001[laughter] You sure? [clears throat] >> All right. Good evening everybody. Um, we're going to call to order um this regular meeting of the Sorese uh Central School District School Board December 9th, 2025. Designation of emergency exits. We have one at the rear of the room and one on on the left and the right. Um, Miss Carney, would you do roll call, please? >> Christine Bellosa >> here. >> Katie Emerson Hos >> here. >> Michelle Gormaglia >> here. >> Robert Tolman. Ina >> here. >> Daryl Kelder >> here. >> Michael Meyer. >> Jeffrey >> here. >> Timothy Wells >> here. >> Adriana Argua. >> Pledge of Allegiance of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Dr. Roarback, mission and vision statements, [clears throat]
002please. >> Mission statement. We provide equitable, engaging, inspiring, and holistic experiences that support success and empowerment for students, families, and the community in a diverse and changing world. The vision statement, we are a beacon of educational excellence where every individual is inspired and able to achieve their fullest potential. Okay, moving on. Um, first thing is approval of minutes of our November 18th meeting. I have a motion to approve those minutes by Miss Bellarosa, seconded by Miss Keller. Any questions? All those in favor >> I >> Dr. Roarback Sawyer Soore. >> Okay. So for this month's Sawyer Sore certificate, I want to recognize the people who rarely seek the spotlight but absolutely deserve it. Our business office, transportation office, and buildings and grounds teams keep the district running quietly, consistently, and with extraordinary commitment. Their behind-the-scenes
003work is powerful reminder of what looks like when a community chooses to serve others through action, not applause. They ensure that teaching and learning can happen safely every single day. On snow days, while we're warm and at home, our buildings and ground staff are already out clearing the way. And imagine where we'd be without the people who manage our budget, pay our bills, and keep our benefits in order. In honor of their essential work, our business manager, Mr. Mike Stagger, will present this month's Sawyer Soar Certificate. >> Good evening. Tonight, I would like to recognize Kristen Wellham with the Sawyer Soar Certificate of Achievement. Miss Wilhelm is the transportation supervisor for the district and she is responsible for overseeing the safe transportation of nearly 1,900 of our students, 57 non 57 students living in district
004attending non-public schools and about 30 McKini Vinto students. Transportation is one of our most challenging complex and high pressure areas of the school district and Miss Wilhelm handles that with a calm composure and complete professionalism. Her day often begins before the sun rises to pick up students to transport them to her schools. And on days like today, it doesn't end until 5:00 p.m. when I saw the bus pull them into the parking lot. Her job isn't a normal 9-to-five office job. She is a one-person team responsible for creating and managing bus routes for all eligible students for transportation. Even if they aren't riding the bus, she needs to have a seat for them on the bus in case they were. She also manages um organizing transportation for all of our field trips, our sports buses,
005and late buses. She needs to keep up with state mandates and regulations, and she knows the district transportation policy inside and out. In the event of an emergency, Miss Wilhelm also responds to any bus accidents with our students on them. She handles these situations with complete care and compassion for the students and professionalism as well. And in the event of adva adverse weather, she also handles doing the road checks. So she is out on the roads to ensure that they're safe enough for our buses with our students to attend or whether we should delay or close school. Without her work, nothing we do in these buildings is possible. She is truly an unsung hero of the district. On behalf of the district, I want to thank her for her outstanding work and commitment to our
006students, staff, and community. Our district is better and safer because of her work. >> [applause] [cough and laughter] >> Okay, next up our Cahill elementary school update. So, if you guys have noticed, um, we've made a little change this year. Last year, we used to go to each elementary school. Um, and being the acoustics and the sound and things were very different across every um, building we were in, we decided this year to change it up a little bit. So, last, so each month we will do a different elementary school. So last month was uh Granty Morris and we have Miss Cahill and Miss Pippetone here for um Kahill Road Show. >> Yeah, [laughter] check. >> Well, thank you to the board of education and the Socrates community for [clears throat] inviting us to present
007today. We're very excited to um speak to Kale and it's going up. >> Oh, there we go. >> All right. So, I am Laura Ko, principal of Ko Elementary. Patricia Pipeton, assistant principal KO. We uh find ourselves often twinning when we don't need to. And um that was our pie the principal fundraiser that we had at our fall festival. Pretty much will do anything for a buck for our PTA. So that was right. So kicking by the numbers, we have over 400 students in our building. We have three sections of each grade and we have 96 students who have IEPs, individual education plans that were identified through the CSA, Committee on Special Education. We have 20 students who have 504 plans and we also have five special classes in our school. ALP is our alternative
008learning program. Those are for students who have um therapeutic need as part of their program. We partner with Rockland Children's Psychiatric Center to provide the clinical um component to our program and they get daily group and weekly individual sessions along with our small class size and education support through our staff. Uh ABC Academy is our academic behavior and communication group. Those are for students who um typically have are neurode divergent. They might have some communication challenges that get supported through uh speech language pathology services and may have some um movement or sensory concerns that are supported through OT, occupational therapy and physical therapy. We have grades K1, grades 2, three and grades four, six classes there. We also have ENL English as a new language uh program. Uh that program has been growing steadily over
009the years. you can see since 2021 at current we are at 61 students um I think there is maybe a perception that there are a lot of Spanish speaking students in our community and yes there are but we also have students as you can see from China and from Nepal and from Uruguay and Ukraine so um it's quite a um worldly uh center of working all right so I did want to talk a little bit about some I already growth from the last school year so as a building. We um scored at the end of the year with reading at 57% at or above grade level, which grew from uh 28% at the beginning of the year. And in math, we ended our school year at 53% at or above grade level, which grew from
01016% at the beginning of the year. We did hear from Mrs. Grego at her presentation that as a department, as a elementary group, we did look at the data and notice that our June data and then our September data really showed quite a disparity and we really want to f focus and target um on how we can make sure that that summer slide doesn't happen as strongly this year. So, we're working on that um this school year. So, some of the things that we're doing to support academic excellence is our brag board. It is a way that teachers can highlight and showcase students exceptional work that's in our main uh hallway area, our Richmond Times that we have through our special areas. Um there's an example here of a student who was reading Snowflake Bentley,
011one of my favorite books from our library media specialist and then utilized and designed their own snowflake crystal using uh marshmallows and and um some toothpicks. We have school celebrations and events. Uh the top right is a picture of Francis Murphy who is a retired soy teacher. She was also a Navy cryptologologist and so she was able to come in and teach kids about coded messages and they worked [clears throat] on how to break some codes which was for their fourth grade group. And then we have data chats as school teams as adults but we also are seeing our teachers use these chats with their students. The bottom right picture is showing our fifth grade math class with Miss Monroe where she's actually looking at classwide data and then developing a goal to address that
012data and improve that the kids are part of So we have building level supports. Um we have academic and behavioral MTSS tier one at the classroom level and then tier two and three are more targeted approaches to um where their needs are and are in smaller groups. So on the social and emotional learning end, we do have our school psychologist and school social worker doing tier one interventions with all of our students. So we have for kindergarten and first grade what we call lunch bunch and it's when our students in those grades meet with our um team in uh in during their lunch period and it's a more pragmatic social language kind of of turn taking and that kind of work. And then grades two through six are pushins. You can see this is a
013picture of Miss Tammy working with a grade five class utilizing her her um Google classroom where there are very specific social and emotional uh targets that are being addressed in those classes. The team also does crisis support in the building. They have their own IEP or 504 case load that they're working in counseling. They develop behavior plans. They conduct risk assessments. Uh the list probably does go on and on. One of the new things that are happening this year is that they've developed a staff newsletter and behavior intervention toolbox. So, those are materials for the staff to utilize when they have questions about, you know, my my student is having trouble with this or what can we do about this? There's some nice um offer offerings for our staff through um our school social work
014and school psychologists. So, our MTSS building supports for math and literacy. Um, tier 2 and three supports focusing for math on numbers and operations and um, literacy, the vocabulary development. They are small groupoup targeted instruction. Um, and there is push-in help. we're able to provide this year pushin help with our um MTSS teachers offering um reinforcement in the classrooms on those key concepts. Under professional culture, we are doing PLC's which are professional learning communities. So that's when we get our grade level teams or our department teams together. uh we have an MTSS and an EML PLC as well and we uh speak as [clears throat] to the data that we're seeing within the people that that they're working with um in their own classes, their own grades and we have actually developed something this year
015called the growth collective and it is our lead special education teacher, our school psychologist, our MTSS math teacher, MTSS literacy teacher. So we have the the continuum of like interventionists in the building that meet with myself and we really take a very close look at the students who are already in the process of getting intervention services and really making sure that we're supporting our teachers in focusing our interventions and really following the the data so that we can make sure that we're moving the students along um in a way that will be very um efficient. Uh we have building committees uh Eminem which is momentum admission we have steam committee safety committee BLT we have a PTA liaison committee so that they some of our teachers will go to the PTA meetings and share with
016our teams uh professional development we have district level PDS superintendent conference days building level uh trainings that we have with all staff and teaching and learning meetings and then a lot of our staff do also explore their own individualized learning through courses is at the mid mid Hudson teacher center and other sort of resources that are out there. I am proud to say that we have 15 teachers who have obtained the new science of reading credential. Actually, uh Trish and I both in that as well just spending our knowledge. Um we have teachers that are getting Bellingham trained, Wilson trained and exploring their own passions and and um subjects like technology as well. Uh I also want to share that our school nurse, our school social worker and our school psychologist all hold national certification
017in the area of their work. Um we also this year have partnered with educator edge which is olster boseis with no olsteries innovation specialist Molly Cahill. No relation [laughter] uh so funny I've never had so many kahills in one spot. um but as she works towards her regional trainer credentiing through the consortium of school networking Kosen building capacity for generative AI and K12 education initiative so with her guidance Kahill is piloting Kosan's AI maturity toolkit which is very exciting it's assessing our current readiness and it's beginning to shape a roadmap that we can use as a building to have a future focused use we're leveraging our partnership to gain momentum and scale this work potentially across all of the schools and we want to make sure that we are identifying and utilizing this very important
018technology that is going to be present in all of our lives. So we're very excited to have that that um support with withst uh the county that's doing this. It's very exciting. It's free training for us. At this time, I would love to invite one of our star students to come on up. >> Good evening. My name is Audrey. I'm a community relations officer for our student council. I was at Marion for prek, kindergarten, first and second grade. I came to Kill in third grade when Mount Mar closed. I wasn't looking forward to moving schools, but it turned out okay. Now I have more friends and look forward to seeing my Mount Marian friends in the junior high school next year. Our community is proud. Our school community is proud of our concerts, our assemblies,
019and our around the world project that all the classes took part in. Many students tell me that they want to sit with their friends from other classes at lunch. So, we're talking with Miss Kahill about how to make that happen. Students love to socialize with their friends and like the opportunity to work with them on class projects. When I [laughter] was [clears throat] Marian, we participated in a black light color fun run. After school, everybody came with their families and participated in an obstacle course. Everyone got a special shirt and got splattered with glow-in-the-dark paint while they ran through. local food trucks came and he provided. There was also an animal present who showed off his yellow bone constructor. I would like to see something like that happened at KO this year. We appreciate your
020support and thank you for listening to me. Have a good night. >> Yeah, my shirt on. >> Thank you. So um also with the Sawyer student experience, thank you for sharing yours. Um we are also proud to talk about some of our partnerships. So we have partnered with the high school with um doc uh with Janice Martin for science and with uh Sarah Alia for uh ENL [clears throat] um visiting Cahill and working with our students. We've also partnered with Olster Boseies their agricultural uh agriculture and animal science program with Lisa Baker and the feedback so far the students are really loving the experience that they are having with them. So that is being offered this year to third and fourth graders and they visit once a month [clears throat] each of the classrooms. So
021that is serving six of our classes at Kahill and um they're using our garden for you know standardsbased inquiry learning um experiences and it's being developed by the students in her program. So it is benefiting you know both groups of students. Um we have planned literacy math and STEM nights the spelling be is underway. um science fair planned um as was mentioned already the around the world projects um forgetting the foster puppy program which is something that has been a lot of fun. There's a picture there of it. Um, we had a student who even was creating, you know, a hat and little things to go along with their puppy and they write in a journal and then they share, you know, the, you know, the adventures that they have with the puppy. So, that
022has been a lot of fun. Um, check and connect, that's another important one I didn't want to forget. Um, that's developed at the University of Minnesota targeting tier 2 and tier three mentoring intervention. um connecting and belonging. So we have staff um signing up to mentor and work with students in the building. Um safety patrol is also something that is being developed. Um the working with students to you know get a peer ally leadership uh safety team. So >> what is the just the a little what's the check and connected? Is it around a particular is the mentoring around a particular area or >> so this was a program that was developed at university that's that that really wanted to target our students with attendance challenges and so for us that's where it started. We
023looked at students who had some challenges this school year already and then historically in the last couple of years. But we also acknowledge that there are some students that maybe are attending school but may have some uh temporary challenges. Maybe something happened with illness in the family or the family had to move or something like that. And so it's just putting students on our radar with the focus of connection and belonging because if they feel that connection to people in school, they may have an easier time uh waking up in the morning or coming to school. So really the attendance is the focus but really it's making sure that we're looking at all the students who may potentially be having you know some struggles that will impact how they manage throughout the day. >> Okay,
024perfect. Thank you. >> I also wanted to share a little bit about the safety patrol too. We're going to call PALS because we do have quite a number of students who move out and move into our schools and so we have a lot of students who are new to the district after the school year starts. So it really is a way that we'll have peer allies but give leadership opportunities but maintain the safety. So I think that some of us may have experienced like safety patrol students kind of outside helping with dismissal but this is also a way to have some leadership and some support for the new kids too and that's what the safety patrol um goal is. Oh we are on the next one. So family and community engagement. So we are very
025fortunate to have a fantastic PTA. I think all schools may say that but um I think for us the assemblies, the Trump retreat, the fall festivals, the big teachers, all these events that are planned um through our PTA have been wonderful. I think that this year though there's been a concerted effort to try to match their events with things that are happening in our uh building. So, for example, fall festival coincided with our countries of the world project. So, the families could see and the students could show off their projects while the families were in our um in our building for that PTA event. Uh we're going to have a magic of reading assembly the month that we do our literacy night. So, things like that. So, pairing up those events are very helpful. Um
026our student council uh worked with our [clears throat] so American Legion. They raised $720 for the Soy's American Legion by selling the flags that maybe you have seen when you drove by in front of our building. Um, we support local food pantries and animal shelters through donations with our school. Um, in February, we had guest readers as part of our integration into our um, reading program. Some of you actually came and joined and read to our kiddos, and we're going to be doing that again. And then this spring, we're going to plan a family picnic because we've heard from a few families that they'd love to have lunch with their kiddos. We just don't have the space in our cafeteria to do that. And so we're going to have kind of an all grade, all
027class uh picnic outside out front for families to join. So that's something that we're having when the weather gets nicer. I think this we have our lovely Big Apple crunch appleshaped uh building picture. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> Anybody have any questions? >> No questions. >> Great. >> Dr. Hos. [clears throat] >> Yes. >> Yeah. I would ask >> don't questions. [laughter] >> I'd like to hear more about this um AI maturity tool kit. >> Yes. So that's definitely going to take another [laughter] another session to talk about. But what actually it stemmed from attending a superintendent conference day that Dr. the roadback plan that Olster Bose's people came and spoke about and one of the people were speaking about AI tools and we were sitting in that that room was full and
028I was sitting next to my library media specialist and we were very excited about this this prospect and so I reached out to this person because they were having some kind of like roundt kind of chats that they were planning for this school year and she shared that there was this opportunity to develop this AI toolkit but only for two schools and that we were lucky enough because we were partnering with this Molly Cahill who's going through her training to be one of those schools. Um it's really a way for us to kind of take stock about what our goals are, where we are with the use of tech of this kind of technology and what it could be helpful for, what our goals are with it. There are 862 things that you can do
029with AI, right? But what are our goals at this point in time and where do we see us try to see it being useful in the future? We know that students are using it. We know that it is a tool that can be helpful for students, but it's also a tool that can be helpful for for staff and for the adults that are working. And so we are working it is our math um teacher in the building. It is our ENL teacher. It is our library media specialist and myself. And we're working so it's a quite eclectic group of people doing AI and we're working with the specialists to identify areas that we think are important for us at this time. So for example, how do we integrate uh curriculum support with AI tools? How
030do we look at um identifying and knowing what is even out there to know what to use? And so that's part of this process. We've had 10 sessions already. I've met with this person for for 10 sessions. We have I think four more to go and then we will develop a plan based upon our goals of this is the information that we've identified and these are the areas that we like to explore. So we're kind of halfway in it but when we're done I'd love to be able to share that out and let you know what we've just what we found that that we're ready to kind of do the next step on exploring. But at this point, we're really kind of talking about [clears throat] what is out there, what is important for us
031to know, and how do we get that information, and how do we explore and identify, frankly, the people who are going to be like the teacher leaders or the leaders needs to then expand it from there. >> Okay. >> I have I have a followup. Are you >> Oh, um I had one other thing, but >> I just follow up on that question though, the AI question. >> Yes. So as educa >> as educators um how do you actually describe to the elementary school children what AI is? Like how does that conversation happen if it's happening at all? >> Well, that's the question. So part of our work is is that even happening at all? Are we [clears throat] having these discussions about what these technology tools are? And I, you know, we we're not
032finished with the work, but it's it's not happening as much as we think it could. But that's that's kind of what we're hearing about regionally, too. Like that's not that's not anything new. I think the idea of technology integration with AI is special. I mean, is something that's very new. And so it's it didn't surprise the the trainer that this is where kind of we've identified as we're at. But I think that it we call it a tool. It is one tool that you can use in the box of tools that you have that may be helpful to explore just like we have um uh probably read a book to a student. So that's another tool you can read but you can also put on your headphones and and listen to the story too. So
033it's just that's how it would probably be identified as just you know another thing for you to try and look at if you wanted to explore it but certainly not something that would take the place of just another tool that you have at your disposal. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Um >> this is sorry. [laughter] Um the other qu the other thing I wanted to bring up because um Miss Pepone was talking about the partnership with Olster Bosey's agriculture and I know that we have an agriculture person at the high school now um just it woke up a conversation that I'd had o um probably over a year ago and because the cow flop is uh uh gets heavy use with uh Cahill Um just that if there was any way sometime in the
034future a conversation could be had all of the homes on the I'm going to say um further away from the school >> um are since a lot of work was done to cut down vegetation there uh they those homes experience flooding a lot and um whenever there's heavy rains Um, I've talked to different groups about this, the um, uh, environmental groups in in town and things about it would really be a great project uh, the elementary high, you know, junior and senior high school if we talked about rain gardens that could be planted along there to absorb some of the moisture that's coming off the cow flop and impacting our community members. uh just because that piece of land is s gets such heavy use by our by our school district. Just throwing it taking
035the opportunity to throw that out there. >> When I started I I want to say we you don't own that. Is that the case? That's not a sovereign >> owned land. It is we still we are welcome to use it and we do. >> Right. And and the school district controls and and manages it. >> Oh okay. Um because and and I only know that because I was there to help pull uh and brought friends to help pull uh trucks that were there during the um the farmers market uh pull them out of the mud on a couple of occasions when my son worked for the for the farmers market and they said, you know, we have to repair this because the school district is going to, you know, is going to get on our
036case. Anyway, so the district apparently manages that land. Then anyway, I thought just because we were mentioning Boseies and agriculture and uh it just kind came together as an idea >> off the cuff just real quick. >> With that, >> sure. >> Thank you to help us with that. >> Great. >> All right. Thanks. Oh, I have one. >> I just I just have one question. So, I love that idea of having a behavioral uh toolbox. And so, is that part of the newsletter or is that a separate sort of shared space? >> Shelf. You have a concern you kind of walk over. It's a literal shelf. >> It's a literal shelf with little pamphlets. Oh, >> okay. Okay. Because I was imagining like a Google space that could then be sort of shared across
037the elementary schools. >> Oh. >> Right. >> So then teachers could really go and sort of do a search for, you know, spitting. >> What do I do about spitting or, you know, anyway, so I was just sort of curious where that shared space was. So it's >> hard, but you're right. >> It's a literal space. >> Literal space. I can definitely explore that with the great it. That's a great idea. All right. Anybody else? All right. Thank you, Miss Pipone. Thank you, Miss Cahill. >> Okay. Um, and I just I just if anybody else gets is gets pinged, um, I've had a couple people complain that the YouTube is lagging and they're only able to hear every other word. So, Miss Carney is just letting Roco know. I don't think there's anything we can
038do about it, but um, so up next up is our public recognition. So, anybody who would like to address the board um on any topic since we've consolidated down into one public recognition instead of multiple >> [cough] >> um now is the time. Okay, moving on. Argua, our student representative report. [clears throat] Is it already on? >> Just give it a tap. See if it >> is that the one that has on the bottom >> bottom. >> Yeah, >> there you go. >> Push that. >> You got to hold it. Push and hold it for a second. See if it There you go. >> There you go. There you go. That green light. >> Yeah, there you go. >> Can I just Nobody can hear. Can you guys talk into the microphone? I don't think
039they can hear you there, but we can't hear you. We're right here. >> Okay. Sure. >> Sorry about that. >> That's okay. >> I didn't get up in time for public recogition. [laughter] [cough and clears throat] >> High School, we would like to recognize our band students and directors for an outstanding concert last week. Thank you for representing our schools with such pride and excellence. Great job on a fantastic performance. Please come and come enjoy the upcoming chorus concert next week, December 16th, at 700 p.m. We would also like to recognize our science olympia team for finishing six out of 25 teams in Saturday's competition. The team placed top 10 in most events and represented our school with hard work and dedication. Great job by all. We are excited to invite you to the soy
040central school district annual Bosey's art show. Please join us in c celebrating the incredible talent of our K through2 art students. This is a wonderful opportunity to support our young artists and witness the creative firsthand creativity firsthand. Event details date December 5th to the 23rd time 8:00 a.m. to 400 p.m. weekdays. Location Olster Bosey's new junior high. The winter fest social mixer took place on Friday, December 5th. Students enjoyed socializing, crafting, playing ping pong and other yard games as well as dancing. Modified sports are underway with the conclusion of tryyouts last week. Staff volunteers are providing frosty fun workshops after school with crafting crafting, baking, and gaming opportunities for all students. Our afterchool workshops and our builders club will be creating holiday greeting cards for senior citizens. The building the builder's club will be personally
041delivering these cards to the residents of the Ivy Log Lodge next week. Our support staff is signing signing out board games during lunch due to the change in weather limiting lunchtime recess. Students are excited to interact with their peers in classic matchups like chess, uno, and connect forward to name a few. Amazing. Amazing project work is taking place in in our classrooms to include gnomes being sculpted in art 7. Civil rights presentations in grade ELA portfolio work and social studies using enduring issues to connect current events to history and solar solar s'mores ovens being built in agriculture. Mors, we have completed our first grand rounds of school year of of the school year and and are now completing follow from these meetings. We are looking forward forward to our fifth and sixth grade band concerts
042tomorrow night. Last week, our sixth grade enjoyed the performance of A Christmas Carol at UPAC. We are currently running the show running the show your cared food drive which will accumulate on December 22nd with a multicultural assembly by Mark Rust and the raffle to be principal for the next day in January. All food donations will be donated locally. Our next BLT me meeting is December 16th at 3 p.m. And our next PTA meeting will be January 21st at 6 PM. Ricardi students are looking forward to the Ricardi holiday shop this Thursday and Friday as well as multiple cultural assembly with musician Mark Russ next week. After school sign language club started today at Ricardi, the six week program is open to the sixth grade students at first and then will open up to other grades.
043A big thank you to Nicole Gavin for volunteering her time to teach sign language to our sixth grade students. Ricard's winter concert is this Thursday, December 11th at 700 p.m. Last Thursday, our fourth to sixth grade students enjoy enjoyed the UPAC presentation of A Christmas Carol featuring many students across the district. Ricard's next PTA meeting is Wednesday, January 14th at 6 p.m. in the cafeteria. And the next builder building leadership team meeting is January 21st at 3:10 p.m. in the library. Kill. We had our our band and coral winter concert last Thursday which was a great introduction to our music programs last Thursday. Third, fourth, and fifth grade classes enjoyed the UPAC presentation of A Christmas Carol. We were we were happy to cheer on some of our students who were performing on stage. We
044will welcome Mark Rust to music around the world assembly on December 12th. Our PTA holiday shop will be the week of December 15th. Our next PTA meeting is January 7th at 4:30 in the cafeteria. >> All right. Thank you. You have any questions for Adriana? No. Okay. Superintendent report. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you Adriana that was very comprehensive. It's nice to hear the report out about every single school. So thank you so much. Today I was thanking a dear colleague from Olster Boseis about how she is helping us with some literacy work specifically multiensory work uh with Orton Gillingham and she said to me community is a verb not a noun and I was immediately struck by the weight of that statement a community that truly elevates and edifies one another isn't defined by
045geography as The noun community is just a place on the map. But as a verb, community becomes a force, one that can lift people up, create change, and when used wisely, heal, protect those who need us most. When we choose to community together as a verb, we choose action over observation. where we choose our comments on social media. We choose responsibility over comfort and we choose to move forward together tethered by a shared mission and vision and shared belief that soverees is and must continue to be a beacon of excellence. We as you've heard tonight from Mrs. Cahill, Mrs. Pipetone, Adriana, we have a lot of excellence happening. [clears throat] So, I just want to celebrate a few more things. Cahill this week, Cahill and it's not surprising after you heard that presentation was named
046best elementary school in US News for 2026 this week. Congratulations. [applause] That's based on New York State tests, their growth, and how they are preparing students for high school. And I would just say we're not preparing students for the next school. We're preparing students for life and to be global learners. And that's the difference we're making. Um 91 students qualified as scholar athletes. And this balances academic rigor with competitive play. 42 families and community members joined our Sawyer family and community learning series. This was the first time we offered this. It's online. Uh families have uh an aidity. We don't know who they are. So they can sign up for the autism workshop. They can sign up for the suicide workshop. They can sign up for anything. And as a school, we don't know who
047the families are. We just know that they're signing up because we are partnering with building uh better futures with Dr. Jennifer Bashant. Uh the we are excited to host our plan pilots mentor school from uh Jamaica, Queens. Thomas A. Edison will be visiting this week to provide peer feedback, support, and accountability to us as we deepen our work with project-based learning and alternative assessments. And a huge thank you to Sawyer Motors who donated a generous donation to our key club which is coordinating a beautiful outpouring of community generosity to ensure students in need have a much needed food for the weekend. It goes in the backpack and it's a powerful reminder of how compassion becomes action. And it's also a powerful reminder to me that our students want to take action and support our community
048when we give them the opportunity. Um, and as Adriana mentioned, you know, right now we have an outpouring of joy with our holiday concerts. We hope you come and hear the progression of how our students are learning to play their instruments and sing together. So this season, I ask you to lean into community as a verb. Let's be a community that takes care of our students, a community that takes care of ourselves because this is a helping profession and compassion fatigue is real and a community that takes care of one another. If we do that consistently and courageously, we won't just have a community, we'll be a Sawyer community of excellence. All right. Thank you, Dr. Robbach. Uh, next [clears throat] up is curriculum and instruction and we have an update on science of reading.
049>> So, I just I'm going to jump in. I want to introduce this a little bit. Not a little bit. I'm going to introduce this. [laughter] So, two years ago, we had four instructional coaches. The work is vast. The work has not gone away. And now we have one instructional coach. This year I have had to drastically change the work that Dr. Jennifer Schlber has had to do much to her sugarin. Um we need to change the assessments for literacy so that we can be aligned to the science of reading and that has really been a huge component of our work this year. So, the one-on-one support, the one-on-one modeling in the classroom for right now until we have more support, this is the top priority so we can be aligned. And she's going to
050open with how we as a district have been working hard to align to the science of reading and why it's needed and how it's connected to New York State literacy initiative. So, thank you. Thank you. Does anybody hear me? >> No. >> Yeah. Pull it closer. >> Right. >> I think you have to turn it on. >> There's a button on the back end. >> Is it? Is that the old one? >> They're not. >> There we go. There you go. >> Okay. So, um, as Dr. Ro said, my name is Dr. Jen Schlber and I am currently the literacy coach in the district. um not doing a lot of coaching at the moment but doing a lot of professional development of our faculty um which has been a joy and a challenge both which
051I always love. Okay. So um in my office if you visit my office there is a poster on the wall that is um the literate graduate and that poster was created in um with the help of Dr. Warrack and my coaching pals at the time. And that poster describes literacy based abilities that we aim for every so graduate uh to be able to take with them out into the world. So things like interpreting complex texts and critically thinking about skillfully responding to media and carrying stories and ideas from diverse viewpoints. So that poster guides the work that I do every single day um both on my own in front of a computer and [clears throat] uh with lots of teachers throughout the district. So my purpose tonight is really to highlight just some of the
052many ways that we are working to develop that literate graduate so first I'm going to start with uh a bit of a refresher and this is based off of Dr. Dr. Warbach's January 2025 presentation with the introduction of science of reading um which is bringing about necessary changes in literacy instruction and assessment globally and nationally and at state level um and is doing that also through current and future legislation things that are in the Senate right now in our state um that are shaping what we do every day in sovereignties. Um so New York State began their efforts to align with the science of reading in the 2324 [clears throat] school year for the most part. Um they started with this literacy initiative. Um and in January 25 is when they released the literacy briefs
053which basically guide how science of reading is understood and enacted in our prek through 12 classrooms. Um, one key piece of that being that the state no longer is just concerned with the outcomes of literacy instruction with the standards, but how teachers achieve those standards, how our students achieve those standards, which means specific and very well-rounded methods of instruction and assessment. So we um which are focused on the big six. Okay. Uh oral language uh funological awareness, phonics, comprehension, fluency and vocabulary. Each piece of those could take an entire semester of a college course to talk about. Um but we have spent since 2023 um really focusing on the understanding each of those components and the kinds of instruction structured literacy instruction that needs to come to our students which varies depending on their developmental
054level and then helping those students to take that very um structured literacy instruction and orchestrate all of that together to actually read and comprehend well. So [clears throat] it requires our teachers to do a lot of intentional instruction modeling and practice combining those six components in a variety of tasks. So over the past couple of years, as I said, we've we've focused on structured literacy instruction and we continue to do that. Um, since 2021, that shift in literacy instruction to a structured approach um, has helped us to align our curriculum and our materials to the science of reading. And this slide, I know people have seen before, but over the last two years in particular, we've had a very strong dedication. Our teachers have dedicated many, many hours to professional learning and the science of
055reading and focused on the instruction aspect. Um some key points of that being uh Wilson the Wilson reading program multiensory read uh literacy instruction. Um also in last year we started and launched the writing revolution which is we talk a lot about reading but writing is also part of the science of reading as well and the intersection of writing and reading. Um, so I'm going to go ahead and skip ahead to this year, what we've been doing so far, which also touches on um what what happened uh last winter and spring and summer um up to this point. So uh a couple of highlights, we had adopted the geodess, which is basically a collection of texts at the different levels from kindergarten through third grade. And these texts are very um they help students to
056build their background knowledge which is an enormous part of comprehending texts um but also helps them to practice and enact the the decoding skills that they've been learning through foundations. and teachers received training um on that uh I wouldn't say it's a program but that um approach and those materials in October and November of this year [clears throat] um for the summer Anna Zivian my colleague um was gracious enough to to [clears throat] help us out with some curriculum mapping um for kindergarten through third grade which um included the use of geodess and the writing revolution. Uh in addition, the curriculum mapping um that was done K through six also uh brought in the writing revolution and is helping all of our teachers to kind of pace, you know, what what uh specific writing skills
057are we teaching and when um with the writing revolution approach. Um, so with that, uh, we're seeing a lot of growth from our students, um, specifically with complex sentence structure, um, wellorganized paragraph writing, building language skills that enable advanced thinking, and having more confidence as writers. So, that's been a blessing to our district. Um, one of the most important understandings from the science of reading is that 95% of students, including those with any kind of learning disabilities, can learn to read proficiently. So to accomplish that level of proficiency, we [clears throat] have to know a lot about what students can do and what they're struggling to do in those big six areas so that we can [clears throat] do what is needed, such as timely and targeted intervention. So that is a very complicated and
058tremendous uh task to understand what's going on inside a reader's brain and and what kinds of things are working well and what kinds of things are not working well. Um so in 2022 we kind of started on that journey with um looking into students who were at risk of or had already developed dyslexia. And that led to us training um some special ed teachers and others that became reading teachers in our district or are now using their skills in special education um with students who struggle tremendously with the code part of our reading process. Um, as you can see on this slide, we've we've dedicated quite a bit of time to uh professional learning um in these different areas in uh not just dyslexia but other practices and processes that help us work with kids
059who struggle to learn to read. Um so in specifically in the writing revolution um which is helping all kids but definitely our struggling students as well. We had cohorts of teachers in the winter um cohorts in the spring cohorts in the summer working very very hard um to understand that writing revolution approach and and put it in place across all content areas. Um, additionally, we had um some professional development specifically with uh faculty that work through special education um focused on understanding what dyslexia is, how we identify dyslexia, and how we're going to start to um support students with dyslexia or at risk of dyslexia in our district. Um and this year has been very dedicated, as Dr. Borbeck said, to uh literacy assessment. So um shifting to using an assessment called the qualitative reading
060inventory. All special educators K through 8 and MTSS ELA teachers were trained in the qualitative reading inventory. Um and then both in October and November uh teachers were introduced to our new literacy assessment framework which was has been on in the process of being developed since 2023 um and is rolling out in January. So that's what I'm going to spend the rest of my time. I didn't set a timer unfortunately. I'm not the best time keeper. So [laughter] um that's what I'm going to focus the [cough] speaking about. Um so first of all, what is a literacy assessment framework? Well, it's basically the answers to all these key questions. What assessments will be used and with which students? When will each assessment be administered? Like when during the year, during a student's uh progress through
061school? Uh who will administer each assessment? Where will that data be stored? And how will data be accessed, used, and by whom? These are huge questions that take a very long time and are very complicated to figure out. So, um the literacy assessment framework, let me go backward. Uh the literacy assessment framework that's been developed also includes uh flowcharts for each grade level saying, you know, at at different levels of difficulty or students showing difficulty uh we have different assessments. So at a screening level, universal screening which will be required by the state is in 40 plus other states. Um there are certain assessments that we will be giving and then um when we find that students are not meeting particular benchmarks that are researchbased benchmarks in these different key skills, uh then that tells
062us something's going on with their reading process, something's going on with their ability to learn how to read proficiently. And so then we will assess uh students in other areas to try to figure out what exactly where is a breakdown happening. Um and that will help us to provide as I said timely and targeted intervention. Um but sometimes students struggle more than that and we have to really figure out where more more seriously where is that breakdown happening. Um and that's really at their intervening level and where MTSS and special education get involved. Okay. So the um assessment flowcharts are something that were uh developed this well over the summer and then also this fall. And as I said, teachers were introduced to those. Here there's a little timeline for you. We're introduced to those
063in October. We started in September with meetings to explain the rationale for some of the upcoming changes that were happening in literacy assessment. Um and then in October we reviewed those um those flowcharts began some training and some of the assessment tools which has been ongoing throughout October. In January we are going to practice we're going to pilot our new literacy assessment framework um and all teachers will be um assessing their students. This is not just the I Ready Diagnostic, the computer-based assessment, but all these assessments are um administered one-on-one with individual students um to figure out how students are doing in specific discrete skills that affect the reading process. Um so after January where we do our first practice of enacting this uh literacy assessment framework then uh in March April we're going to
064review the administration process as well as the data to inform revisions to that literacy assessment framework. Um at that point then um we'll make any small changes that we need to to get ready for the June endofear benchmark assessment which again is like practice number two but there are different assessments that are used at that time. And then over the summer of 2026 we will review administration processes again and review that data again so that the year 2020 2026 [clears throat] 2027 will be ready to have a clear beginning middle and end benchmark assessment system in place. So when we do this, when we change literacy assessments in a district, it affects just about everything that goes on in in uh the system. So report cards will need to be changed, special education qualifications will
065be changed. MTSS tiers and qualification will be changed. Um the there needs to be a lot of family education about what it is that these assessments are showing us about your students or your child, your children. um instruction will continue to change, intervention will become more targeted um and effective and also technology sometimes needs to change too. Um so this the changing of assessments is really just the tip of a gigantic iceberg that we will continue to chip away at as we move along. So um what's coming next? Well, as I said, we're going to pilot this new literacy assessment framework um that will help us to refine our MTSS and special education identification criteria um develop goals. The special ed lead teachers um have done a tremendously amazing job already starting to uh shift
066goals to more science of reading um aspirations I should say for students and aligning better with the kinds of instruction that these students need. Um, we will continue to do that and as well as revise and refine our interventions. We'll also continue to work toward alignment with New York State Literacy Initiative, high impact practices of big six like we have been doing in the past. Um, a lot more professional learning in all different areas, but especially dyslexia across the district, not just with special education. Um, we're going to begin reviewing elementary report cards for alignment with these new assessments and instructional practices. And as always coming from the literacy person, [laughter] literacy needs to be the top priority. So what questions do you have? >> Yes. >> Can I actually have that one? >> Of
067course you can. >> Stinks. >> Yeah. >> Hi, how are you? Great. So to me, this all seems a lot like you're building a plane while it's flying. And I just want to commend you and all of the other people that are running classrooms and running curriculum and also like this widescale change that obviously sounds like it's going to be very beneficial and I very much appreciate the structured approach and the roll out. Um what occurs to me and I have to make an analogy to sports because that's the world I'm familiar with and the world that I think of all the time in our family. But when I think about how important reading is and literacy is, I feel like there's such a huge opportunity for parents to support what's going on in the
068classroom. And I don't think it's enough for our parents in the district to just think what happens in the classroom is enough. Like we think about a kid that wants to play baseball. You don't learn all the things that you're going to do in baseball until class. So the parents are willing to put in all the hours, all the time, the travel, the money for little league or whatever, private lessons, um, if they could, you know, if they have the means to do so, but the means to support your children with literacy, theoretically, you don't need to have be able to take them places and and do all the the special things, but you need to spend the time. So, how how does the the really high functioning districts that engage the parents starting kindergarten
069make this a priority at home? Like, how does that happen or is that even something to think about? >> Absolutely. Family literacy is is extremely important. How do other districts do this? um things like the literacy night that Kah Hill spoke about um briefly those are important the kinds of interactions that we have with um with parents and guardians and other family members um at parent teacher conferences um but there's there's a lot of new learning that also needs to happen about you know some parents know something about science of literacy or science of reading I should say um from New York Times articles or whatnot but there's also a lot of misinterpretation out as well. But the kinds of things that we do at home with our kids at different ages um that's something
070that I believe strongly we can support um through things like yes family literacy nights but also providing other ways of educating people other resources through our websites and things like that. >> Yeah. I mean, that's what I'm thinking is like literally almost if it's like a packet that goes home or an electronic packet that says here are ways that you can easily help support this or here are some things to totally avoid at home. So here, if you don't want to help us advance it, at least avoid doing these things [laughter] and maybe, you know, just giving the the people the road map >> whether they follow it or not. But I mean, there's just so much to be done with literacy and, you know, parents can help. Absolutely. >> So, >> agreed. On October
07120th, we did offer [clears throat] >> we did offer in our Sawyer family and community learning series uh ways to encourage a love of reading and strengthen your early readers literacy skills for families and parents. So, that's just one small step. We have a lot to do. Um and we need people to do it. Yeah. >> Can Can I just ask? Yeah, go right ahead. You're on. Yep. >> Okay. Can you hear me? >> Sort of. Okay. I So, I just wanted to ask a question about the New York State um ELA tests. So, the state is expecting you to do all of this work to um align with the science of reading. What are they doing with their assessments? Have they aligned their assessments to go along with what their expectation is of the
072district or >> because truthfully that the state assessments have always aligned with the outcomes that we need to achieve. >> The science of reading piece is really more about how we get to those outcomes. >> Okay. And so the the assessments themselves, they because they start at third grade, they don't need to change as much as what we do on a daily basis. >> And I think that's one of the misconceptions is that people are thinking that those assessments needed to change and it's not so much reaching those outcomes. Does that make sense? >> Right. No, we still need to reach those same outcomes, right? It's just how we how we do that can change dramatically or should change dramatically to be more efficient and to catch the issues that are preventing kids from from
073reaching those outcomes with former instruction. >> When you do the the assessments and the practice assessments, will it be all students in elementary? It so K through six. >> Great. >> Dr. Schlber, can you talk about how quick they are though? These aren't long assessments for the literacy test. Thanks. I mentioned that the the assessments that we'll be doing um are uh assessing or evaluating discrete skills. So, for example, pseudo word decoding. So, I'm giving you words that are not real words that are maybe three letters, two letters, and you're reading those words to me. >> When you do that to me in 60 seconds, okay? And kid doesn't know that it's 60 seconds, but we know as teachers 60 seconds. So when they're doing that um and and as a teacher I'm recording what
074they're doing, what every child is doing when they do that. I know what um level of alphabetic principle they understand like the letter sound correspondences, what patterns they understand, what patterns they don't understand and how automatic those processes are, which is extremely important for their development of codebased skills. Um, so every assessment, not every assessment, many, many assessments are about 60 seconds long per student. Okay. Um, there are others that are longer because that as readers become more skilled, the kinds of things we have to look at become a little bit more complicated. Um, so in let's say in third grade, third through sixth grade, they're doing that passage reading fluency. where yes, we're looking at how automatic is their reading process, [clears throat] but also um what is their ability to retell what they
075read, whether it be anformational piece or a literary piece. And their ability to retell that shows us a lot about what's happening as they read. Are they monitoring their comprehension as they read? Are they not? What are they are they able to determine what's important in a passage and what they're not able to to determine? Um, and so most of the assessments, they are one-on-one, which is quite time intensive, but they are quite brief. Um, so that helps us to kind of understand the amount of time that we're putting into it. >> Thank you. How does this play out for 7th through 12th grade? >> The biggest thing of how >> because that's reading is really important then. [laughter] >> Yes. Well, the biggest thing is that we will identify problems quicker and we will
076provide targeted intervention. [clears throat] Say targeted intervention, that's a phrase that's used a lot. But specifically, if we know that a student, for example, is not blending phones, that's a critical skill. If they can't blend sounds, phone needs, then we have to target that because it influences everything else going beyond that. So the biggest influence that I see on our 7 through 12 students and teachers and that system is that we'll have less students who are struggling um to the extent that they are now. So this year we now have two literacy or reading specialists at the junior high because we have a lot of students who are being identified as having tremendous difficulties with decoding. Um, and my my hunch is we will catch those things earlier and will not need that level of
077support at the junior high in future. Um, but right now it's imperative because we've missed some things. Yeah. >> And this is not just us. This is all over the nation. >> Yeah. And just to sort of piggyback on um what Michelle brought up in terms of families, I mean some high impact interventions with families is you know at least in early childhood, right? So, a lot of parents are not with their kids during the day when they're in elementary school because they're in school. Um, but is just sending them a text asking a question like, you know, are there colors you can talk to your kids about, right? Is there language in front of you? So, that a parent getting that text in the supermarket um with their child with them. and that those
078sort of short, you know, short interventions that are very, very specific around those skills really helps parents feel like they have agency and um have a way to help those kids, right? Because it's not about, okay, I've got a whole curriculum I'm now implementing with my child, but it's like, oh, I can just do this one thing and talk about the fact that, you know, you just said that word and I'm going to now give you five rhyming words, right, with it. So, >> but each word starts Um good evening and thank you very much for the very comprehensive presentation. Uh this is sort of foundational to everything that we do. So thank you for your work on it. Um most of my questions were answered but I did have a question I guess uh
079you mentioned dyslexia in there and I was just wondering if there's any complimentary training on disgraphia as sort of a tangential [laughter] program. So, um, our understanding of disgravity is not nearly as, um, profound, I should say, or as grounded as our our understanding of dyslexia. >> Okay. I I'll be the I'll be the one. >> What is that? >> Thank you. Okay. [laughter] >> Everybody was thinking it and nobody wanted to ask. >> Did you want to say what disgraphia is? >> No, I think you I'm sure you have a better >> So, the best way I think to understand disgraphia is just to kind of give you an example of a student that I've worked with recently. Um, so this this student I would say is twice exceptional, brilliant, very very high IQ.
080Um, and beautiful oral language vocabulary speaking, can actually read quite well. But when he goes to write a sentence, uh, you can barely read it, okay? Does not have fine motor difficulties, is not, you know, qualifying for occupational therapy or anything like that. Can cut, can draw, can all these things. But when the brain goes to represent the letters that are needed to write a word >> to put that on paper and to have the proper spacing, >> it looks like you you have no idea what it is that they're trying to write. >> Okay. So that's that's layman's way of >> No, that's No, thank you. That's helpful. Okay. So to to your point um we're we're going to start with dyslexia because it has such a high prevalence um of uh it's so
081prevalent in our in our population. Depending on what studies you're reading 15 to 20% of the population has some degree of dyslexia. Um so because of that we're starting really there but we do have students now um who were concerned about disgraphia the identification or the qualification um with like the DR model or book you know how we how we identify is not as consistent across uh providers like psycho educational testing and things like that. So it's a little bit more difficult and although the state loops the two together that's actually problematic because there are many students who have disgraphia who do not have dyslexia. So we have a lot of work to do in that area. Is it coming? Yes. And do we need it? Do we have a need for it? Absolutely. >>
082Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. [applause] Okay. Um, board member remarks. Mr. Wells. Can I have my microphone? [laughter] >> Sure. >> This is the good one. >> Yeah, that's a good one. All right, we'll set that out here someplace. [clears throat] >> All right, you guys hear me out there? All right, good. >> Remember to keep talking right in. >> Oh, I will. Don't worry. Hear me way the other. Um, first and foremost, it's nice to see everybody here. Uh, it's nice to see kind of a full room here, which isn't always the the way it is. So, it's nice to see a lot of people here engaged and wanting to see what's going on. Um, thank you, uh, Miss Pipetone and Mrs. Cahill for
083your presentation. We very much appreciate that. Uh, appreciate not all the graphs and everything as we we've kind of seen. Um, so I appreciate kind of just getting down to the nuts and bolts of it and keeping us engaged and, you know, not not allowing some of us to go off into La La Land. Um, I know the young woman who spoke, Audrey left, but I appreciate her getting up. It takes a lot to come up here and and speak and being the only student as well, so that was pretty pretty courageous for her. So, I appreciate that. Uh, Dr. Slabber, thank you for your your presentation. That was very informative. Um, a lot of stuff that I really wasn't too informed on, I definitely am now. Um, so thank you for that. Uh, Adriana,
084thank you for your your presentation. Uh, the band concert and and uh winter concerts. I'm looking forward to uh the science olympiad. Uh, that's pretty awesome. They got sixth place as well. Um, I I wanted to uh just quickly uh congratulate Miss Wilhelm uh in regards to the Sawyer Sores. Um, I've been on the board for a little over five years now and that's been a name I've kind of consistently heard throughout my time here. Um, and I don't think you get enough of the credit for what you do. So, we truly appreciate everything you've done [clears throat] and continue to do and I hope that you will continue to do all the amazing things that you do. So, thank you very much for that. Uh, and lastly, I had the opportunity to kind of
085attend the distinguished friends of education last this past couple weeks ago. Um, and I wanted to just kind of shout out uh John and Peggy Mullen who who are the recipients for Soures uh school district. Uh, just two amazing people. I think they said that there were 33 or 35 uh scholarships that they handed out last year. They do a lot of stuff within the district itself as far as Johnny coming in and and showing how this this stuff's made. Basically, >> uh, well, not this bottle, but another bottle. Um and and just you know Peggy spending a lot of her time in education and I know she continues to help children as far as tutoring on the outside right now. So I'm very grateful for them and what they do for the school because
086they've allowed a lot of children and and you know coming out of high school that aren't necessarily going the traditional college route to kind of grow and and grow into their field with with uh scholarships that allow them to maybe buy tools or stuff like that that kind of help them get in get in and get going. And that's that's a difficult thing as an 18-year-old student coming out, you know, to get going in this world. Uh, and that's pretty much all I got. Thank you very much, >> Mr. Golia. Into the mic. >> I would like to second um everything that Tim said and thank you to everybody that has presented. We continue to learn a lot and be very educated. Um I always have more questions than I bring up because I have
087to watch my word count. But um what I actually wanted to just reflect on for just a very briefly is um I'm about six months in on my schoolboard stint and uh for those of you that know I am in uh private sector work and in private sector work things happen quickly and I think the thing that's been most eye openening to me and if I can convey one thing to the public that is not either working for the district or involved in the board or somehow familiar with the way that the district works there is a lot of due process that is attached to a lot of the decisions. So while something may seem like it's there's a really evident right answer, it's not as simple as just getting there quickly. Um there are
088a lot of things that have to be evaluated. There are a lot of rules that have to be followed about how things are evaluated, assessed, discussed, um public meeting rules, and so things take a lot of time. And um there's a lot in the works behind the scenes with everything we're talking about, curriculum, um personnel, finances, but there is a lot to it. And I would just encourage you before you pass judgment on how long something's taking or whether or not that you think that something is happening as quickly as it should, please ask the question of someone that can help you to understand what the process is. Um because there's a lot to it and and I'm feel like I'm just dipping my toe in and it's been six months. So this is just
089from a lay person. Um I wish to continue to convey kind of the differences and and how I see that, but it's it's been very eye opening. So, I would just encourage you to not assume that you know how it works. I've learned an enormous amount and any of us are happy to ask answer questions about process even if it's not content. >> Thank you. >> Still on. >> Okay. Still on. Yeah. Okay. >> Um thank you Dr. Scher for your very comprehensive um presentation tonight. I think one of the hardest things to teach children is how to read. I mean, as a I was a a a former teacher and I I really found that that was probably one of the hardest things to teach children and even to teach my own children. Um,
090my son did not like to read. I tried everything to try to get this child to want to read and it it was actually um he was having a reading difficulty and it was through listening to Harry Potter on tape that he started to enjoy reading. Um I think just before I retired we started to talk about the science of reading and um I found it very interesting. Um I want to thank um Miss Cahill and Miss Pippetone for your presentation and and one thing that you said was that you both got the micro credential credential in the science of reading and I feel as an administrator for you to do that to really understand what the expectation is of your teachers is so important because now you know what they have to do and
091how comprehensive it is and how much that is. So, I applaud you for that. And um it was nice to see um Audrey. I almost didn't recognize her. I think the last time I saw her, she was in first grade. So, um shout out to Audrey. Um so, thank you. >> Okay, Mr. Meyer. >> Thanks. And thanks to Tim for a very detailed me uh list so I don't have to go through everything but [laughter] >> um [clears throat] obviously at the last meeting we were congratulating a lot of the sports teams football team for great seasons and we've got some concerts coming up and one last week. So congratulations to all the uh the athletes as well as the performers. Um just quickly I had the opportunity to attend the Boseis open house last
092week and um if anyone has the opportunity to to go to open houses there uh the new facility I would encourage it. Um they're still uh trying to incorporate the curriculum into that big space. But it's a beautiful space with a lot of opportunities for the students. So um if you do have the opportunity um I recommend it and um again thanks to Adriana for your report. is very detailed and uh it's very helpful to hear what's going on with with every school. So, thank you. >> Um I did from all the accolades to all the presenters tonight, it was very informative to hearing about um everything that's going on from a literacy perspective and to hear what's going on Kahill where my son goes. So, I thank everyone for that. Um, I wanted to
093let people know if they don't know, um, you know, we're coming into the cold winter months. Some people, um, don't have the means to get cold weather gear. And the Soures, um, children's library, the library, uh, children's room is doing, uh, this week or I think for the rest of the month, a clothing swap. So, um you can drop off used coats, boots, snow pants, um or go pick something up if you need something. So, um I just wanted to make people aware of that if they're not already aware of that. Um and then just a public safety announcement and something came out from the district today which I really really appreciate and that was about um the pickup or drop off um pickup at the afternoon um at the secondary campus. Yeah. On Friday,
094I witnessed two at two different times within a fivem minute time frame, vehicles leave the pickup line, crossing the double yellow line going out towards um the the campus uh the where the faculty parking lot is and nearly two head-on collisions happened. People had to negotiate around to get through and it was kind of frightening to watch. So, um I'm really glad that the district um sent out that notification about the safety of that and um so everyone gets home safely. So, I I do appreciate that. Um and then lastly, this our last meeting before the holidays. So, I want to wish everyone [snorts] merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, whatever you may celebrate. Um and have a happy winter break. Thank you, >> Miss Irazeri. >> I'm passing today. >> Dr. I have nothing to [laughter]
095say. >> Yeah. >> Um I want to echo all of the thanks. I am particularly interested in the AI information. Um so we were not able to have our policy meeting because of the snow. Um I was ready for it and um we do have um you know we've got a bunch of policies we're going to be looking at in January. I encourage everybody to sign up who might be interested. You can go to the website and um sign up for any of the committees. Um but we will be meeting at the beginning of January and um one of the things I want to discuss there is how we as a committee and a board can actually get feedback on how AI is being used in the district, right? Because while it may have a
096lot of potential, right, there are a lot of other things that have been shiny and new. It's like, oh, it's gonna have a lot of potential and we still have kids who aren't reading in 12th grade. Um, and so there are also a lot of risks and then there's a lot of just giving away all of our creative energies to a machine that then sends it back to us telling us how great it is. So, I'm really interested in having that conversation. I invite any and all of you to that conversation in January. Um, I want to iterate what uh uh Miss or Molia said about asking questions. I think that's um because we get very uh triggered by whatever is happening and we're excited and passionate about various issues in the district and um
097we want to hear everybody's voice but it really helps if that come voice comes in the uh form of a question that we can answer and then sort of look at and so um and then I want to thank uh Adriana again for the list of things I have down here. I'm going to be down in New Pulse tomorrow. So, I'm going to go to the art show at Ulster Stravosce. Um, which again to remind people is open from 8:00 to 4:00. And um, also the clothing swap because I still even though I have a 21-year-old in my house, I still have kids clothes um that are snow that is snow gear. So, that is great to know about. And um, yeah, thank you so much again for the focus on literacy because without it
098we're really in a pickle. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Um I just have a couple of things. Um one I'll go on. I I tend to not mention everything that everybody else mentions and thanks. Um one thing I will say is if you didn't have an opportunity um last week was our band concert and we got to see our two new band instructors. Um Mr. Nuome and Mr. Oriani. Um and if you get a chance to see them, they are amazing. Um you know, Mr. Mr. N, my son is in the is in the wind ensemble and Mr. Nome who heads up the the senior high band and all that, how he made it all about the kids um and the students and even how he introduced them and had them uh you
099know he had the percussion group come out uh with a closed curtain and play a a tune on their on their uh music uh things. Um it just our music stands. Thank you. our music department is heading in the right direction with those two and Miss McDougall on chorus. Um, you know, our our that area is amazing. So, that's one thing nobody mentioned. Um, so I will mention that one. Um, a couple of things um that I have obviously going into a little bit more serious stuff is I understand that our staff and our community are going to have questions about a personnel item that is on our agenda tonight. Please understand that with the confidentiality that is afforded every personnel matter, this particular issue is also accompanied by what's called a standard New York
100State statutory revocation period. Is that New York State ed and council speak? Yes. What does it mean? means during [cough and clears throat] that period we are legally unable to provide any additional context to that issue. The other thing I would say is no one should read anything or interpret anything into that item other than the wording on the agenda. When we are able to provide more information, we will provide as much information about that as we legally are able to. Okay. Another thing that I know everybody wants an update on, the investigation is complete. Um, it is done. We are starting to get and really review the findings and the things that happened. The investigation uncovered issues across our entire organization. Miss Gremolia, I didn't tell her to say that, but I would have
101like I would like things to go faster as well. Not I also come from the private sector. I also come from a sector that unless you move really fast, you die, >> right? And so I've had to adjust and understand as I mentioned with that other issue, there are New York State education things we must follow. There are tenure issue we must follow. There are we must deal very closely and understandably which is great with the unions and how we change even policies and things that will affect our teachers that is all being done. So as I say it it when I say it it uncovered issues across the organization. Some were big, some were smaller, some were in between. They some will take a lot of work to fix. Um and some are already
102fixed. While the initial investigation was targeted at a certain complaint that came in, what it did do was it launched looking at a bunch of other things that have happened in our district. One in particular, I mean we nobody likes to know it. We really were we had to look at the entire investigation and comm communication process around the incident that occurred with our former band teacher and a lot of information came out or was understood about that about how what would happen and what we need to do to change certain things. our entire HR process, from our personnel, from job descriptions, from how people in this district are hired, from how people in this district are let go. All of that has been looked at. Starting in January, we will start to release what
103we can about the in investigation. The one thing we will not do, two things, excuse me, we will not do, we will not release something that the investigation found that was wrong without a corresponding solution. It serves nobody just to say this was done wrong unless we know how we're going to fix it, which at the end of the day is the really important thing. Okay. Number two, we are not as we release things that were wrong or need to be fixed be in a be about placing blame. I've said that since our since that wonderful session I attended at the senior center. This was not the the easiest thing to do is make people afraid about a problem and tell them who's to blame for it. We are going to highlight what's wrong because
104that's what we promise to do. and we're gonna we're going to tell people how we are going to solve it and that is where we would love feedback on how we solve things. Dr. Hos has already started we started the process back in October with all the policies and how things need to change in the policies um from the fratization policy to our transportation policy and those we've had to we we've worked very closely with our unions because it affects them and how they do things. So, as Michelle started this conversation, I would like this all to be done in a week. It's not going to be. But the investigation is complete. We will now start to assess how we fix things going forward. Okay. All right. Thank you. personnel, instructional and non-instructional. Um, so
105in here we have a couple of resignations. Um, a TA, couple things just around like a bowling club, um, and things like that. There's one that contingent on being appointed a full-time TA. So, he's uh Sean McCarthy is um leaving as a part-time monitor but coming back. We have a couple of leaves of absence and then appointments. There are a lot of appointments. Um I think the one big one for everyone in who's ever who's listened to this stuff, >> I'm sorry, >> Spanish, >> our Spanish teacher. Finding a Spanish teacher, finding a Spanish teacher and a technology teacher are impossible. we have a Spanish teacher. Um and then across these we have um some substitutes um and some other items. So I have a motion to accept I one two and three >> by
106Mr. Meyer seconded by Miss Keller. Any questions on all this? All those in favor? >> I I business office recommendations. Um treasures report recommendations appropriations internal claims audit. Um our development our budget development calendar which will start amazingly quickly. Um there is one in here um just because the number is so big. It's not in the in the um in the agenda itself. It's in our backup. Um is the summary of unpaid taxes. Um so amazingly um and I'm always amazed that the number of the the amount of unpaid taxes um right now is 3.2 million. So um Mr. Stiger, 30 seconds. You can take more than 30 seconds. Explain how the district is made whole on the 3.2 two million that it's not coming out of our budget just because people didn't pay their
107taxes. >> Yes. So, sure, we started [laughter] we ended collecting taxes in the middle of November and the county um collected those taxes for a short amount of time. Um now those taxes, if they remain unpaid, are rolled into the January 1st um talent property tax bill. Um in the spring, the county will make us whole on those unpaid taxes as part of their um uh settlement period. They do that for all um central school districts. City school districts are excluded. So, we will be made whole on those taxes, but it won't be until the springtime. >> The spring. Okay. Thank you. Save Michelle a question. >> I asked. [laughter] >> Okay. Reserves report. All right. So, a motion to accept J through 7. >> That motion >> by Miss Golia, second by Miss Bellarosa.
108Any questions? Other questions? All right. All those in favor? >> I I [clears throat] >> Okay. Board action items. We have our normal CSA, CSE, and CPSSE, and then our 504s separation agreement that I mentioned. Um, transportation contract extensions, New York food day bid resolution. Dr. Robeck, can you give us 15 seconds on what is that? New York food day. you told me earlier this afternoon but >> Sure. So in we work with PNW Boseies we piggyback on uh that coer and uh resolution and it's 30% farm-toschool initiative. So for example Sheila Melville she buys all our breads from a local farm Gil farm and she does tastings as well. So it's an initiative farm to school. Okay, thank you. Um, and then we have OS contract proposal resolution. That's it's basically the closing out
109of the contract um for our Kill Fire alarm system. Oh, and we're having a new club. We have a Habitat for Humanity Builder Club. Fantastic. Uh, who's doing that? Oh, Mr. Catalano. Okay. Golf Club, [clears throat] teaching assistant. if there's anything else in here. Okay. So, a motion to approve items K1 through >> by Miss Keller. >> Second by Mr. Wells. Any questions on any of those items? >> All those in favor? >> Okay. >> Miss Beloso. Audit. >> Nothing to report. We like that out of audit. >> Molia. Facilities. >> Nothing to report. >> Yeah. Like good too. You already gave your policy. You got >> I gave my policy. come in January. We got a lot going on. >> Okay. All right. Um that includes the normal agenda. Um a motion to recess
110into executive session. And this executive session we're reviewing a draft of the human resource initiative components and we have a discussion with the Sorese town supervisor and Sores police chief regarding our school resource program. Mr. Wells, >> I'll second. >> Second by Mr. Any questions? >> Okay. And just for everybody is we will when we do reconvene we don't plan on voting on anything. I think it's going to come out of the exact session that we need to vote on.