organize family engagement, and track whether supports are actually reaching students and families. The funding approach is braided. We are not relying on one source. Um the plan includes philanthropic funding, RCSD uh operating supports, just title funds, um state aid, and partner contributions. We did receive a $1 million [clears throat] We did receive a $1 million philanthropic support that has helped um accelerate our implementation across four of the seven new community schools, and we're very much grateful about that. The anticipated impact is stronger attendance, more consistent family engagement, expanded after school programming, wrap-around services, and of course better coordination with our community partners. Our metrics are tied to reducing chronic

098absenteeism by 15% over the next 3 years. So, that's a goal that we're going to challenge our community liaison specialist to work with our community partners on. This also again connects with goal 4A, um which is all schools will be community schools by 2028. And we're also looking into the guardrail two, which addresses the conditions of our students and staff. I am happy to say that New York State, um is very much immersed in supportive of the community school model, and they run um a lot of training that we will partake in and that several of our schools have already um partook in. So, over the last 10 years, the state has recognized that those schools who are community schools, um graduation rates have increased by 25%. Um ELA proficiency has increased by 22% and

099that the math uh proficiency has increased by 26% more. So, um the data from New York State shows that schools who are community schools are making substantial gains over the schools who are not. So, we're excited to enter into that, and our seven schools and seven leaders are excited as well. And if I can just add real quick that, you know, to Chief Wilson's point, you know, there's a lot of momentum at the state level regarding the community school model. Um the community school model as evidenced through my experience in Buffalo as well as Poughkeepsie, you know, most certainly elevates student success. It holds as a banner of its its main pillar foundational pillar that a school home and community approach is the only way that we will be able to address the holistic needs

100of students. Within the one house budget, there is a request of over a hundred million dollars to be appropriated for community schools. I'm hoping that with the activity currently happening in Albany that does pass because it's been in the budget the one house budget for a number of years now, but there is a lot of interest and we went down to Albany to sort of give our budget testimony. There were a lot of legislators who were asking about community schools, a lot of legislators who were promoting and celebrating community schools. So what we're doing here in the Rochester City School District by identifying and I believe Chief Wilson shared with me that someone at the state level was really excited around the Rochester City School District having a very aggressive but very strategic goal transforming

101all of its schools to community schools because in places like Buffalo, Syracuse, I know that their community schools there but not all of their schools are community schools. You have additional things you need to share? Are we good? Um I would I would move on to parent center. >> Okay. So why don't we pause right here and are there any questions that the colleagues here in the dais have about our community school expansion plan? I'll probably have a few questions in a moment, but just to level set especially for those may who may tune in from the community as well. Can you level set the understanding and the distinction between neighborhood schools and community schools? They're often used interchangeably and they do have similarities to them, but there are is a distinct difference. And so,

102for the community um that understanding, cuz I grew up around neighborhood schools and appreciate them very much, but yes, can you provide that distinction? Sure. Community schools is a a model. Um and so, there are six pillars that our community schools respond to. Um there is data and metrics that are attached to it. Um and as Dr. Rashid has shared, there's a needs assessment that starts our community schools um off. So, they'll complete a needs assessment, and in that needs assessment, they're addressing community concerns, family concerns. They're looking at the supports and resources, and and what um community partners are available to them within their community. From that, they're able to kind of have a prescribed um ask of support from their community partners. So, it's about It is about neighborhood, you know, part of

103it is neighborhood, that the community surrounds the school, um but also that there is a um synergy around the needs assessment and what the schools have identified as their top priorities. And one of In fact, if I can just say this, one of the things that distinguishes a community school from a neighborhood school is also the fact that each community school has a community school liaison, or in the case of Rochester, a community liaison specialist. Those individuals are there to help cultivate, identify community partners to join hand in hand with school district staff, parents in delivering services and supports that are going to address the needs of of the school community. In addition to that, the community liaison specialists are also there to support parents. So, if parent needs assistance navigating, connecting the dots from

104one community-based organization or social service institution, the community liaison specialist has that duty. Whereas in a neighborhood school, you would not see a community liaison specialist. Yeah, I learned a great deal about that when I was at a uh or of organization a few years back and I think Kelly Briggs and a few other folks from the district were heading that up and they did a substantial amount of work re-rounding um community schools philanthropic and people were very involved in that and so there is an appetite here in Rochester to to see community schools happen and so um that is just good information to have and I'm glad you were able to make that distinction. I'm opening the day is for specific questions at this time. Um I'm going to start from the end and

105come on out cuz you guys are yeah just who would like to speak? Commissioner Griffin? I I do appreciate the community school efforts. I just I just uh want to note that this a lot of our schools already are community our community schools and they've been doing the work for years. Um it and I appreciate the work that's being done to expand but I guess my biggest concern is as we put a lot of work in the community schools that already are community-based schools and and and and it is there is work being done with the community liaisons. That's why we brought in community liaisons. I don't want to uh I don't want people that actually put put the community school uh be started the actual the community school to to get lost in acting

106like we didn't have it already because it's already been a part of the city Rochester City School District. Uh I uplift the work that you guys are doing but I want to I want to take a focus away from that aspect of community schools. That is a board priority. Uh it's it's it's I think it's uh start in the strategic plan uh number five. We have a lot of other concerns that we are not addressing and community school is good about saying anything about it and I'm glad we're doing it, but I think we need to focus and hone in on some more some more important issues that we have in this district and I think too much emphasis is being put on community schools. Not saying that it's bad, I think it's a good

107thing, but like I said a lot of the schools are already there. They need another push over to you know, to get over that hill, but I yeah, we need to refocus some of this time that we're spending in community schools. For for me. Thank you, Commissioner Griffin. And again, I do want to just validate. I know Nisba was I just want to clarify that it is a distinct [clears throat] model and so although remnants of it may exist in in certain pockets, unless the model is driven to fidelity, it's not it it's it's not that. And I also just for for our understanding want to reset and recognize that this is not a push that just happened now and we're all of a sudden saying, "Hey, community schools, it's got to be that and

108it's brand new." This is something that actually was presented, if I'm not mistaken, um from This is not in response to you. This is for folks listening. So I just I don't want to have a conversation. I'm just trying to make sure information is accurate and I may need to be corrected, but our strategic plan already consisted of community schools and it is part of the academic plan from the state monitor. I do see you nodding in affirmation and so we are expected to operate and complete that plan and this administration is now coming into my understanding. This is my question, my conversation. It is not personal towards anyone. I just I'm just putting out my understanding so I can be corrected. And and okay, that is correct and so that the what I understand

109is what this administration coming in, community schools was expected to be um implemented by 2028, which was not something that was reasonable, and so you're extending it by to 2031 or something of that nature, something that pre-existed. So, it's not a new thing that you're bringing in, and I just want to make sure because then I I would have additional >> Yeah, that is correct. Yeah, the community school initiative here in Rochester, you know, has been in place for quite some time, and we as the um leadership and and the school district are simply carrying forward what a previous board uh put in place as it relates to a strategic plan. We are just simply doing as we are we we are expected, which is executing and actuating the elements of the strategic plan. So,

110this is not something that we're celebrating, we're coming in saying that we're doing this and this is our, you know, creation. We're just simply executing what has previously existed, and when it comes to those community schools, as we see on the screen right now, they've been in operation for quite some time, we are making additional investments, making sure that they're just not community schools in name, but they're community schools in support, meaning that the administration is going to provide greater supports. So, when it comes to the pil- pillars that Chief Wilson articulated, that we can see through assessment, through observation, through audit, that we are implementing the community school model based upon the national expectations of community schools. Okay, and I do want to lift that we had some really good dialogue the other night,

111and I would that um I know that we all have different positions, different questions, and different um ideas, and we're not always going to see eye to eye, but I also would that we, as we have these conversations, know that these are not personal attacks toward one another, and that they if I need clarity, it does not have to mean that I'm trying to counter or come against anyone else. And I just want to make sure that is out there and understood because I'm I'm feeling like sometimes we may be not getting that understanding. So, I just want us to know that we're having dialogue and if there's any additional questions that can provide any of us clarity, this is the time to do it and I appreciate getting the clarity that I needed in

112this moment. At this time, I'm going to turn the mic over to Commissioner McCollum and I'll work my way in. Okay, so I just I really do have one clarity question for me because I remember you guys presenting that model. I don't remember if I was on the board yet, but I remember you presenting it and going over the implementation of how you're going to do it in segments and phases. So, my I guess my question is centered around the timing. Do you foresee we having as a district enough time to afford that many schools in each of those phases and the funding to be there to do that even with the CBOs and the other streams that may be coming in to help, do we have those fundings to do that? So, I very

113much we have already solidified funds for this year and we're looking at how are we going to expand by 2028? Not just for funding purposes, but there is a lot of work that goes into the needs assessment, making sure that our schools are ready to begin that work. And so, with us being able to extend past 2028, which is the original strategic plan, it would be helpful for us to be able to get all of our buildings ready to be a community school. So, even though our schools next year start next year, we actually started working with them this year in this school year. So, it wasn't that on come July 1st, they're going to start this work. They've been working on plans and how that will look in their buildings this year starting next

114year. So yes, you're right. We will need some additional time to to extend it. It's a great goal to have. You know, we want our schools to be surrounded by community, but we also want to make sure it's attainable. >> Yeah. And if I can add to that even though these schools are being proposed to be designated as community schools, there's going to be a lot of work that goes into over the next several years for them to elevate to really being community schools that that are operating at a high rate of fidelity. So one of the things we're looking at and the reason why on this particular slide you see cohort one 26-27, we're going to be working with those schools over the the year to help them to develop into these true community

115school models. You don't see a number a timeline for cohort two because we want to make sure that we're not simply saying, "Okay, next year we're going to do these seven schools, the year after that we're then going to do these remaining schools, the year after that then we're going to do these schools." We want to make sure that we're doing this deliberately and slowly to make sure that we're just not simply check marking a box to say that we got these community schools because in some instances as we have seen here in Rochester, that was done and the proper investments were not made to make sure that all of those community schools that are currently in place have been supported by the district, have been supported financially beyond just the regular school funding that

116they've received or at the time because we use as a strategy particularly for receivership schools and CSI schools, we use as a strategy to simply share with the state that we're designating these schools as community schools as a school improvement strategy, but when those dollars go away, we have not made the investments as a school district to continue to support those schools financially. Okay. So, it's So, it's That's a follow-up. So, it's safe to say that phase cohort two may not start in directly after it may take That's not what you're looking Okay. So, that's Thank you. Commissioner Feinman. Okay. So, part of the reason I think the book is confusing is because as we build more alignment, it There's a lot of things changing. So, we were looking at the community liaison specialists, and

117we realized they're being removed from the general fund and being put into the special aid fund. So, we were like, "Wait a minute. Why are we getting rid of all of these community liaison specialists?" We're not They're moving so that we bring future alignment into space. I like that. But, I'm curious when we added the community liaison specialists, and we're adding some in this, and it doesn't sort of reflect that. Um we're going from 15 to 22. So, it's an increase actually instead of 100%. We don't have a bilingual, and I'm just want to uplift that we really do need to make sure we maintain our bilingual. Yeah, so um we actually will be posting, and there will be a bilingual community liaison specialist posted. Um and they're also will be They're actually reflected in

118the building budgets as well. So, um where you're not seeing them there, we want to make sure that that we are transitioning them to building budgets um in the next years or so so that principals have more autonomy on that. So, thank you for that question. >> Yeah. And if I can say also that one of our Well, one of the strategies that we employ, particularly in Poughkeepsie because we had a high um bilingual or Spanish-speaking population, that every one of my community school liaisons had to be a bilingual person because we wanted to make sure that they were able to communicate in the home language of the students. So, while we have many more of course community schools here and in Rochester and we'll have many more community schools and we have very and

119I don't want to belittle our current community liaison specialist, but where we have opportunity to have more bilingual or multilingual, you know, individuals that we most certainly are moving in that direction because as we think about our parents and the population and we want to make sure that these individuals are are they they they serve as parental support that we want to make sure that our parents are comfortable with having conversations with them and that they can adequately support our parents. I just want to uplift that for the community too. Sometimes it looks like things are being just just gotten away with, but we're moving to a different alignment. So, we need to look into these things and we just need to make sure that we're looking and making sure that things like bilingual, even

120though it says it's being taken away, just hasn't been established yet. Thank you Commissioner Fineman. I'm going to move on to the other side. I do see a hand from Commissioner Santiago. Yeah, I just have a quick question which is relative to this and also the budget. I'm wondering part of the conversations for community schools is implementing fully our MTSS system. And so I'm wondering for the next school year how this budget will reflect that support for our students. Yeah, so the MTSS student support presentation, we're we're actually scheduled to do that next Tuesday, which will be more of a a conversation around how student supports are going to be provision for the 2026-2027 school year and how we're going to continue to sort of create a coordinated system of supports for students which isn't

121currently and widely visible throughout the Rochester City School District. So that presentation is going to happen on Tuesday. Okay, thank you. That was all for me. You probably touched on this already and forgive me if I missed it. Cuz I know that the dollars are there for community schools. We've got a nice grant that came in that yay. What happens if the grant funding were to pause, shift, decline, or what have you. Do we have structures and I'm not looking for the answer or the plan in this moment, but have we thought about how we will pivot or be prepared if that should happen? >> Yeah, so the grant and I I I can say who gave us the grant, right? Yes. Well, maybe I'll pause then. I think yeah, you can. Okay, so ESL

122which is a a a pillar in the Rochester community, you know, being very supportive of the Rochester City School District and really supportive of the community school model. They have provided close to if not $1 million. I think it's $988,000 to support our community school model. And these dollars are there of course for to assist us with startup. So we will have an obligation that after a period of time when these dollars are no longer there to then assume more responsibility of the things that the particular grant is providing us. As I shared previously within the one house budget, there is a request to add over $100 million across the state for community school funding. We hope that that eventually passes and I'm very confident based upon the conversations that I heard when we were

123doing our budgets, um, our budgets legislative hearing, that there are a number of lawmakers in Albany who are very much interested in expanding community schools across the state. In addition to that, there was, and I stress was because we don't know what's happening with our federal government, but there was, um, funding that, um, the federal government provided full-service community school grants, um, in which school districts could receive up to $5 million to support their community school, um, implementation over 5 years. Through the work that we were doing in Poughkeepsie, we were one of the 14, um, one of the 14 school districts across the country that received that grant, and I can share with you based upon our wonderful resources, you know, the things that we have in place, the commitment, um, from our community-based

124organizations, that I'm very confident that if that grant reappears or comes back from the federal government, that we would make a prime candidate. We would be a prime candidate in also receiving those dollars as well. That's exciting. I know some of those partners were 6 years ago waiting for Rochester to line with community schools, and it's true model. So, um, I'm excited, and I'm sure they're excited to be able to be going in, and we'll we'll see if that, uh, where it goes. And so, I want to put a point on this conversation. I'm going to answer to all I think I see see the three hands, and just bring to our attention that we have two more, um, conversations happening, um, from after this one. So, if there are hands, we'll put a point

125on after this, and the last hand at this time will be Commissioner Griffin, and then we'll move to to next conversation. Uh, thank you, uh, President Simmons. I just wanted to put a note on uh, uh, getting getting get a pulse on the multilingual, uh, liaisons. Um, I I I hear people saying bilingual, but I want to make sure that multilingual liaisons are at the table. We got to make sure that language is noted on the on the, uh, when we um, my words is tied, but you know, to put it when you do that when you put it out there to the public, I want to make sure that that is on there. Um, there was something else that I wanted to to say. Um, I want to make sure that that everyone is

126aware when I say about the community and the and that schools being turned into the community schools, I uplift you. What I'm saying is that the prioritizing of of of these strategies that we have put in place, the five, I think there there has not been enough emphasis on our academia. I think that we hear a lot of other things, but we have a failure in certain areas, and I just think as a community member, even, you know, and as a commissioner, I I hear a lot of of things about other issues. So, I want to commend you guys on the work you're doing with the community schools, but I have to also note that I think that we need to have as much work as we're doing with these community schools done in areas

127that are definitely suffering. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Griffin, and I'm going to put a pause on that conversation. Did you Did you want to talk about how they align the academics, or you were all set this time? Okay. All right, so we're going to give the mic back to Dr. Rossiter, and then we will continue the conversation. >> Yeah, so Chief Wilson will continue to stand there. And she's going to, um, That's what [laughter] I was laughing about. She's going to, um, give a high-level overview of our, um, um, parent centers and what we're looking to do for the sub coming year. As you see on the screen there, it says launch one parent center. I will note that I have publicly made comments around launching two parent centers, but understanding of our budgetary

128confinements, you know, we are reducing um, our launch of one parent center um, for um, operation for the sub coming school year. So, Chief Wilson. Yes, and thank you, Dr. Rossiter. I'm excited because we are really working on alignment. We're working on ensuring that as we um, focus on academics, we're also um, trying to change environments for our students and really engage our families, our uh, community so that we're wrapping around our students. Um, part of that is to we've looked at our parent center and how we can utilize the parent center to continue to advocate on parents' behalf and to ensure that they have the resources they need um, to be support supportive to our young people. So, the parent center uh, will be connected um, to the work of our parent specialist. They

129are doing great things here at the district. Uh, the plan is to move over to um, the Loretta Johnson Old Swan area. Um, in that area we'll be opening up a parent center um, shortly. A parent center will be connected to resources, will be connecting to um, organizations that can provide supports for families. So, a lot of the times when our families come here, they're searching for um, one-to-one time with our parent specialist um, and they often have to find quiet and um, private spaces here um, in central office and it's difficult. What we want to do is create an opportunity where we're inviting in community resources that families might need and they can have uh, special time with that resource. We also do parent universities and currently they travel from building to building, although

130they are not put on by that specific building. Uh with the parent center we'll be able to utilize um what they what we call PEN, which is parent engagement network or otherwise known as parent universities. Um we already have one scheduled for the spring um and that's on housing. We have various different community partners that are we coming to do presentations on housing, um how to um get vouchers, how to get support for housing. Um and that can turn into additional supports right at the parent center. Uh we are also looking at strengthening multi-language multi-lingual supports for families. So making sure that we have multi-lingual parent specialists that support our our students and staff. Um the staffing proposal that will be um at your uh approval will align with parent specialist and our home school

131assistants supporting our families. Um language access is new to um with multi-lingual supports we've um narrowed down what languages uh will be most beneficial for our families to um receive support on. We've also identified uh the need for um different scheduling with our uh different organizations. Our parent specialists have learned how to do different screeners. Um so when families come in we're able to take them through different screening processes. And all this will go into our parent center. So um the work is already underway in the transition plan. The funding approach is controlled. We have currently operational budget uh for OPE. We're looking to utilize those things. We did see an increase in in funding sources and those funding sources will go directly to supporting evening events, Saturday events and opportunities, workshops, um materials, communication

132support. So, if we're looking to get that information out, we need some funds to support with um any uh ads or support from the com coms department in those areas. Um so, as we look to to utilize the parent center, we're also looking to track data. Where do our family see the resources that they need most and how can we support that? This also is connected to our guardrail two as we're continuing to strengthen how our families feel when they come to RCSD. So, customer service has been a lot of the things that we're talking about with our parent specialist. We want our families to feel like they belong as well. So, as the on one side we're working with students to make sure our students feel belong in the classroom and in the school

133environment. On the other hand, we have a lot of work to do to ensure that our families feel a sense of belonging when they come to us for resources. And so, all of those efforts will be centered and supported by our lovely parent specialist at the centers and then also within the buildings. So, colleagues, questions? Commissioner Santiago. Um I do I'm just wondering cuz I know that part of our conversations is about community engagement and also student and parent input. And so, I'm just wondering have you guys asked or talked to parents about this center and if they believe that this center was needed and also what specific services will be helpful inside of the centers. I'm just wondering how much parent feedback have you guys used in the consideration of this parent center? That's

134a great question. I know that I'm going to add I'm going to just sort of set the stage. So, yes, there have been conversations with parents regarding the parent centers dating back to the fall when I came on board. We utilize opportunities at the fireside chats and community conversations to really get an understanding as to whether or not parents you know would like this you know opportunity. We've also had conversations with other such as Sarah Taylor about how Buffalo utilizing their parent centers to do some marvelous things and we're going to be conversing with her very shortly to also better understand how we might be able to partner to then provide these services to families. Chief Wilson, you have additional things you want to share? Yes, so the parent centers when you talk about our

135community organizations, we have had several conversations about what that would look like, right? And our parent specialist majority of the parents that we support right now are by phone. So, they call in, we provide a response and typically it's centered around a student transfer, where is my school my student going to be supported? On the other hand, there's been lots of calls at the building about how do I get support and I might not feel comfortable just going to the building to receive a specific resource that I don't want my student or my child to know I'm here for. And so that's where the parent centers would be coming into play that you might not feel comfortable receiving a certain support or meeting with a certain resource at the school and there's an opportunity to

136do that in a private manner at the parent center. So, those are some of the conversations that we've been um um discussing um with OPE and FACE. Yeah, and for that I can also talk about um some of the engagement we've had with community-based organizations. One of the things that we're highlighting with this particular parent center is that there will be a food um I'm going to call it a food bank. It's called a uh uh And I'm having a senior moment right now. A food pantry, thank you. >> [laughter] >> A food pantry. Um we're going to have a food pantry in there and um a number of our community-based partners, um be it as as as you and I, you know, we're um um a part of a conversation with the um Board

137of Election, you know, there will be opportunities for parents to be able to go there, you know, understand the importance of voting, be able to sign up for voting. You know, there's other community partners that we've talked about who are very much interested in being a part of this because they know that if we have this and parents are coming, this may be a centralized place for them to also be able to provide supports and services. Yeah, that's great. I think that is is good to have a center, but I just think it's also important to have our parents' input around that and also allowing it to be an opportunity certainly as we live in a community where services are needed. And so, a place where education and young people can not young people, parents

138can come uh and and get connected to those resources. So, thank you. Excuse me. I have a hand from Commissioner Griffin and I just I want to I want to add to I think this is very important. I'm glad we're doing one parent center at a time. Uh I did read a lot about this in the Maryland school district um when I was just just looking at different things that people do in different in different school districts. So, it is a thriving thing if we do it and implement it correctly. So, I I uplift the parent centers and hoping that we can do it with fidelity. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Griffin. We'll move in to Commissioner McCaw. Okay, so I have also happy that you're doing this center and only doing one. Um I

139do like the fact that you are centering around customer service. This is something that's lacking in our school districts across the country, not just with our parents and our students, but also with our teachers and administrators in our buildings. Um customer service strategies can actually help us a lot and we can learn a lot from those. My question is with this center, it sounds like you're going to be doing a lot of activities, a lot of services for the parents. Would this require a longer day? And if so, does that mean that you have to bring on more parent um more more staff? So, I do think You can go ahead. I I I I want to um thank you for that question, Commissioner. I It's It's hard to answer that because there is a

140year of implementation to identify what other resources we need. So, right now we're not stepping out of the box too far. Uh we are going to be planned and strategized on what works, what resources work, what community partners are best to partner with, and as we build it out, I would like to see different opportunities um to engage families in different ways. I do think that um you have some families that morning works best, you have some families where the afternoon is the best time, and then you have some families where evening is the only time that is available. So, it it is a trial and error. We keep data um and uh we keep track of times of phone calls, when they come in, how they come in, who comes in, and I would

141like to get a little bit tighter on that so that when we come back we have a better plan centered around analytics on how we service families. Yeah, and if I can also state that one of the critically important things that has not necessarily been mentioned this evening is that the parent centers are for parents, which means that we as a school district will be responsive to what parents are articulating as need and then adapting the services, the supports within our our parent centers to then be able to meet the needs of our families. So, when we talk about the PIN, which is the parent engagement network, you know, we will be doing surveys of parents and saying to them, "What sort of workshops, what sort of activities would you like to see the school

142district to provide to be able to support you?" And based upon their feedback, we will then be able to then utilize our staff to then construct those workshops or identify community partners to then come in to then provide those workshops for our families. Uh thank you and I'm just going to leave it at this. I will be visiting because I am a practitioner of the customer service of education. So, I really will be there. I want to see how this works because I do think that's a good idea. Thank you, Commissioner. Um We'll call on Commissioner Fineman. I just want to say I'm really excited about this. Um I have been since you spoke about it from the very first time. I do like the idea of launching one instead of two. I like the

143slower roll out my personally and I love the fact that it's in the Southwest that's been felt like it's been abandoned for a long time now and I love that it's starting there and um I look forward to it. I just have one question is in conversations that we've had, we've talked about the possibility of Oasis also being there. Will that be something that would be able to be there still? Well, Oasis was going to be a part of the um parent center that was going to to be on North Clinton. Um given that we're dialing back, we have not um had conversations with our colleague over at Oasis. Um but we might be able to We weren't planning for Oasis workshops to be there or classes to be there. Um but we can most

144certainly revisit that to see whether or not that's something that we could still fit into the old Swan location. Thank you, Commissioner Fineman. And just for my clarity, um what I believe I heard you say, Chief Wilson, is that current plan as it stands moving forward, it would be starting with some basic core services for parents, and over time there would be a plan to um build out services and and opportunities. I do have a hand from Vice President Malloy this time. Yeah, and if I missed this in the presentation, I'm so sorry. Um part of the services offered at these parent centers, well, or the one that's opening, does that include enrollment in school? Cuz I got to say, I remember when there used to be parent centers like years and years and years

145ago, and I remember as a fairly new mom at that point walking with a stroller with my newborn to enroll my 4-year-old in pre-K, and walked, you know, across Webster Avenue to this North Clinton location, and I was able to in 15 minutes enroll my kid. Um it was really helpful as a new mom uh to be able to do that. So, is that are those part are the services that are available? Yeah, so thank you for that. I actually we did some research. Um so I found out that that was at at some point here in this district an option. Uh we don't want to bite off too much that we can chew, and we want to ensure that when we offer enrollment at um satellite sites such as a parent center, that it

146works. Um so, just taking it day by day, looking into how a satellite is an option. But, the possibilities are endless once we get this off the ground, and I do think that there is a synergy around a different option for parents to go to for um enrollment. But, again, we just want to ensure that when we set up these satellite sites that families actually enroll, and that the glitches are are corrected before we do put that out there. Thank you. I don't see any other hands at this time. So, thank you very much, um Chief Wilson. I want to, you know, sort of give you your kudos, as well as Kelly Briggs and others a part of your team, um that have been really working hard to put these things together. So, thank you

147very much. So, our last presentation for this evening, I know that there was questions about um the school district's plans to support who I call and refer to as our new American students. And we have a presentation this evening that speaks specifically about the REAP program, um which is something that that of course um commissioners had asked about. One of the things I do want to highlight as it relates to the budget book that we are still awaiting information or confirmation on grant funds that were received and currently in place for {quote} refugee students. We have not received confirmation that um grants that are ending to support refugee students um will be renewed. Um we do have some concern, particularly with the tenor of our federal government and federal leadership around, you know, whether or

148not the grants that were available to school districts such as Rochester will be available. We continue to fight to support funding for our new American students and our new American families, but we have some highlights that we are, you know, going to be sharing with you this evening that speaks to um our Rochester International Academy in which um Dr. Wright has been leading the efforts of enhancing and transforming this very supportive model of supporting our newly arriving new American students. So, Dr. Wright, can you please share with us? Right. Good evening again. The last time we chatted, I highlighted the law, the data, and the research as it pertains to Home Hospital. Tonight, I want to talk about, and I love this moniker, RIA imagined. I didn't come up with that moniker. The RIA stakeholder

149engagement group did. So, as we shift to discussing the Rochester International Academy, the redesign is grounded in three core priorities. Number one, compliance. Number two, equity. And most importantly, access. First, this work ensures that alignment with New York State Commissioner's Regulations, specifically Part 154, which governs services for multilingual learners, is in full compliance. This includes addressing major uh programmatic structures that while well-intended may have inadvertently limited access to grade-level content in inclusive learning environments. In Rochester, we received a corrective action plan for violations against part 154, how we engage our multi-lingual learners. And this work with RIA seeks to correct the missteps while enhancing all of the beautiful work that has been done. As part of the redesign, we're building a strong foundation that's established already by Principal Mary and the RIA school community while

150advancing a model that expands opportunities for all students. So, [clears throat] through the work of the RIA stakeholder engagement team, we are intentionally moving away from an isolated program model and toward an integrated inclusive instructional model. In these environments, students will have equitable access to core instruction, rigorous grade-level content, and targeted language development supports aligned with individual needs per part 154 Commissioner's Regulations. So, now these opportunities also yield access with this new redesign to CTE and special programs, sports, and other opportunities that an isolated program simply can't provide. Strategic student placement is a critical lever in this work. Students will be served in settings that simultaneously accelerate English language acquisition and academic achievement while ensuring that they are not separated from opportunities to engage in high-quality instruction or even social settings with their peers who

151are native to America. Now, this is not simply a structural shift. It It represents a fundamental change in how we define access and opportunity. We're moving from parallel systems, and we have a lot of those here, where in we kind of work in isolation, to a unified approach that ensures every [clears throat] single student is positioned for success in an inclusive, high-quality learning environment. So, equally important, this work has been shaped through intentional engagement and disciplined strategic planning. At the very start of the year, when I signed on with Dr. Rosser, he tasked me to create a Real Stakeholder Committee. Now, this group started its work together in October. The committee brought together Real leadership, the community group Friends of Real, community leaders from our multilingual communities, community advocates for newcomers, families of students in

152RIA, former students of RIA, district leadership, and we worked on developing this collaborative group. Admittedly, it was tough in the beginning. But now, in May, tomorrow, we have worked together to create an amazing program for our students. So, this program addresses all of the state issues corrective action plans while building on versus trying to eliminate or eradicate the legacy of RIA. This process ensured that the redesign reflects both technical expertise and the lived experiences of those who are most impacted. Stakeholder voice was directly informed uh stakeholder voice directly informed key elements of the model, including program design, student placement, location of the program, and support structures. So, I just want to be patently clear that this was not a district top-down effort. This was a collaborative effort that engaged the RIA community, district leaders, friends

153and families, all of us at the table creating something wonderful for our students that's built on the RIA legacy. So, we conducted a rigorous review of staffing and resources allocations to ensure efficiency and impact. We aligned personnel and supports to where they most directly influence student outcomes. So, currently, our students at the high school level begin their day at RIA, wherein they receive their uh SL supports, social-emotional supports, and then they travel to East wherein they're enabled to engage in additional academic classes and CTE courses, as well. The principal of East was met is magnificent. She set up student uh partners. So, each RIA student has a partner at East who helped them to become a part of that East community. So, our principal from RIA worked hand in glove with our principal at East

154to create a seamless program wherein our students are now thriving. A central component of the strategy is also strengthening the K-6 foundation. As a part of the corrective action plan, we were mandated to end the K-6 program at RIA. We had to do that. Working with the state, working with the RIA engagement team and principals, we established supports at schools 5, 15, and 50 to become the new sites that were amply equipped to receive our youngest learners who were new to this country. So, now, starting next year, if we have a family who's coming from Sudan and they have students who are in the primary grades, they can choose to go to 5, 15, and 50 to receive those specialized supports or they can choose to go to any other school. They can choose to

155go to RIA, which will now be co-located in East High School, or they can choose to go to any other school. What we did was going to make sure that all of these sites are being intentionally developed with staffing, professional learning, support systems necessary to meet the unique academic and social-emotional needs of newcomer students and their families with integrated supports. Now, this approach allows us to provide earlier access to grade-level instruction, accelerate language development, and reduce long-term gaps in suspension, excuse me, and achievement. Ultimately, this work is about building a system that is sustainable, responsive, outcomes-driven. Now, the real redesign, the re-imagine model is aligned around the core principles of compliance with state requirements, equity, and access and opportunity, operational efficiency, and an unwavering commitment to ensuring that we have a student improvement, a student

156experience, and academic outcomes that continue to improve across the district. Do we have any questions? Thank you. I'm going to start. Guess what? I'm starting at this end. We'll shake it up for the last one. We'll start with Commissioner Santiago. He put his hand up in the middle of the presentation, so I'm going to start there and then we'll move our way in. No, you you actually kind of answered my question um through the last part, so I did put my hand up a little too early. Um but I'm wondering So, you said stakeholders, so you met with the principal, you met with students, you know, workers from over there and everybody was in agreement of this model? Mo- monthly for two to three hours. >> Nice. They developed the model. Um I'm glad to

157hear that was collaborative and um definitely I don't have any questions at the moment, but thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for the question. >> Vice President Maloy? Thank you. Thank you so much for this informative um presentation. Um what were the elementary schools again that are going to be receiving more students? Uh they can go to any elementary school, but specifically school number five, 15, and 50 are being uh supported as specialized schools for our newcomer population. >> And how are those schools selected, I guess? They currently have high ENL populations and their principals enjoy that work. Fantastic. They have cultures and climates of that are very supportive of the population. >> Awesome. Well, I just want to comment that I'm really happy to see some uh potential resolution um on this. I've been

158a long-time supporter of RIA and I love the work that they do there. I have visited there, even though it's not my liaison assignment, um I go there frequently and it's just such a joy uh to watch our students learning and and just connecting in those meaningful ways. Um I will say this, I'm making a prediction here. Um with a move to the high school portion or middle school high school portion to East High, I think that we're probably going to get more neighborhood draw um for our new American families from that entire area. Um I think an elementary school like school 46 that already draws a number of new American families just right from my neighborhood. Um They love walking kids to school and you just see all these families out and about um

159really active in our local community right there. Um so I would I am just guessing or I'm predicting that you're going to see increased enrollment either at either school 28 or um school 46 um because families are going to then start sending their kids to East um and have their families closer together at schools that are not that far apart. So, anyway, thank you. I'm looking forward to seeing how this works out. >> [laughter] >> Thank you. This does uh sound really exciting to know that we'll see something like this and that there was care given to the transition because Rio was uh certainly has been a special space in the RCSD and it sounds as if it's going to continue to be special as it's reimagined. So, very excited about that. I'm going to

160move into Commissioner Fineman and continue down. Um I also am excited about this. I've actually talked to a bunch of stakeholders um and it is nice that we did partner with them and it's wonderful. I just want to make sure that we uplift that when these kids are put in when I walked into to the middle school at one point, there was a bunch of children standing at the door and I said, "Why are they all standing there?" Not this year, last year. And they said, "Oh, they're waiting for their interpreter." So, I just want to make sure that we are still uplifting and helping make sure that they have their interpreters. But, I also need to uplift again 5, 15, and 50. They call each other the the trilingual schools going on. 50 years

161again slated to get more and again is the only one that is slated to get more students with special needs and more ELL learners and yet still have a deficit in their budget for next year. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I'm glad that the multilingual is being looked at. I do I do like probably many others have a concern about that current situation with our multilingual people, our children I should say, in making sure that they'll be they are also being addressed effective and efficiently. Um and I I also wanted to know um that most of there's a high population of of our um Somalians, Arabic, and other cultures that are on the southwest side. And I don't know if you're aware of that, but it is very high highly

162populated. It It would probably be nice to have something a school over there, maybe 12 school or something like that and look into because I know if they had a school over in that area, that they would go and they would attend. Um and I knowing school 12, I think that they would be open to that if they were given that opportunity because there is a very high population over there. Without saying specifically the areas, you know, but there is very high. You know, so um if if you would look at that, I would appreciate it. There the numbers are very very high. But thank you. I mean I I can't say any more much more about it, but I I'm glad that you guys are reimagining Riya. Thank you. >> Thank you. Were there

163any other questions or concerns regarding Riya? All right. I [clears throat] just want to say that um the presentation overall today, this is not just for Ria, but the presentation overall was was helpful when it comes to clarifying things and something that would have been extremely helpful at the beginning of this budget process until uh instead of where we are now. So, I just want to put that out there. >> Yeah, if I can if I can just comment on that, I agree with you 3,000%. You know, and I think that, you know, this is an opportunity for all of us to to sort of learn what what would be helpful. And as um we are committed to the school district, we will most certainly make sure that as we are moving to develop our

164school year 27-28 budget, that we can have these type of engagements. But also as we committed to as well, making sure, particularly given the projected $61 million deficit for next year, that we start this summer having conversations with members of our community, uplifting and getting from them what they think we should maintain in our budget for 27-28, as well as what those things they think that we might need to sort of step away from. Okay, thank you. Did you get Was that a hand? Did you get that last one and then should we move on? >> I just have one question and I know I got here late. I'm sorry. But um and I don't know if it was clarified, but it's about the budget book in general. Um there's nothing about H&H in this

165book. Not in either one of them. I can't find it. Okay. So, let's let's walk through it. Let me let me say something as well. You know, this is um just a statement that that I'm going to make, you know, because I do recognize that our budget books, you know, have had different iterations. And of course, yesterday there were two different budget books that were provided to the board, and I hold myself accountable as I'm holding the team accountable too. Um but I just wanted to make that statement um as I look for the home hospital information. If you go back, and you should be able to find it under departments. But why isn't it listed under the programs? So, that's a great question. So, historically, from what I've been told, is that commissioners have

166wanted certain things elevated under programs, and historically, certain programs have been elevated under the program section, but not all programs have been elevated under the program section. So, as we have put together refined our budget book, and as I stated previously, that if there are things that we need to add to our budget book, particularly in future years, we need to it it would be great if we can identify, and maybe as a part of a workshop that we might have in the future, we can sort of sit down and talk about the budget book and what commissioners would like to see. Um because you know, we did our best to to sort of streamline the budget book, you know, based upon feedback that we received from our community, particularly our parents, commissioners. And I

167know that our colleagues over at um City Hall would like to see some things different about our budget book. You know, it's a working document as we've described it, and we would love to receive feedback so that as we are developing the budget book for the 2027-2028 school year, it can be more reflective of what people would like to see in it. I will share that understanding the history of the budget book here in Rochester that um it has seen different iterations each year and that not everyone is happy or pleased even through those different iterations that attempt to then please and capture everything that everyone would like to see. But as commissioners, as a governance team, we have the responsibility of outlining what our budget book will look like, how it will look, and

168then presenting a document that then serves its purpose with outlining what our budget from year to year will look like and the areas in which we believe um are important. The one thing I do want to highlight about the budget book, too, which is not seen in previous budget books, is that this budget book in the all the iterations of the budget books I've seen over the years, this is the first time in which departments are listed, which is a stark improvement because our budget book, in my view view, wasn't truly uh a comprehensive budget book because it did not contain information about every department or cost center, where this budget book does. And I do want to sort of commend Mike Mehaney and Mr. McDowell for their leadership in putting this together. We all

169recognize the pains that that we've gone through with some of the um unanticipated um errors or clips in the system that then kind of made some of the data wonky. So, we do I apologize on behalf of my team for for that. We are Can we show where it is in the book? >> Yeah, I'm I'm Yeah, I was talking I was I'm still like I I can't find it still. That is the At the end of the day, that's what you want to know, right? Page 112. Thank you. Does Does Commissioner McCollough have a hand? I want to I want to go down the line and then come back, but I'm just asking does he have a hand, too? And then I'm going to If you don't, you're next. I just want to I

170got Do you have a hand, Commissioner McCollough? No. Commissioner Griffin? I just want you guys to understand I couldn't even read some of this stuff with my glasses on. The letter The print was so small. So, if you can increase the size, I don't even know what size that was on some of the pages. I couldn't see it with my glasses and the light on it. It was like still a little blurry. I hate to say it, but I'm I'm just I'm being honest. It was hard for me to see it. >> Okay. So, I did you know, I know I my glad my eyes might need to be checked again, but that was a little small. >> [clears throat] >> All right. So, I do want to uh thank you for giving us the

171opportunity to to really dig in and and understand some things and I uh I echo uh Commissioner Santiago's expressions around um how we can move forward in the opportunity and that uh administration is recognizing and I'm happy to hear that we'll be having these conversations much sooner than later. Matter of fact, Dr. Ross, you mentioned even possibly in the summer early fall those um exploratory conversations concerning the budget so that we're in a best better position next year. And you know what they say, what doesn't breaks you builds you or at least I made that up. I feel like it, you know, what doesn't break cuz I'm saying it to myself, too, what doesn't break you builds you. And so, as we continue to build as a governance team and as a school district, we

172will not be broken, but we will move towards progress and understanding most and certainly for the betterment of our children, and that is something I am really, really uh excited and hoping to see. With that, this will end this uh deliberation or conversation concerning the budget, clarifying conversation I will refer to it as, and it is 6:41. Motion. Uh our next meeting is on Tuesday, May 5th, where we will have a third deliberation, and at that time, that deliberation is going to also provide us additional clarity around our social emotional um learning pieces, special education, food services, and athletics. I do want to implore to commissioners that we also have that opportunity to gain additional clarity on the actual budget in front of us, and that is the vote that we'll be taking on May

17312th uh for this draft budget book that we're looking at this evening. Uh I think I uh Commissioner Santiago motioned. >> Second. Seconded by Vice President Malloy. All in favor? I. I. Any opposed? We are getting out of here at 6:42. Everybody give yourself a round of applause.