001the same principles that you use um that you used to call in the old days engineering by design that nowadays we call inquiry which is we start with a problem you expect students to engage in discourse to be able to solve the problem then we talk about how did you get there so there's not one way to solve a problem it's how what way did you use to get to that answer and explain to me how you got there so the difference is that you're looking at conceptual math versus computational math. The difficulty is we learned concept math. We learned to be teachers of concept math. I used to always say as a principal that um we wanted to teach math like we taught ELA or social studies. And only those that understood that math
002had to be taught the science way were very successful math teachers. So what how are we doing to be able to support this? This entire year you've heard about the I make it which is the letters or the science of reading and mathematics is really getting adults into thinking ways that I can teach math differently. And this program the teachers felt that piloted it felt that this program this curriculum helped them do the transition of calculation math to conceptual math. Next slide please. One piece that we also recognize is not only the adults have to be thinking of teaching math differently um is the parents. How do we have parents support us at mathematics at at home? And this curricular package really provided some excellent family resources that again we had the parent center engagement
003group help us here, our parent center, and they helped us also formulate some of the questions and the data that we collected on the survey. And one of the pieces that they found and that they spoke to us is we can read to our kids every day at night. But now we have ideas of how we can do mathematics every day at night. That's not computational mathematics, right? It's beyond that games that we can play really trying to figure things out using different mathematics pieces. Next, please. So, this is the total cost of the curriculum adoption and um we have 15 schools that are going to begin phase one. You probably will say to me, well, why aren't we using all the schools? Well, we've learned from our past mistakes. So, it's also looking at
004trend data. It was also saying what were the gaps and the mistakes and the mishaps that we did. And what we learned was, and we initially were just going to start with 10, but we had 15 very insistent principles that they wanted to be part of the pilot. So we have 15 schools participating. And our goal for next year is to continue to invite those that staff from the school that's not adopting it yet to be part of professional development, but to truly create model classrooms learn from this. So that and then those 15 schools become the resource centers and the turnkey pieces and um the learning curve that we need for the next 10 additional elementary schools. We truly believe that this model of doing it right in a smaller scale but also providing
005model classrooms so that those other schools that later adopted can visit each other's classrooms is ideal. In the year, year one, we're going to shift a little bit our thinking to say that teacher leaders, classroom teachers are the leaders of math and they're the ones that are going to be providing these model classrooms and inviting other colleagues to come to their classrooms. When we as teachers see each other teach, we get ideas and we want this to be a sharing um protocol. Next slide, please. And that's it for mathematics. Do you want me to keep going and then we just gather questions later? No, I I actually think um we should break this down just to make sure that you know we we do this efficiently. And so I I'll go down the line starting
006with um before I I go to you, Commissioner Griffin, I also want to recognize that we have Commissioner Lebron and our parent rep on um Monica Graham on online. And so I'll go to them also, but I'll start off with Commissioner Griffin. Um, thank you Dr. Ramos for your um your overview on the I Ready curriculum, but I have concerns um about I Ready and the curriculum. And um I guess because as as we vote on things, I I need to have more than just the one thing that I'm looking at to compare it to. Um there's been a lot of complaints about I Ready. Uh there's a lack lack of engagement with the children. It causes anxiety, different issues with with the I Ready curriculum. So I have a problem with how we actually
007are how we have to vote on things that we don't even have enough information enough information on and to compare it to other curriculums. So, do you have something else that we can compare this to so that when we can weigh it out? Because voting on something and giving it to our students at this point and not having a full range of understanding of what what's going to happen with it is very concerning to me. So, we need to have the fir the top three and then we need to go through them as as a board and look at them so we know that we are giving our children what they need to be successful. So, thank you. Um, and I'll also say that there there were opportunities for for us to to engage with
008the the family um process. I did attend I also uh attended at the the parent university at um at Little Wilson. So, I was able to see those things. Um, but I think we do have to have discussions as far as, you know, because I see for ELA, you gave the three curriculums or the four curriculums that that were available, but um, for for math, you're you're only showing the one that was chosen. Were there other contestants? So, yep, I did mention them. Amplify Curriculum Associates, Imagine Learning, and McGraill. The two pilots were between Imagine Learning and Curriculum Associates. And I can share with you the rubric that was used. I can share with you um the different pieces that each one had. I can more than sure share that with you. Yes. And and
009and just to be clear, I have the books at home, so I actually went through them. So, it's concerning to me. I don't know who else has went through them on the on the dis, but I went through them. It would be it would behoove us as as board member or for me I'll say for I I would would would prefer us having a a crash course and them everybody sitting with us and saying hey this is what we think this is a comparisons instead of coming in in here coming in coming in on May 22nd and have to approve something that we really don't understand. So I think that when you have them lined up and you give us the differences and the data that supports that and shows that overall including with the
010suburban and urban we are online and we are not outdated by using I already that's what I would feel comfortable with as a commissioner and voting on something for our children. I don't believe that we've done that and collectively and in the past. So I think that we should start doing that to ensure that we're voting on something that is going to move the needle in this district. Thank thank you commissioner uh Dr. Dr. Strickland, Dr. Commissioner, uh, Commissioner Griffin. Uh, just a few, uh, quick points. This is all, uh, guided by the RFP process where the educational experts look and analyze the curriculum and determine which one is the best one that we think the district should go and move forward with. Um, I also want to just uh remind you with the student
011outcomes focused governance, this is this is a this is one of the inputs. Um, in terms of curriculum, uh, curriculum is an input and this is under the direction of the superintendent. Um, and, uh, you will have the opportunity to actually review this information. Okay? And I don't want you to Sorry, that's not what I'm saying. Just I want to be clear though saying we can let people finish their sentences. I also want to not misconstrued I ready the diagnostic versus now we're talking about a curriculum and I and I'm not doing that. What I'm asking for and I think I made it very clear to the listening public is that I want to see the comparisons of other curriculums that you that we have. I want to see that information I ready with the
012other ones that we have that that they put on display at the um at the conversation. So that if you can answer me Dr. That's all I'm asking for her to answer. I'm I'm chairing this meeting. We're going to move on to Commissioner Patter. Answer any of my questions. Commissioner Patterson, the superintendent answer your question. Commissioner. Commissioner Patterson. I want her to answer the question. Commissioner Simmons. Um, thank you Dr. Amos for where you are with the presentation. Um, obviously different colleagues have um, you know, different ideas and different questions and things like that. You know, for me, I've worked with you since 2014. So, um, I'm going to personally, for speaking for myself, trust the information that you're bringing forward, so I really have no questions for you at this point in time. So,
013thank you. Thank you, President Simmons. Thank you, Commissioner Santiago. Thank you for your presentation. Um, Dr. Ramos. Um, first I want to acknowledge um that this is a process that was um expected to happen over a period of time and historically I don't know how often it's happened. So I want to really acknowledge that um internship superintendent Strickland um brought this before us so that we could really take a deep dive and and understand what the process looks like. Um I also um hope to get in front of the materials that I know I saw the communications that we have an opportunity to to look through the materials and I also full further recognize that um the the experts will guide us with any questions we may have um the different opportunities to differentiate in
014the classroom. I loved what I heard um as far as the different ways of learning and the approach um that teachers or educators can take. I do wonder um around the parental piece. There was a piece that I I I like to see that the families will also have the opportunity to be engaged and is there potentially um is that going to expand beyond the classroom or is there um partnership with OPE or Yes, there is a partnership and our in our forums that we had, we had all vendors presenting differences and similarities of curriculum. So I just want to mention that we did provide that opportunity so people would see them even before a selection was made. Nice. Wonderful. And we also had for the mathematics 17 community members inclusive of parents that participated
015in the final piece and this is researched based curriculum. Yes, it is. Yes. Awesome. Awesome. So um I'm not I'm gonna end a meeting. Sorry. What's up? Oh, Commissioner Commissioner Lebron, if you could just if you can mute. Um, I think when we were learning about the science of reading, um, there was a question posed around research base, but then I was told we also should ask about the outcomes for the curriculum. So, can you just expound a little bit on the outcomes you've seen um, with this curriculum and use maybe in other districts or what have you? We have. So in order for us to be able to make any recommendation, we have to be able to say that we've done our due diligence as to how it matches New York State as well
016as ED studies and research. And so we we did do that due diligence there. It completely aligns to um the next generation standards. And we did not there were other RFPs. We did not pick any of those um RFPs that didn't align with New York State um standards, next generation standards. You know, um these companies are international, right? And they may say it aligns the standards, but then we have to dig in deeper to say if it aligns to next generation standards, right? And so we know that there's full alignment. We also know that it has green ratings across focus and coherence, rigor, mathematic um practices and usability. We need that. We also know that there have been outside university as well as research that give different curricula, different points, they were also in the
017green. If they weren't in the green, we weren't going there. And in addition to that, we applied the New York University scorecard on our own with a committee and didn't just trust what they were saying we were doing. Awesome. Thank you. It is um to to go back to what you asked. It is program problem based. It is about dis discourse. It does have STEM in it. It has real realworld application activities. It has also um student bookshelf pieces where the kids can go and get more engaged. The same way we teach reading with decodables and the kids can go to the baskets, they can go to the different parts to get engaged with mathematics and it's huge on manipulatives. You're going to see the price for manipulatives is high. Thank you, Dr. Ramos. Uh
018Vice President Malloy, thank you. Thank you so much for your presentation uh Dr. Ramos and I this looks fantastic in so many ways. I just used the QR code here to find some of those family resources and I appreciate that. Um although I teach social studies, math is a mystery for me and I know uh dealing with my children as they went through common core and now the nextgen I find myself not able to help them. So I think that that family center and those resources are especially helpful. Um my question is and you may have mentioned this and if I missed it I'm sorry. Um what are the plans for ongoing professional development? Um do we have math coaches um who will continue to provide any type of professional development or what is that
019going to look like? So we have our instructional coaches that right now are not either ELA or math but an adult instructional coach that really talks about best practices, explicit instruction. They have been trained. They're going to be trained in the new curriculum so they understand it. But schools right now, the implementation plan is pretty rigorous. Schools are identifying teachers that are going to be part of training during the summer, administrators that would be part of training in the summer. And then we're going to have um cohort meetings continuously so that we are learning from each other and involving all the schools in it. Of course, there is a professional developmental plan for all teachers that are using it. Our goal is to begin in September, not wait until the end of the year to
020create model classrooms of those people that are implementing it. So, we can send other teachers or their classrooms saying, "Wow, this person did really well with that. Why did I struggle?" We are going to be using preassessments from the curriculum and post assessments so that we can see how well formatively we're doing. Fantastic. Thank you so much. It looks great. And I will also include that in the sharing our plan. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Ramos. Um I do have a couple questions. Um but I'll go up to our student rep. Um our parent rep first. Uh Monica Graham, do you have any questions? Um yes, good evening everyone. Thank you for that presentation. Doc, Dr. Ramos. Um I particularly enjoyed the parent or the family resource page, so that was exciting. Um I guess
021my only question would be what are the languages that are offered for that particular section for families? Thank you. The curriculum is um offered in Spanish as well as in English. So the bilingual classrooms will be accessing it. And then we have always the um ability to be able to use our um change of language that we have right now in the district for the parents to be able to pose. Um, your last page as well of the slide will have a link that also takes you to curricular materials in both IE as well as ELA when the slide ends. And those are live links for you as well. Thank you. I appreciate that. You're welcome. Commissioner Lebron. Yes. So, I um I just have a few uh I'm going to make two comments, but
022I do have a question that I actually want to officially put on the board question log and I wrote it down because I noticed the price points and I just I'm curious what budget line this um curriculum is going to be budgeted out for this year and if we've thought about cost, you know, as we move forward and potential impact from P2025. not gonna continue to say project 2035, but y'all can document it as project 2025 because there are things coming down the pipeline from that. Um, so my official question is what budget line is that coming from and if there are cuts, are there have there already been conversations? How do we continue funding this contract and so forth? Um, but I just want to point out the curriculum data review process because that
023was a process that didn't exist previously and over the years based on feedback from different both parents and board members, the administration eventually opened it up so that board members could come um and do a comparison. And I remember that there were a time when like all the commissioners used to come together to do it. They did that one year with one particular superintendent, then they opened it up. Um, and I'll tell you, I think Commissioner Santiago is probably like the second commissioner I've ever heard actually going in person outside of um other individuals over the years who did it like previously, Commissioner Shepard would attend for sure um and Commissioner Melanie Fanches. But I just want to highlight that because this comes up every year. Um there's always curriculum conversations. That's a whole other
024conversation for this community to understand why we always constantly have curriculum conversations. But the fact when commissioners don't participate and then question things, I was confused tonight thinking that there's even going to be a vote on this, but then realize no, this is actually a process and there is RFPs that guide this. And um I want to thank Dr. Victors for also highlighting and uplifting the fact that there are New York State standards that the curriculum has to be aligned to regardless of how we like it, feel about it, the standards um have to be met in particularly these new standards and I just want to uplift um Commissioner Santiago's point about coming in to review them. I was not aware that we were allowed to take them home ever. That's never been my experience.
025So I do want to point that out to the community. Um, but when those periods and times are open, you are all also allowed as parents to come in and review those and give feedback as well. And so I hope that next time this comes around, we highlighted in advance and we continue to highlight it throughout our meetings to remind parents to come in where to go and what to do, how to review it, and so forth. Thank you. Thank you. Um, we did dedicate a curricular adoption line this year um, for both ELA and mathematics. The academic plan requires us to do this in November to let the superintendent know what are the upcoming curricular adoptions. We already have a plan for next year. Um, and we will be engaging in social in science
026and K5 for regular ELA. And that commitment is also already in next year's budget. Thank you. So what what are the difference between what's the difference between the model of the I Ready diagnostic and the I Ready that we're talking about here on this presentation. So I already what you're looking at right now is a curriculum, right? So the diagnostic is just exactly that, an assessment. And if students aren't making there, you could think of it maybe like an intervention if kids aren't getting there and then what are the problems or what are the things that I can do to try to improve my score. Think of it as when you were doing regent review, right? And you would go online and look at questions and then they would say, "No, that's not the answer,
027but you can study this to get there." The curriculum is a whole different scene, right? We're being proactive. These are the things you're going to need to know and we're going to get there. And we have performance indicators and mathematics, right? That's the old term we used to use. Now you have expectations and you have fluency in mathematics and we know that standard and where we need to go. And how are we going to get there is the unpacking and that's the work of providing a curriculum. A curriculum doesn't solve all the issues and I'm going to say this right now. A curriculum has to be adaptive and flexible and guaranteed. Guarantee is that it's going to get you where you need to be. But adaptive means that no curriculum knows the gaps that our
028children have. That's the teacher and the professional. Ever since I started, I told you that I needed to be able to see that there was time for students to reflect, correct their mistakes, and move over move forward. If pacing doesn't allow a student to do that, we're in trouble, right? Because that's how we learn. We learn more from mistakes every day than what we do from what we do right. We will remember the mistakes over and over again, right? Than what we do right. This curriculum provided the time for reflection, which for me was one of my biggest pieces. Where is the time that we're going to allow students to inquire and to get to where they need? And our students in elementary have those 90 minutes to be able to do this. So, we
029will model it with times for those teachers. Absolutely. And will will the will board members still have access to the to the other competiting um curriculums before the vote happens or We'll ensure the two that we piloted. Absolutely. We'll ensure that you do. Okay. And and for I mean, I have a cheat sheet here, but I'll get everything from And you know her. She'll give you 15 pages, but she But but for if we could do it for for all of our commissioners. Absolutely. Absolutely. That would be great. Um, that's the end of the questions for this section. You can continue on. Okay. So, we're going to do ELA. And so, for ELA, as always, um, not only are we looking at 1D, but what are we going to ensure that every grade level has
030what they need to support career readiness? Again, it's not that we're not supporting college, but I always have said that we should always support career readiness. And those kids that decide to go to colleges take four more years to get ready for a career. Next slide, please. Timeline with the next generations as well. I know you've seen this, but we had to learn to unpack and go back to looking at those next generation guidelines. And that's where we've been working a lot with um um our pri our our priority standards. Next slide, please. All right. So again, just like before, we had a scoring rubric for RFP process. We had pilot teachers and students surveys and we also used our New York State um university scorecard that we use. Next slide, please. I mean, we
031didn't deter from this. Um and then here you can see the timeline of how we we did this. So we were a little um after mathematics um in phase one again we included um different parents um and we also had time for in phase three to include our our community members and our parents as well. The next slide tells you exactly now high school and we use student voice in elementary but the student voice was grades um um three through five. We asked them you know how did you like this? What did you like more? Um and we facilitated that conversation. Some of the kids did do it online but we really wanted more information. Our high school students though it was fantastic. It was fantastic to see them say, "I truly enjoy the engagement
032with this one." Um, we did pilot, we had 303 pilot student surveys, as you saw, 26 teachers piloted the the different um programs that we had and these were the schools that um where we piloted at. Next slide, please. Here are we wanted to highlight some of the pieces of what students said. These are some of the highlights of what our our um staff as well as students re reported. I mean a kid is not going to talk about differentiation and scaffolding. I've said this all the time. We leave the grade level curriculum there. scaffolding means what are the ways that we continue to help students access that material and not provide a lower level material for the students, right? And so teachers felt that the the curriculum that they chose had a stronger um
033scaffolding piece as well as audios in some in different languages as well as um being able to kids said that it felt that it was clear, helpful and engaging. And next one please. So they out of the three that were piloted they chose study sync. They felt that it extended time for kids to be able to do writing projects. Once again writing is a reflective process. It's a process that you need students to have time and this allowed that time to happen. There were instructional routines. There is a lot of building vocabulary and comprehension which we're very weakened in the district and we're working really hard especially with the professional development plan next year and the curricular um highlights and focus. It has to be vocabulary development K through 12. Um it it provided novel
034choices with each unit and that I loved because not everybody is going to like the one novel that the teacher chose. It's not what we're it's it's what is the topic that we can talk about regardless of what novel you choose. Another piece that happens when you have novel choices, kids get interested in the novel that they didn't choose and hopefully we will encourage more reading and at the end please. Okay. So the material review of the two chosen curriculum will be tomorrow um and Thursday and those are the times we will make sure um I'll do an email now and after I finish my presentations to ask um both if you have anything else from the ELA also to ask them so that you have those materials. But these are live links and you
035can see program overviews and you can also see the different pieces that we have there. Any questions? Thank you, Dr. Ramos. Um, I did search up study sync. Um, it looks pretty good. It's I'm glad to see. Um, looks a little bit like college. It looks like it's preparing, you know, some of our students for for college. It has high interest. I think that's what the students told us is that they kind of liked it because it wasn't boring. Yeah. And and it's organized in the way and the process of it. It looks like some of that I definitely would have been interested in also. Um, and I'm glad to also see that um, the students were able to do a survey. Um, 303 students alto together. And so I'm glad to see that the
036student voice is is being um, we worked very hard to make sure we had student voice this year. They're they're the ones that matter the most. Y All right. Thank you. I'll start off uh, with Commission Vice President Malloy. Thank you. Thank you so much for this presentation. um looking forward to seeing the results uh from this curriculum and I really enjoyed the fact that students were involved in this process and um the student choice component for uh what they're reading is especially uh interesting especially as a parent uh to kids who don't always like what's being read in their classroom and having that choice is uh really critical for engagement. So thank you so much. No other questions. Thank you, President Simmons. Thank you. Um, so I like the all the thoughts that went
037in. Um, I was looking at the NYU the, um, culturally responsive the scorecard and checking that out. I actually went to the site and kind of pulled out some of those pieces and, you know, um, it brought me to a space where I'm thinking, how are we preparing our educators? We know that historically our district has had lots of different curriculum. Uh we even have a storehouse of of different things. We often heard Commissioner Elliott even uh reference the storehouse of books. So here we are with research. Um really great curriculum. Uh could you briefly just share how we're preparing and readying our educators to take this on and be excellent in the delivery or implementation? Well, we've seen it this year with CKA, right? There is the implementation dips that we need to pay
038attention and support, support, support is the number one thing so that they don't abandon it, right? We also have to recognize actually today we were just in a meeting of what went well with CKLA, what didn't go well, how can we how can we make sure that we are still aligning and supporting. And I think that's the key. as long as they feel their support, as long as we have teacher leaders in buildings, all buildings in addition to coaches have ELA teacher leaders. Those are going to be our anchors, right? As well as our administrators. But our anchors will be those teacher leaders. Teacher leaders leave um once a month to meetings here um with um Jamie Bickham who oversees coaches and teacher leaders and she is also part of the group that has been
039looking at curriculum so that she could get involved in it. She was also on that panel with mathematics. I mean, she is now learning a lot more curriculum that she ever thought she would, right? Because we have to anchor and support. We don't wait until the end of the year to look at pieces. Um, actually today with the superintendent Strickland, we were looking at um our professional development needs and what is the time that we have during the year and when are we going to do these things, right? Because we just can't let it happen without a calendar. So we've created a cross cross culture across content right um calendar so that everything is in one place and we continue to focus on our initiatives in TNL um there is an alternative curriculum there's scaffolding
040we don't use different curricula for different children right we need to be able to say this is our curriculum this is what you're going to be expected to do when you graduate how do we access that material Can I can I add Dr. Strickland just uh President Simmons just to further add to what Dr. Ramos is saying which um she she's done a phenomenal job leading this process with the student voice involvement so on and so forth. One of the unique things about how I've come up in curriculum and instruction is that you don't do it all at once. So you heard uh Dr. Ramos talked about a cohort approach and then what happens is you do it that part you do it very well and then you bring on the next group of individuals.
041Um this also will allow for situations if we need professional development that has to happen during the day. We're not doing it to the entire district. we're only doing it to a specific amount of schools and then the next year we bring on people and then you keep um you you call it maintenance. So any new teachers to those new schools that may have missed it, they will have the opportunity to get it the next year, so on and so forth. So it's a it's a really good plan and I'm glad that they followed that and um I'm excited for what's what's going to happen with both of these. Sounds like a digestible approach. I I love the cohort approach. Um, but to also know that there's additional professional learning and we have a plan
042for the summer. We know summers are busy, but those that get ahead of us and then that's our first cohort, right? Because then we have others that are still waiting in the ranks for the for the PD. Thank you, Commissioner Patterson. Yes, I too like the uh cohort approach show. Thank you for that. Um, just to and you might not be able to answer this. You may or might not, I should say. um when it comes to homework uh and and again uh this is from a parent. I'm just asking a question and and uh it deals with is there a certain percent um or is there something as far as a a policy that we've created um or something from school to school that relates or regards homework being sent home? and does this
043program that you're initiating involve a little bit more homework going home? So, I'm kind of it's kind of a foreign area for me. I don't know who can answer that, but is there something that we have that um tells teachers how much homework they can send home. So, you do have a policy that addresses classwork as well as works and home. I think the way that we want to look at this from our teaching and learning are what are the tools that you're giving students to continue to be engaged and then what are the opportunities to support that engagement, right? So that they're not getting frustrated as as you might think or so that we're not um saying you've got three hours of homework for ELA and four hours of homework for mathematics. So, you
044do have a policy that addresses many of those points, but from the curriculum and instruction point, ours is how do we get kids doing more math and reading more um with with the engagement of the curriculum? And that's why I'm asking. Yeah. Yeah. So, did I not answer? I'm sorry. No, I think uh I think the only thing I'd want to see is the policy itself. Okay. if we can put that in the question log. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. Uh thank you Dr. Ramos again for that um for the overview and in the ELA portion. Um again my only concern is the comparisons of data with other with other curriculums and that's that's what I like to see. I like documentation. Thank you very much. That's all I was
045asking before. So, I do apologize if it came across confusing. There's a rubric and we'll get the information from the rubric and maybe you can see everything that the rubid asked and you'll feel better about it. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. It's an intensive process. Right. Right. Thank you so much. I appreciate I'm so used to you having the graphs and you know, you had a lot of, you know, a lot of um um words this time and no no graphs like you did before. So, I'm used to seeing those whole 10 slides. Right. Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you. Trying to to adhere to your 10 slides. Thank you. Um, so we have one more presentation. I'm sorry. Uh, we're going to go to our parent
046rep, Monica Graham. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation, Dr. Ramos. Um, I guess I'm going to echo what everyone else has said. I definitely appreciate you involving our students. Um they are the most important and they are the ones that are going to be using this. So if we're not asking them then we're not doing the right thing. So I am um really proud of our scholars that you had over 300 and um it goes to show that when we bring them to the table they will deliver. So thank you so much for that. Um, and you had the live link at the end. So, I got my information and I saw the different languages accessed in the uh presentation. So, I'm good. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. And just a
047reminder to the listening public, you can access every document that is being proposed today at board docs um RCSD. Commissioner Dr. Strickland. No. Um, good conversations around uh homework. Uh, Commissioner Patterson just wanted you to to know um that is guarded by policy 4730 and there's actual uh time frames that are recommended uh for specific grade levels and that's in the regulations. However, you leave that to the schools um to sort of consider if you know there needs to be an extension. You know, there's a lot of research that says homework isn't effective. we've some of us feel that homework is effective. So, it really is just um you know, it's sort of up to what that school learning community is all about. Um but it does lay it out for kindergarten saying 15 minutes.
048Primary 1 2 3 20 to 30 minutes. Junior high or high school 9th through 12th grade up to 150 minutes. That doesn't mean that things don't exceed those amounts. Um, and those are recommendations. Yeah, thank thank you very much for responding to that because it really answers if the if that parent is watching then they got the information directly from you too. So, I appreciate that response. Thank you. And and please be reminded extended day is used by our students that sometimes struggle with doing homework at home, right? So, we want them engaged in the curriculum. So, what ways can we engage them? Doesn't have to necessarily be the traditional homework way. So that's the way we've kind of challenged ourselves in teaching and learning to say, well, if they're not doing that, let's think
049of something different. Thank you very much, both of you. Thank you, Commissioner Lebron. Yeah. I just also want to point out for all listening parents that our board policies are publicly available as well on our website. Um, and I actually am someone that encourages don't just take our word for it or what you're hearing tonight from administration. pull up that policy, read through it, um, so that you have a full comprehensive understanding of everything in it. Same with the executive orders, y'all. But, um, I just want to point out and and I want to uplift that just a small concern. I love the cohort model as well. I love the roll out and the schedule that was shown in the previous presentation for the um, curriculum implementation and the cohort model with schools starting and
050schedules. My only concern and is because this is a real thing that actually unfortunately occurs and has occurred forever in this district is when we have our transient families and students who move from one district one school to another and they're using two different sort of models of curriculum or um you know information. So that's my only concern that if we're going to be doing like a cohort model and switching this that if you have let's say a third grader because I do think that that those transitional pieces for students not just being transient that has an impact as well on outcomes for education for students and families. Absolutely. Um, but also the impact of moving from one school with one model into another, especially for like a second grade, third grader, midyear two or
051three times in a year, unfortunately for some of our families and that's just the reality. So if we and and maybe this is um something that can go into the board question log, uh, Dr. Strickland, I'm not sure. Answer. You have an answer. You might have an answer. Okay. I was gonna say maybe, you know, it's a we we transfer from one to the other, but that's one thing. That's the only thing that like so for elementary we looked at zones which helps us so much more and we ensure that in each zone there are multiple schools um doing it and we will work with placement to let them know if this kid is leaving from this school can you first try to find a seat in a school that's implementing the mathematics we did
052think of that and actually it was a family member that brought that up a parent and again parent voices really count and I want to thank our parents that sat this was not an easy process right because there are so many great things going on for high school the the cohort really becomes professional development. We are going to have the new curriculum for 9 10 11 um it will be available for 12. Many times our 12th grade classes are elective so those that are not electives will have it but the cohort will be in the professional development piece because we don't have zone schools. We were scared of kids not being able to access especially because when there's choice and they don't have choice right now they're not going to like that. Thank you so
053much. I love that a parent brought that up because Yeah, it was my thought, too. It's like as a mom. Yeah. So, I love that. And then I just want to um thank you for all of it. You're wonderful. Just thank you. I I know the lift that you've been doing for us behind the scenes in this district. And I just want to thank you. Welcome. Yes. Uh thank you to Dr. Ramos, thank you to the students, thank you to the parents, and thank you to everybody. uh who had part to do with this selection process. I'm glad to see this process implemented. Um I believe last time when we had conversations about curriculum, that was my first question. What are how are we getting input from our students about this? And so I'm glad
054to see that we're following that model and that process um and looking forward to that in the future. So we have another presentation from you again. So uh so we're in for our colleagues. Lots of conflicts especially with kids moving out of college, right? Um if we can go we can go ahead and go through quickly with this one. Um of course we have board goals. Next slide please. Um next slide please. Um I'm more than sure you know by now the graduation requirements but we always like to include this. Next goal please. All right so these are current eighth graders. Um right now what are the percent of students passing this marking period and the percentage number as well as percentage. Um we did it in content area credit bearing classes because some of
055our students in science could be in living or earth science. So instead of having multiple columns we just wanted to let you know where they are right now. Ninth grader, same thing. So, if you had ex if you were accelerated in eighth grade and you took algebra, you could be sitting in geometry um as a ninth grader except you had some credits with you or you could be in living environment or earth science. And for some of our accelerated students, they could be in chemistry. So, that is why you're seeing them by content and not by specific class. Um social studies as well. And you can see right now the percent of students and the number of students that are passing this marking period trying to acrue those five credits. Here you have the data
056by school which is always what you want to see. And for current 9th graders, we split it up into the different marking periods so that you can see the fluctuation of those numbers and the percentage. You always ask me, so what are we doing about it? So um this slide talks about we still continue to have marking period recovery, which means that we use after school breaks. I'll have an example for you as to what that looks like. Um, online credit recovery, which you always have time in a kid's schedule to be able to put in or have them also stay after school. Extended day programming. We have been holding Saturday schools, especially for students that still need in addition to the 1,200 living environment minutes. Now, they have required investigations that if they don't
057pass that, they don't even pass the class. So there is a lot more labs that students in living environment need to have. Um we continue to look at their cohort tracking. Um and we've been adjusting students schedules even at this time, right? Because our goal is to be able to continue to support life happens and sometimes we don't know. We have been for the last two weeks intensively looking at those summer learning recovery opportunity programs. We have redesigned some of the programs that came to you as to this is our intent and projections for summer school because we feel that we need some more support and some specific programming based on the date of our students. If they make it through June, that's great. Um, but in case they don't, we need to be prepared
058to support them. We've looked at the priority of being 12th grade, those kids with five credits or less to be able to make graduation August grads. And then we've continued to look at it and we've taken the other end, the kids that are not reading on grade level, what's going on with them. Um, and so if we go to the next slide, here are examples. So during April recess, we called it boot camp. You had at all city 30 students complete courses. I mean, these were kids that had not been able to complete those courses. Credit recovery, right? Um, at Monroe High School, you had 200 students attend to do regions review. You had 30 students again be able to complete those courses that they were lagging. That could have been from first semester or
059last year and you just are not doing the work that you need to do. And at Padilla High School, we wanted to include them. This is just a snapshot. It's not that it didn't happen anywhere else, but at Padilla High School, because we're seeing a lot of impact and differences, we wanted to highlight Padia for you. And so they had 57 regents exam passed in January for them which was um they worked hard and I'm going to give that credit to Ed Muscadri who was the interim principal there at that time where they really cohorted those children and changed their schedule so that we could get them across in January. We've had since then with afterchool tutoring 47 students complete courses and um 146 kids that were failing the marking period go back and recover
060class those classes so they're not failing anymore. So I know you always say to me where's the data and where do we see and the money that we're giving out there where do we see that this is happening that is an example of um that we had going on. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Dr. Ramos, you're you're on a uh you're on a move. I remember when we used to get these presentations and every time I'll ask, so what's the plan forward? Like what's going on? What are we doing? What are we going to do? Like it's good to see the current uh data, but what are we going to do about it? And so I'm glad to see that there is examples on here and on this presentation. Is there is there any questions
061from any of our board members? Commissioner Griffin, it's not so Well, maybe it's so it's it's a little bit of a question, but um have you ever thought about um with the Saturday schools, you know, the kids are all over different areas having it central at different locations like on the west side have it at Wilson on, you know, uh east and then you have it at maybe um Franklin or or you know, different and even with the with the elementary as well to make it so that the kids have a central location for a Saturday class instead of having a Saturday class at each individual school if they're all teachers from the district. Have you ever thought about that or so? Yes. And we do do that during breaks and definitely during summer, right?
062Because during summer we do we do zones, right? Um what we find is these high school principles are working with each other all the time and they always will open their door if they say, "Hey, this kid lives in the west side. He doesn't have transportation to come to Monroe. can you take them at Wilson or can you take them um at another program? And the principles always always open their doors to those incidences. The issue is kids like to go to school with the teachers that they know and like to be amongst the classmates that they have. And so even though they always know that the opportunities are there, you know, they they always go, you know, the key is to find the teacher that the kids really are engaged with to do that
063after school and Saturday classes and they come and and this is one last thing. I know when I was going to school, I I went to night school. Has that some has that subject ever came up again or what is your what is your take on that? So they have extended day right now in some of our schools. you know, extended day might be a different it creates, but we don't have anything in place with night school um at this time and it would have to be a program. Can't be an extension because then you're going to get into contract pieces. Okay. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Vice President Malloy. You thank you so much for this presentation. Um, I particularly like the um I think it's slide number five, just the data
064on the ninth graders comparing the the high schools. Um, I would love to take a deeper dive into this just to better understand how we end up with different results at different schools and I know it might it has a lot to do with placement, student demographics, family demographics, etc. But I would love to to know to highlight even like what some of those schools I'm looking at school without walls and um our program at RIA, you know, with 100% of kids on track and then school without walls, similar populations, but almost 100% on track. Um and are there opportunities for whatever is being done at those places to be shared with with perhaps other schools? And I know it's comparing apples to oranges sometimes, but well, but best practices work, right? So, we know
065we need So, I'm going to say that with um school without walls, there's a real intent to the curriculum and making sure that that curriculum is followed because they do have project-based learning. So, it's the application of what I'm learning. We know that's a best practice. How much are we using that in our other buildings? I feel that as we are updating our curriculum, we really are trying to go in that direction to say if there's not application um training our principles to say when you're doing walkthroughs, if you're not seeing this, this and this, if you're not seeing students using calculators in those math classes, something's going on because kids should be using calculators all the time. They're applying what we're learning, right? It's a higher level of learning. They don't need to do
066those linear equations. How many of us can do linear equations in our head? maybe my husband, he's a chemist, but I can't, right? So, that calculator really matters and we need to be able to continue to give access to students and just not say we can't do that. Um, we've taken a real effort this year and in our content areas to say, um, what's the impact of curriculum and student achievement? And if it were not engaging kids, there's no impact. So, they've been working a lot on those pieces. We would hope that that happens. Um I can tell you the network chiefs are sharing all the time best practices but we do have to go further down in the data absolutely as to the why I certainly appreciate and attendance is killing us. Yes. So
067I always like to do a presentations to say if we take now this isn't mine but I like to say let's take that 20% off and see how well those kids are getting achieving and it's going to be exactly like when I told you about I ready data that when we took it off you started to see more green attendance is killing us at the high schools. We need to get those kids well everywhere but we need kids coming to school. Well thank you so much. The last thing I wanted to say is thank you for providing students with multiple opportunities for for success. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you, President Simmons. Thank you. Um just a quick question. It may need to go in the log and it's okay if you don't have an exact
068number. Um, but I do recognize June is next month and graduation is upon us and this is leading me into the graduation thought and I'm recognizing we have a number of schools in the CSI receiverhip status across this district and um I'm thinking about a point where our graduation rates spiked a little bit and um reflectively I think that was attributed to um the relaxation of some of the standard rise tests that we you know um due to COVID and so on and since then and moving forward, what do you do you predict because I'm predicting we're going to see that be less than what we've seen. Uh do you have a number or I look at data a lot. Um we've identified 357 students right now that will need summer school if they don't
069pass those regions that they need. But in every school um I can tell you exactly the number of kids that right now we know will need summer school to be August grads. um trend data matches those pieces precoid um in terms of again we have the regions requirement right we have the English three that sometimes holds us back and now we're going to have the US history um they are new type of exams we've been preparing them all year long we've been on this whole culture of writing we're not changing our instructional initiatives and deciding we have new ones for next year we're keeping those because we have to get really good at those we have to be able to see are writing in schools. So, um um we've been working on these numbers all
070along and it's been my urgency to tell them if we don't do something about this right now, we're going to we're going to dip and we don't want to dip. Thank you. So, we're on it. Dr. Strickland. No, everything Dr. Ramos said was um great. I just also want to provide more context. This is the first group um postcoid that do not have special appeals. So there will be uh situations where they must get uh 65 or fall into the safe harbor zone to actually earn the region's diploma. So you know this is this is a plea out there to one get students in the schools. Um our schools have been doing a fantastic job with initiating hall sweeps, making sure that students are in the buildings getting into classes and doing it on a
071consistent basis, but they have to get there. And uh again, of course, we don't want to see a dip uh just as Dr. Ramos said, but um that that may that may be likely across uh New York State, unfortunately. Thank you. A quick question, and if you guys don't know this, we can talk about it later, but the blue ribbon commission, what what is the the progress of that? Where are we in in that process? I believe state education department or our state monitor can answer that answer that question. The blue ribbon commission where where where is the state at currently when it comes to implementing that around the state? The state is still uh working on the development of of the plan. Uh that information will be shared with uh the school districts uh
072for next year. So it is still work in progress. uh the document. Okay. Commissioner Santiago, that for 2027, right? The blue ribbon. That's the first that Yeah. 2027. That's that's also going to be a phased approach uh as well in terms of graduation pathways. um in terms of big five school districts or school districts where you know there's high levels of English u uh English language learners uh students um you know and bilingual programs um but also students with disabilities I would I would think that uh the commissioner of education is likely to pick these large districts to be the first cohort to actually model these out and just to let you know um we did have two individuals um uh two teachers on assignment uh in the division of teaching and learning that actually
073did um gather they they held forums and did uh u feedback sessions uh from parents and students to talk about the blue ribbon commission and we had to submit that information to Boseis uh so that they can actually we have uh the Rochester community have input as to what it will look like for the Rochester Chester City School District. So, that has been done. And again, like I said, uh hopefully um you know, our district um you know, Buffalo, Syracuse, uh Albany, hopefully those are the school districts that sort of lead the way because we know that our students um all students have multiple modalities. Uh but our students are generally uh uh we struggle uh with um you know just this one way of uh showing our knowledge of subjects. Yeah. I I was
074on the uh student advisory committee of the blue ribbon commission. So I'm excited to see uh it implemented in Rochester. Commissioner Patterson, once again I'm going to keep it short. Um thank you again for your presentation. Uh, I don't want you to think I don't have questions for you, but in an effort to save time, uh, Entram Strickland is answering my questions up here. So, thank you. Um, I look forward to, you know, the I Ready data, you know, during our summer retreat. Thank you. Thank you. Our parent rep, Monica Graham, do you have any comments or questions? Um, yes, thank you. So, Dr. Ramos, you are on Fuego tonight, so I appreciate that. This meeting is going along. You're efficient. The commissioners are hitting it. So, I love it. Um, so what I like
075to comment on is, um, thank you for providing that snapshot because I don't think a lot of parents know the options that are out there for our scholars. Um, I have personally with mine utilized a lot of those resources to make sure that he is on track. Um, so thank you for highlighting that. So I want to let the parents know those options are out there for our babies to stay on track and do those things. The district is providing that. So reach out to your counselor, your parent leaison, your principal, whoever you need because it is there. So thank you for that. Um and thank you Isaiah or Commissioner Santiago for bringing up the blue ribbon commission. I was a part of those groups and I think that having that particular structure for our
076scholars um is amazing because a lot of our scholars are bright. They just need a different way to do what we need them to do and this um will allow them that. So, thank you all so much and thank you for the presentations tonight. Dr. Ramos, thank you Commissioner Lebron. Yeah, I just want to echo everything that our parent rep just said because I agree especially with Dr. Ramos. Um, super on point tonight. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Ramos. Can as a board, can we just give a hand to Dr. Ramos? But you had commission. Say it. Oh, do we have an extra question? Well, did you Any other questions? Okay. No. Oh, I'm I'm sorry. I thought you had a question. Thank you very much. I I just want to um
077leave one thought with you. We have evidence that our curriculum is impacting students that come to school. They're making it. They're passing the regions. Remember the new regions, next generation, what used to be a 65 is now a 69. So, you're going to see that dip of what kids need to do. And we need to get them all even further aligned. Um, so if there's one campaign next year that I encourage you to continue to use as a board is to get those babies to school, please. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Ramos. We appreciate you. Um, so there there are two reports on board docs. Um, an attendance report, which I'm not sure if I'm the only one, but there is no uh document on there, and then also the receiverhip report, which
078is a quarterly report. the board gets a a final report, but these are just quarterly updates. I want to give an opportunity to our interim superintendent and our state monitor to give uh updates, comments uh about these two reports. Yes. Uh first and foremost, um I did inquire about the attendance uh report. This actually falls under um family and community engagement department uh but I was not able to get with the executive director regardless. Um there will be uh followup uh in that regard. Um as for uh section B um this is also uh was provided to the board of education as soon as I sent them into New York State Education Department. We are required to post the quarterly receiverhip reports uh that our school uh buildings that are in receiverhip um they're supposed
079to complete on a quarterly basis. So you have the five reports um which uh in a sense are updates and it's showing uh where these schools or how far or how they are being how are they meeting uh the demonstrable improvement indicators uh that have been set for them. Um as we stated before uh oftent times there's a misnomer that our receiverhip schools are the worst schools in the district. Um, in these receiverhip schools, I know these elementary schools in particular, um, they have some of the higher scores, uh, because the the bar just keeps getting raised. Um, however, there's subgroups that cause this, uh, to be, you know, to to hurt schools actually get out of receiverhip. Um but it just really goes through an overall executive summary um which uh administrators uh provide
080us in plain language and again uh they show our uh what their smart goals are. Um they put information in the reports around their uh commitments and they talk about u their strategies. All level one indicators are what New York State has assigned as areas that are in need of improvement for the schools. And level two indicators um there's a sort of a list of them that are provided to the schools where the uh school community actually selects uh the ones that they want and at the end of the year the goal is to get uh they're weighted 50/50. uh the end of the year, the goal is to get above 67% in order to not uh be considered a school um that has not met demonstrable progress. All of our schools uh this year,
081but one school u met demonstrable uh improvement. Um and then the one school uh that did not meet demonstrable improvement uh I had to have a a meeting with the commissioner of education around that school. Uh she sent a letter uh which I will just upload again in our uh weekly letter um for you all to uh read um because it also comes with implications. She did ultimately say that the school she's granting them demonstrable progress. Um it is the area where it she has to weigh uh Dr. Rosa has to weigh whether or not the school makes demonstrable progress but she ultimately did say that we just have to put additional efforts um and to make sure that we uh don't keep repeating the process. So state monitor thank you Dr. Strickland. Uh you're
082right about the process and about uh the school making the mostable improvement. Uh like you said, there's only one school and uh incoming superintendent Dr. Roser and myself will be working with the principal in that school to develop a plan to continue to improve uh instruction in that building. Uh if you look at the report, you can see that uh most of the rating is yellow or green that there's no red. So that means that they're working very hard to meet uh those uh indicators from the state. We can see that the administrators are in the classroom doing walkthroughs and sharing that information with the teachers. Uh tomorrow the state will be in uh visiting two of those schools in receiverhip to go over the quarter 3 report and to see where they are and
083the things that we need to continue to do as a district and in the individual building to continue to increase student achievement. Uh Dr. Ramos said three times we need to get those baby to schools. When we look at the data, we can see the absentism and the chronic absentism is very high, especially at the high school level. So, we need to make sure that our attendance team uh is putting some strategies in place, working with the families, working with the staff to get the students in the school. If they're not attending school, they're not going to learn. We're not going to see the improvement. So it is important that we continue to work together to get the students in the school and that we can continue to improve instruction and to listen to Dr.
084Ramos that we need to get those babies in the schools. Thank thank you to both Dr. Strickland and Dr. Alisa. Um do you we'll end the meeting there. If you guys have any uh questions or comments about this, you can put on board docs. This is just a report. We do have we we get reports often. Um but if there's any additional question, it can be put on board docs. With that being said, uh can I get a motion to adjurnn the ESA committee meeting? Motion second. All those in favor? I. Meeting adjourned. Thank you. And thank you. We'll take a twominut uh recess before going into the special meeting. Folks can stretch their legs for a quick moment. and thank you for your patience. I'm Camille Simmons. Um you we are now convening into
085our special meeting for this evening. Today is May 13th. Um I'd like to um pretty much we're going to just jump in. We have a few resolutions that we're going to uh consider this evening. um including appointments, provisional appointments, terminations, resignations, and retirements. At this time, I'd like to entertain a motion to bundle um a set of resolutions. Motion. And the um resolutions specifically that I'm looking to bundle would be resolutions 664 through 669. Motion. Second. Motion by Commissioner Griffin, seconded by Vice President Malloy. All in favor or any discussion around the bundling bundling? All in favor of the bundling 664 through 669. I I Okay, those resolutions are now bundling. Bundled, excuse me. Uh so entertaining a motion for resolution 664 through 669. A motion motion by Commissioner Patterson, seconded by Commissioner Griffin. Um,
086those resolutions are open for discussion at this time. With no discussion, all in favor of resolution, my hands up. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you. Commissioner Leon, go right ahead. Yes. I just want to give two comments to resolution 668. And I want to thank Lashara Evans for all of her service to RCSD. It like literally pains my heart to see you go. I just wanted to put on record that you're an amazing educator and principal and leader. Um and it's a big huge loss for RCSD. Congratulations to the district that you're going to. Um and then I also on 669 want to thank Linda Dunesmore who's retiring for all of her tireless work at at the East community. Um Linda's been there forever and a day. She was there when I
087worked at East. So, I just want to thank Linda and I wish her well in her retirement. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner LeBron. Yes, Miss Dunmore is a household name. And Dr. Evans, I'm gonna call you doctor. You know, I always call somebody doctor. We thank you. We know that Tasha Potter is about to um win something very special out there in Penfield. So, congratulations. Um any other discussion on these resolutions? With no further discussion, uh all in favor of resolution 664 through 669. I I Any opposed? Resolutions carry. Um the next resolution is uh resolution 661. Um and this is an amendment. I wanted to just take a moment to unpack it so there's no questions. This is in regard to the mental health ad hoc committee. We um as a board um uh
088voted in support of this committee which is still going to take place um and it's going to allow for great opportunity to um for expert health care clinicians and mental health professionals to come together um as the purpose of the committee was stated. Uh we also had an aggressive timeline because the objective was to get this in um I believe by August if I'm correct Commissioner Santiago. Um and so with that, we we're looking at uh we have gotten some folks who are joining into the healthc care um ad hoc committee and we want to make sure we uh provide enough of a timeline where we can have robust representation. And so that timeline we're going we're asking to amend um the timeline in this resolution. So again, nothing has changed. We just want to
089stretch out the timeline to allow for more committee members to become involved. Charisma, did I miss anything? Um and so with that explanation and um hopefully clarity or understanding, I'd like to entertain a motion uh for resolution 661. Motion. Second. Second. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Santiago, seconded by Commissioner Lebron. Open for discussion. Without further discussion, all in favor of resolution 661. I I. Any opposed? Did I didn't hear everyone? Did you capture all the votes? Okay, I'm going to just um entertain a motion. I I want to make sure everyone hear me on the up here. Um entertaining a motion for resolution 661. And we have the the folks. Um all in favor of resolution 661. I want to make sure that Charisma C captures a vote respectfully. I Okay. I Did you get them?
090I'm not here. Uh, Commissioner Griffin, did you want to enter yours? Oh, well, I Well, I want to just discuss something because I just want to make sure I opened it for discussion and there was no discussion and so we're at this point we're taking a vote. Nay at this time. Okay. Nay. Okay, Charisma. Um, count that in and then the car the motion carries at this time. The motion carries at this time. Um, and thank you. No, without further discussion. Yo, did we do it? Oh, we beat the record. I thought it was going to be 7:30. 7:26. Uh, have a good evening. That concludes the special meeting for this motion for adjournment. Oh, thank you, Commissioner Santiago. Second. Motion for adjournment. Thank you. Uh, second. U, I'll give you the motion. Commissioner Santiago.
091Thank you for that. Seconded by Commission, Vice President Malloy. All in favor? I. Okay. Thank you. Have a good night.