001Good evening everyone. I'd like to call the meeting to order. Can I get a motion please? It's okay. >> Welcome everybody. some happy faces out there. Uh we're gonna get right into it today. A really nice presentation coming up and I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Ferris. Good evening everyone. Thank you for coming. Those of you who are here and those of you who are watching from home, we have a really terrific presentation tonight. Over the course of the year, you've seen presentations from all angles of the school district. Um a few weeks ago, we had one on curriculum and instruction, which is one angle of the district. We also have had our budget presentation, which the second leg of our tripod. And tonight we're going to talk about uh PPS and the
002supports we provide for students. We always talk about caring and learning being the heart of what we do here. And uh this is the caring and learning portion that really affects and impacts kids. So I want to introduce uh our assistant superintendent for PPS, Miss Julian Mris, who has been phenomenally supporting students here for for many years and we're really proud of the work she's done. >> Thank you, Dr. Ferris, and good evening to the board. I appreciate the opportunity to to speak on behalf of the pupil personnel office this evening. So I wanted to just give a brief overview of the PPS office. Although the crux of the presentation will focus on our district wellness program um and our mental health resources and supports for our students. Before getting into that, I just wanted
003to talk about some of the other roles and responsibilities of the off office. I do want to acknowledge Miss uh Dana Galante. She works alongside me in the office. She's my office assistant. She's phenomenal. She interfaces with a lot of the families in the district as the district registar. So I just wanted to acknowledge her this evening as well. In the PPS office, I work very closely with Miss Jagantthy and Miss Loreston in special education. Obviously tonight we'll do a deep dive into our strides program seal and mental health student registration work with our psychologists and social workers some of who are in the audience tonight that you'll get to meet later um our guidance department our L students work very closely with the nurses in the district especially our lead nurse Miss McDonald along
004with Dr. Cox. And I'm not going to read the whole slide, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list, but just a little brief overview of the office. Probably one of my favorite parts of the job, being a former assistant principal at the high school daily. I get to interface with all our building principles and assistant principles. And that's honestly one of my favorite parts because we get to support the staff, the teachers, and the students. Oftentimes I describe PPS because it's such a diversified role. I describe it as you feel like the assistant principal of the school district because it's just any way you can help support and forget to click. So let's focus on our mental health and wellness supports. Um I've used this quote before. It's at the bottom of my email
005in the signature. Every child is one caring adult away from being a success story. In my 21 years in education and in Savville, I have seen this come to fruition both personally and professionally. In education, we often use the term trusted adults. And I just want to read something, an excerpt from an article I read the other day that I believe strongly in. Trusted adults save lives. They are crucial to the emotional stability, social health and development of children and adolesccents. And that's certainly we see ev evidence of that every single day. And this is a people business and without those trusted adults, we wouldn't really have the strong school district and community that we have in Seville. Just briefly, we've been focusing on our board of education goals. Dr. Ferris focuses on this quite
006often. So tonight we're going to see how the mental health and wellness really applies to curriculum and instruction and belonging and inclusivity. Additionally, this is a slide that Miss Demiola has shared before in her presentation and I think it's a nice visual or metaphor. If you see strides at the top, it's kind of the I like to describe it as the umbrella and then you see the school personal goals and themes underneath it. So while strides is our district program, it works in unison with the building goals, not separate and apart, but their themes are all aligned, the principles are aligned, and the philosophy is aligned. So, I just thought that was a nice visual. Thank you, Miss Deiola, for letting me take that. And then also too, we talk about portrait of a graduate.
007We've discussed this. Portrait of a graduate is New York State's unifying vision of what it means to be a graduate. Essential skills and dispositions that students need to be successful in college, in career, and in life. So, I took some key phrases out of this graphic that you can find on New York State website because our program really addresses strong relationships, diverse perspectives, acting responsibly and ethically, and we're culturally responsive. So, even though the portrait of a graduate isn't enacted yet, we're already doing so much as a district to speak to these themes and outcomes. So, we're ahead of the game, I like to think. And then tonight, we're going to talk about our collective care team. Obviously, we have dedicated teachers, administrators, and support staff. And they work together collaboratively with our collective care
008team. Who's in that team? We have our school social workers, our guidance counselors, our psychologists, and our nurses. And we're going to talk how we all work together as one team. So I think this is a really important slide. This is the cornerstones of our program and there's four of them and as we go through the pre presentation this evening we're going to touch on each cornerstone. So number one strong staff support. None of this happens without the support of our staff. That's our district office. That's our principles. That's our teachers. That's our support staff. custodial staff, everyone is involved and we have one of the strongest staffs support-wise in Savo. The program is preventative and proactive. That's something we've worked really hard at. It's not reactive. It's a prevention program. Community effort, we're going
009to talk about our community partnerships and organizations here. And then obviously the foundation which we already talk talked about that connections are really key. Again we have a robust pupil personnel staff. Just so in case people aren't aware I like to point this out. At the high school and middle school we have two social workers and a psychologist at each. We have a social worker at each elementary school and a psychologist at each elementary school. and then our guidance staff. We have four guidance counselors at the high school and three at the middle school. And this is really evidence and I want to thank the board of education because it's their commitment to supporting student wellness. If you talk to educators from other districts, they all don't have robust staff like we have in Sable.
010And when I started teaching here two decades ago, we had this staff too. So I feel like Sable's board was ahead of the game in making sure that our students are supported in the best way possible and that has continued on to this day and something that we're very appreciative of. Moving on to community partnerships. This is just a small list and I'm proud to say a small list of some of the partnerships that we have with community organizations. And if you look, there is asterisk next to those partnerships. And why did I put those? That's because these are partnerships that have been in excess of six or seven years. They aren't superficial. We don't invite them in one time and never see them again. But they work consistently with not only our staff, but
011with our students. Some of those are the Long Island Coalition Against Bullying, the Suffach County Police Department, Family Service League, the Neighborhood House, Stony Brook University, the Crime Victim Center, our Chamber of Commerce, Youth Enrichment Services, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the Christopher Kuchio Foundation, the Suffach County Youth Bureau, Steven Hill. So again, these are partnerships that we've maintained and sustained. And as an outgrowth of these partnerships, one of the most important parts of our partnerships are the interactions with their students. And I want to point out that in Savville, we don't do standalone assemblies. When we all went to school, that was a very common thing. You have a speaker in, they go to the auditorium, they speak to the students, and you never see them again. That's not a fruitful and healthy
012partnership. When we have people in, it's followed up by small breakout sessions. For example, Stephen Hill, who is a drug and alcohol prevention speaker. After he speaks to a large group of students both at the middle and the high school, then he meets with them in small groups and they can have a more uh direct and intimate conversation and maybe ask some questions that students wouldn't be comfortable to ask. Same thing with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. There might be a presentation, but then the students get to meet in small groups. We also ask for student feedback. So, sometimes you invite someone in, it doesn't resonate with the students, we take that feedback, we digest it, and then we look elsewhere. But we're always looking to grow these partnerships, but we have a really
013robust group, so we're proud of that. And I think the best way to show evidence of what a true partnership is is to illustrate to the board and and to the community what that looks like. So tonight I've invited Mr. Joe Salamone to be with us. We've had a partnership with Mr. Salomon who is the executive director and founder of LIAB, the Long Island Coalition Against Bullying since 2019. I also do want to note that since August of 2023, Mr. Salomone was appointed by the governor of New York State and he serves on the temporary task force on cyber bullying. So, I'm going to invite Mr. Salamone up and he's going to talk a little bit about his partnership and work with us in SAL. >> Thank you, Mr. Mris. Uh thank you Dr. Ferris,
014uh cabinet members, members of the board, and the community for allowing me a few minutes to uh walk through some of the impacts that have been fostered here in Seville between uh as a result of our partnership. Uh to some it might be easy to see our organization as some static service. Uh but from the very beginning, Savil has always viewed our relationship as a dynamic partnership and it has turned into one that represents what is possible when a school district and a third party truly move beyond isolated programming and commit to a true embedded collaboration. And if I had to drill down to two things that I think make our partnership and relationship so successful, it would be the first a commitment to shared goals and the second a mutual trust. Uh, a recent
015study from the National Association of Elementary School Principles found that by the time a student reaches 18 years old, they will only have spent 13% of their waking hours inside of an academic environment. We recognize through this that not only will bullying be an issue that is unlikely to ever see total eradication, it also stresses the idea that this is a topic that does require an entire village approach in order to combat. So recognizing that, we take our partnership with the school district and break it down into four specific areas. External support services, community participation, supporting building and district initiatives, and education. And I will, interestingly enough, leave the education part for last. Uh so supporting building and district initiatives, we pride ourselves on not approaching a district uh assuming that we possess every answer
016or with a take it or leave it approach but rather one of supplemental assimilation. Within Seville, we are proud participants uh in building and district level seal committees, student roundts and regularly consult with district leadership on individual DASA complaints when warranted and regularly consult on new ideas and initiatives with both district and building leadership. Uh the community participation, you know, we strongly believe that our presence can't just stop within the institutional academic setting. uh which is why we've always been very proud to support and work together on the color run and the strides carnival. Uh and interestingly enough in several years having gone to the carnival myself uh there have been many times where kids will come up to the table and say I remember you when I met you in the third grade or
017I remember when I you know at high school and I think that really illustrates the the longevity and the investment that's getting made. Uh however uh as a a really personal piece uh and it's become a special day I know for many here in Seville is our annual student leadership awards which is held every June recognizing students for their outstanding character throughout the entirety of the school year. Um the >> Joe can I just interject? >> Sure. In in regard to those leadership awards, Stville was the inaugural district that LIAB partnered with for those and I just um Joe won't say it, but over the last six or seven years, LICAP has given thousands of dollars in scholarships to our students and for many years um Joe has consulted with the district at many when
018you partner with people there's always a cost there. There was never a cost for many years. And in fact, they gave back to Sable again thousands of dollars of student scholarships. On the uh external support side, um in an effort to continue to assist families and students that are overall impacted by bullying after they leave school, we uh are also very proud to offer our supplemental services like access to our uh Monday through Friday hotline, uh the private confidential consulting on specific cases, uh therapy and resilience building programs, uh and financial subsidies to make sure that any resident that comes to us with an issue, anything that we might suggest comes at zero cost to them. Um and lastly on the education piece, we take a holistic approach uh to this where it's not just
019about visiting students, but it's also about working with the staff and the parents. Um throughout the course of our relationship here in Seville, we've offered uh years of successfully conducted DASA support trainings to staff. We've held parent workshops on an annual basis and we've had classroom push-in presence in every single building in the district. Uh this year actually most recently just visiting the health classes in the high school as recently as two weeks ago. We were in Sunrise Drive as recently as yesterday and Lincoln Avenue in early March. Uh now along with the educational component, we routinely ask students grades 6 through 12 at the conclusion of any pushins to assess what they thought of the material. uh and the speaker in some cases and offer insight on their particular student experience. What are in
020the next few slides, thank you, are um some broken down stats that came from both Lincoln being Lincoln served as our very first uh elementary school ever that we've actually surveyed elementary age kids uh as well as the high school. So, we'll start very quickly with the high school. Um the high school we have actually uh we the kids we saw in the health classes totaled 156. So the sample size is small, but what I found particularly interesting is when you hold up those 156 student responses from here in Seville, they align very closely to the 4,041 kids across the island that we have surveyed. Uh so these three charts uh three graphs here are their overall student experience. Uh one question is have you ever felt bullied? The purple columns will be Sville High
021School and the green will be that of the remainder of Long Island. Uh so as you can see uh slightly higher responses of those 156 at Savville saying yes they felt bullied but not too far off from the entirety of the island. Uh the forms of bullying that they report again verbal continues. uh we have by our own stats seen as a result we can't point specifically of course to only these cell phones but we do believe that the 17 point drop in cyber bullying is reported by students can in some way be connected back to the cell phone ban uh so I don't think that you can dismiss that uh the impact that it's had in that category um and then lastly just looking at of the social media apps that they participate in
022which one is the most problematic when it comes to the things we discuss And none of this really should be a surprise, but Snapchat continues to lead the way uh in being the most problematic. Uh specifically when about the cell phone ban this year, we did ask questions. Uh you know, at being a member of the task force, uh we very vocally uh supported this and advocated for it to happen. So we've been asking students across the island, what do you think about it? Uh no surprise here that an overwhelming number of students both at the middle and the high school level are not in support of having to up their phones in some way. >> Um, however, when you do ask them if wait, we we'll acknowledge you dislike it, but now that you've,
023you know, you've told us you dislike it, can you see any positive to it? And by almost a the same number or higher margin says yes, we don't like it, but we do see a positive to it, which I think shows a lot of growth mindset. And it may not, you know, I may not like it, but it still might be good for me. Uh and then lastly on a pro uh programmatic success and participation, do what do they think about bullying programs in general inside school? Do they think they're helpful and will they participate in them? Uh what I was very happy to see is that again 156 kids in Seville were almost to the exact number the way all of Long Island feels as far as yes, they do believe that these type
024of things are helpful. Are they going to solve every problem? No. But they are helpful. Uh and then uh pivoting over to Lincoln Avenue, we asked two similar questions. Have you ever felt bullied and the form of bullying that you would say? Um we did spend a lot more time trying to educate the elementary students on exactly what bullying is and frankly what it is not. And when you're talking about that, you go into a little bit more detail on the four kinds. So I'm not surprised to see mental a little higher. Um but again, those uh those are Lincoln for student overall student experience. Again, most this majority saying yes uh that they have felt some element of bullying but the remainder of the data is all about did what we talked about help
025them uh so when we ask questions of did it help them understand bullying better categorically over 60% said yes when it was helpful to understand how to be kinder to those around you again wide margin saying yes as well as do you feel confident uh that if somebody was being mean or treated unkindly you know how to help uh and reporting as yes and I believe there is one more after that. Yeah. Uh lastly um if uh they felt that someone was being treated unkindly would they feel trust uh to go to a trusted adult? How do they feel about that? And overwhelmingly they would feel the confidence uh to go to uh to an adult. Uh so that's uh you know pretty high level. Um, in closing, I do just want to say one
026final note, both from a professional and a personal perspective. It really is a privilege and an honor to get to work alongside some of who I consider to be the most talented and committed individuals in the Long Island education community right here in Seville, many of whom are sitting with us here tonight. And I thank all of them for that opportunity to do that. Um, and at the very end, uh, when it's time, if anybody has any questions, I'll be uh, happy to answer them. But thank you very much. Thank you, Joe. And I think it's just important to have those statistics. We don't shy away from asking our students how they really feel and then we can look at that and see how we can do better because that's always the goal. So, we're
027going to just pivot to a couple of district-wide initiatives that we want to highlight. So, we do have a districtwide seal committee. This committee was actually responsible for coming up with the sable strides. Um it's a committee that has stakeholders, teachers, administrators, parents. So every organization is represented and what that committee really does is it develops overarching goals for the Sable School community. So some that we've had in the past is reducing misinformation and stigma related to SEAL programs. um increasing secondary student buyin at the elementary school. This is kind of what elementary school educators do. It's the foundation. As you get older, it's not as cool or not as fun. So, we really wanted to um get more secondary buyin. And then, of course, looking at how we can help kids to be more
028resilient. Then, at every single school, there's a buildingwide SEAL team. And I really have to compliment the principles and also the teachers that serve on this team. They come up with so many great ideas that help align with self-esteem, resilience, trust, and some of the initiatives that have come out of that is the digital detox, multicultural affairs, u March Madness, men's mental health, here comes the sun, anti-bullying days. So those teams are really instrumental. We also have a wellness and mindfulness room at the high school. That's the middle slide. And I think any one of uh the high school administrators or PPS staff or Dr. Ferris, I know you heard it. Every time we get together with kids and you ask them a highlight at the high school, inevitably they talk about the mindfulness room.
029And some say we don't even go there for mindfulness. It's just a respit from the day. So I'm very proud to say with the help of Dr. Castorro at the middle school, we now have a brand new wellness room at Sable Middle School that we're really excited about and we can't wait to jump in there too. So it's a success at the high school and I have no doubt it's going to be a success at the middle school. Each month we have elementary strides push-in lessons. So for any parents that might be online or in the audience, what is this? So, we have a district-wide social worker that pushes into every elementary classroom once a month and again addresses lessons related to strides, whether it be on empathy, diversity, strength, self-esteem. And what's interesting is
030that we also identify needs. So, we were hearing from the principles at the elementary school and also our teachers that social media was really becoming a problem. And if you've been listening to the news lately, social media is truly a danger. So, we know that this was a need that we had. So, we've invited in a fifth pre uh Suffach County Community Police Officer, Officer Muger, and she has been pushing into the elementary classrooms and providing lessons on safety and the dangers of social media. At the secondary level, Miss Demiola has re-imagined our curriculum maps for the district and I really appreciated the incorporation. If you see there on every curriculum map that our teachers are working on, there's a section that asks for a connection to strides. So again, it's not something I always
031say we're not expecting kids to, you know, wear stride shirts or tattoo it on their arm because it may not be cool. But when you're in the classroom, how is the lesson you're already teaching tied to one of these themes? And again, unified with the building goals. So, that's something that we're really appreciative to. I'm behind the page. Okay, continuing on. Now, I'd like to invite up um two of our PPS staff members. We have Miss Chardulo with us who used to serve as the district-wide social worker. She is now the social worker at Lincoln Avenue. And we also have Miss Buckley with us who was formerly the Sunrise Drive social worker and now she's at the high school. And they're just going to talk about another couple of initiatives from around the district. >>
032Thank you. Um, I'm here to talk about the trauma-informed classroom training that we brought into the district two years ago. Um, I say I'm grateful that the district embraced this training because it's part of caring and learning is creating safe and supportive environments and trauma-informed learning is really what you need to do in order to have that. So the trauma-informed classroom training was really designed to provide a lens for teachers through teaching them what trauma is um the different types of trauma, the prevalence, what causes it, and most importantly the effects it has on the developing brain and body. So this provides a lens to view student behavior um not to diagnose or to say this person has experienced trauma but to see that this could be a possibility and informs them how to create
033that safety in the classroom to provide more ex access to learning. Um proud to say that we did that to at every faculty me uh faculty meeting in every building in the district. So essentially all staff members got this brief 30inut training. Then all the staff were invited to a more in-depth trauma training that consisted of three threehour sessions throughout the year. We had over 50 participants over the last two years. And what we did is we dove deeper into what trauma is, the science behind it, and more importantly how teachers and staff were showing up in the classroom after knowing this knowledge. A lot of trauma-informed care is actually self-awareness. Um, trauma-informed training means I'm going to co-regulate by understanding what my nervous system is doing at any given moment. So, we actually did
034practices together with teachers and staff to learn to regulate your own nervous system before trying to regulate a student that could be affected by trauma. So, from that um there were student there were staff who wanted to do even more training. So we offered a gradual graduate level course where we talked about some crisis response that can be done in real time if a student was experiencing a crisis in the building and how they can attain that in order to prevent any um extended psychological trauma. We also gave this trauma training to security. Um that was really fun because they if anybody knows trauma it's retired police uh force. So they understood the the content and they were really engaged and understanding. It's really an effort for anybody that is in contact with students to
035understand this content. And then um is that it? Is that it? That's it. I'm sorry. Um do you want me to introduce Amy? Okay. So now Amy's going to talk about more initiatives at the high school and 988. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Thank you for the opportunity just to come and be able to speak a little bit about what we're doing for mental health awareness in the high school. Um I think we've already touched upon this, but what a lot of what we're discussing is protective factors. And one thing that we know in psychology from years of research is that there are certain protective factors that um really help people to navigate difficult times such as feeling connected whether it's to your family or to your school environment. and also just being able to
036hold on to purpose when you are struggling to get through those dark times. Um so at Seville High School we do have a robust SEAL committee and that's exactly what we try to focus on is how do we organically include and teach kids about mental health awareness through activities and initiatives that are meaningful to them and that we can work to engage adolescence. As we know, this is a tricky time developmentally. Um, I've learned that even in adolescence, kids still love candy and fidgets. Um, so our committee comes together once a month. It's led by Mr. Hart. It's a strong group of educators. There's about 12 to 15 of us, including social workers and our school psychologists. We brainstorm creative ideas and ways that we can monthly put tables out, get out there during lunch
037periods and really educate kids about important resources such as 988, which is the equivalent um mental health hotline and suicide hotline for, you know, kids that are in crisis that might need extra support. It's not just for kids, but for really for anyone. Um so I know Mrs. Mack mentioned before some of the initiatives that we have done so far this year. Um we kicked off the year in October with um bullying prevention our campaign uh inviting kids to come chalk the walk with positive messages around Sable High School. And this was not just an activity but really it was a visual representation of um just unity and inclusiveness. Um from there we had a special month November. It's referred to as Movember in the high school which many of you might already be aware
038of. We have a lot of male staff members that are troopers and grow out their beards. And it's really just much more of a meaningful message that uh with a focus on men's mental health that um we want to break the stigma that it's okay to not always be strong and it's okay to seek help and and talk about your feelings especially um you know to to the boys and men. Um in March just last month we celebrated here comes the sun. We know that getting through the winter months can be really difficult and again just getting out there with tables giving out information to kids. Um we engage them in activities. They're writing sun sunny grams to one another that would be being delivered in home room. And the kids you'd be surprised they
039really they jump in. They it really just lifts their spirits. So through these I would say organic experiences we're trying to really have conversations make connections give them out those 90day cards. We you know kind of give them these informal quizzes, but hey, do you know what 98 is? And we find that even if maybe we're not reaching the student that's struggling, we have a lot of friends that will speak up and that's the message we give them, too. So, at, you know, the core of everything that we do, it's one central message to let them know you matter. You're not alone and there is support here for you in school. If not in school, also outside of school 247. Um, I'm proud to say I think that these are initiatives that we continue to
040gain feedback on and improve. Uh, certainly we can we can always do more, but it's really uh something I think that we just work hard to to continue with our our students to get that awareness out there and continue to create a strong culture because that's really what we're we're looking to do in our community. So, thank you for this opportunity. Um just talking a little bit of our prepare training. So this is the National Association of School Psychologists. Um they offer which is really the gold standard of crisis response. And so this offers us the training that we did gives us a framework to respond to crisis. No matter how prepared you think you may be or how much experience you've had in crisis, the mental energy of thinking what to do next, of
041thinking of your responses is very draining and difficult. So, this offers us templates on the responses um gives us documentation so we know what we're doing and also a timeline of how to approach this next. And so we've taken this training and really implemented into all of our buildings um with a red binder that we have. I think Miss Mcris will be speaking more of. >> Yes. So just briefly you can see on the right hand side of the slide how this red binder is broken down. And again as Miss Tardullo said it's really crisis response. You never want to have to use this binder, but if you do have to use it, it's better to have it prepared. And those I'm not going to go into depth, but those are the the different tabs
042and things that are contained in the binder. And every one of our administrators, PPS staff, and guidance offices has this binder as a team, and we've been trained on it together. our Savville school community events. Again, I'm not going to read the entire slide, but I just want to say that Savville community events, I think this is where Savil really shines. I've never seen a community come together like SAVA, when you have an event, literally everyone comes. If I go down Main Street and ask for support, every business wants to help it. It's really truly something amazing. And any of you who have been at any one of the these events or even at the buildings, it's pretty incredible the participation and the support we get. And just one story anecdote from one of the
043color runs. A mom after the color run just came up to me and said, "My child didn't want to come this morning. They were upset. They didn't have anyone to run with. And one of our high school volunteers saw that the student was upset upset and ran in the race with him." and she said that just like changed his whole day and his whole mood. And that's just one of many wonderful examples of things that happen at these community events and something we're super proud of. Parent workshops and university. This is something else that we make a habit of. We try to make it a rule of thumb that if our students are receiving a presentation or interacting with an organization, then our parents have to be interacting and associating with that participation with that
044presentation. So for example, we've hosted a number of parent workshops and what we call parent university. some of the topics, eating disorder awareness, parents for Megan's law, mindfulness practices, suicide awareness and prevention, sleep hygiene, anxiety and depression. So again, we know without our parents, right? That's the most important partnership that any school district can have and we're very lucky to have such parental support in Savo. So we try to offer as many opportunities for parent workshops as we can. I just want to make a quick note that under the PPS website on the district page, all of the resources from organizations that we have worked with are linked there. So, this is actually hyperl in the PDF in the board doc notes. So, just something I want parents to be aware of that any agency
045we're working with, there's a resource pamphlet or a tip sheet and you can access this on the PPS web page. And two upcoming events we have in line is we have the Gabby Patito Foundation coming in on April 23rd. The flyer is there. This will be hosted at Sable High School. Like to thank Miss Maurici, our health teacher from the high school for setting this up. So we invite all to attend. And then we have our annual Strides Carnival on Wednesday, May 27th. We're looking forward to seeing the community there. And I just want to end on the most important note and that is our student voice. So we have a semi- newly established high school student advisory committee. Many of our principles have advisory committees that they meet with regularly. Mr. Hart and I
046co-chair this student advisory committee. I'm going to call on Anthony because not only is he our um student board member, but he's also a member of this committee. and he's just going to report out a little bit on what the students have to say about our PPS initiatives at the high school. >> Good evening everybody. Thank you, Miss Mris. Um so I'll be reporting on the minutes from our last climate advisory committee meeting at the high school. I'll start with some of the positive feedback we've gotten from students regarding a sense of community and belonging at the high school. So first, we agreed unanimously that students feel most connected and engaged with the community when they're engaged in active community service. So whether that be through co activities, community connect day, or at the strides
047carnival. Personally, I think big events like these where the whole community gathered together um with parents and kids from every school really they really do give you a sense of how unique and like close-knit Seville is. Like Chris backer said, it really is a special thing to see literally everybody at these events. Uh you get to see people you haven't seen in a long time. Like a lot of my elementary school teachers I would see. Um and I mean you get to like do things that you don't ever really have another opportunity to do, right? Like last year I got roped into a flag football game with a bunch of fifth graders and a couple of my friends, which is something that you can't really do anywhere else and it's it's special that we have
048that. Um, so next regarding mental health, the students said that they are more aware of PPS support and of PPS staff, which was a major goal from the meeting before this one um that we now reached. They said they would like continued efforts to increase awareness of PPS programs and staff. As for the cell phone ban, as I've said a few times before, uh, students are mostly happy with it. Of course, everybody's going to complain that you can't have your phone, but ultimately I think more conversations are happening at lunch tables than at study halls. And for the most part, people do say when you ask them, they do feel more connected and present. Um, in my own experience, I've been playing a lot of card games in study halls and at lunch, which is
049something that has literally never happened before. So, I do appreciate that we're kind of forced to talk to each other instead of just sitting and scrolling on your phone. Um however some students have mentioned that some broader technology restrictions um can sometimes be frustrating like some website bans on Chromebooks but um students also reported some other issues they could use continued conversation first they some students mentioned that they would like more more organic team building. Um sometimes they feel forced to connect with peers which can be uncomfortable. Students will also mention that they would appreciate more information on how to handle grief um and some training on some training on signs that their peers might be struggling with it so that they're more prepared and knowledgeable now. But overall, we made significant progress on issues
050that students have reported on in the past and I'm looking forward to our next climate advisory meeting um to see what's improved so far this year and how we can continue to improve student climate going forward. Thank you. >> Thank you, Anthony. And I just want to mention we left off with that question at the bottom. How can we ensure that all students feel that they have a place in our school community? It's often said that kids, not all kids come to school wanting to learn, but all kids come to school wanting to belong. So that was the question Mr. Hart and I posed to the committee. How do we make sure that each and every student feels that they have a place in our schools? That's no easy task and that looks different for
051every student. Just thank you. Um again, thank you to the board of education. You're always extremely supportive. Thank you to Dr. Ferris. Anytime I have an idea or initiative, he supports that and he's he's behind it. So, I appreciate that. And we're just going to move forward with our consistent approach and continued collaboration. And like I said, I it's all due to the people in the audience. None of this happens again without the principles. I feel extremely supported by the building administration and I want to say that because they carry out the vision every day and then of course our teachers are phenomenal. I mean I just got a call from a group of fourth grade teachers the other day and they're like we have an idea and they're always so excited about it and
052so willing to work for the students. I feel very blessed to be here and maybe I spoke a little too long. I apologize but I'm proud and I'm really proud to be a part of this community. So thank you. >> I'd just like to add you know all the research studies when they look at schools say that sense of belonging is one of the most important factors in school. When kid feels connected to school sense of belonging they engage when they engage the outcomes for kids are unbelievably positive in terms of the social emotional outcomes the academic outcomes the self-esteem and their ability to be successful happy people. So I want to commend our entire PPS staff and Because from the moment I stepped into this district, it was very clear that the strides wellness
053program that the PPS department is one of the best you will find anywhere in the country on island and that's led by these people and this matter. So I want to give them a shout out. >> I just I have one more thing I promise. I just want to say I know it's not perfect. It's never going to be perfect. I think Mr. Salamone said that in regards to bullying, we're never going to eradicate it, but I just want the community to know that we're committed to just getting better. So that's it. And if there's any questions for Joe and the staff. Thank you. >> So now we'll take questions from the board or comments. >> What age groups? >> Anthony, I have a question for you actually. Um, so the committee, how many kids
054did that entail? And and was that like 9 through 12 or >> It is. It is 9 through 12. Um, unfortunately I couldn't make the last one. So it is 9 through 12 and I think last time we had about 22 kids on that committee but we continually add to it and we try to to the best of our ability get a wide range of students oftent times in schools and those of you who are educators know sometimes you get the same kids for a lot of committees. So we invited some new students last time. I also think it's important to know we have a lot of different high school committ where kids have voices a principal advisory committ athletics committ so I think we try to get a lot of different angles so that
055lots of kids have always >> I think we're very fortunate for stable PBS because um the support is not isolated to just students it's the students clearly from everything that was shared the students the teachers the administrators um the parents and the community as a whole. So I think we're very unique in that and I do know because other districts do fall and ask for assistance and ideas and I think we're fortunate to have my affiliation with Mr. Salom because I do know personally of families whose lives he has. Thank you. Um, that was great. Is this on? >> I don't usually need it, but um I just I I think it's important to point out that that presentation is only a tenth of what goes into the the PPS superintendent's job. And I know
056a lot of times people just immediately will associate this macros with PPS, but to how robust and deep and and indepth our program is. And you know, I'm in my third decade of education. And I've never seen anything like it. And then to realize that that really is only just a piece of what she does on a daily basis. Um, and obviously she pointed out more than once that um her team is amazing. Um, Dana is amazing. She she always has the answer to every question uh and at the building levels. But I I think that's import that you know we point that out and you shouted it out because to see how how amazing that program is from top to bottom and then to realize that that's really just a piece of what has
057to do on a daily basis is pretty impressive. >> I just want to say thank you for the presentation. It was wonderful to again just to see a snippet probably of all the things that everyone's doing on a daily basis. I love that you're supporting not only the students but the staff. If I if I were to have a support services in my job, I would want to have say PPS service because it seems like it's it's so encompassing. It's so thoughtful. You're so present in everything that you and everyone's doing every day with all the students, with all the staff. Um it makes me feel good as a parent to know that my kids are um and their friends are supported and safe and they can have someone to come to if they have
058a problem. There's so many resources um for them to be able to access uh and it just keeps growing like you said. Um Mr. My son was actually a recipient of the life award many many years ago and uh he was very young at the time and we received a stack of books um from the coalition and we still have them uh on our bookshelves at home. So I really think you're making such and and we always talk about it. You know, it's something that we go back to um now and again. So I I believe you when you say students come up to you and say I remember you. Um, you know, I do think you and your and the coalition and all the work that you do is making such an impact on
059students and even though the um the charts are showing that our students are kind of there with long with the other uh statistics of Long Island, we're we're aware of it and we're working on it and it's never going to be perfect, but I think you guys are doing a great job and making it nearly perfect. So, thank you so much for all your work. Okay, just want to thank everyone and again, you know, we have next week is the budget adoption. So, we're going to go over the budget with Mr. Martell and then we'll head into uh into the budget season in May. But, as you can see from the many presentations, we've got um things are rolling in Seville and the teachers and staff and students are doing great. We're back from the
060break and we're excited about the home stretch. So, thank you everyone. That's the superintendent's report. >> Thank you, Dr. Ferris. Um, okay, moving on to the board of education discussion. Um, we do have one um agenda item. >> Hi. Um, so March 23rd, Monday, March 23rd was SCOPE's 25th annual dinner. um 66 districts sorry 66 districts were there honoring 198 people and Sable was not in attendance and I was disappointed to hear that um because we have a lot of hardworking dedicated people on the front line that everyone sees in district office and teachers and administrators and whatnot but we also have a really a large number of really hardworking and dedicated people behind the scenes secretaries buildings and grounds custodians security kitchen teaching I don't want to leave anyone out and what an awesome
061opportunity to publicly honor them. So I would ask moving forward that the nomination packet be given to all of district office and all of the administrators and all the buildings um so that we can honor because scope will allow each each district three nominations. Just to clarify, we do give the packets out to all the building administration. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So, now we are up to our public comment se section which uh will be for agenda related items. Do we have anyone that would like to speak tonight? Okay, sir. Just give me one moment. Um just read our public comment statement. Um, the board of education appreciates feedback from the community and we recognize free speech as one of our fundamental freedoms. These freedoms are not without restrictions. We follow regulations specified by
062law and board policy as we encourage our community members to offer public comment. So, >> thank you so much. That was really, really informative. I've never knew that much detail goes in creating what goes on in Sville School District. So, I just want to say thank you so much for that. I have two questions. So my first question is the organizations that you work with. How do you choose those organizations? How do they come into to interact with the district? >> You want me to give you both of them or do you want to do both and then we'll answer? >> Yeah. And then the second question is I'm a data guy. So the guy from I'm sorry I forgot your name. I I'm sorry. My cap he did great with data. He asked questions.
063My my question is do we capture the data? The traum trauma informed care is really really important too. Do we capture that data when they're asking the students? Do they feel the security guards? Do they feel like the administrators? Do they feel like the district are using some of those tactics? So, can we ask the students and have more of a survey response from our students to see if that because I've been to a lot of trainings, people do trainings, but they don't really implement the training. So, I want to ensure that the trainings are implemented within the students. They're getting feedback from the students. So, is that something that we could do too? You're good. Okay. So, in response to your first question about how do we choose the organizations? Some of them come
064to us like I will regularly receive emails from organizations that say we we do work with X or Z, whatever it may be. I believe that's how well Joe and I were actually introduced by a colleague that we had in common. So sometimes it's a colleague recommendation or if I'm at a like a consortium meeting with other assistant soups, we share ideas between districts, some of it's just outreach and then we have a lot of organizations that are just local in Fville that are on district resource pages. So we'll have them in. We always meet with the organizations first and see what they offer before we let them interact with the students. But I think it's a combination of many things. When you say we, who do you mean we? >> Um, the principles, myself,
065I'm always involved in that. And if it's going to be an elementary presentation, I'll meet with one of the elementary principles or middle school or high school. And then also our PPS staff as well, our psychologists and our social workers. >> Yeah. And then, yes, I agree. Data is very important. And that's often sometimes a critique of SEAL programs. How do you know they're effective? Um, oftentimes when we have speakers or presentations in, we do give students surveys. Um, we've also given surveys to our students as a whole school. For example, the trusted adult question. If you had an issue, do you have someone in the school that you would report that to? That's just a sample of one question. Or what do you feel is the a major obstacle or issue that your peers
066are facing? So, we do survey the students at different points and we do at that data. >> Could could there be just um could there be a way maybe to get tangible uh data? So let's let's say you take the amount of referrals for bullying in 20 24 and then you implement your and this is I think maybe where you were going. I look forward to one more like I saw the trainings were good trauma informed kids extremely important to me. I think that's something that's really vital to any district or any school district even interacting as human beings or people need to understand that how are we ensuring that the trainings are getting to the students and we're just not sending people train >> right so could that be something that because that would
067be tangible like you could look at a number so you say 2024 we had x amount of um referrals for bullying and whether it be on the bus whether it be on the playground cafeteria whatever and then um we implemented these things and then in 2026 we have wild you And then you could really test the effectiveness of the programs. >> Absolutely. I would I would say and Joe correct me if I'm wrong. Sometimes sometimes if the program is effective because like with DASA anyone can file a DASA report right on behalf of the student. So I don't always necessarily agree with that example in particular because sometimes you'll see an uptick in DASA complaints even though you can see a tangible difference maybe in culture or in the effectiveness or just getting students to
068report >> right >> rather than keep it. Sometimes when you educate students on bullying and data, you sometimes do see an uptick in reports, right? >> Because they're now not holding it into themselves. >> Well, if they were being self-reported. Yeah. But that that that would still be positive data, right? >> And and to your point too, what I would like to see and to your point is more like how do we disc decrease suspensions, right? >> How do we decrease behavior referrals? And that to your point, Desa, I think is like important information to have. >> That's a really good question. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank again. My name is Robert. I don't need for the notes. Whatever. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you, sir. >> Thanks, M. Thank you. All right.
069So, now we are going to move on to recommended actions. We'll start with minutes. I'd like to call item 6.01 to 6.02. Have a motion. >> Second. >> Discussion. All in favor? >> All right. Then I'd like to call item 7.01 to 7.10. discussion. >> Yeah, I mean, I'm sure everyone wants to thank the uh the PTA for the Emily Finn Foundation. Um that was extremely generous of them setting up $1,000 for the Emily Finn uh foundation. And I know many of us have been touched by Emily and and uh whether she was a student, a teacher, or whether she was a classmate or you know just local people in the community. So, thank you for that. and also for the lacrosse uh donation lacrosse shot clocks. Um so you know it's it's so nice
070when the community gives back and we greatly appreciate that. >> And also um thank you to the Alzheimer's Foundation for the books, Dancing with Grandad and Gardening with Grandma. That's so wonderful to have them at the elementary schools for kids. >> Those are my two things. The I just wanted to I just had a question about the shot box. one that says pilot use. >> So is that >> so what happened was um we had bought shock locks I think it was two years ago when the new rule came out the cross they were not functioning in the way that we wanted them to we reached out to the company and we reached out to another company Dr. Cox was looking into this Robert and Bartell and Dr. kind of work together. We spoke to
071a company and we didn't have we hadn't budgeted for a new shot box and we asked if they can create a partnership with us and so they decided they would give us the shot clocks for a year, let us try them and then if we wanted to continue we could buy them. If not we could give them back. So we got free shot boxes. >> Then the second thing is Dancing with Fox is the most amazing book. So when I saw that on the kids actually love that and um you know they never it's usually for one kid when I read that book in the past school psychologist or somebody would come in to talk about it but the entire group of kids that my father spent years doing research Yeah, >> I just have
072one more thing to say about that foundation. Um, I know they are constantly doing fundraising and stuff like that, but there is you can play metal country club and they're trying to get forces together for that foundation and you play great golf course and it's a big cause. So, if you're into that, So, now we're going to move on to new business and I'm going to just call item number 8.01 motion. >> Second does discussion. All in favor? Motion carries. And with that motion, we would like to welcome Amy Ayaluchcci, who is our new assistant principal at Sable High School. >> Amy went through a rigorous interview process which included many visits to the high school, meeting with kids and teachers and staff, and uh she's just perfect for us and we're very excited to
073have her. So, welcome Amy. >> Thank you. On behalf of the board of education, Amy, we'd also like to welcome you. Uh we were dazzled by your interview and we're really looking forward to seeing the work that you're going to be doing here. So, welcome. All right. So, let's move on to 8.02. Motion >> Kathy second >> Chris. Discussion. All in favor motion passes. One more new business other 9.01 motion >> Tom. Oh second Kathy discussion. All in favor? Motion carries. Okay. Upcoming dates very quickly. Um April 15th we have the middle school spring chorus concert. It's from 7 to 9:00 p.m. in the middle school auditorium. April 17th is family connect night and April 21st 21st is our next board of education meeting. Uh we will be holding the Boseies vote that night. It
074will start at 7:30 at the middle school. Okay. Anybody have anything else? All right. So we need a motion to go into >> Okay. So motion >> forel. >> Okay. Uh, can I get a motion? >> Second >> to discuss a matter related to personality. >> Oh, sorry. To go into Oh, sorry. All right. And a motion to go into executive uh session to discuss a matter of personnel. Motion. Okay. Discussion. All in favor? Okay. Motion carries. We're going into exec. Thank you so much for coming everyone. Have a good night.