001All right. Good evening. Thank you for joining us for the May 5th board of education meeting. If you could all join me with a pledge to the flag. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And we will start this evening, as we do all evenings, with a report from the superintendent, Dr. Murray. >> Thank you. Good evening. I'd like to begin with some exciting updates on our bond project. We are thrilled to share that the new wing at Osborne School has been completed and students begin occupying the space on April 27th. It has been wonderful to see their enthusiasm as they settle into these new learning environments, which were designed
002to support collaboration, creativity, and engagement. At Midland School, construction is in its final stages. The new wing is currently in the paving process and we are scheduled for a fire inspection this week. If all goes well, we are hopeful that students will be able to begin using that space as early as next week. This evening, we held our annual critical thinking expo showcasing authentic learning experiences from students across grades K through 12. This event is a powerful reflection of the Ry commitment in action, highlighting how we are developing students who think deeply, solve problems, and engage meaningfully with their learning. This week is also a special one across our district as National Teacher Appreciation Week and I want to take a moment to recognize and thank our incredible educators. Their dedication, passion, and commitment to
003our students make a lasting difference every single day. In addition, tomorrow is National School Nurse Day, and we are grateful for the care, compassion, and expertise our nurses provide to support the health and well-being of our school community. At the high school, we had a successful senior assembly and sendoff last Friday. It was a meaningful opportunity to celebrate the class of 2026. I'd like to extend a special thank you to the high school PTO for their support and making that event so memorable for our students. And finally, our spring art shows and concerts are beginning at all levels within the next few weeks. These events are a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our students creativity and talents, and I encourage our entire community to attend and support their work. Thank you. It seems crazy that it's
004already May and time for all those fun events, but here we find ourselves. All right, so with that, uh, the hearing of the public on the 2627 proposed budget. Are there members here from the community to speak on the budget? Seeing none, I will remind our community that the that the vote for our budget is It's on May 19th from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. in the middle school gym. May 19th. May 19th. 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. And we hope that every uh member of our community will come out to vote and engage in their civic duty and responsibilities to vote for the school board budget as well as our uh board trustees where we will have two people running for two open seats of the board. So, we are excited about that. So
005thank you. With that we will now move on to presentation and discussion critical thinking. Dr. Murray. >> Yes. Uh thank you. Um so as I said tonight we had our critical thinking expo over in the middle school gym. Um and and we were so uh happy that we were able to see projects from various grade levels across our district. Um and I'm actually going to hand it off to um Lauren Santa Barbara. She's going to talk to you about the work we've been doing around critical thinking the past few years and how this year's expo and and the projects that you'll see tonight connect to that. Good evening. I would like to take uh I would like to take this time to thank the board of education for the opportunity to speak with you about
006critical thinking within our secondary classrooms. This past fall, as Dr. Murray just mentioned, we had our students present about critical thinking in our schools from grades K through 5. And tonight, we will hear from Mr. Ladell's and Mr. English classes, students from their class, Miss Jesse's music lab class, and students from her class, as well as Miss Wagner's book bundle projects and students who have participated in those projects. Um, circling around critical thinking. The projects you will hear about tonight not only emulate critical thinking within our secondary classrooms, but they truly embody the RI commitment as well. As we expand upon our goal of increasing critical thinking across all content areas, we continue to think about what it really looks like in our classrooms and we are acutely aware that our teachers and our students
007are reaching far beyond just critical thinking. When we look at the definition of critical thinking and our district has done this work for the past couple of years when not only looking at the Ry commitment but what critical thinking looks like in our classrooms we have really broken apart what that means and how that supports our curriculum. And so for us in our classrooms you're going to see students analyzing information in order to inform their decision-making. You're going to see logic, reasoning, and creativity in order to draw conclusions. teaching skills such as questioning, evaluating, interpreting, and synthesizing, and practicing what we call the feedback loop. So, going back to our Ry commitment on the right, you will see that there's highlighted sections that we have broken apart what we're calling the components. So, keeping those
008skills in mind that I just mentioned that you see in our classrooms, we're beginning to connect the other components within the RI commitment. Tonight especially, you will hear our presenters and our students speak about communication, collaboration, problem solving, and being a self-aware, caring contributor. So yes, the focus is critical thinking, but it's impossible to do that without the other pieces of our Ry commitment. So tonight when they speak, I ask you to listen for those pieces. Although critical thinking is at the heart of everything we do, it is best partnered with metacognition because if our students are reflective in practice, and they are, then the other components can then truly exist. The relationship between critical thinking and reflection is often referred to as I just mentioned the feedback loop and you'll see that as the
009last phase on this slide. So in the past we have studied what critical thinking is and that was the definition that I provided and the various instructional components involved. We then moved to developing the critical thinking tasks in our rooms. And then last year and the year before we really started to design and implement designed uh designing authentic projects. And the last piece is really integrating that feedback loop within our practice. And you saw this evening in our um middle school gymnasium that you're talking to students who when they talk to you about their projects and they're so very proud and they should they're telling you that they thought about things and because of those thoughts they made a change in their project. You saw drafts tonight, you saw reflections in portfolios and you're going
010to see that tonight as well with our um specified presentations. So when we talk about critical thinking that we talk to our students about that's really thinking about the world the outer world it's outer facing it's focusing on logic evidence and an external claim. When we talk to students about reflection and self-reflection we're doing that at a very young age because we want them to think about the thinker and we want it to be inward- facing and focusing on emotional responses history and the why behind their perspectives. So together, when you marry critical thinking and self-reflection, we call it the feedback loop. And we're able to support claims through evidence while being reflective in process and broadening their perspectives. Here is our authentic project criteria which you are familiar with. So in our K through2
011expo this evening, you saw real purposes on audiences. Students had choice in their projects. Students were engaged and they did research components and investigation in order to support their thinking. Students collaborated. Students had multimmodal experiences and students had opportunities to reflect and have that feedback piece. So embedding those pieces K through 12 in our authentic projects, many of which you saw, it exemplified these six pieces of authenticity. And in a moment, you will hear our students speak about their process. And I ask that you listen for the metacognition and how their reflection has not only encouraged them in their design process, but it is also shaping who they are in a greater sense. So without further ado, I would like to invite Mr. Liddell and Mr. Akulski to the podium with their students to speak
012to you about the piano lesson. >> Just sit right here. >> Thank you. Hello, I'm Andrew Liddell. Um, thank you for inviting us to speak this evening. In English 10, we focus on the uh the the analysis of literature, plays, poetry, uh, literary fiction. But we were wondering where do our students in class get to see their own experiences in history as worthy of analysis and how can they share that with others? So, uh, we created a task where students could connect personally with August Wilson's play the piano lesson. And we want them to also practice the key skills of symbol analysis and theme analysis. I'm currently taking a course with uh Carolyn Bombase and Kimberly Persad on student voice and media tools. So my co-teer and I Mr. Okowski Molski right here who will
013speak in a moment uh worked with Caroline to design a project where students created a two to three minute video that was a hybrid uh primary research analysis and reflection task. In it, students explain the significance of the of an object of significance from their family history. Symbol analysis, as well as what their family's interaction with that object reveals about how their family views their own history, theme analysis. Uh, then they compared it to Wilson's use of symbol and theme in the play. Students used we video editing platform as well as RF funded microphones and green screens to produce their videos. >> Hi everyone, my name is Michael Oolski. I am the co- teacher within the class. Um, and as Mr. Liddell said, just to sort of echo off what he said, um, this is
014we have a co- talk class, so we wanted to make sure that we could support all of our students. Um, this was something that they haven't really done before. Not many of the students had exposure to Wii video, so we wanted to make sure that there were really strong supports in place. So, some of this included, um, very explicit directions with content requirements, with technical requirements. Um, all students received a uh scaffolded checklist, an organizer to really break it down for them so they knew what was expected of them so that all students within the classroom would really thrive and succeed on this project. And then as far as research goes, the research was a little um less conventional because there wasn't necessarily um sort of like a historical back there wasn't there well the
015primary source was their families, right? So they would go interview um their family members to look for a very specific um symbol that is important to them. So they would interview family members. We challenge them to interview family members to talk to their family members about a specific symbol, what the custom was behind it, what the culture was behind it, and what their feelings were behind it. >> Oops. I'm sorry. >> I'm not family heirlooms and not just objects. >> It's okay. I'll go back for a second. So we have three students with us, two students with us, three student work that we will see tonight. Um so Anani Prasad and Ayanna Duza are up first and um we were really impressed by their work. So Ayanna will introduce her video. Sorry, Anani will introduce
016her video first. I apologize the order is different. Anya will introduce her video. >> Hi, my name is Na. Um oh oh my gosh, sorry I do not know how to use Okay, >> I'll do it. Um so my video was on my mother's well my my mother's then my grandma's my grandma's mother's um Indian jungga which are earrings and I examined how they were they were a family heirloom of mine and since we moved to the US um as a first generation um student I wanted to like kind of um almost like incorporate that into my project seeing the idea of how even though um moving forward with like your with like a new life and a new country. Um still being able to hold on to the past and pay homage to your
017culture is important. And I kind of centered my project around how tradition can still be kept and even incorporated in new ways. Here you >> are not just objects but ways to hold on to the past yet still move forward. These are a pair of northern Indian golden junkas. Juma meaning earring in Hindi. But they're not just a pair of earrings. They're more than that. Like every family heirloom, there is a story behind them. The earrings are bought in Bihar, India. They've been passed down from my mother's nani to my nani. Nani meaning grandmother in Hindi. They've been given to my mother and then one day to me. These earrings have been passed down through the generations of women in my family on their wedding days. When I asked my mother how she got them,
018she told me that on her wedding day, she was given the earrings by my nani. She recalls being really happy that she was given them, as well as melancholy, knowing that it was like growing up, no longer being a child anymore. The earrings stand for growing up, passing down the torch almost. You're given them on the day of your wedding, a symbol for leaving home and becoming an adult, someone new, but still the same person that you were before. To the women in my family, we have seen it as keeping the traditions and love from our elders and eventually being able to pass it on onto new generations. It symbolizes growing up but still holding on to the love and support from those that love you as well. My family's relationship to the earrings is
019mostly positive and has no negative bearing on my family. The piano and the pianoist, however, has a powerful yet haunting history of slavery behind it, haunting the Charles family. The earrings in my family are a way to pass the torch, hold on to the love of our family, and start a new life. In some way, they are similar, as the piano also holds on to the past, but in a different way. Both of these objects show a lot about family history, about the importance of holding on to memories and the history of your family and building upon it. One day, I'll give these earrings to my daughter, hopefully, and the piano might be passed down to Martha, as well as the history and traditions alongside it. Both of these objects also carry a legacy for
020your family. The earrings hold on to my Indian heritage as a first generation of Indian-American in America. The piano holds on to the story as the legacy of Boy Willie and Bernice's ancestors. Holding on to their past whilst looking forward to the future. Now, when it comes to holding on to the past versus moving forward, the P and the earrings show that it's capable to do both. The earrings keep the love and traditions held by my family, but also let us go into our own lives, prosper in new roots, and create new traditions. The piano holds on to the past with the engravings and history behind it prominent and remembered in the family. But it also shows moving forward as Martha is learning how to play it, keeping the tradition while also bringing in new
021generations to move forward. Through the piano and the earrings, we can see how family heirlooms mean more than just material worth, but the legacy, family history, and resemblance carried by them. Family heirlooms not mean to consume your life with the past. Nor does moving forward mean to let go. We can carry the stories, love, and legacy of our ancestors whilst moving on to new horizons and making a life for yourself. Excellent. Um Nola could not be here tonight and sends her apologies. Um so I'll introduce her project. So Nola's grandfather uh was in Vietnam and as part of his means of processing the trauma that he experienced, he was diagnosed with PTSD. He wrote letters um he wrote letters I I believe to himself, maybe to others, but the letters became a part of their
022family history that they then kept and cherished. And so Nola will talk about the meaning of the letters from her grandfather. The violence of war leaves a nasty taste in the mouths of the ones that have experienced it. And finding ways to cope is one of the hardest things one can do. Hi, my name is Nil Zakari and my object are papers or letters written by my grandfather in first person as recounts of his time in Vietnam. These papers are kept on a shelf in my parents office. They were a method of helping with my grandfather's PTSD. He wrote any chance he got. He once even stated in his writing that he wrote all night and at the time that he stamped it, it was 6:30 in the morning. Although it is not displayed, it's
023very important to my family and it represents what my grandpa went through and experienced. I now want to read a passage from the writing that tells me exactly what it meant to him. Bravery and exposing yourself to danger can't hold a candle to knowing your job and performing it, no matter how confusing the circumstances or how dangerous it might be to do so. always to me the stories have represented bravery and courage and stand not only for my grandfather but his troop and other people that fought in the same war and yeah although they're very special to me they're even more special to my mom. It was her dad and by reading them it reminds her about what he had to endure and also explains the effects that it had on his life after the
024war. With that, it brings her a reminder of his bravery and lets her have a good reminder of him. At the same time, I never met my grandfather. So, by reading them, it makes me feel closer to him as well and more connected. It also helps me learn about him the more I read. And not just about the bad, but also the good. There's never been a conflict about them, but why should there be? They're a memory of my grandfather, and that's what we all think and what it should. This is similar to the piano in the sense that it represents a traumatic history for both my grandfather and the Charles's. It is very similar to the piano because no one really touches them or reads them. They're just there, but we know that they're
025special and where they are. The papers are a strong example of legacy because this is who he was. My grandfather was a war veteran who fought in Vietnam. That's how I like to think of him and that's how I will continue to think of him. Holding on to the past allows you to remind yourself about your ancestors and your history. And it's very important not to forget that. The impact on war of my grandpa left him with something that he lived with for the rest of his life. His severe PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. This could occur in many veterans after war and is very important to look out for. This opened the door to his therapy and left us with a reminder of him for the rest of our lives, his writing, as well as
026a reminder for me that my mother gave to me, the name James for my middle name, which is also his name, as well as three other of my cousins who share the same middle name, as well as my uncle Jimmy, as we call him, but his real name is James, who is his son, and provided me with images of the silver star and his portrait, as well as his flag. I never actually thought I would think about his past through the lens of the piano lesson, but I'm glad I did now because the sympathy I feel for the people and the families affected by war has doubled, if not tripled in size. >> All right. Uh, and here is Ayanna Duza with her project. Hi, I'm Ayana and my project focused on a painting of
027my grandmother's house and this painting has multiple replicas of it. These replicas are in my dad and his siblings h homes. Through this project, I was able to develop a better understanding about what this what about what this painting means to my family. This painting has always hung on a wall in my house and I've passed it almost every day in my life, but I never got the opportunity to really dig deep and understand why it's really meaningful to me and my family. This project really allowed me to explore the significance of it and how it allows my family to connect through this one common object that brings us together and allowed me to explore what's really significant and makes my family important. unique family history that every family has is carried in a symbol
028in some way, shape, or form that tells a story of a family. In my family, on my dad's side, we have a tradition of going back to our home country and staying at our grandmother's house for the holidays. We value my grandma's house through a painting, which my dad and his two siblings have in each of their own family households. This painting hangs on a wall by the entrance of my door, as well as two other versions hanging in both of my cousin's house. The painting depicts my grandmother's house and the warmth and homeliness with the soft palette of the sky with the beige and brown colors of the house including spots of greenery to give it liveless. The house has our traditional Portuguese style design which reflects the history of the city in Goa
029being colonized by the Portuguese. This moment in history left some cultural marks which allowed elements of Portuguese design to be incorporated into my grandmother's house. These cultural elements are what led to us calling my grandma Ao, which is grandmother in Portuguese. We use this painting as a way to connect with my family and create a safe, comfortable community that goes back to my grandmother's house to be reminded about the importance of family and give everyone a sense of belonging. My family's relationship with the painting is different from Charles family's relationship to the piano because the painting in my family is something that brings us together. While the piano creates conflict within the members of Charles family because of the deep history that the piano brings. The piano shows the pain and trauma the Charles family
030went through to get where they are now and how their resilience and spirit got those family ancestors through these tough times of being enslaved. The intricate art of the carved ancestors on the piano shows the pain from past loved ones and symbolizes family legacy. Conflict is brought between Boy Willie and Bernice because of Boy Willy's perspective to sell the piano to make money to buy Sutter's land, which is who enslaved their ancestors because this is what their father would have done, which Boy Willie believes. But Bernice has a different perspective of the significance of the piano because she believes it's a major part of their family legacy and ancestors. She connects the piano to the memory of her mother, and she wants to preserve its importance by not selling it. My family's object uses its
031history to create a long, strong legacy that everyone is proud of and continues to live with. The resemblance of the piano and my family symbol shows that past history shapes current living experiences and perspectives, and that our heritage is valuable to influencing who we are. The positive interaction that I have with my family symbol and the conflicting interaction that Charles family has with his piano portrays how we interact with our family symbols really shapes our understanding and behavior towards our family history. >> Nice job. All right. So students that you saw today, Ana and Ayanna both demonstrated the feedback loop for you in real time as they reflected on the learning that they did for this project. Many students in English 10 have decided to include this piece in their portfolios for the end of
032the course and we'll analyze their own experience as well to dis discover and think about what they have learned and how they've grown in the class. Thank you so much. And now I would like to invite Miss Jesse um and her students from her music lab class. Thank you, Lauren. Hi, I'm Victoria Jesse. I am the middle school chorus and music lab teacher here at Ry Middle. Um these two students behind me are Rafferty and Jackson and they are members of our eighth grade music lab for this semester. Um we are talking about music lab. We start off with focusing on foundational skills. Uh some ways that we build that in our students is using drum pads and keyboards to help build fluency with rhythm and music notation. All of these skills are used in
033their quarter 3 culmination project, which is the Foley project. And don't worry, I won't steal your thunder. Um, they're going to talk some more about that with you all. Uh, we also started this semester researching non-performance music careers and students got to choose those careers that they focused on and became the experts in, and they presented that to their classmates. All of these skills they use in their projects where they are no longer the students in the room but rather the professionals in these careers. Um up on the board is one of Jackson's slides from his non-m music uh performance career. Students have choice in the foley scenes that they choose and you'll get to see Jackson and Rafferties in just a moment. They also get to choose their final piano song that they work
034towards for the entire semester. uh they have full artist uh liberty in all of their projects and compositions that they create. And they will also be advocating for their final project, which will be another attempt, a second attempt at the project that they feel like they received the most valuable feedback and also want another swing at because learning is never stopping. We are always developing and trying to move towards better. So, um, Jackson and Rafferty, I'm going to hand it off to you. >> Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to present. My name is Jackson and this is Rafferty. This semester in music lab, we've been creating digital portfolios to show our growth and development through over time. These portfolios help us track our step-by-step progression where we started, where we started, and
035how much we've improved. >> They also give us a place to reflect on our past work. We can look back at earlier projects, think about how we can improve, how far we've came, and recognize how our skills and confidence has grown. >> Our first unit focused on non-performance music careers. Like Miss Jesse said, >> before this, many of us only thought about the performers, but we researched roles like producers, sound engineers, and composers who work behind the scenes to make the magic happen. We researched careers, became experts, and then shared our knowledge with the class. This helped us build researching skills and think more critically about future opportunities. >> We also created a pure interview project using Soundtrack. This was a low pressure assignment that helped us build community and improve our conversational skills. >>
036At the same time, we learned technical skills in the app like putting intros and outros, editing audio, and using fade effects, which helped us in later projects. >> We also worked on many pieces of music using MIDI MIDI pianos. Throughout this, we practice basic music notation, learning notes, how to use the keyboards, and soundtrack. We record snippets from well-known songs and and then made them our own by adding by adding different sounds like beats, synthesizers, and other melodies on Soundtrack. Then we put them in our portfolios. This helps us see our musical progression over time. But our favorite unit was the Foley project, the art of creating sound to go along with moving audio and video. We watched professional examples the first professional examples and then we watched the movie Up where we discussed how
037sound effects and music impact different scenes. >> Then we created a Q sheet to help us line up our sounds and we created our own Foley project um by adding sound effects to a movie clip we picked. We are very excited to share our folio project with you now. You're a good Hey, the Yeah. And I did just want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to to see them present during the critical thinking expo. It was really wonderful to see them interact with um students in our community and family members and really get to lean into being the experts that they've become this quarter and semester. So, thank you. Last words. >> Overall, Music Lab has helped us think critically, collaborate with our friends, and build independence. >> Thank you for your for
038your time. We hope you enjoyed our work. Okay. And now I would like to welcome Miss Wagner, our media specialist, and two students who have participated in her project. I've come buried treasures, of course. How's everybody doing? We good? You ready? Okay. I don't know if you guys want these before or after, but I feel like I could tease you a little bit beforehand. So, how we doing? >> We're good. >> So, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Miss Wagner, Miss Emily Wagner. I am the library media specialist at Ry Middle and High School. And behind me, I have two of my wonderful proteges, Miss Alice Komarova, who is a sixth grader, and Louisa Salvador, who is a senior. Um, so I'm very excited to have them here. Um, and
039I promise that they are here voluntarily. I swear. So, so when it came to this project, this started for this school at least back in January. And you're probably wondering what on earth is a book bundle. A book bundle is basically a curated bundle of books that usually fit into one of two categories. The first is a pre-made bundle, which will usually have some type of theme or image that will incite some type of feeling or emotion. and I create a basically a little group of books usually between two or three that fall into that category. And the other are custom book bundles. And custom book bundles are really where like the magic and the critical thinking kind of happen. So custom book bundles basically what happens as the board members will know you guys
040filled out these very same forms. So when a student requests a custom book bundle, what happens is they basically interact with this in terms of communication skills. So they are required to write out what exactly they want, what they need from this bundle, even things that they like, they don't like. And what this form does is it removes that intimidation factor. So I'm sure a lot of you have children. How many times when they've come home from school, you've asked them, "How was your day?" or "What happened today?" and they say nothing. I don't know. Nothing really. They just they don't really want to what's the word? Um interact that way or maybe explain things that way. So, because this is mainly on paper, it removes that kind of intimidation factor. It moves the fear
041factor and it allows them to build communication skills through writing out their wants, their needs, so on and so forth. It also helps build reading and literacy skills. So in general, so often when it comes to school, reading unfortunately becomes a chore. There is assignment after assignment put on to whatever book is chosen for you. And that element of choice with a book really does kind of I don't want to say put a bad taste in some students mouths, but unfortunately it does. So because the custom book bundles are a tailored personalized experience, it basically removes the transactional feeling from reading. and removes the uniformity from real from reading and turns it into hey this is a special curated thing that is just for you and that's what that does. Um it also helps build
042critical thinking through introspection as you guys saw on the book bundles if you read the when you read the forums. It asks what genres you like. It asks what are you passionate about? Who are you inspired by? Who do you relate to? What is the form or the medium of the book that you want? um whether it's asking even like positive and negative interactions with media in the past. All of this basically um builds on this concept of self-reflection and introspection. It asks them like I said to reflect on their past experiences with media, positive and negative, what they want, what they don't want. And the more specific they are, the better results I can give them. The entire purpose of this is really just to get a book in their hand. So that is
043how this works. Um when it comes to student choice, everything about this is student choice. Students, what they do with this form is basically create for me an instruction manual that I use to find what I think can best appeal to them. And from there they get that very special almost like gift box, if you will, this like mystery gift box. When it comes to the research, all of this is grounded in social and emotional learning. It's a focus on self-awareness. You know, students ability to identify their emotions, their personal identity, their values, um the confidence to search through search um and interact with different perspectives and also demonstrating that honest communication of their interests, which as we know is very hard for children and teenagers to do. It also helps build our relationship skills
044because um oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. It goes back to removing the transactional aspect of reading in schools in general. Um it helps me build positive relationship with students because how often can you say that hey my librarian or you know just anybody can take what I want exactly as I write it down and create this very very special intimate thing. Um it also helps with building resilience to uncomfortable situations. Stories can be exciting. They can be heartbreaking. They can make they can make us feel relief, happiness or even grief. So building this idea this idea of building for not oh my gosh building what reading for escapism and wanting to kind of remove yourself from the now and go out into another world and basically interact with all these different emotions in a
045safe way. It can help them really self-regulate, help them process their reactions, their feelings about what's going on in this fictional world, but also that skill can be transferred into real life skills as well. processing your emotions for real life excitement, real life relief, real life anger, real life grief, so on and so forth. Um, some sample projects. These are just two of them. They are not theirs, but for example, just to see a range. The first one is from a 12th grader. And this student basically explained that they really, really liked fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, and graphic novels. They enjoyed, unfortunately, it's kind of like chicken scratch on there. It's tiny, but they really really liked arcane. They loved um gaming. They liked K-pop demon hunters. All of this really cool sci-fi fantasy based stuff.
046And this was a senior, so naturally I gave them a little bit higher things. The three books I gave them was The Raven Scholar by Antonio Hodgson, Red Rising, and Full Metal Alchemist. All of these three kind of either not completely, but have these little bits and pieces of each thing they liked in each one. Um, furthermore, the next one is from a sixth grader and theirs was a bit different. So, they also enjoyed fantasy and graphic novels, but when it came to their likes, they enjoyed Percy Jackson and they enjoyed also zoology, which was a very interesting one. And this is partially what I mean like a really good example of the more specific you are, the better. So, that very first book I gave them, Knox Winters, is a book about these two
047siblings who are cryptozoolologists. Does anybody here know what a crypted is? Kind of like a like the Moth Man. Kind of like Bigfoot. That's basically a cryptid. And it's these two kids who basically go out and they are cryptozoolologists and they're adventures trying to figure out the mysteries of Bigfoot and all these fantastical creatures. Similarly, Scarlet, well, not similarly, but Scarlet Mourning is almost like a pirate adventure. And then, because I know that this student is a very highle reader despite being in sixth grade, a wizard of earthy by the incomparable Miss Ursula Leguin. and that is a graphic novel version. So although that book itself is very difficult because it's in a graphic novel version it brings it down to their level where they can interact with this very high level text in a
048way that's understandable to them. So that is how that works and if you guys will be so kind um Alice and Louisa will now explain a little bit of their experience with writing out this form getting a book bundle and their feelings and emotions that are tied to this project. Okay. Okay. Uh I'll go first. So, uh my experience was uh overall very pleasant. And uh one thing, uh Miss Magner, she did an excellent job. Uh I filled out I tried to be really spec specific of what I liked uh so I could uh hopefully get something that would be on my top new favorites books. And uh funny thing that happened is when I filled out the sheet and Miss Wagner gave me the book bundle basically a day later is actually she put
049one of my favorite books in the bundle without uh I forgot to write it down but she actually put it in there. So I found that really funny. Uh I enjoyed all the books that she gave me quite a lot and she actually gave me five because I'm a super fast reader and I really uh and I can read like really long books. So, it was overall a really pleasant experience and I would recommend it and yeah, it was super great. >> Thanks, Alex. Great. >> Great. Hi, I'm Louisa and if you don't know me, I'm a senior and one thing I can say as a senior is that this has been like the most busiest time of my life and most difficult. And I think I would recommend the book bundle experience because um
050I would say that it's like timesaving. I think writing down in the pamphlet about my specific wants and like what I like in books help save my time and like help focus on my academic like needs while also having like time to like read like a leisurely pace. Um but overall I do enjoy most of the books that Miss Warner recommend me. Even if I don't read like as fast as Alice, um I still think I enjoyed the way that I take my time reading. And I think overall it did help reflect how I communicate with my friends. Um I usually use like what I read to like project my feelings with and connect with like my friends and family. And that's basically it. Yeah. All right. Okay. Thank you, Visa. All right. So, and
051from there, going back to the student feedback loop, basically everything about this entire process is in is informal and it's done that way on purpose. Like I said at the very beginning, reading in school can often feel like a chore because there's assignment after project after essay attached to everything. And I hate to say that it kind of sucks the fun out, but it can very much like suck the love and the soul and the enjoyment out of reading because it's like, "Oh my gosh, when will this ever end?" So when students return their books, even if they didn't finish the whole thing, the entire goal is to just get a book in their hand and naturally when they come back with their bundle, conversation happens and they tell me, "Oh my gosh, you put
052my favorite book in there by accident. Oh, I really like this. I didn't like this. I got halfway through this, but I got too busy." And reassuring them that wherever they ended up in this process is totally fine. Helps them come back every single time. Um, in general, the informal structure is low stakes, and this entire thing is meant to be low stakes because it's geared and basically programmed to bring um to bring more of a fun kind of leisure purpose back to reading. Since I started this project in January, without counting all of yours, I have made 86 bundles for these students. So reading is going quite crazy in the library at this current moment thankfully and hopefully it will continue to do so with this and I'm very happy that you know you
053guys have allowed me to speak and allowed them to speak and share this this wonderful thing with you. Yeah. So I will now give you your bundle so you can because I know you're just waiting. You're just eager eager. So, the good part about these I Oh, sorry. Um, the good part about this is that you've all been made accounts on the school. Um, oh my god, on the Destiny system. >> So, we returned until I I never do any of that because I don't believe that books I don't want to say books shouldn't have a due date, but I firmly believe in taking as long as you possibly need to finish a book because like Louisa said, everyone reads at different paces. So, be that as it may, take as much time as you
054need. Um, I doubt anyone's going anywhere. We're all still here, so we're cool. But yeah, I don't know about Tom and Valerie. >> We'll make sure they get that. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> So, at this time, if there's any questions, we still have our presenters here and we're happy to have any discussion. >> Okay. Yeah. Well, first I want to just uh say to our students, the best parts of our board meetings are when you are here and when you come and you present to us and you help um give us an opportunity to see into the classrooms and to see the hard work that you are doing and to see the support that your teachers are giving you and it's really exciting and it's not easy to come out on a school
055night when you got to get up and do your homework and go back tomorrow and so we really appreciate you being here. Um any questions or comments from board members? I have a question about the book bundles to start. Where how did students how did you engage with 86 students? How did we find 86 students? How did more students come to know about these book bundles? >> Sure. Please. Thank you. So, basically the whole thing with book bundles is I kind of just like created what I call the book bundle cart and it has little decorations on it and I stuck it out in the library towards the end of January just to see what would happen. This whole project kind of started actually like at my previous job at the public library and I
056just brought it here. And what ended up happening is immediately I had some of my um the phrase like book worm doesn't really like suit this. My book dragons such as like Alice and a couple other students who were immediately entranced by this whole thing. And once word got around from them that, oh, hey, there's this like customizable thing at the library and you can get like your own personal bundle with like bookmarks and pencils and little candy and treats in them and it's like your own personal little tailored like goodie bag, a lovingly called library takeout by the middle school students. Um, they essentially came in and was like, "What is this? What is this?" And as it basically spread through word of mouth and just sight, they would see students in the hall
057with these little bags and they'd be like, "Oh my gosh, what is that?" And they would say, "Miss Wagon in the library. Oh, go to the library." And as more and more students kept coming, it was just a natural flow, which is exactly the way it was programmed to do. Um, it's exactly the way I wanted it to happen. Just like a natural, if you want it, come get it. There's no pressure. And from there, that's just kind of like how it happened. just a complete natural progression which was really special. >> That's very cool. What a great opportunity and experience for our kids. >> Thank you. >> Anybody wanted to talk about and it I always really appreciate when we have these presentations and they naturally uh evolve to where you all have commonalities
058and maybe you don't realize what you all did together. three independent classes and teachers and students. There was this an amazing weaving of community and connection and social and emotional learning and belonging in some rigorous coursework. And so through these English projects, your teachers have gotten to know you as students in a way that they wouldn't have had an opportunity to know about your background, to know more about you. you're through the music program getting this opportunity to find things that are of real interest and things that are truly um areas that you reflect who you are. I'm would imagine you guys are pretty funny guys who you taking a Home Alone movie and breaking those great scenes down and being able to then make those connections back to your classmates and with your teacher.
059And then of course through the book bundles having an opportunity to just tell and have students tell you what are the things you like, what are you interested in, and then being able to find meaningful connections to give to them. Um, this kind of work is the kind of stuff that I just can't be more excited about because it is that opportunity of building community and a sense of belonging and tying it into curricular work where that ultimately leads to your best and brightest opportunities and experiences. And so to our faculty, um, job well done. Thank you. Um, it's great. So exciting. I >> I think I would just add on to that the the other um piece and and Jane, I think you already alluded to this is the self-reflections and and also um
060identifying your interests. Like that's a lot of what um we hope is happening on a daily basis when you're in classes in schools and um and learning about different things. But you can see in each of these projects the um the identification of whether it's the family history or looking at the music um lab and not just talking looking at at who the um artists are but how do they create all of the background pieces that go with it. Um and then of course obviously the book bundles which I am a huge fan of. I already talked to these guys in the other room how much I love reading. Um, yes, I know. Very excited. And so, um, I can't wait to go home and open up my book bundle and see how my interests
061are reflected in those books. It's always a a really fun way to bring that up, um, to the surface a little bit more. So, um this is this has been a very um uh uh illuminating presentation of all these different kinds of ways that you are able to identify those interests and and create that separate entity of community that is a little bit different than what we normally hear about. >> So, thank you. And I will also say u you know and this goes all the way back to the beginning of the presentation but I really do appreciate Miss Santa Barbara where you're really explicitly calling out how critical thinking is that link. you know, we have these disperate skills and and that we talk about in there in terms of being effective collaborators and
062communicating um effectively and it is through the lens of critical thinking that students are able to learn and and use those skills in a way. And so to have that as the linkage and to be able to see it that yes, we list them separately, but they're actually so intentionally interwoven. And so being really um just explicit about that with our students I think is really helpful so that they understand and appreciate you know you think you're just doing one thing but in fact you're doing so many things all at one time and um thank you all. Thank you to our teachers. Thank you to our students. Thank you to our administrators. This was a fantastic presentation and just as I said the best the best meetings we have are when we have students who
063are here with us. So thank you all so much for coming. Okay. And with that, we will now move on to the hearing of the public on non-aggenda items. Are there any members here from the public? No members here from the public. As always, members of the community and the public are always welcome to attend our meetings. Come uh email us at rcdsboardschools.org org uh or feedback r feedbackschools.org. That one I don't I'm not in charge of that email. Don't worry. So rcsd board at rychools. Um okay. So seeing nobody here, we will now move on to the consent agenda. Can I please have a motion to approve this evening's consent agenda? Sean Clap for seconded by Matt Shibonoff. Let's take a look at this evening's consent agenda. Consent agenda. General consent agenda. Fiscal consent
064agenda. Professional appointments. Consent agenda. Classified appointments. And consent agenda pupil personnel services and special education. Okay, seeing no questions from this evening's consent agenda, uh let's have a vote to approve this evening's consent agenda. All those in favor, that is 5 nothing with two absences. So on this evening's consent agenda, we have the approval of the Westchester schools Putnham uh Westchester Putinham School Board Association budget and slate of officers. We are very lucky to have an organization like Westp which works to support the districts to allow many of our voices to work together. And a great example of the work of Westp is with our next agenda item that we approved which was the approval of the resolution to support bill A10814 which calls for the separate state championships for p for public and non-public
065schools. We also have the approval of the participation in our cooperative bids with Northern Westchester Boseies for the 2627 school year. And this is always a great opportunity for our district to uh maximize cost-saving efforts in our attempt to always find ways to help reduce or cut cost whenever possible. We also have approval of our contracts for health services with many districts for the 2526 school year as we always work to support our uh residents who attend our non-public schools. We also have approval of sports merger of sports teams mergers for the 2627 school year for our wrestling team, our boys varsity volleyball team, both our boys and girls swimming and diving teams, girls rugby team, and our girls ice hockey team. Uh these sports mergers are all designed to help support our student athletes
066and their talents and interests in intercolastic competitions. And we are so grateful to have uh partnered school districts that we can do this with where we can support all of our school all of our students across many districts. We also are approving a gift in the amount of $5,600 from the Midland PTO which goes to support cultural enrichment programs that allow all the learning of our students to be extended outside the walls of our classroom. And finally, we are also accepting the retirement of Donna Bet BCH. There we go. So, sorry, whole language from Midland School. It is with sadness that I announced that Donna Bch will be retiring at the end of the school year after 36 years with the Ry City School District. Donna began as a teacher aid at Midland in 1990
067and then in 2005 became the office assistant, which is the positioning she is retiring from. Throughout her tenure at the district, she was the substitute placement coordinator, worked at many of the RCSD games and events, and was also the assistant to the cheerleading program. Midland school principal Jim Boland shared the following about Donna. Donna BCH has been the steady constant of the Midland main office for over 20 years, making sure every day ran smoothly for our students and staff. From managing sub coverages to keeping student records perfectly organized, she always made sure children, parents, teachers, aids, custodians, and building administrators knew exactly what they needed to know. She has seen generations of families grow up at Midland and loves to share memorable stories about so many of them. Donna's deep care for the Midland School
068as well as the greater Ry community and her amazing work ethic have truly set her apart. We cannot thank her enough for her years of hard work and her total devotion to the Midland School family. While we all will miss her dearly, we wish her nothing but the best as she starts her as she starts her well-earned retirement and this new exciting chapter in her life. Donna, we wish you all the very best in your retirement. We will now move on to information and discussion two, policy review. Miss Foil, thank you very much. Um, so we have three policies that came out of our last uh policy meeting in April. Um, we actually reviewed many many more and I can talk about those um in our committee update. Uh, but the three we have here
069are um the first one is 5404 which is student wellness. Uh the majority of this policy was not changed at this time. Um with the exception of the um recordkeeping uh paragraph at the very end um it was added that any changes will be added to the health services page on our website um which was not reflected in the policy before. So that is the primary change at this time for the for the policy. Okay. And any questions? No. Okay. Then we have um two that are related to each other. One is uh 6690 which is audit committee. Um they have similar this and um audit committee charter have similar changes to each other. Um the primary change here is um reducing the number of committee members from the community to be um the maximum
070reducing the maximum number of community members on um to the committee. It used to be nine. Um and the suggestion based on our um business officials as well as our audit chair person was that having a smaller a slightly smaller number was more manageable but also more reflective of what has been generally on the committee for the last several years. We also updated the a title as part of this update. >> It also guarantees a quorum. Yes. It also guarantees a quorum. Yes. Yes. Because you have fewer people that you need to have there. Yes. Um and then the audit committee charter has that same change to it. Um but we also um updated the meeting number of meetings, the minimum number of meetings per year from three to two because primarily that's what has
071been occurring. Um and now we can have more if required or necessary if we need more but um we've been finding that two has been working well. So those are the changes to both of those policies questions. No okay great okay wonderful thank you. So now we will move on to communications to and from the board. There was a policy meeting. Looks like >> there was a policy meeting and so you just saw some of the output of that. But we also uh went through several more policies to be reviewed. Uh not all required changes. And we are making our way almost to finishing up 2019. Woo. So we're almost into the 2020s. >> That's huge. We just got out of the '9s not too long ago. >> I know. I know. >> That's amazing.
072>> Policy's been working fast and furious. >> That's great. >> All right. Uh there was a professional learning meeting. >> Yes. >> Oh, great. >> I attended that. Um there was a committee meeting last Thursday. Um and um Lauren Santa Barbara um led it. Um, we went through um the goals from last year. There were three goals um and Lauren had put them on um big pieces of paper. We broke out into groups. We walked around and we looked at the goals. We talked about did we meet them? How, you know, how did we do? We assessed how we' done the last year. Do we meet the goals? And um if not, how could we, you know, improve them? And so Lauren's going to take that feedback back and um we have another meeting in
073a month where we will talk through that. Um just to give a quick overview of the three goals if anyone's interested from last year that we're working on. Goal number one, provide learning opportunities that support authentic project design, implementation, and use of AI tools to further students abilities to think critically, collaborate, solve problems creatively, and thrive in a global environment as socially responsible citizens. It's a very long sentence, isn't it? Um, goal number two, to provide opportunities. focus on effective SEAL practices and strategies including responsive classroom and dialectical behavioral therapy DBT. And then goal three to increase the district's capacity to utilize data parentheses assessments and surveys to inform instruction and identify next steps for professional learning. So again, these were the goals from the the prior year and um then I'll come back and
074tell you what the goals will be for next year after our next meeting at uh beginning of June. Great. Thank you. Uh and it looks like a future meeting we have is the technology committee. They're going to be meeting that would be next week. Yeah. On 14th week and a half. Okay, great. Uh, any other communications to and from the board? No. Okay. Seeing none, I will remind everybody May 19th. >> Dr. Murray, what's happening on May 19th? >> There is a budget and trustee vote on May 19th from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. in middle school gym. >> All right. And the community will have an opportunity at that time to vote on a tax cap compliant budget as well as two seats for the board of education trustee seats. So once you vote,
075you can certainly come and come here cuz on May 19th at 7:00 p.m. we 7:30 we will be here for our budget our regular board meeting. >> So we hope to see you all then. And until then we will say adoop. And can I have a motion to adjourn this evening's meeting? Cali Ericson seconded by Matt Shibonoff. All those in favor that is five to nothing. Good evening. Thank you.