001is President crackler here Vice president-electakia here trustee Borman trustee brugerman here trustee Ellis here trustee elitorpe trustee Mecca here that's Rusty Culligan here George stuartovich here student representative McPhee student representative Thompson all right will you please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you all right we don't have any minutes to approve so could I get a motion to accept tonight's agenda as presented Connie can I get a second John Ellis any discussion all in favor that is uh looks like six to zero uh seven Natalia seven zero motion passes all right that brings us to public comment there were no signups is there anyone who wishes to address the board publicly okay we'll move on from that and brings us right into board committee reports do we have any board committee reports John
002and then Dean John Bruggeman uh the policy committee met last Monday and there are um two policies and a policy regulation included in the consent agenda for there for your consideration for a first reading so we will be we may need to talk about if we want to but we'll be voting on them to approve them at the next meeting Dean uh thanks Tony property committee met on Monday evening and Bill mcmordie uh presented to us the update on the Legacy Capital project phase four it's in the construction document phase um this encompasses primarily the work at Division Street and Caroline streets uh with an emphasis of work being done on the rooftops of both of those one discussion point that we did have was um based upon the estimates that were that were received
003prior so a while ago on the roofing um I can speak also from personal experience in my job Roofing costs on on labor materials has gone through the roof so there was a recommendation that we take a look at a rate lock opportunity which is through a national bid process and the estimate on that currently is to save some substantial amounts of money I don't have the exact dollar amount in front of me but it's tens and tens of thousands of dollars so the property committee recommended that that is the direction that we should head it would be with the company that's currently uh been awarded the bid to do the work here at the high school starting at starting with the last day of school so it's not like it's going to be with
004somebody that the district is not familiar with it will be with uh I'll call them a preferred vendor and Bill will also work on obtaining kind of a protection agreement based on warranties and things like that with respect to the material costs that we end up getting for for those two Elementary School buildings other than that was pretty much the update that we had from from Bill so the cost went through the roof I see what you did there did you like that Dad joke 101 yeah nobody picked up on that either okay um we get to sorry any other um uh board committee reports I don't think so uh student representative reports Kate and Ryan all right so at the primary level last week Lake Ave hosted the annual science fair 63 students from
005grades three to five participated in creating 36 amazing projects their work was incredible the fourth and fifth grade spelling bee was held last week Cooper Niels will be moving to the BOCES Regional spelling bee to represent Lake Ave first graders held their lovies ladies tea to honor the special women in their lives their students performed for the lovely ladies and then joined them in the classroom for some treats students are loving field trips last week second graders visited the old Bryan Inn this week fifth graders went to the little Spa theater for a ballet performance at geyser Road on April 28th Arbor Day all of geyser Road participated in planting a beautiful crab apple tree with the DPW the geyser Road PTO celebrated our teachers and nurses last week in appreciation of their hard work
006dedication and passion to their profession and to the students and they were a recipient of the lunch today from cardona's Market who held a drawing and appreciation of teachers and geyser Road was the lucky winners their annual Color Run is taking place Saturday May 20th students have been attending field trips first grade went to 4-H second grade went to the old Brian and fifth grade went to the ballet at Dorothy Nolan Dorothy Nolan would like to extend a huge thank you to the staff and volunteers they made their book fair and art show a huge success they're looking forward to their HSA Spring Carnival that will include include free events and Fun For All grade levels are having a lot of fun with special events field trips and other spring happenings at Division Street Division
007Street Elementary had an amazing art show the Halls were transformed with beautiful works of art the large display cases were made into an aquarium for all the students sea life projects the student projects came alive with the lights and other effects they want to thank Mrs Spector the students and the volunteers for doing a great job and at Caroline Street on Friday the 19th and Saturday the 20th they have their musical production Willy Wonka the students have been practicing for months and they cannot wait to see the show the fifth grade is going to camp shinjukook on Monday the 22nd all right then at Maple Avenue the entire Maple Avenue student body signed the no place for hate pledge and have committed to treating each other with kindness another shout out to the student planning
008committee for the no place for hate assemblies they did a phenomenal job the faculty and staff are very pleased to announce that Maple Avenue will be recognized as a no place for hate school in early June at the high school chamber orchestra traveled to Williamsburg Virginia in April to compete in music in the Parks they won first in their category and won best overall score the high school is currently showcasing student artwork in the lobby and outside of the auditorium the senior class officers are busy planning the senior ball and Senior week they are also currently holding a car wash with Hoffman's until Father's Day 50 of the earnings will go back to the senior class the junior class officers are also busy finishing up details for their prom which is this upcoming Saturday the
009class of 2025 is running a kids night out for some of the younger students in the district this will be at on June 2nd at the high school the class of 2026 sold water bottles to students last week to begin their fundraising for next year Spring Fest is scheduled for June 9th this will feature good old-fashioned Field Day games for our high schoolers bouncy houses and a student made band inside of the gym for anybody looking to get out of the heat clubs will have the opportunity to sell food or drinks and advertise their activities to gain enrollment for next year and playoff season has begun our girls lacrosse team will compete in semifinals tomorrow against Shen and the boys will compete in their first sectional game against Guilderland the boys will be playing the
010first sectional game at our home turf in five years that's it thank you both uh brings us to administrative reports Mike Tire community for their support in approving our school budget yesterday so thank you to everybody all the community members who took the time out of their day uh to vote on the school budget our bus bus Bond proposition as well as our candidates for board the Board of Education I also want to thank all five candidates who dedicated a tremendous amount of time and effort in running for our trustee seats here on the board of education congratulations to both Angie and Tony for a re-election to the board and also congratulations to Beth Braxton who will be joining our governance team on July 1st so again thank you to the board of education to
011all of our bargaining unit members throughout the year and developing the budget all the time and the effort and the conversation that goes in to that process each year and we truly appreciate the support that we receive for our community to continue to maintain the outstanding levels of program services and opportunities for our students here in the district um we got some kudos to both of our student Representatives on the board of education so this is a special week for both Ryan and Kate on Monday night on Natalia and Michelle Sao and myself joined Ryan and his parents uh at the Saratoga county school boards Association uh dinner meeting on Monday night at the Holiday Inn where Ryan was recognized for his community service here in Saratoga Springs so Ryan had a chance to speak
012to the the audience and did a did a wonderful job and with his plans to head up to University of Vermont to stop study Public Health policy so congratulations to Ryan [Applause] so tomorrow night is Kate's turn uh so Angie and myself and Michelle again will be attending the Adirondack area school boards association dinner meeting uh with Kate and your parents can be able to attend awesome uh so again we look forward to celebrating Kate and 31 other seniors that'll be a bigger event this past week was just our Saratoga County school districts that Ryan attended uh in this next one Adirondack includes a larger group of school districts for students to be celebrated at the Queensbury hotel tomorrow night so congratulations to both Ryan and Kate [Applause] so uh prior to the start of
013the business meeting tonight we had the incredible opportunity to celebrate 27 of our district retirees so these were folks who have retired from the school district from pretty much this time last year after our celebration last June uh right through the the course of the school year so several folks have retired already and already enjoying retirement and then many others are planning for retirement at the end of the school year so congratulations uh again to all of our District employees who've dedicated their entire professional careers to serving our students here in the school district and we're very happy for them we're going to miss them we wish them a happy healthy retirement and I always offer them up the opportunity that anytime they want to come back and visit or help us out as substitutes
014they are more than willing to do so so uh so congratulations to all of our retirees [Applause] and then finally and correct me if I'm wrong Kate so next Thursday June 1st a senior give back day right is that the right date um and that's just a wonderful tradition uh here in Saratoga Springs uh that each year our senior class uh spreads out throughout the entire Community uh for their senior give back day uh it's a it's a great tradition for our students to be able to do some community service and give back to the community that obviously where they are raised and educated uh and so I want to thank uh all the the teachers and administrators and the students uh to do an incredible job organizing uh the event and so it's really
015impressive how much work can get done in one day throughout the community so fingers crossed we have good weather and they'll have a lot of opportunity to get out and get out and do really good work for uh for this for the Saratoga Springs Community so senior give back day next Thursday June 1st all right so it's my pleasure now we have just one formal presentation tonight uh and again want to start off by taking this opportunity to thank um there's 40 members of our district diversity Equity inclusion committee who really have dedicated uh their time and energy and efforts for the last several years in helping us move our school district forward uh in really important conversations about celebrating all of our students recognizing the diversity of our school community and making sure that
016we're creating safe and welcoming environments for all of our students and so uh the folks that you're going to hear from tonight represent a variety of the subcommittees from our district Dei committee from our students the support staff community members parents as well as Educators in the district who again have done just an incredible job setting goals for themselves and putting actions together so tonight we'll be an opportunity for the board and the community to hear about some of the initiatives that have been in place this year that will continue to move forward as we continue this important work moving ahead so it's my pleasure to introduce Arisa Kalani versus one of our high school student Representatives who's been serving in our Dei committee for several years she's going to be our Master of Ceremonies
017uh so she's going to kick kick us off with the presentation so I'll turn over to Marissa my name is Arissa galani I'm a Knight Rider at the high school and I serve on the policy and the student subcommittee at the high school um so there's a list of panelists well of lists of Representatives rather that you're going to be hearing from tonight so enjoy sorry this is the all of the subcommittees that you're going to be hearing from tonight so I'll hand it off to the family engagement and Communications hi everybody I'm Jesse Altman and I'm a teacher at Maple Ave middle school and I serve my time on the family engagement and Communications committee and this year we've had a couple goals that we've been working on the first goal we worked on
018is welcoming new families to the district and this goal really came out of the belief that having a connection right away at a new school helps families feel connected and excited and just feel like they're part of the community right away and to help get there we are trying to create a parent Guardian Mentor program and share that out with schools and parent organizations so what that would look like is we would pair a current family member with one of our new families joining our school district Mentor families would serve as a point of contact for questions and are also just a familiar face to see at school events through our work we've learned that Lake Avenue actually has a similar program to what we were thinking and so through working with them and some
019of their coordinators we've learned how to kind of align our goals and use what we learned to draft a model that outlines steps to kick-start something like this off for all of our buildings so far we have drafted some ideas and listed out some basic steps and tips for new mentors and part of our current process right now is that we're working on how to implement this and get this off the ground to hopefully have some sort of this really be present in our schools um because ultimately our hope is that we really want families that come and join our our district to really have a sense of connection and ultimately just feel like they belong in our district right away and I'm going to invite more op to speak on our second goal our
020second goal was to raise awareness and celebrate our students diverse experiences we realized that our families and community members play a really important role in promoting and modeling inclusion and being aware of our efforts in terms of diversity Equity inclusion so as a committee we discussed the idea that we wanted to hold an event we wanted to invite our families and community members into our building to hear from our students and really to learn about the work that we've been doing in this area so on April 26th we held a student voices event and this event was a panel event with I guess sort of a student Showcase of our no place for hate work so we had eight amazing panelists speak at that event and actually if the clickers here if we can go
021back to those pictures um so so these are some pictures from the event um you'll see the we have amazing student panelists who shared how they're involved in our schools and how they work to promote inclusion within their school buildings it was middle and high school students and we also had and they also just really shared why inclusion is important to them you know why creating that sense of belonging benefits all students and and how it really benefits everyone so after that all eight of our school buildings had a table to Showcase their no place for hate work they've all been working really hard to promote inclusion and you know stop bullying and promote positive a positive School environment within their school biddings so we wanted to give our students a chance to share so
022we were really proud of how that event oh and we also the designation but that's something that's a step we really wanted to offer our community to invite them to be engaged in this work knowing that there are really a really powerful part of this work being successful in our school community so we had almost 200 attendees at the event and we were really happy with it so you know we hope that people who attended really saw the excitement from our students and want to be a part of our equity and inclusion events moving forward so now I'm going to hand it over to our curriculum instruction and professional learning committee good evening everyone I'm speaking on behalf of our curriculum instruction and professional learning subcommittee one of our other subcommittee members is here Rebecca
023pompino so we wanted to talk about two of the goals that our subcommittee worked on the first one is a continuation of a goal that we started last year which was to identify and Review Board of Ed policies that were most relevant to curriculum and instruction for alignment with the culturally responsive and sustaining framework which is that picture of the tree that has a welcoming and affirming environment high standards and rigor and professional learning for all so those are the areas that we focused on so there were six different policies that we reviewed and it took last year and this year and Angie ameka is here as well as part of that subcommittee sorry Angie and so we reviewed them through a culturally responsive lens and wrote annotations next to it and had discussions and
024then the next piece was to take it to different groups already established within the district that typically would work on such policies for input such as the professional learning committee the curriculum Council in which teachers are members as well other small groups such as Librarians and then any tweaks or suggestions or clarifications these policies would go to the Board of Education policy committee so we will have two of those policies reviewed before the end of this year through that through that lens with the Board of Ed policy committee and it's just for Clarity on book challenges and Library selection of materials so and all of that work is to create that safe environment for for teachers and promote that welcoming and affirming environment and then the second piece um we had agreed that what we
025were hearing was teachers uh were looking for Quality vetted materials to use and I'm happy to say that the teachers themselves Rose to that occasion there's been a lot of sharing across the district in our Librarians in particular have also cultivated spots on their websites where which are easily accessible so we have shared out those links on a monthly basis but then also in April New York State education department has informed us that they're creating a repository for Dei materials so we are looking at that that organization and how they are going to share that out because of the vetting process they are using there too so that one is still in progress okay I'll turn it over next you will be hearing from a representative from the welcoming and affirming environment I actually just
026snuck out I'm Marina Hughes I teach at Dorothy Nolan third grade and I'm part of the welcoming and affirming environment subcommittee and this is our Ally poster this was student created and you'll see them hanging in the Halls just borrowed one off at all um there's a QR code on here that could be scammed by the student which brings them to a slideshow with the Allies in the building as well as what it means to be an ally and what they can expect from the program and I think as a committee we're super proud of the Allied program because it did come from the students and what the students wanted and needed in the school rolled out with a student-led presentation in April of this year after the idea began to take shape about two
027years ago through the subcommittee the program Grew From studentvoices indicating the desire to feel heard listened to about challenges they've faced in our schools as well as building a rapport with a safe adult adults in the middle and high school buildings who have committed to being allies or a supportive recess resource for students and promote a safe and inclusive environment youth allies for Advocates trusted resources and most importantly listeners our plan moving forward will be to analyze the data related to the Ally program as well as Provide support for our allies which will continue to improve and expand the program and then pass it over to Jen fire service hi I'm Jenna Alexander I'm a parent in the district and we last year may 2022 we issued a survey for grades 3 through 12. the
028elementary school and it was about culture and climate the elementary school survey was a little bit different than the older kids to be more age-appropriate so what we did was within the survey students self-identified within different categories and they were gender categories in their race in the ethnicity categories as well when they answered the questions and what we did over this the last several months was broken down those categories those subsets into data and we found we discovered a few different Trends Rayna is going to be passing you out the the subset breakdown just keep in mind that those are percentages of students that agree with the statements at the top of the sheet so you can get to see what those questions were for the students and that's for middle and high school not
029the elementary school so on a positive note one of the trends that we noticed was that the students ratings for the following statements were consistently higher than other statements they stated they had a lot of chances to be part of class discussions or activities if they were absent there was a teacher or adult who'd notice their absence and they had a trusted staff member to talk to at school so those are all really wonderful things Within These categories and across the data we also noticed a concerning Trend as you look at the sub subset groups overall that are not male and white you will see a trend of students feeling less safe less included and less represented in course materials additionally the majority of the students did not feel that they respected one another and
030that was something that really really stood out to us in terms of the gender categories students in the genderqueer non-binary and gender neutral categories should significant percentage differences from other General gender categories across the board and extremely low percentages for feelings of safety inclusion and representation females in the high school do feel less safer than their male peers when the middle school is about well males also perceive less discrimination in all of all categories across the board than their gender peers in terms of race and ethnicity that that subset breakdown biracial multi-racial and black students in the race in ethnicity category feel the least safe and least sense of belonging one of the other trends that we noticed was that and this was really from elementary to Middle to high school is that things got
031a little bit I guess perspectives were a little bit worse in terms of feelings of safety and inclusion all those things as they get older but positive note in this at the elementary school the only concern the kids really had was having more friends and they loved their teachers and they loved their their schools and you know while some of these things aren't always the best it's really good that we have this information and we can take a look at it and see where we can improve where we can better serve our students and also continue to do what we're doing [Music] thank you our next subcommittee that you're going to be hearing from is hiring in retention hello everyone I'm Mike uh and in my role I assist the recruiting strategy for the district
032um I do want to start off by saying that our goals were um kind of ongoing it's not something for us that we could check up is more letting everyone know that it's going towards long-term success um so let's hit the ground running I'll put in increasing Recruitment and Outreach I participated in various Career Fairs throughout the state of New York some colleges included Siena College college of St Rose Queen's College Brooklyn College you Albany Pace Pace University uh Iona university SUNY Binghamton New Brockport new Paul's Columbia University Adelphi University St John Fisher University Nazareth College Albert college and several teacher-specific recruitment fairs I believe this is probably the first time we've gone to so many but there's for us there's still more to be done because I've noticed a few challenges within the recruiting
033process that we as a community is going to kind of go over at the same time while I was at these colleges I was kind of creating connections with Career Services teams the Departments and as well as the school of education making the schools aware of our school district so that they can send our students out send their students our way another thing that we looked at was out the overall hiring process one of the things we focused on was adding bias training within the process all committee members are required to take training for bias and bias kind of talks about avoiding bias in regards of implicit bias as well as confirmation bias and also celebrating diversity so the kind of overall objective is to look for candidates that kind of complement our strengths and
034enhance our strengths rather than looking for individuals that duplicate what we already have also one of the things that was the result of this is that certain administrators asked candidates questions regarding cultural responsive instruction as well as social and emotional learning um we've also partnered with the uh Communications Committee in regards of representing diversity to attract diversity we've created several marketing materials to use within the uh within our recruiting process to showcase the diversity that we do have things such as best buddies Unified sports no place for hate that you can learn about later on today um but it also acknowledges that although we're still doing this work there's still more that needs to be done um and then lastly in regards of the retention of employees one of the things we did as a
035committee was we read a book culture of Love by Dr Lavelle Brown who is the superintendent at Ithaca City School District and what he talks about in his book was creating a culture of love and that is where a culture where individuals feel safe supported and connected um and he believes when he provided strategies on how one could achieve that and two things that kind of stood out to me was fostering positive relationships between students staff teachers administrators and overall community and creating a sense of belonging through inclusive practices that celebrate diversity um through that created that sense of belonging we had conversations regarding creating an ERG group or a an ERG which stands for employee resource groups there's also Affinity groups there's different variations of the title um but pretty much it's a group
036uh that brings together individuals who share common backgrounds um and interests to provide a platform to Foster inclusivity and create a positive and supportive work environment we met with Leticia Barnett who is the chief of chief officer Chief Equity officer at Niskayuna and she kind of shared with us some strategies on how to start an ERG in a school district setting and also share with us some some things to keep in mind that could have potential downfalls so and lastly um implementing an ERG group and our school district would provide numerous benefits including promoting diversity equity and inclusion improving engagement Employee Engagement and retention and supporting diversity recruitment efforts next you will be hearing from the student Middle School I am speaking for Middle School so this year we really took our Dei group the
037kids took it and they they rolled into our no place for hate because they were just a natural fit for that and they worked really hard on setting that up and moving that forward I was incredibly fortunate that Jesse Altman was able to take over the sixth grade group and those kids have come up with some amazing ideas and so as a seventh and eighth graders they've been amazing um so next year we're trying to determine are we going to keep Dei just as no place for hate or are we going to continue with the DEA group as more of a support conversation safe space to talk which is what it started off as I do have a student who talked about what it was that he felt I asked him what his experience was
038in our Dei group so I would rather you hear from them um I think that pretty much sums it up thank you Miss Totino next we're going to be hearing from our student representatives from the high school and my favorite subcommittee hi there um so in April we had a panel of staff and students each share a positive or negative story about their personal experiences with inclusivity in our district um the event was entirely uh student-led and organized in order to involve more students in the planning process we collaborated with representatives of many of the high school clubs we formed a committee called club club to do this um so we've been kind of working under that and the students involved in the planning felt it was really important to keep it student-led and organized
039and stuff like that because we felt that something peer-led like this would be the most impactful way of doing the event um our goals of the event were to help students gain empathy for others through hearing their peers stories especially because you might hear perspectives that you know you wouldn't normally see um and things like that and then spread awareness about the resources that are available for you if you're ever in need um and we did this through our rollout of the Ally program that we kind of incorporated into the event since it kind of fit the overall theme name of it and just they paired really well together as far as the Ally program she kind of just touched on it a little bit our main goal this year I'd say was working closely
040with the welcoming and furbing committee to really just roll out the Ally program and have students aware of what it was what they what resources they had and where they could go if they needed help um eventually we decided to go to the no place for hate assembly to roll out the Ally program I know Reyna showed the logo earlier but like she said that logo was made by a middle schooler on the Dei subcommittee so I thought that was pretty cool and so far from teachers point of view they say that the Ally program has been going solid and it's allowing students to feel safer so so this year we prioritize no place for hate event but moving forward we'd like to make a plan to prioritize the communication between the administration and students
041we plan to set up a regular meeting with Dr Patton and administrator Administration to give the students or a direct line of com contact to them thank you our next subcommittee is the pause and progress Monterey hi I'm Deirdre chuckrow and I'm one of the members of the policy and progress monitoring and while we're responsible for this presentation I keep kicking myself because we always go after the kids and that's just that's not where you want to be um because they're such an asset and I can say personally what a pleasure it's been to work with erisa on this committee they are not just silent observers the kids that are sitting on these committees are actively participating and blowing off script I'm sorry um our active participants review everything that we go over provide feedback
042and really important commentary and I think that's just such an asset and says so much about the district so thanks guys um I'm gonna start us off by talking about something that we really wanted to accomplish this year and I'm pleased to say we did get it done it was very important to the policy committee that the diversity and Equity inclusion policy that was passed by the board became implemented in the way that it was intended to be and one of the things that we recognized is that that document can be a little bit cumbersome and sometimes it just makes life a little bit easier if you have a one-page sheet that you can refer to when you are looking at terms terms of art specific definitions that that are intended to be used as
043part of your process in their daily work when the diversity and equity and inclusion lens is supposed to be used in terms of specific items and so what we ended up creating was a one-page glossary of some terms very very very simple and basic that if you are attending one of these meetings you can just have in front of you as an ability to understand a particular term and so that everyone in the district is looking at the same document so that was one of the things that was a goal that we were able to accomplish what we've also did was ask that those diver I'm going out of order so we also asked and encouraged and provided some and encouraged and it has happened that those Equity lens questions also get added to those
044documents that are served in that meeting so there's a series is it four questions five five questions see there's five questions until right at the top of the document it's right there for you so we know we need to be considering this this is perhaps on the agenda or another document that a particular group might be using and it's right there to make it be part of our Forefront like this is something that we should be thinking of when we're participating in that and so Rebecca is going to give a little bit more insight uh about that and an example hi I'm Rebecca Lynch I'm a parent member of the committee um so like Deidra said we wanted to create tools so that the Dei equity um regulation and policy could be implemented more effectively
045throughout the district one of the places that we wanted to start were the belt teams the building equity and Leadership teams that are in each building so the plain language glossary has gone out to all of the belt teams I believe for them to start looking at and provide feedback on so that basically when we're talking about these words and what these Concepts everyone in the district has a shared understanding of what we are referring to the equity lens questions that are in the regulation are now on all agenda templates for district meetings for belt meetings and for other meetings throughout the district so that these Equity lens questions can be considered and that decisions that are made that impact students are run through an equity lens so that it really is part of just
046District procedure normal course of business so we came up with an example of using the equity questions when making a decision or thinking of um you know implementing a program or anything like that so that you know the belts could have something to go from so you know the questions might seem abstract in concept how do we actually put that into practice so the example we used were um grandparent events so a lot of elementary schools have you know grandparent luncheons or my kid's school has the grand publishing event for grandparents to come and look at you know work kids writings examples and stuff like that which is a great idea but when we look at it through the equity lens question number one what is the action or policy in question so grandparent events
047luncheon at Caroline Street the grand publishing event at Division Street as examples question two what does the data show about the impact of the action on student achievement opportunity and climate so one of the things we thought of is not every student has a grandparent that is able to attend the event if there are just question three if there are disparity gaps between groups of students why do they exist so while some students have grandparents who can attend a weekday event in Saratoga Springs others do not some reasons for this would be either the grandparents not local maybe the grandparent is at work during the day the grandparents are deceased or any number of reasons why they might not be available number four which individuals are missing in the discussion to address disparities and it
048would be families who don't have a grandparent who can attend so number five how will the district mitigate the disparities events meant for a special guest who isn't the child's primary Guardian should be and could be billed as being for a special guest rather than for a specific relation So currently in like the flyers in the info it says if you don't have a grandparent that can attend you can bring a special adult instead or a special guest we could just start with special guests and not lead anyone to feel left out or not included in the event so that was just you know a very basic example but just how to walk through these questions and apply them to events to make sure that each and every student and member of our community feels
049like they belong and then our last goal is this presentation which you are seeing right now so and that brings an end to our presentation I really hope you enjoyed and I would like to open the floor to any questions you may have and I'll direct them to Dr Patton foreign do we have any questions Connie I had a few questions thank you so much for that presentation you all did a great job I had a question about the Mentor families I understand that's not that has not been implemented yet did I get that detail correct [Music] I'm sorry we drafted a model on how we we think a school could implement it based on what Lake Avenue is currently doing within their school but we have not yet implemented it we've we've talked with
050some principles in various people within schools to see you know their thoughts on it but it has not yet been implemented that's sort of our neck where we left off with our next step okay I was just curious to know like what the cried if if there was criteria for being a mentor family like how is it inclusive to people that feel like they may want to step up um at Lake it's just volunteer it's sent out as just an interest you can sign up to be a volunteer to Mentor okay and then my next question was about the climate and culture survey that is that an internal survey or is that a survey that is some other survey that we administer like the youth risk survey apprecially onto this but it was a survey
051that was done and I think some of the questions it was not the year that the youth risk survey was administered but some of the questions kind of it was designed a little bit around that because it was not supposed to be the year that it was being given out so the people that were on that this subcommittee last year put together that survey they put together the questions and I believe some were pulled from yeah yeah so the survey was from ncbi no no I'm sorry the survey was from the subcommittee the welcoming and Firming subcommittee okay so it was an internal survey though yes okay yeah you can we get the mic Michelle yeah I'm deaf in one ear so I'm sorry I can't hear it was a BOCES survey that was um
052modeled after a Statewide survey and we lifted some of the questions uh so that we had Apples to Apples comparison regarding the data that we collected in the surveys so it was the questions were not created by the committee uh they were created by an outside organization and we took some of them okay thank you um and then I understand one of the goals which I think is a really great goal so I was really glad to hear about improved communication between Administration and how all of this is being implemented so I thank you very much for your attention to that and then my very last question um student achievement was brought up towards the end of the um of the presentation here and I guess this is open to anybody but how how are
053we linking our Dei efforts to student achievement and is that something that we can look at going forward if it's not a current Focus thank you yes there's been a lot of the work we've been doing this year along with Anna Munoz and the book study that's been done with the DHS at the middle school and the high school and she's been working with the teams at the elementary school this year so we've been looking at our subgroup data in new lenses and that date on those conversations are going back to the Belt teams so yes we are looking at the achievement of our subgroups and how the impact of the activities were starting to do down the road this is sort of that Baseline of where do we go next kind of here any
054other questions or comments Angie um I'll give all these wonderful presenters a break I'm going to direct this one to you Dr Patton um so some of these clearly have goals that are still ongoing and the work is going to continue can you give us an idea of how this is going to move forward next year yep um obviously the subcommittee structure has worked really well for us because we have the opportunity to engage so many folks in this work this year student engagement has been incredible and again one of the efforts to introduce no place for hate in our partnership through ADL was to get it at the student level and so all eight of our schools have been involved in the efforts this year so I think as the information that you've heard
055kind of throughout the year some of the actual items that may be a survey based one year turns into actionable items for the following year we're excited that as a region 31 schools within our BOCES there's now a regional Dei Network and Saratoga is ahead of a lot of our neighboring school districts so we're kind of supporting our region and doing a lot of things that Lisa talked about about collecting resources what are the professional development opportunity companies what are student engagement opportunities our ncbi program has been in place for many many years since Saratoga Springs while their districts are interested in learning more about that and so I think the collaboration between school districts is exciting again how do we help support each other and again as a district the more we look at
056our data of asset presentation was last board meeting and you see the performance of our student subgroups and the focus that we've had on Connie's point to academic achievement and to attendance any of our behavioral statistics then gives us more information I think to analyze and then think about what would next steps be for our Dei committee you know ultimately it's feedback that we get from our students so I think the student engagement piece and having those ongoing conversations with both our middle school and high school students especially around culture and climate and making sure that we're having an impact on creating that that welcoming and and safe environment for all of our students so it will continue in the fall take a break over and just welcome I don't ever see this work really
057ever finishing I think I think we're in this for the Long Haul okay wonderful anyone else John bergerman uh thanks to everybody who presented and the entire committee for all your good work um Mike I think you might have just been speaking to this but the the data on the handout we got I think is so helpful and there's some stunningly bad numbers here in some cases uh which shows you know this is analytical and it shows we've got some we've got a lot of work to do um when I look at a particular number that's troubling I find myself thinking what's going on there so my hope is that there's some then step to drill down on any given number and I think that's what you just said right um and then more generally
058you know the way we the way we this kind of information has to be contextualized and you know the fact that our our district is actually out front in some ways and yet has serious issues um but but I think like students and staff ought to know that there are lots of folks in our district that aren't having the experience we want them to have and I wonder what the attempt is what the what the plan is for helping everybody students and and employees to understand that this is happening and that we have good data now and again that's I think built into the professional development the follow-up uh the instructional conversations about what is instruction and teaching and learning look like in the classroom and and then from a culture perspective of how we're
059helping support uh students in these specific subgroups with intervention support um additional counseling uh so again this is one year's worth of data I think we have to repeat and and again offer culture and climate surveys at least every other year for students uh and then we'll have some longitudinal data to see okay what areas we see an improvement as a result of efforts and then where are those gaps you know where those areas that we still need to put effort in to address any challenges that we're facing I just want to add one thing it's complementary to what several of you have said um the and and touches on what John just mentioned that you know that the students respecting one another section of this uh uniformly got the lowest um marks and I
060I think that um while that's something that John pointed out and and we've uh agreed as a uh a place we need to work on in a negative point in the survey I do want to uh Point positively that I think that examples of student engagement tonight and throughout the Dei work and throughout um you know a lot of the things I've seen uh just this spring here at the school I think they present the you know the best possible um solution to the problem of students respecting one another you know when we have to to what Mike said we have student engagement on committees uh in on Dei and other committees when we have uh you know within uh the Dei committee we heard about student Allies tonight um the middle school student uh
061taught in the video talked about uh you know kids listening more to other kids um I think you know when you want to build respect among one another that's where we have to start and and the the fact that no place for hate was organized by the kids the the assemblies um you know it's I think it's encouraging and all we we always get better results and and um and sit up and listen more to to deirdre's point uh following you know when when it's students and student voice is leading so kudos to to the process that is um uh developing student voice more because it's it's an essential part of maturation and growth and education and it's it's you know key to to what we're trying to do here thank you any others all
062right thank you very much yes kudos to the entire committee great job I do want to point out uh next Friday uh June 2nd uh will be our first opportunity as a district to be able to participate in the Anti-Defamation League's annual uh Banner presentation so several of our schools have earned the designation within the first year uh so we'll have representatives from each of the schools uh is that two weeks I'm sorry June 2nd is in two weeks okay um but we'll have represented student representative staff representatives from our schools uh Proctor stator uh inspector for the the beer Awards which is a great celebration for all of our efforts on behalf of our students and our staff okay thank you we'll move on to the consent agenda um for those in attendance they're
063watching 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 a 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
064any advanced fact-finding that is part of their due diligence process uh Natalia are there any modifications to tonight's consent agenda um just one there we have a recommendation that the Board of Education adopt the resolution on the canvas of the vote from last night so I make a motion that we approve the consent agenda items GH and I in their entirety along with um the modifications can I get a second John Bruggeman is there any discussion okay all in favor that is all seven seven zero motion carries and that brings us to our second public comment period is there any member of the public who wishes to address the board at this time all right um agenda planning board members any agenda planning items that you want to bring up at this time seeing none
065uh will move into board member comments anybody want to make some comments we're we're in a very uh non-loquacious mood tonight um that will move us to to um executive session at this time uh I'd like a motion to enter executive session to discuss uh negotiation oh I'm looking at the wrong one as well that was last last week's um share with me here could I get a motion to enter executive session to discuss negotiations with collective bargaining units and to discuss matters leading to the employment of particular persons John Bruggeman second Angie any discussion all right Connie sorry about that any discussion um all in favor okay motion carries and we are moving into executive session thank you