001All right. Okay. So, the board already um opened our meeting and then we had an executive session. We are now back in open session. Um and let's start with the pledge. All right. Could I please get a motion to approve the minutes from July 24th? Have Angie um with Ashley as a second. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor? Sorry. Um, sorry. Can we do all in favor again? Okay, that's eight. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay, so that's um eight. Yes, one abstension. And then could I please get a motion to accept tonight's agenda as presented? Okay, that's Matt with Lee as a second. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor? Okay, that's unanimous. All right. Um, now we have our public comment period. When I checked, there were no people signed up for public comment, but
002do we have any members of the public who would like to address the board? Okay, we will have a second public comment period at the end of the meeting. should anyone wish to address the board. Then um next we have board committee reports and while our board committees have not met, we do have um at least one report back. Hi. So um I went to the summer law conference and then um myself along with Ashley and Natalia and Beth went to the leadership conference for NISBA. Um I guess I'll start with the law conference. So, um, everyone should have gotten an email from Robert Schneider last week. Um, there was one recording from, um, one of the sessions on immigration that they thought was important enough to share out with everybody. So, please make sure
003that you look at that. Um, some other topics that were covered, there was a fair amount of time spent on the difference between Title 7, Title Nine, and the New York State Human Rights Law and the current conflict with the federal government and how that is potentially going to work out. Um, and then the another thing of interest was um the Supreme Court's recent decision. It was at the end of June um versus Taylor um which does involve some notification to parents and the right to opt out um of certain things. So I'm not sure if um policy will take that up eventually. Uh but that those were things that were covered in the leadership conference. Um, there was a session on student reps, portrait of a graduate, uh, which I'm assuming will fit in
004really nicely with our pathways and how we're we're redoing that. Finance, AI, media literacy, and, uh, counseling. That's just a few of the things. So, I'll let some of the other people talk that went, but I thought it was really really good. Um, and the law conference day was like it was a lot because there was a lot of things coming at us like extreme heat we we've definitely heard about, but some of the newer things um were definitely interesting and um there were a lot of questions. Thank you. Um, yeah, just to kind of echo what Connie said, um, Connie and Natalia and Ashley and I attended the NISPA summer conference, um, which was right after the law conference that Connie was referencing. And it was just a really great opportunity to network with
005other districts, um, get updates, um, about what other districts are doing in response to some of the issues that we're facing. Um, like Connie mentioned, there was really good presenters and discussions on student reps and strategic planning and board decision making. Um, so it was a it was a really great time well spent for sure. I would highly recommend it for next year. Um, I was particularly impressed with the um the student portion with the student reps and just think it would be so wonderful to continue conversations with other districts and the way that they're utilizing student reps and there's just some really awesome kids out there and it was really wonderful to see their participation and the the pathways um presentation was pretty robust and it's really awesome to see where the state is
006going. So, so last year the board of education had set a goal around our student reps and then of course the state um made the mandatory and has offered us a lot of guidance. Um following the presentation that was given to us about the student reps, I did reach out to the president of the board of of um Skenctity District um because they have created a handbook for their students and I just asked for a copy of that um because I think it would be great for us to see that and to be able to reference it and if that is something that the board is interested in looking at this year, we have it just as a guide or a starting point. Um, and we are meeting at the beginning of September to set
007our board goals. So, that would be um, a time to look at that and I'm happy to share that with the rest of the board. I'll email it out. Um, do we have any other board committee reports? All right. So, then we'll move on to administrative reports. Great. Uh, so we've got just a a number of uh, recognitions uh, as well as some uh, schedules for the start of the school year. So, first off, uh just the week we welcomed our new teachers uh to the district for our new teacher orientation program. Uh that was both Tuesday and Wednesday. And then our new teachers will be coming back next Tuesday. Uh so, uh we welcome 12 new teachers. Uh as well as two social workers to the school district. Uh so, want to uh thank
008Lisa and Danielle and Michelle um as well as all of our building level administrators. uh SSTA who helps coordinate uh our mentoring program. They always do a wonderful lunch uh Tuesday afternoon uh where our new teachers have a chance to meet their mentors for the first time. Uh and then our building administrators uh providing uh some opportunities uh to get into the buildings for some tours. Uh and so we've got a just a incredible uh new group of folks that are uh professionals that are joining the district. Uh so we're very excited uh to welcome them as they begin their careers here in Saratoga Springs. Uh also want to congratulate we have one additional graduate uh who's joining uh his fellow classmates in the class of 2025. Uh and again uh having one August graduate
009uh again is a significant achievement uh again for this young man. Um but also it puts our cohort graduation rate uh over 95% uh which is an incredible accomplishment for the entire district. Uh not just the high school but obviously the impact all of our educators have had on the success of the members of the class of 2025. Uh so for the last you know several years uh having a a graduation rate of above 95% uh from the time the students start nth grade that begins their cohort. So the four-year graduation rate uh including your August grads uh is just a a wonderful accomplishment um for the entire school district. Uh so uh congratulations uh again to um all the graduates of class of 2025 and I know many of them are preparing to either
010head off to college very soon uh in the in the coming weeks uh entering uh into the workforce or joining in the military. So, uh, we wish all of our graduates, uh, best of luck in their future endeavors. Um, also just recognition for summer programming and and operations that goes on, uh, throughout the summer months. Uh, our ESY program this year was relocated over to Division Street. Uh, the extended school year program is just an incredible uh, program to provide supports uh, in academics uh, as well as social emotional supports to our students throughout the summer months. Uh we also uh host a middle school and a high school summer school program. Uh our kindergarten get ready program uh wraps up tomorrow. So if you go by Division Street and you'll see 40 little kindergarteners
011out there who are getting ready to begin their kindergarten experience. Uh so but our entire 12-mon staff as well as our teachers who come in to work their summer programs uh who who are here uh working with colleagues on summer curriculum development. Uh our school counselors who are working on schedules and getting things ready for the start of the school year. Uh all the teachers uh and administrators who plan uh our orientation sessions and our walkthroughs that will all be going on next week. uh and especially to our facilities and operations staff uh who just does a tremendous amount of work uh in the hot summer days um working alongside our construction crews. Uh so some buildings uh again where construction is not taking place uh where we're able to get ahead of things and
012do some really kind of unique uh special projects within their buildings and especially to the staff uh at Caroline Street and Lake and Geyser uh who are working side by side significant construction. Uh just kudos uh to the work that they've done uh this summer and keeping up um when when uh obviously construction uh in such a short period of time there's a lot of work that's going on across the district. So, just want to again appreciate and recognize uh the the wonderful work of our 12-mon staff and uh all of our teachers and support staff and administrators who continue to provide programming for our students throughout the summer. Uh so, looking ahead to the start of the school year, like I said, next week we have a number of orientation programs that are going
013on uh and at the elementary level. uh after the teach teachers come back on September 2nd, uh a lot of our uh our classrooms are available for uh teachers to drop off or students and parents to drop off supplies and to meet their teachers. Uh we have uh two superintendent conference days. So we welcome back all staff on Tuesday morning uh September 2nd. Uh so from 8 to 8:30 in the high school uh we'll be utilizing the cafeteria uh for some breakfast treats for everybody and then at 8:30 uh we'll be uh gathering the entire staff uh to welcome everybody back and to celebrate our our successes uh and recognize some special accomplishments of uh individuals across the district. And we're really looking forward to a second year of some Excite talks uh where we
014have uh staff volunteers who are going to be kind of sharing some of their personal stories and and some of the the work that they've been doing have uh aligned with our pathways vision uh of just some wonderful things that are going on across the district. Uh so our staff has two days of professional development Tuesday and Wednesday the second and third and then uh opening day first day of school for our students is on Thursday September 4th. Uh so we're just two short weeks away uh from wel welcoming everybody back. So uh excited uh for the start of the new school year. Uh and then finally just an update on our district's pathways. Uh typically at this meeting uh Lisa Dave and I are presenting uh the updated priorities on our district pathways. And
015so just to give a little history, back in 2018, uh we engaged the entire community uh in developing our current uh district pathways vision and mission statement utilizing a lot of stakeholder uh in in uh feedback and engagement hearing from our students and from our staff uh from our administrators for the board of education as well as parents and community members. Uh so it's been seven years uh since uh the original pathways document was created. Uh so we felt was important obviously as an opportunity this year uh through the leadership of the board of education uh and working with our leadership team and working with all of our uh bargaining unit leaders and engaging our students, staff and community uh use this as an opportunity this fall to update the district pathways vision uh through
016that school and community engagement. Um so we're going to be working with Kevin McGawan. Uh Kevin is the superintendent out in the Brighton um school district out in Rochester. Uh and he partners with the New York State uh Council of School Superintendent uh for a blueprint for excellence program. U Kevin did some work last summer with our local Boseies. Terrina Parker, our district superintendent really spoke highly of of the process and the experience that our local BOSEISE had in strategic planning uh working with Kevin. Uh so our leadership team has has been in uh communications with Kevin and kind of putting together what a schedule would look like uh starting with some community engagement in the fall uh gathering some information uh what's called thought exchange and it's a survey platform uh to begin the
017conversation with the community uh and then meeting with the board of education and some of our district leaders uh in one session and then a stakeholder uh session uh with faculty, staff, students, parents uh and community members uh in November. Uh again, similar to what we have done the last time and and again our our uh pathways uh legacy um has has obviously done tremendous amount of positive um support and initiative across the district for the last uh seven years. So we want to continue that. We want to build upon that. Uh but again, we want to make sure that we're engaging the community in providing um support. Uh so one of one of the things that it's been mentioned here and I know we've been having conversations uh with our teachers and administrators is
018New York State uh Department of Education is also uh putting out what's called the New York State Portrait of a Graduate uh which will be I think a a guiding document for us uh as a school district and community uh to think about education and moving into the future. Uh so Lisa has you know gonna been working with our administrative team. A lot of information is just coming out from the state right now on the portrait of a graduate. But you know that's one of the things I think that we want to kind of use as a like I said a guiding document for the work uh that we head into our pathways visioning. Um so just want to talk a little bit about what information we've heard so far. Thank you. I was glad
019to hear that some board members uh were able to attend a workshop that talked a little bit about it. So that um that kind of fills it in from the lens of a board member and from the school district point of view um this initiative has been in the making for a number of years. They solicited info from around the state um really trying to look at personalizing education in New York State and insisting that students have the opportunities regardless of where they go to school to um graduate in and show what they know and then being very specific about what are those qualities that we want our New York State students to have regardless of the district that we're in. So things like creativity, problem solving, um literacy, whether it's dig whether it's um
020numeracy which is a form of literacy um literacy in general um global awareness etc. So it's really exciting because it aligns very well with a lot of the work we've been doing and in particular we've been focused on looking at our instructional practices and doing it systematically. Um that's a really big undertaking. How do we support teachers working with our students whose um needs aren't what they used to be, you know, even five years ago? So that's how we've been looking at it as a district and you've heard us talk about culturally responsive practices. So that's work that we've engaged in already. So it's um it's a great call it the lever to help push that even further to be supportive and provide additional tools for our teachers and also to um part of the
021work is providing students with different ways to graduate um besides the regions which that's been in the works for a while but that's a big part of this so not a lot of specifics out yet however I can tell you with full confidence that we have been moving in that direction for a few years now so it's kind exciting to see it all coming together. So, so stay tuned and you will hear a lot more. So, we we'll be excited opening day to kind of share um with the entire staff what the plan would be to update pathways, how we want to get everybody engaged in the conversation. Uh so, we anticipate we need everybody get kind of get back to school, get settled for the month of September. So, but initiating uh the process
022in October and uh I'll be working with Kevin to u you know um solidify some dates uh that for the board to be aware of of some evening uh at least one or two meetings um to get as much board participation as possible and then obviously with our our student staff and community engagement as well. Matt, sorry just a quick question for Dr. Cody. Do you can you remind me when the portrait of a graduate like what class that first affects? Are you trying to stump me on this? No, sorry. I think is uh I'm gonna say I would have to check. I'm not even I'll save you. It's 2029. There you go. Thank you. Only because I went to that present. There you go. And there was right wasn't there some there was a
023little bit of a because it was someone from state ed giving the presentation and there were questions like okay when like what happens if you're like a junior Yes. And they didn't have an answer. Yeah. The cohort the cohort things got a little confusing. So I think they're going to clarify that. I will say the one constant is change. So the reason why we're not feeling is because anyone's been around for a while knows that it's cyclical and so some of these things are um slightly packaged differently. They're all great in intentions. Um but you know, this seems to have a little more teeth. So there'll be a phased approach. We'll have multiple charts that say what cohort gets what and our counselors will have their walls papered with them. So stay tuned. Great. So,
024that's just uh all the information for my update for tonight. Uh we do have one uh formal presentation and that's our uh legacy project update. So, it's my pleasure to introduce Bill McMorty uh from Saratoga Project Management and Matt Gaspberry from Mosaic who have been our partners all through our legacy project. Uh so both Bill and Matt will be helping us provide an update as to where we are right now this summer uh with work that is being uh completed uh as part of our current phases and then in the agenda later on for the board uh planning for future phases and the bidding process that'll take place uh this fall. So I'll turn over to Bill. Hi, good evening. How is everybody? This is Yeah. So tonight we're a quick update where we are
025construction about what's coming up next. So really those the topics we are tonight really three jobs that we have under construction right now. Caroline with majority of the work very similar to what we did last year at division with similar results. small couple small little projects there and then small project design presentation for the high school taking on a significant amount of work at the high school and we're actually going to bid that a little bit different than we did it before which I'll go over later and then tonight you'll have resolutions later so our Carolina division really very similar scope folks that weren't here last year almost the same school this year. We did get a jump this year and started two weeks early. We worked with food service. We were able to start
026the kitchen still. We're still struggling in the kitchen as we speak today to be honest. Um but we don't see any obviously school classrooms look great. furniture was installed over the last two days. Movers are coming tomorrow. So staff's going back Monday. I think one thing just note that we won't be ready for next week. We're still bus. So if you drive by there, don't panic. It still looks classrooms, you know, very typical no matter what building you're in now in the new classrooms, very similar approach. They all look great. Stage, we did a little bit of stage, uh, lighting replacement and then classrooms. middle school. Uh really three things we've done at the middle school this summer and really over the school year. We started the uh replace the emergency generator. Those who don't
027know our cross facility. So we made our generator bigger. We now have emergency response rooms. We got a place to work from. So power generator school's office. So, we made a real significant advance in the school. Tennis courts, I don't know if anybody's driven by maple lately. They all look pretty blue and green now. Nice black fence. Mets are next. And then dugouts. Yeah. Isn't that great? Dave likes that one the best. He goes, "Can we get a picture of the generator?" Nobody cares about that. All right, moving on. Geyser and Lake. So lake is the big focus this summer. Geyser next summer. We did work on the main entrance. So we're changing that main entrance and the main entrance effect is gone at the main entrance. We got a little struggling at that. So
028glass didn't show up. manufacturer broke some of the glass during manufacturing. We don't have a date when it's coming. We're supplementing some different glass so we'll have glass but just not the right glass. We still have to change that, but it'll be open and ready. And we did stage flight also just to take a little bit. Classrooms look good. That's all looking good. Building's getting clean. The last thing we did get the paving done in the backs. We got that repaved this year. Looks great. We will be back late next year to do some things we didn't get done this year. Some of the stair towers that we have replacing the doors towers couldn't get there. We all had associated real. building through walk through yesterday on that. So, she's up to speed. We replaced
029all the windows in the courtyard. We did that really just during school. We did that on second shift and probably 95% did a lot of A lot of work here's our greenhouse canopy out front we did because I don't think some people have seen this. We're doing the second floor of the library. what that library does right now. Right now you've got to walk through the library from one side to the other renovate the library. So what that next summer and that's because of where it's located. So it's going to be a sporty course for this piece of work. So high school Matt's going to go over uh the design for high school. We're going to in the fall. So, I'll let him go through the design of that and we'll talk about So, like
030Bill said, um I'll go through the scope for the phase seven project that'll be going out the bud this fall and then construction will be uh next next year 26 27. The next slide plans. Um, so on the first floor, we're going to be renovating all the windows in this area, all the dark windows that we'll uh be replacing. And then uh the main entrance area, we'll be getting a secure vestibial uh where we'll be doing similar some of the other elementary schools that we've been doing uh breaking out and making it a secure area for coming in. And then uh the main area there, we'll be doing a learning stair that goes from the first floor to the second floor. common place where kids will be able to eat lunch and break out and
031do studying in that area. And then right next to that number 24 on the slide would be a satellite cafe. It'll be a little smaller cafe for the students to be able to go go and eat and uh hang out. And then the next space over there uh will be renovating the the guidance suite, taking a couple of the other spaces and making guidance suite bigger and bringing everyone together. Um um Bill will get into that um a little bit, but there's a lot of construction going on right there in that main core of the high school. Um moving in the back, we'll be doing some music practice rooms. Um and then also in G will be renovating a couple of bathrooms in G. That's correct. And the white gym will be renovating the girls
032and boys locker room. So, moving to the second floor. Again, we have a bunch of windows to renovate uh and replace. And then we'll be also looking at um renovating classrooms in G and D uh foreign language areas and business areas of the classrooms there. Be doing those and then creating some benches outside those classrooms and doing some breakout rooms out there too that we create different spaces for the kids to be able to study and do some small group learning. Um and then uh 24 in the middle there that is part of the learning stair where the learning stair is going to come up. It'll be a collaborative collaborative space up there. Um where students be able to hang out and study and have small group instruction there. And then um and then here
033No, go ahead. Yeah, I'm good. So here is a a rendering of the uh learning stairs. This is actually coming right in from the front entrance u and then going up the stairs there where the kids will be. We'll be also renovating the library with this renovation. This is a rendering from the second floor. Learn Here's another rendering of the satellite cafe. Phase eight, we're right now in the middle of uh schematic design. Um and we're figuring out the main pieces there will be the cafeteria edition at Maple Lab. Um some classroom renovations and toilet renovations. Right now we're in the schematic phase of that design that working with the district coming up with final designs and stuff that ahead right now design will be till May 2026 and then bidding will be the falling
034ahead will be another resolution tonight for your for approval to bid for 9A transportation facilities Um we'll be looking at getting out the bid similar phase September October this year construction next year scope at transportation we'll be looking at replacing boilers building and then fuel tanks we'll be upgrading the fuel tanks diesel and gasoline and then also replacing the gasoline dispenser two newh diesel dispensers for renovation. A lot of renovation. This is a lot of stuff. this main entrance that we have here. What you're going to see in order to accomplish that hole in the second floor to the library where it used to be. Um, so it's going to be there. It's a temporary home while we're occupying it home during construction. There's a lot of work going on. The guidance suite, we're doing
035that all in one summer. Taking over a big interior renovation. And so what I'm driving is there's a lot of work. So we're going to package this a little bit different. Our first pack goch weeks after that we're going to release packet and it's going to be a general contractor. So what we did is we're going to separate the building geographically keep contractors where they're supposed to be and not mixing the contractors. The only people will mix will be the mechanical contractors. There's not a ton of mechanical scope in this package. It's all really about contract. We were concerned that putting too much work on that general contracts So geographically what we've done is general contractor A is going to focus here the windows contractor B is going to do class along with the white.
036So we've got them geographically separated. We have two different superintendent running that job. We the same general may all fall apart. Don't know. We don't control that. We think this is the best plan, but you know, the guy who gets the first job, he's going to have an advantage. So that's why I'm saying it's just a little bit different than we've done before. The labor market is struggling and we're really seeing those effects this summer. We're trying to give everybody at the high school for four years straight because we're starting legacy design of that and when we're done with this we're going to be bitting the next phase is the transition between legacy 20 legacy 25 legacy 25. So we're now layering on 25 questions. I have a comment and a question. Um the high
037school is it's already beautiful, but it's that's like this is wow. like this is yeah this is it's going to be a transformational I really don't think there's a district in the capital district or capital region that has a school structure like like we do so that is a testament to our architects but thank you to the taxpayers for investing in our kids but this is this is yeah for sure um I did have a question about the picture where it is of the bath basics like the bathroom. Oh, is there a divider that's going to be put in between those toilets? Like, is it not done yet? Because I was just wondering the bottom right. Yep. No, this is the way it is. What's wrong? What's wrong with that? Did I miss something somewhere?
038That's a design question. I don't know how to answer that. I Yeah, right. Okay. Just want to make sure. Okay. Thank you. We love I've got I've got a question about the be absolutely beautiful design that kind of goes up the two floors and it's a lot of open space. It's a very noisy vestibule. Now, how will having all those kids are there going to be noise reduction um features built in? Okay. So if you look at on the ceiling, those are actually felt panels. We did the same similar design. Oh, and in the high school, because the high school's a lot quieter now, we did a different what we did at the high school, which was the majority noise. We sprayed spray on the deck. That's absorbing the sound and it worked fantastic. It's
039like two inches thick. We don't have that luxury. All right. I knew you'd have a good answer. Thanks. And I think these also right kind of cool thing in the niches. They got mountains in there. actually photos. Yeah, it be cool. Just a comment and I whispered this to the I touched that. It's just amazing to think about this space and like the kiddos that don't want to go home and do homework and just like it's just so thank you for designing a space that's just so student centric. Um, do we have any other questions or comments from the board? I mean, I'll just echo what everybody has said. I said right away to Dr. Patton that those stairs look like the ones in the student union building at Penn State. They look the same.
040Um, and I also just want to say that I see so many little kids sitting on those stairs and I feel like it's really aspirational and I feel the same about this. It's really beautiful and it's also going to be so cool when the younger kids come in and they see that what a welcome to the school. Um, so thank you so much. This was great. One thing in closing and Mike touched on the stuff that we do all over the place building people the staff everybody talked about we put them in difficult positions. That's it. Now we turn to the consent agenda. For those in attendance or watching, a consent agenda is a commonly used vehicle provided for by our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure. Robert's rules that allows a board to vote on
041a large number of items in a single motion. Typically, these are business items associated with the everyday running of the schools and their inclusion in the agenda is the result of a great deal of prior work and care by the professionals of the district. There are from time to time business items that by law cannot be included in a consent agenda and when this happens, we pull those out and vote on them separately. Consent agenda items are known to trustees and the public several days ahead of the business meeting on which they are considered so that board members have the chance to ask questions of discovery and do any advanced factf finding, excuse me, advanced factf finding that is part of their due diligence process. Beth, do we have any modifications? We do. We have
042two modifications to tonight's consent agenda. We need to pull personnel item H12, which is a non-instructional appointment and we need to add personnel item H26 which is a non-instructional transfer. So I make a motion to approve items G, H, and I in their entirety along with any items listed under F2 and F3 which would be the modification. And can I get a second please? Okay, Tony, any discussion? Okay, seeing none, all in favor. I just can't see everybody. Um, that's unanimous. I just have one uh recognition for Miss Laura Ferrron. Laura has been a teacher aid at Caroline Street Elementary School and she has announced her retirement um effective September 1st uh 2025. So, want to thank Laura for her years of service to supporting our students at Caroline Street. This brings us to our
043second public comment period. Is there anybody who wishes to address the board? Give me one moment. We now open the second public comment period. Um, on behalf of the board, thank you for being here. We truly value input from the community and appreciate your engagement. New York State Board of Education meetings are held in public. so the board can conduct the business of the district visibly to maximize transparency and information sharing with the community. They are not public meetings with real-time dialogue with attendees. However, um we provide two public comment periods during which speakers may address us to share information and opinions that may inform our work. In the case that follow-up is necessary, the appropriate district official will reach out. Our second public comment period has no um maximum time. There's no limit. Um
044but we do ask I'm sorry I'm trying to combine my two statements here. Um but you are limited to three minutes. We ask that speakers and the audience um conduct themselves in a civil and constructive manner modeling the same respectfulness we expect from the students of our district. We do not allow comments about specific individual employees, students or trustees. And we ask that you be succinct and try not to repeat previous speakers to allow more people the opportunity to address us. So this opens the second public comment period. Each speaker is allotted a maximum of three minutes. And before you address the board, please clearly state your name. Good evening. Paul Kelly. Wasn't going to say anything. I just mostly came to observe. However, there's two points I wanted to address that I heard earlier.
045Um, Dr. Patton mentioned that 95% graduation rate. That sounds really impressive. And uh, Miss Cutting talked about personalized education and that that sounds great. It reminds me of a board meeting in May where I was at where they had math centered coaching or learning centered coaching. But I don't know what that means. And let me just share with you um keeping the particular student's ID or identification uh anonymous. I'll just say I'm pretty familiar with this student. She's going into seventh grade. And this past year in math she had a first quarter score of 95, second quarter score of 94, third quarter score of 96, fourth quarter score of 94 for an overall score of 95. The student also performed in all of her classes for a year-end total of 96.08. Students interested in getting
046to an accelerated math program was told no. That's not qualified. Now, when I hear 95% graduation rate, I'm thinking, "Oh, that sounds great." You would think that hearing a 95% grade average, that sounds great. There's no disparity. However, apparently there's a uh some other variables which is understandable, some assessment scores. And this is where the problem comes in because the assessment scores that were used, one was a test where the student was in a 59th percentile midyear, but then jumped up 24 points to an 83rd percentile. That still was not good enough to be put into the into the program, which leads me to think, what what is going on here? I mean, if are the students that graduating at 95% on that same level, can they read? Can they do math? What what why
047is there such a huge chasm of disconnect? And then I hear about personalized education, maybe that's working. Maybe I have a different interpretation of it. Maybe it's meant for people who are just at the bottom getting the threshold level. But when I hear personalized education, I think, oh, somebody's looking at this grade and this performance and it's not matching up with the grades. There should be some personalized education to bolster up those those scores to bring that student up. So each student can reach their maximum personal potential and that's not happening here. At least it's not happening as it should. So I would like the board to consider this and ask a question on why because I'm going to some questions and I'm going to be submitting the detailed foil request because I just don't
048I don't understand how this is. I think a normal person would hear 95% graduation rate and think this is great but maybe it's not. Thank you. Is there anybody else who wishes to address the board? So seeing none that closes our second public comment period. We move now into agenda planning. Do any board members have agenda planning items? Matt, I do. And Mike mentioned that we we might have already done this in the last meeting, but it wasn't in a minute, so I just want to do it officially. Um, I'm going to make a motion uh that I told you all about that the board instruct the superintendent to report about how the new cell phone policy is working at one of our public meetings in January or February 2026. The report should include how
049enforcement of the policy is working, particularly if teachers are having to do much of the enforcement. Uh the report should also touch on how the lockers the use of the lockers to secure mobile devices is working for the faculty, staff and students and should recommend uh if we should consider changing to a different way to secure devices for example yonder pouches for the 2627 school year. Um and so we're just I guess I just want to make sure we just take a straw poll. Is that correct? Okay. So do I have any response any questions for Matt? Um, or can I get nods of agreement or disagreement? This is the second time I'm bringing this. So, is it like we don't need to vote to make it official? We don't need to vote. We can
050take a straw poll just to see. So, I do see that a majority of board members are interested in that. Um, and Dr. Patton already indicated that he would pursue that for us. So, thank you very much. Um, are there any other agenda planning items? All right. Seeing none, um any board member comments? Tony? Yeah, I'd just like to uh start by thanking both Saratoga Project Management and Mosaic for their contribution contributions to uh offsetting the costs of the admin PD retreat um uh recently. And um Mike, remind me of the name of the the program uh that is at play in the high school that's uh helping get kids to graduation. Oh, Operation Graduation. Operation Graduation, right? That's helping kids get to graduation. Um, I wanted to just point out and and um uh
051give congratulations where they're due to the fact that um you know we the summer graduation which is a great achievement and I and and was my favorite uh activity of the year um is you know seems to becoming less and less necessary um in part I would think because of the success of of that operation graduation and and you know sort of fending that off before it gets to that point and I I want to congratulate the district on that and also congratulate the the individual who did uh um who did graduate in the summer graduation. It's it's a it's a great testament to perseverance. It really is. Anyone else? Angie, I just want to echo um Bill's thank you to all the folks working here around summer and Mike's as well. Um every time
052this this year we coming up to the wire. It's coming up to the wire and every year it's perfection on open day, at least from what I um understand. So, um thank you for everyone who's around. Thanks for all your leadership back there behind me and um and just all the all the Oh, they left. Just kidding. Well, yeah, but um it's always so nice to see those efforts and how much how hard people work even when it's coming right down to the wire. I really appreciate anyone else. All right. Um, this brings us to the end. Actually, it does not. I'm sorry. I'm We are now going to move into executive session to uh discuss a tax certiary update. Can I get a motion to move into executive session? Okay. Lee and a second.
053Tony, any discussion? All in favor? Okay. Um at the end of our executive session, we will come back to open session, but we do not uh have any plans to conduct