Board of Education, Regular Meeting transcript: FUTURE HUDSON

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0:28e [… repeated text trimmed] e e stand for the pledge allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible withy and justice for all thank you Tracy Mark de here Amanda grer Kiren Guston here Willette Jones here Calvin Lewis Matthew mackerer here Mia Walker here thank you you're welcome ID like to make a motion to accept the agenda as present second we are going to add the um our club presentation back in okay student representative rep hi all it's good to be back I missed the last one um I was away uh so last board meeting was the Tuesday before field day um I just want
7:41to announce that field day went well um much to the sugarin of the seniors the Juniors took it and won it um yeah as for upcoming schoolwide events we have the Powderpuff um which I'm pretty sure is confirmed to be October 30th um all are invited to come by the way it's between the uh senior girls uh and the junior girls in a football match so lot of fun and the boys cheerlead so awesome um as for extracurriculars and other things around the school again I'd like to thank you guys for accepting uh model un's trip to New York City um at the beginning of November and um I'd like to say that the other two um competitive
8:31Academic Teams andiron and moth trial have also started up I would like to make um maybe a comment uh on the fact that these Academic Teams have struggled with funding for buses uh model un specifically has struggled a lot um they have to get down to the city um in order to have these conferences they happen twice a year and sometimes they go to colleges and such but uh they are Academic Teams they compete uh much like sports teams so yeah that's they just yeah money for for busing has always been kind of hard uh Varsity Club um will be doing a walk ofon uh for breast cancer awareness I'm inviting all of you uh board members um
9:21and community members uh I don't know the date on that sorry uh and in November Varsity Club in collaboration with National Honor Society will be hosting their annual volleyball tournament um teams pay to enter it's a lot of fun and our student tech crew has uh just begun um they'll be in the it office um and they'll be completing their uh dell certification which is a lot of work but definitely pays off I've done it that's it thank you thank you much okay retirement recognition of AE unit on behalf of the Board of Education and the superintendent of school we would like to recognize the retirees retirement of the following teacher aids and thank them for the years of service
10:36to the hus City School District we have Gil bueri 23 years of service Joan Van duen 27 years of service and Katherine Fus 25 plus years of [Music] service we wish them good health and happiness in the years ahead congratulations teaching and learning report part two evening everyone so um this evening I will be um sharing with you our data reports from the New York State education department um and we have the following objetives with this presentation we would like to provide you with a status of the performance of our students in the Hudson City School District by school building we would also like to highlight the performance of this desegregated students on the New York State
12:02assessments and also provide a brief summary and the findings of the data as always we are focused on these six key principles for school Improvement strengthening the instructional core improving datadriven practices po promoting a positive inclusive School environment for all stakeholders strengthening instructional leadership capacity having a tiered approach to school support and intervention and increasing monitoring and accountability so as you can see um the six Keys tie to almost everything so this data presentation really ties into all of these six key principles as we go and and as I show you the slides for the data presentation i' like you to keep something in mind as you're looking at this data now now I recognize that it's really difficult
13:01especially for the public to look at it at first glance from a screen that is so far away but in your computers you have uh the presentation copies and you can take a look at them at your leisure and start to think about what patterns and Trends come to your mind when you take a look at the data and the graphs that I I'm going to be presenting to you what does this data show us about our district and our students performance that's the kind of thing that we want to continuously keep in the back of our minds let's start off with our district demographics the total enrollment as of when I did this um about four days ago is
13:571651 1,6 51 students out of the 1, 16150 1,651 students we can see that 39% of our student population consists of white students 18% of our students are black 21% of our students are Hispanic 133% are considered multi-racial and 9% are considered Asian or from Pacific Islander desent these are the subgroups um that exist within our district our students those 1600 students are spread out across this um graph in the Y AIS you see the percentage of students at the end of each bar it'll have the percentage for each of those categories economically disadvantaged students would be 65% not economically disadvantage students are 35% students with disabilities consist of 21% general education students 79% our L's consist of
15:198% those are our English language Learners our non- L's non English language Learners would be 92% our male students 52% our female students 48% and students on temporary housing are 3% let's take a look at Montgomery SE Smith Elementary School as I told you I will present the data by school building I also would like you to take notice of the fact that I am presenting data preco and post Co there is a gap in the Years obviously there is no data for the years 1920 and 2021 as you can see in grade three we have the percentage of students at each bar so the y- AIS again is the percentage of students the 178 bar is the dark
16:27blue the orange bar is the 1819 school year the gray bar is the 2122 school year the yellow bar 2223 and the last bar the light blue is a 2324 please note that there is a difference between our grade three our grade four and our grade five data so you can see in grade five
17:00our students post Co covid in the year 2023 15% of our students in grade five were proficient in reading and that includes writing as well so it's Ela 15%. the previous year was 22 in the 2223 school year was 23% so there was a drop there in the scores. the highest score as you can see among all these bar graphs was in grade three in the year 1819 with 34%.
17:44so over the course of these years our students performance has not exceeded 35% in ela. these are the math results. the bars represent again the years at the end of the bar that's the percentage so the Y AIS is the percentage. again in mathematics our students have not reached proficiency level more than 35% it's always been lower than 35% in grade five.
18:30this past year 21% of our students scor proficient that's a drop from the previous year of 30%. again you have the preco data and the postco Hudson Junior High School same thing preco postco.
18:58as you can see there was Improvement in the scores from grade seven through to grade eight in the following years 2021 22 2022 23 that was the highest actually with 34 it went to 49% and in 2023 24 from 31 to 35%. again these are different grade levels so you have to consider that.
19:33um so the this for example the 2022 23 would be the current last year's score okay so relatively speaking this class right here improved by four percentage points cuz these students now are in eighth grade. now these students are actually in ninth grade.
20:04math results again for the um six gr six seven and 8. here is a gap there is a really big gap as you can see in 2022 23 our grade seven students when they reach the Junior um the grade eight they dropped by five points. the in 2023 24 grade seven which is now our grade eight students are at 11 points percentage points.
20:43so there's quite a drastic drop in scores. there's also a quite drastic drop in scores I mean um performance that went up preo in grade 8 which which is good to celebrate. but as you can see that it varies there are different scores by year and depending on the grade. the most stagnant um was 2122 222 23 23 24 in these bars here postco for math.
21:26these are the science results again preo and postco grade four. now I have to make a distinction because the science test was not offered at um one of the years and I'll show you the other graph it is it last year was offered to fifth graders not fourth graders.
21:50so in the year 1718 is the blue breath in the year um 1819 is the orange graph and the gray graph is the bar graph is the 2122 school year. as you can see there was a drop in grades four from preco postco and in also in preco postco in grade 8.
22:26this is when the test was offered to the fifth graders. none of the students scored proficient last year. there was no data for 2223 because that's the test was not offered in grade A. as you can see the students dropped from 40 to 23%.
22:59these are the elementary Ela results by demographics from 2021 to 2024. so we're going to leave the pre and postco now and now we're going to look at the data by subgroups. this is the gened as compared to the students with disabilities.
23:22as you can see in the three years in gen the students have that had the most gains were in the year 2022 203. it did go down the the following. but as you can see for our students with disabilities there's a drastic difference there big gap in performance.
23:51none of the students in grade four and grade five that are classified that students with a disability have been able to score proficiently in ela. let's look at the female versus male.
24:11again it shows from year to year from grade to grade the percentage is the Y AIS. as you can see in grade five the students had in grade five 21% at last year and now they are at 23 24 they're at 5% male students. the female students kind of remain stagnant from 2021 22 to 23 24.
24:53these are our eles and non-ls so our English language Learners. just like the students with disabilities have some zeros in their graph. um as you can see for grade five are L's um the year that they scor them or had a performance that was higher than 15% was grade four in the year 2223 and then the following year um in grade five they dropped.
25:26and there was no score or score zero actually for those years that you see on the graph. for our students that are not else they had a percentage score that was um practically stagnant with the highest level being 31% at some point for grade three and four thank you. grade five as you can see has dropped from last year to this year. when I say this year this past year.
26:05here are students that are economically disadvantaged as compared to not economically disadvantaged students. as you can see um there are lots of ups and downs again. we see here that the highest grade four in the year 2021 at 26% for our economically disadvantaged students. again no score goes higher than 30%.
26:35and here in grade four not economically disadvantaged they almost reached 50%. so that's something that there is a stark difference here. for our economic not e economically disadvantage students um I draw your attention to this particular one we're going from 35 to 24%.
27:05now you will see now the disaggregation by ethnicity and this is grade three. again those three years with the dark blue being our black students the orange being our Hispanic students the gray bars are represented by the Asian Pacific Islander students the yellow bars are our white students and the light blue are our multi-racial students.
27:43so it is really interesting to see how our black students in 2023 2024 reach 45%. however I'd like to point something out to you. sometimes when you look at data you got to look at how many students tested and then how many students the percentage of students that tested how many of those students reach proficiency level.
28:12so here there might have been 10 students okay and out of those 10 students 45% of them scored at proficient level. so we have to make that distinction it depends on the the amount of students. this is our grade four. I should point out that our multi-racial students at the highest and again we got to go by the number of students it was too much information for me to put
28:50Actually the number of students per bar graph so it's it's it's hard to tell from just looking at it but just know that when you're talking about percentages you got to keep in mind the end what is the number of students that actually fall under that category.
29:10And grade five um there is no bar that goes um higher than 40 so y AIS again percentage of students and in um this case we have a zero which is our Hispanic students none of our Hispanic students scored at proficient level in 2324.
29:40These are our elementary math results by demographics from 2021 to 2024 so the ones that we just discussed were the ELA the ones that we're discussing now are the maap. Again huge discrepancy between the General Ed population and our students with disabilities. As you can see there are many graphs here many um years for um that students have a score of Zero versus our general Ed population.
30:17I should also point out that for this past Academic Year our general Ed population as you can see um went a to 25% versus our students with disabilities 5%.
30:36These are our female and male the segregation of of students so our males are doing slightly better in grade five and our girls um in the past year in grade four did better than I'm I'm sorry the males did better in 2022 2023 24 than the feedex.
31:07Um it is interesting also to see that the blue as compared to the orange you see an increase so the blue from one year to the next so from 2122 to the next year 22 23 there was an increase so you can see that in this Barra here chart and then you can see it here as well and this is this was a real big game something to celebrate for our male students.
31:45These are our English language Learners as compared to our non-english language Learners again we see some zeros here for our English language learners as compared to our non-english language Learners. We also see that our grade um five students our L's um are significant significantly lower than our grade five students nons.
32:16These are economically disadvantaged versus our not economically disadvantage students so our students um in grade five as you can see in the year 2023 24 not economically disadvantage we at a higher percentage than our economically disadvantaged students. There are many factors that influence them.
32:45I should also point out that in grade four there's a really big increase here with 57% are of of our not economically disadvantaged students scoring at proficient levels in math versus our not e economically disadvantaged students um so it's pretty um consistent there in terms of how high it is right one being more than the other of course but there was a big increase.
33:23Now this is by grade levels and years again the numbers on the left represent the percentage of students and as you can see here these three subgroups were about the same. Again the black students are the dark blue Hispanic students are the orange uh the gray is represented the um the Asian Pacific Islander students the yellow would be our white students and then the light blue would be our multi-racial students.
34:00As you can see from year to year in the year 2021 22 um the highest performing group was our Asian Pacific Islander versus the following year in 2022 23 our white students surpassed and then you see also in 2023 24 keeping in mind again how many students took the test 40% were black 37% were Hispanic and the rest um of the graph is there in grade three so this is grade three only.
34:42Grade four as you can see there is a big bar graph here um bar representation here for um our Asian Pacific Islander students are consistently surpassing in grade four their peers their black peers their Hispanic peers their white peers and their multi-racial peers.
35:12This is grade five as you can see here 60% of the students The asian-pacific Islander students in grade five scored at 60% and as you you can see it it sort of dropped to 20% in 23 24 um overall there was a drop in in the scores.
35:41This is the junior high school Ela results by demographics our Genet population versus our students with disabilities so I showed you in ela and math at the elementary level our Genet students versus our students with disabilities big gap as you can see um it's it's consistent with what you saw for the elementary level. Same thing for the junior high school are students with disabilities struggled with these State Assessments in grade six in grade seven and in grade eight as opposed to the general students.
36:28There was an increase from the math in the generate population I'm sorry in the ELA population in um the elementary school so when they get to elementary school those fifth graders who are now sixth graders here in 23 24 scored at 51% so something happens when they come to the junior high school. It might be growth it might be you know maturity I don't know might be so many factors we can't tell these are numbers in order for us to tell we would have to dig deeper into the data and kind of um do like a qualitative analysis of the data.
37:13These are our female students versus our male students and our L students versus our not L students again consistent with the ELA from the um Elementary School with some zeros for the L students versus the not L students that had um proficiency levels at 30 31 35 31 um in the year 2223 grade a um had a 54% and there was a drop in grade three grade A to the following meia.
38:01These are e are economically disadvantaged students versus are not economically disadvantaged students um same thing holds true uh the different right the different um values for the graph for each of the bars um noting that in one year for example in 23 24 um our economically disadvantaged students are scoring lower in grade eight than in grade 8 as compared to their not economically disadvantaged peers.
38:46This is our grade six data by ethnicity so these students here you can see that the Asian Pacific Islander and the white students are doing far better than our black Hispanic students and our multi-racial students. Same holds true for this year except for our white students took a little BP there and the year 2122 you can see the same type of analysis.
39:28Grade seven our students um for the year 2324 you can see that students that scored above 50% were our Asian Pacific Islanders and our and our multi-racial students. The rest of the students kind of um are at the same
39:54level this is our grade eight Again by ethnicity and you see the same pattern so remember that essential question I said keep it in the back of your mind what patterns do you see what what trends do you see from the data and we can see that the Asian Pacific Islanders and the white students are surpassing their um peers their white peers they're multi-racial peers Hispanic and black these are the math results by demographics.
40:32again we see a pattern again with our zeros here in our Genet population over here versus our students with disabilities again the Y AIS represents the percentage of students female versus male students so there was no um change here from one year to the next and then here in grade eight you can see that in 2223 to 2324 there was a drop in our female um results the performance of our female students these are our L's English language Learners versus our non English language Learners um in grade 8 as you can see 23 24 the bar is showing that L students were at 33% and are nonl so they actually did better than our grade eight students that are nonl and again I must um emphasize the number of students that um that were tested um versus non-tested students and our economically disadvantage students versus our not economically disadvantaged students.
42:01there is no bar associated with 2122 here which could mean various thing May um it could mean that the students at this in the 2122 in grade A were not tested it can mean that the um scores are not are more like a um a zero or um non-existent for our not economically disab Dage grade six as you can see the two bars that stand out again are the Asian Pacific Islander and white and then the students that are lagging behind are the black Hispanic um multi-racial students this is grade seven same pattern um 56% in 2324 the Asian Pacific Islanders um um scored proficiently as compared to their peers which well you see the the U percentage scores there um I should mention that in 2022 23 0% of the students in grade seven um scored proficient versus the next the following year um our multi-racial students went up by 11 so 11% of them scored proficient.
43:30these are the grade eight results math again you see a a huge um discrepancy and Gap in scores um with many of the ethnicities represented here not scoring at all proficient let's talk about the senior high school these are the Regent results by by subject as you can see um one of the things that we need to pay attention to is obviously the English because as students are learning how to read and go into the junior high school Etc um this particular um region which is offered in 11th grade um it's very important students need to pass that region in order to graduate.
44:28um they are also by subjects so you can see here algebra one as compared to geometry and Algebra 2 and then you have your science and then you have your your social studies classes by year so again the percentage of students that scored um for the US history in one year in the year 212 2 was zero and it could be that perhaps at that particular year I recall they didn't offer the US History regions because of a crisis a tragedy that occurred in Buffalo so that regions was not offered and that's why you see a zero there but for the most part the scores are surpassing 50% which is something that um we need to pay attention to like when the students go from the elementary to the junior high to the high school how are they fairing right how are they scoring on their reg exams as compared to how they did with the elementary school or GMI here are the region results um Again by subject oops I'm so repeat okay here's the algebra one and these are by ethnicity so many bars here I apologize for the you know it's all kind of together.
46:03um but let's note that our black students in 23 24 are having these results which are lower as compared to their fears the same goes true for Algebra 1 in 2022 23 and our Hispanic students so they are the lowest scoring and here in 2122 our um L's and our black students and our Hispanic students as compared to the Asian Pacific Islander 73% here 59% here and 56% here these are our geometry results so there are some bars here that are 100% in um our students with disabilities and so again let me just say that there was an instance where two students took the test both of them scored really well on the test so 100% of them scored proficiently right so so you got to keep in mind that it varies how many students took the test.
47:40English so remember the data that you saw for ELA in the lower grades we should point out something happens when they come to the high school the scores for the most part are high and so as compared to some subgroups though let's look at this subgroup right here which are our L's this subgroup right here which are our students with disabilities so that's consistent with the graphs that we saw before right that's a huge gap that they have to make up all of that they had zeros now when they get to the high school they have to make up all of that to get to where they are right now as you can see the same here except the black students here in 2122 and our um L students struggle the most and in here the three lowest performing groups were again our L's our black students and our Hispanic students with the highest being our multi-racial students and asian-pacific Islanders and our white students world history again there's a a discrepancy here with our L's every single year as compared to their peers other ethnic groups and the same holds true for our students with disabilities and our are black students in each of the years the green represents a Hispanic so those are lower too this is our living environment by year percentage of students that scored proficiently so as you can see again the same pattern these bar graphs here the 45 which corresponds with our L's the yellow are not L's the light blue are our blacks and the green are HPA lowest performing versus the highest performing okay the same over here and the same over here earth science so these are the the results from 23 24 as compared to 22 23 again in 2122 and you can see here um we have no data for this particular subgroup which is
50:32our L's and there might be various reasons for that it might be that we don't have any recorded L's that took the test last year so there's no data for it advanced placement.
50:53So in order for us to analyze Advan placement let's take a look at our enrollment for each of the grade levels. This Pi shows that the blue represents our ninth graders so we have 146 ninth graders, our 10th graders are 130, our 11th graders 112 and our 12th graders are 107. Keep that in mind when you see the advance placement of students that took the test.
51:29So number of students taking the AP exams by subjects, so we offered four AP exams. Calculus, two students took the test here, about 15 students took the test US History test, the world history test and the environmental science test.
51:59The number of students by race that took the AP exams, none of our Hispanic students took the AP exams. Our multi-racial students, they took the US History two of them and then one student took the environmental science. As you can see that the Asian Pacific Islanders and white students are the most that took the tests these tests.
52:33Um, this one being every a single um bar represents the result of the number of students that took that particular um from that ethnicity um that took all of the exams. So you know as we take a look at the enrollment and now we're taking a look at the percent of students that pass.
52:57P first of all if I go back to this remember I said most of the enrollment for each grade level surpasses 100 and these are the number of students that are taking AP exams. These are the percent of students that are passing the AP exam. So those two kids that took the AP exam in calculus passed it so 100% of them.
53:27So when we look at this data we we can't say you know oh we're doing really well, we have to say two students took the test two students passed the test therefore 100% of them SP scored proficiently. So the percent passing versus the number the lowest being environment or science. So here's a summary just capturing the main points of what you saw today.
54:01So this data indicates that at the elementary level grades 3 to five in both Ela and math results have been stagnant preco and postco. We also see that the data indicates that science at the ele at both the elementary and the junior high school levels results have drastically gone down from preo to postco times.
54:28The data also indicates that there's a gap in performance between our general education students and students with disabilities in grades 3 to8 in both Ela and math. The data indicates that all students in grades 3 to 8 were not successful in reaching more than 35% Proficiency in mathematics. This is more apparent than grade eight.
54:57The data also indicates that all students in grades 3 to 8 were slightly more successful in ela when they reach the junior high school levels and I should say high school as well. The data also indicates that there's a gap in performance in the algebra 1 and geometry regions as compared to other regions. Our L blacks and Hispanic students lag behind their white and Asian Pacific pafic Islander peers in most of the Region's exams.
55:30We can also summarize from the data that the number of students taking AP exams are between two for calculus and 17 for US History, significantly lower than the total enrollment for each grade level. The number of black Hispanic and multiracial students are significantly lower than asian-pacific Islander and white students that particip at in AP exams, and lastly most students who participated in AP exams are of Asian Pacific Islander and white descent.
56:08Do you have any questions?
56:12I don't have a question I just have a comment. Um, our school doesn't offer AP Calculus as a course, we offer a college algebra or sorry College calculus course and those two students challenged the AP course or AP test on self-study.
56:33So yeah thank you for that.
56:38Yes I don't have a question I just I guess it's a statement. Um, as you were going through the data I just thought about um how I think if we were to ask like everyone in this room like what is one of the positive things about this District we will all say diversity and I've heard it so many times where we talk about diversi being like our positive thing for this dist for this particular district.
57:04And I think we fail to realize this is diversity we think about diversity and a lot of times we just think about whether it's just racial or ethnicity diversity but this data to me shows me diversity at its fullness and it's transparent and it shows the reality of what we need with the gaps are in our in our where our students are performing high and where they're performing low and where there are gaps and issues where we have to address and we can no longer ignore because our students are suffering and they're not meeting the goals and they're not meeting the standards and they're missing a lot and if we continue to do what we've been doing before we're going to get the same results.
57:48And so I just wanted to say thank you for pointing this out and so the next time when we're ask what is the positive things about this District we have to keep in mind this is the reality of diversity it's different ethnicities it's different it's beyond different race and um it's different culturally it's different um socio economic status is different whether you're an English speaker or a non-english speaker it's different across the board and this is the true picture of our district and this is a true picture of what diversity looks like. Thank you.
58:24Can you speak at all to the Way Hudson scores uh compare to National Trends? Um, so with the you know the challenges that we face in math and Ela how are those comparing Across the Nation?
58:37Roly do do you have time to look at that at so I have not but that's something that I could definitely compare to a national level um by subgroups grade levels Etc the way that I presented it here. I don't want to misinform the public or you the board about anything you know that that would be a result of that.
59:01Yeah yeah I realized I didn't I didn't offer so um I do know though that because we are transitioning from the common core standards to the next gen standards and that transition happened over time from 2017 which is when the Common Core um ceased to exist and the next gen standards were
59:26phasing in right we needed to transform our curriculum and and and and all of that that might have impacted the results that we see but we really don't know until we dig deeper into the data. we have to really take a an approach of um taking this and saying okay this is part of the puzzle what are the other parts of the puzzle that we have to look at um whether it's curriculum instructional practices um PD support for teachers Etc so those are the kinds of things that we when we look at this we we kind of think about and but we can't ignore the fact that right the data is the data and so when we look at these numbers it it is pointing to a specific pattern and a trend that we're seeing over the course of not 3 years years alone but pre-co postco.
1:00:29I do want to say thank you for massing such a large quantity of data and breaking it down in so many
1:00:34you're welcome thank you
1:00:38yes I I know gr 328 families can opt out of the State Testing is there a general Trend that you see like are more older students opting out younger students um you don't have it all in front of you but just curious
1:00:52right I don't have the actual numbers of students that opted out but that is something that students um families have a right to and they have voice that when students come to the school and the time that we take you know that that um the tests are being administered we may be confronted with a letter from a parent saying we don't want I don't want my child taking the test so when that's why when we look at this data whether you go to the N New York State website um Education website or you you look at this data you think about how many students tested versus how many students did not test.
1:01:31um the the N um the New York State education department requires us to test at least 95% I believe of students per grade level so if they're opting out that's going to affect our accountability meaning that a school may be deemed in need of improvement because of the number of students that are opting out of the test. so though the parents have a right ultimately it kind of hurts us in a word yeah thank you
1:02:06can you you mentioned the N website which I just want to mention there is are great tools on there where you can look at our district and can pull up all the data and Compares it to um uh Statewide averages
1:02:17yes it doesn't have 23 24 yet but up until last
1:02:21yeah I gave you the latest yeah great thank you I appreciate that
1:02:26any other questions um I think the National Data would be interesting but do we have a Define peer group is there a set of schools were compared against by the state
1:02:36um you know that's that's an interesting question um I could say that perhaps schools that have the same demographics that we do and the same sides so right so uh neighboring districts that would have that that's something to look at at and whether that is something that um could we can compare to um certainly by using the net website we can look at the other District's um you know test scores and compare. but yes that is an interesting fact that it is possible to see whether it is representative of a larger problem we the public um somebody raised their hand I don't know if you're
1:03:30yeah I you have to sign up for um public com thank you
1:03:36thank you very much no questions to the board no for you
1:03:43can you sign up for the um public comment period please thank you
1:03:48um I I think you emphasize concern over AP participation um I guess what barriers we have to that that we can what barriers are there that we can break I guess for that
1:03:59so um I've been in the Hudson City school district for three months yeah. I would like to explore that I want to know why there are such lower numbers of students that are taking the AP classes um perhaps there's even more information and you know that the audience may have I see some counselors teachers Etc so having um having an approach of okay let's ask why that is what could be the barriers that students are confronting when taking AP um courses or AP exams.
1:04:40the important thing about AP is that students that sit on an AP class should all be taking the exam right so we we when we think about um the AP classes how big of an enrollment is there on in those AP classes and our students being prepared for the rigor of those classes because obviously it's going to be rigorous. so um when we're talking about high school regions and and um the other sub you know subject tests that happen at at the lower grade levels are our students being prepared in the same manner is the level and the rigor being prepared for to prepare students for AP college level courses so to speak so that's something to definitely look at um what could be the barriers it could be curriculum it could be instruction it could be many things um that affect that opportunities uh for students to be a part of those courses um or lack thereof.
1:05:51any other questions
1:05:54I question just kind of piggy backing off of the option that parents had to um pass um in regards to their student taking the exam are they aware um necessarily of the impact that it could have on those um on those numbers
1:06:12so I'm going to make it a mission of mine that when it's time for testing that there's communication right to families about the impact that refraining from your student taking the exams would have on our district. um you know we we always want what's best for students and families obviously they know their children best um we can't compete with that. if there is a question or something that we can answer to alleviate some of the concerns that parents have I want to provide those opportunities where there there are forums where they can come and ask questions meetings that we could have to clarify some of the misconceptions that may be out there um I think that's important.
1:07:01I don't know if it has occurred in the past like I said I've been here three months but it is definitely my intention to educate our families as much as possible about about our exams.
1:07:15thank you welc
1:07:18yes I'd like to make a comment on my personal positive experience with the
1:07:25AP courses offered in our district um though limited um I have had this probably been the best instruction I've ever received in my life uh from the two AP courses both uh Global and US history and the data shows that students are passing these exams like I think uh every class had an over 50% pass rate um for a course that does not match the rigor of previously offer courses. Um these AP courses are helpful and much more I think I I I I know I know that the AP courses do a fantastic job of also preparing students for the regiones um and I just want to say that they I I know there has been discussion before in the past of of the uh uh low uh enrollment in AP courses and how uh their role in our school district and if they should have a role at all I know that's been um discussed but um I just want to say that my personal experience has been very positive um and very helpful thank you so much for your perspective appreciate it thank you thank you very much Mr here.
1:09:01Yeah there's a form over at the front a blue form to sign up for to speak thank you art presentation right now yeah love it.
1:09:28Um good evening hi um I'm Katie Rogers I get out of this camera um I'm the art teacher at the junior high school um last year was my first year here and I started the art Club in the spring and it had a huge turnout and this year I'm expecting to have more students join us there's a lot of 7th graders right now and I'm trying to get a more a larger sixth grade group to come in since they're new school. Um since we're starting in the fall I'm hoping to do some fundraising for the art Club have students work with Ceramics and uh raise funds for buses for hopefully to go to field trips and studios in Hudson and in catville for artists who are working in the community.
1:10:17Um what else um it's a really great place for students to wind down at the end of the day um also build social emotional skills um I have a few students from the special Life Class who came at the end of school last year and they got to meet new peers and make new friends um it's a really good club um you should stop by say hi if you're in the building um and yeah I heard it was already approved so thank you um and yeah I'm looking forward to it so yeah that's our thank you yeah we have uh policy 112r feel good about it.
1:11:15So I make a motion to approve amended policy 112r School District records regulation all in favor at this time we do not need to have early executive.
1:11:40ID like to make a motion to accept Personnel items a through J sir all in favor welcome that.
1:11:56So last time we had a board meeting Miss Brooks our new Executive Director of Human Resources is not with us um so tonight she is and so I'd like to introduce you to miss Shante Brooks our new Executive Director of Human Resources thank you for being here.
1:12:19You ladies and gentlemen we're about to convene into the public comment period of our meeting although state law does not require us to hold a public comment period we have chosen to do so because we believe it's crucial for us to hear from our Comm community members about their concerns and issues having said that please note that the board is here to listen the public comment period is not designed to be a discussion accordingly please do not expect the board to respond to your concerns or questions tonight this is because we take your concerns and questions seriously we sufficient time to process and research issues it need be under state and federal privacy laws we are unable to entertain any comments or questions about school Personnel. Um on this matter we ask you to go through the appropriate administrative channels um each speaker is given three minutes Jen D hi.
1:13:15Hi it's okay if I said I don't I've been standing all day I don't really want to be on camera either you will be oh I don't want to be because at the back of my head all right.
1:13:27So I do have you know some questions and concerns and I sit here and I I'm sure everyone knows I sit here as an educator I work in a title one school district and I am inundated with data all the time and honestly we look at data and we know it's there but we still go to our classrooms every day and we work with each and every single one of our students regardless of who they are where they come from to the best of our ability it is so crushing when I hear data being presented without and everything is broken down and as a special educator I keep hearing over and over again special ed not proficient and Ela they're not proficient in math we have to keep in mind that these are students that receive accommodations and some of these students are in 1211 placement maybe 1511 plac and they're still required to take these exams when these lovely elll students come to our country and they come to our schools and they start learning and they're so excited to learn they're also required to take these State tests we have entering emerging transition transitioning expanding commanding so I'm interested to know in the data where that's broken down also were these students who were failing and not doing well and not proficient were they end mentoring cuz that makes sense to me because they're just learning our language same thing with the kids from the 1211 program.
1:15:01You know they're trying their hardest but these are kids who get tests read to them most likely and so they're struggling obviously when they're used to having test threat to them all the time and as you can see this is something I'm so passionate about because I'm special at teacher and this is always something that that hurts me to see these kids struggle in these State tests that we place so much on can't we look at things like a growth model did we see that student grow a little bit did their reading level go up just the smallest amount did they learn how to write a short response with as little assistance as possible these are the things that I look at as an educator and these are the things that we should all be looking at also and I just I I had something else completely that I was going to say.
1:15:51tonight but as I'm sitting here listening and I know that as a teacher other teachers who probably work in this District are sitting here thinking like I really hope that they're not thinking that this is my fault that that these kids are failing and hopefully someone's thinking these are the failed policies that have been placed down top down oh I love that triple down I always keep saying that from State D and they keep coming down you know we're just here doing our job and and trying our hardest to do it but oh people also forget about puberty seventh graders puberty eighth graders puberty sixth graders and I'm sorry but male and female brains develop differently also and that also should be in the data too.
1:16:35I know I heard the the the buzzer go off but are we also looking at that that when they're coming into the middle school I know that I always say I'm teaching them to respect each other and to work with other children and to kind of grow into their bodies because they are way different obviously at the middle school than they are at the primary school and at the high school so I think that should be looked at also thank you.
1:17:04Kristen beld did I say it right you did good job.
1:17:12no uh good evening for those who don't know me I am Kristen beeld a proud Hudson alumna and a parent of two children currently in the elementary school additionally I serve on the board of director for the mcaden theater in chadam.
1:17:26for those on the school board who may not know the mcaden theater is a highly esteemed professional theater for the past 55 years I mention this because my fellow Maden board members and I are very aware of various school districts and their drama clubs we stay informed about the Productions the schools are presenting and the numbers of children involved among other details.
1:17:44recently I have heard murmur regarding the Hudson drama club facing resistance from the administration while this did not Shock Me I had hoped that the administration would ultimately recognize the importance of providing resources and time to the dedicated staff and community members who guide our children in their performances.
1:18:03last year 703rd to fifth graders participated in their production of The Lion King which everyone enjoyed thoroughly and since the creation of the drama club in 2012 the participation has flourished with a Grant application for funding support due in just two days it seems very nonsensical for Dr pennyman and Dr Courtright Torres to ignore multiple requests for a meeting or discussion to get this grant in and this grant has been used yearly to support the drama club along with the Columbia County Youth Theater.
1:18:36given the district's known Financial issues why aren't you prioritizing this grant for a program that has positively impact so many children over the past years when numerous community members expressing their dissatisfaction with this Administration one reasonably would expect them to take action and demonstrate a genuine commitment to the well-being of our children rather than merely stating their intentions without any follow through.
1:19:02there's a quote from a brilliant Shakespeare play that comes to mind whenever I hear the words transparency coming out of Dr pennyman's mouth or this administration's mouth the lady doth protest too much me thingss thank you thank you.
1:19:23Rocky um I too like to sit down and I'm sorry I'm C so my hands are going back and forth um I just want to give some back um information with ap I'm also the advanced placement coordinator uh some of the data is a bit apples and oranges and this is what I mean as Tommy said the two young lady challenge the exam so only two students will take that um I have current students now who are going to challenge an AP government exam so that number will be low because because they're the only two taking it.
1:19:54every August I have to go into what they call the advanced placement registration ordering portal called April where I set up classes for the teachers and our system is set up if you are in the AP class you join it and then you take the exam you have to take it so if you have a year where you say like no certain subgroup took that exam it could be that the students did not select the class.
1:20:23one thing I'll say about AP is that it does encourage diversity and there are some students that do not choose AP exams and one the I don't know if it's a barrier prior to co I used to attend college board conferences and the state of AP as Tommy said the the overall um enrollment is declining because students are opting to take more college level courses where they can get three college courses if they get a certain grade.
1:20:50with ap you will take the exam but if you get a are hired that denotes proficiency however depending on what college you apply to they will decide if they would give you college credit some will say you need a four or five so some students will say I don't think I want to take AP i' rather take this college course where I can get three college credits so it's a little bit of apples and oranges when you look at the data.
1:21:14uh the other thing I would say that I think we should celebrate with ap is that we have a number of students who are AP Scholars that means that they score three or higher on three AP exams and every year I send a scholar roster and with Dr courr being new she would get that information at the end of the year like I used to get through Dr prestopino.
1:21:33um another thing that Hudson always promotes this year I administer AP exams to students from Scarsdale because their District would not administer an AP exam for them they happen to be young men of color and they challenged the exam so I just want to give a little more breath and knowledge when it comes to AP because sometimes and I say this with data data is not impervious to subjectivity and we have to think about that when we look at data because AP is a little bit different so I just want to give more clarification about that uh being AP coordinator.
1:22:14I'm not sure Mal I couldn't read.
1:22:17Malachi Walker how you doing I came completely unprepared today I really just heard about this today uh but you know just hearing you know what everybody's talking about the graph is a beautiful display um I like to really commend what's your name I'm sorry the teacher oh me yes oh you don't you don't remember me you
1:22:47know I love Jen yes yes Miss I'm so sorry yes but thank you for that just um a display of you know just you know we got to look at you know how to yeah just you know this all this testing is it's it's necessary it's needed we understand but you know if we can look at um you know just a different area different angle of complimenting these kids on you know their achievements and what they could do I really I really enjoyed what you said um but uh you know I don't have any kids in the school district right now my my daughter grown she's you know out of school um my 14-year-old is out of the district right now so you know I have a ton of nephews nieces cousins in this school um but I'm looking at you know certain reasons that the grades are low you know and it just dawned on me you know I get a lot of kids come to me all the time I work with kids every day um somebody the you know the high school kids and it's it's a a very personable conversation to have with a lot of these kids and um something that dawned on me that uh one of my nephews came to me and he just said uh he you know I'm just talking to him about the school I'm talking to him about um um you know the levels and and you know what can be done differently and he said you know what Uncle M he said if I was to have a relationship with you know some of these students you know I would do better and that that just came from my nephew's mouth so I'm just thinking like you know how many kids are feeling like you know if they could trust people if they can trust you know some of the the teachers or if some of the teachers can actually you know you know not just and I'm not going to say teachers are here just for paychecks and that sort of I'm not going there but I think if they can establish just a better communication a better relationship with these kids um I think we will see a lot more potential from these kids cuz I think what the kids do is they just sort of shut down if they don't have um an individual that they can actually come up to and speak to about certain uh subjects and things that they the the low grades I think some of it is you know um the kids are just not applying themselves because they don't feel comfortable in doing it they just they I think they need you know a surrounding I think they need you know a family of teachers finding out the root of what's going on with their situation maybe sitting down finding out hey you know did you eat today uh you know what's going on I mean if you can have a personal relationship where you get in a student talking about about what's going on in their home you know how many barriers that would break all right that is like essential and I'm telling you coming from Hudson myself uh being one of these troubled kids being one of these uh kids that you know had hard time just doing things and me you know in class I'm trying to be you know Mr funny man you know trying to deflect but you know all in all in all I'm I'm you know it's a cry for help from me so I think we need to really look at um you know just different Avenues and different ways um before we lash out and you know at at some of these you know performances even from the teacher somebody said again I think it was you miss Deli about the about the the teachers feeling like oh it's my fault but again I don't think it it's a teacher's fault but where could we you know come together to find out you know not being standoffish and and and just ignoring certain things but let's let's have communicate with each other let's communicate with the kids let's communicate with you know each other cuz this is we this these are our kids you know we have to find a a way to you know break down these strongholds from you know the things that's um you know lacking of from the kids and education so you I know it's too much time went way over sorry.
1:27:32I don't have my name would you at least an older guy say something briefly um there there's there's another session in two minutes if you want to sign a piece of paper we can get you up there it helps us respond to you if it's if it's needed.
1:28:16good evening everyone for my superintendent's report tonight I'm going to start off with a video [Music] than [Music] [Music] [Music]
1:29:20this is a different cafeteria yes absolutely we've made a lot of changes we got all new furniture this year we have the high top tables as long as well as the soft seeding foods that they uh the students can choose from you don't even call it CAF perod no it's our Hudson Hawk Cafe [Music] I feel like the students almost feel like they're older when they're in here so they have more of a higher education um dining hall type experience and it makes them feel more respected and treated like they're older than they actually are which makes them actually behave like they're older than they are yeah I'm very happy with I get a lot of positive feed feedback from the kids about the cafeteria and the school they have this year what do they say yeah I never used to that J it came from I feel good about it they said they like the choic that they have more choic it's better proportions and it just tastes better [Music] you can see this is my why this is when there happy students students are learning.
1:31:58I and this video makes my heart Happy this is why I am here every day to focus on our students and their learning their happiness and their success so on on the 2nd of October it was National custodian appreciation day and we are deeply grateful for the hard work as you can see our buildings and grounds are great everything is clean as soon as we find out something is not working our guys are on it and ladies and they get it done so as you can see they pay attention to cleaning deep cleaning our environments are safe and they're outstanding. October is also National principal month and the district we want to just express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our principles who lead our
1:32:55schools and their vision and Leadership um that's helping to move us forward so next we have our students um reacting to the Blue Hop Cafe.
1:33:19um I think the atmosphere is a lot better it's a lot more friendlier more kids here for lunch time.
1:33:25I think it's great I like it I like it I really love the C the chairs and the tables are more comfortable.
1:33:37how's it taste
1:33:43[Music]
1:34:06the homecoming happened and as you can see on 27th the homecoming festivities were held um the senior student athletes were recognized the homecoming Court king and queen were announced and honored and then shortly after that the and blue Hawks football team played against cohost and um a few students foto journals captured wonderful memories with their cameras so I want to just thank all of our students faculty and staff for their efforts because homecoming was a great success.
1:34:48mcses students went to the capital region math counting meet so as you can see the fifth grade students competed and uh their class was chosen as uh math counting B winners and the winners went to the capital region to uh in Albany on 10 two and the fifth graders were Dominic Lennox and vivana and then in addition all students in grades 3 through five were able to see the world renowned human calculator Scott flansburg uh perform his mathematical Magic on Friday 9:27 so there's a picture of our students with Mr
1:35:30[Applause]
1:35:32fburg so I want to say again everything you saw earlier this is my why this is why I'm here our students are happy and when our students are happy they're wel and at this time I'd like uh Dr pressy to come up we are exploring extended uh day opportunities for our students which we'll be extending on satday Saturdays and I'd like for Dr pressie Who is our extended day or after school uh coordinator to come up and tell you about a wonderful uh stem pilot program that we'll be having for our students on Saturday.
1:36:11well good evening everyone I'm excited about this program that we're going to launch it's our Saturday stem program and it's called The Flying class the gentleman who developed this is pretty pretty awesome.
1:36:28at the age of 23 he earned the record for being the youngest person and first africanamerican pilot to fly solo around the world. at the age of 24 he challenged kids from a failing uh inner city schools to build an airplane and then he flew it successfully. at 28 years old he became a National Geographic Explorer and at 30 he set off his flight around the world and filmed exped Expeditions pardon me as he solved real world stem problems.
1:37:06I will be passing this um to the board so you can see let's talk about this of course we always build everything on the six keys for school Improvement they were read earlier so I won't be labor and read them again.
1:37:26diversity equity and inclusion mission statement this is our mission statement for the Dei department at the Hudson City School District our mission is to support our diverse student body by providing each student with opportunity and access to a high quality rigorous Equitable education and welcoming and affirming inclusive environments where students can develop the 21st century skills needed to thrive in a global Society college career and life.
1:37:59so the New York State education department Office of the Attorney General and Commissioner of Education put out a statement and basically they're talking about how students should have access and opportunity regardless of their demographical markers.
1:38:19so what is this what is this flying classroom. well there are 180 minutes 3 hours of wonderful what they call Expeditions which are various activities I will be showing you what those activities are.
1:38:37each student will receive a box and there are only a certain number of students because this is a pilot and I'll explain that a little later but each module is aligned to to the Next Generation standards so I'm going to show you an example so you know what that looks like.
1:38:58and then students they will learn about a specific topic they will create something related to the topic and they will present it before their peers at the end of the session.
1:39:17why why are we doing this because of equity making sure that we're being fair across the board making sure that every child has access and opportunity we'll unpack that in a moment.
1:39:31MC Smith does offer some stem activities for students but our Junior High and high schools do not so that's why it's really important and if you look at our Hudson City School District policy on diversity equity and inclusion again we're talking about the importance of uring our diverse student population has access and opportunity.
1:40:02okay I'll just do it from here so I wanted to point out a couple of things okay it showed up on mine when you get a moment feel free to look at the policy and basically it says all children deserve to have equal access to opportunity regardless of the color of their skin their race ethnicity nationality perceived or actual immigration status language preference religion sexual orientation gender socioeconomic circumstance or disability so it goes on to explain why this is important.
1:40:38Equity means fair treatment for everyone.
1:40:44when will this be offered I'm glad you asked there will be 16 what we call Expeditions or sessions where students will have activities stem activities our kickoff will be on the 26th a posting will go up we're going to interview candidates and we'll have a one-hour training with the vice president of this company and then we're going to get started.
1:41:13here is the schedule from 8:30 to 1 the staff will be present and the students from like 9:30 to 12:30 we will be providing a lunch.
1:41:28who well we'll have 56 students from the junior high and high schools look at the criteria remember what I just talked about.
1:41:40this is our demographic we have American Indian africanamerican or black we have Pacific Islander Asian Hispanic Multicultural and white. we also have students with IEPs L's or enl students and non-binary students.
1:42:01that means we are taking into consideration every one of the demographical markers that represent our district so we will choose students who represent each of these areas that's how we make sure that this is an equitable opportunity.
1:42:21where there will be two designated classrooms in the junior high and two designated classrooms in the high school.
1:42:31what kind of activities will the students engage in oh I'm glad you asked thank you.
1:42:46it shows up on my screen so she'll she'll make it happen in the meantime the students will receive a box inside of that box there will be a folder inside of that folder they will
1:43:06have engagement cards they will have a little packet within this packet is information such as let's say they're looking at Urban farming. They will receive information about Urban farming they're going to have a hashtag Challenge and then they're going to learn about Urban farming then they're going to work on an activity take notes and then they'll be presenting the information oh and here is an example of one of the activities for urban farming.
1:43:46there are four sessions I told you there are 16 total Expeditions in four sessions in each session there are four activities stem activities they will work on. look at some of these wonderful things Arts aquaponics Urban farming bees the need for pollination bionic beef climate change animal behaviors bats animal conservation lion fish sustainable cities food waste we're going to look at pythons and we're going to look at there's a couple more down here let's see yes altitude jellyfish.
1:44:32what's going to be remarkable is to tie this absolutely wonderful experience into going to the Science Center or to the zoo and learn about these animals also so we're going to be doing some wonderful things with this information not just sitting in the classroom making things but let's tie it into real world or let's tie it into history learning about glaciers well go to the museum you'll learn a ton or go to the Science Center and you'll learn a ton so it's really about making the real world connections.
1:45:14okay I'm almost finished here and let's look at a module and how it is all right based on Next Generation standards y all right so I'm going to need you let's say we're looking at aquaponics I'm going to show you a middle school nextg standard and thank you for example here's a nextg standard for aquaponics construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how environment and the genetic factors influence the growth of organisms and another one Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem.
1:46:25what's wonderful about these activities is it really they really stimulate higher order thinking skills which are definitely needed and so with Su sufficient Precision to ensure a successful solution taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions so here we are nextg standard challenge based learning guess what students are going to be challenged to use lessons from the session to create a portable aquaponic system that can be used in different settings.
1:47:23now we're going to look at how instruction will be delivered because this is a virtual program we will have four classrooms with 15 students each in the classroom we will have virtual teachers one virtual teacher per class and the virtual teachers have the prepared lesson plans so what they're going to do is they're going to go step by step by step with the students the students will have their kids and they will follow along now there needs to be at least a teacher and an aid or a TA and an aid or a teacher and a TA in each room just to make sure that the students are engaged or if they need any help they're there.
1:48:15what's great about this this is Project based learning handson student students excited about getting their hands in there making things looking at how they work being able to think about what their use is for and and how it impacts their environment around them this is good stuff so after the teachers go through the steps with the students they make whatever they're going to make and guess what at the end they present it each student will have an opportunity to present to their peers.
1:48:54so that's how instruction will be delivered and I hope you've enjoyed this I'm pretty excited about it as a matter of fact super excited because we're providing opportunities for students one opportunity at a time and some students learn best when they have Hands-On activities so looking forward to it thank you so much for your time and attention.
1:49:24[Applause]
1:49:45okay consens agenda ID like to make a motion to approve consens agenda items a do I second all in favor um Tracy public for Mr.
1:50:11all right so um I'd like to talk about something that our school district does really well um and that would be the Arts and I know that so far we've had two speakers um speak on behalf of the Arts both uh the drama uh uh drama person from chadam uh speaking up for our school district's drama club and uh an art Club from the junior high but um a lot of our students are engaged either in band or art classes and I think if we do want to compare to um maybe a similar like demographic school or something um our Arts definitely set us apart.
1:50:50um I know that I had tremendous success and um you know great time with our with our band programs I've claimed the pit band for our drama uh musical the past two years um and I just I just want to emphasize the fact that our district does Arts very well and something I'd like to point out is that it's not one of the six pillars of our district uh but data collection is or some sort of data pillar but uh I think that that may want to be re reevaluated because we do arts very well here in Hudson and Hudson scy s thank you.
1:51:41Shelly Evans good evening all um first of all let me say a friend of Education I taught here for years I was uh summer school principal ET C Board of Education president for one year DP for one year so I came here out of curiosity and and knowing Mr Kenny and so on I wanted to find out precisely what your programs are and I must say I'm very impressed with your with your distillation of the facts relative the the parameters that you set out with learning and so on.
1:52:12I thought to myself you know as I'm sitting here what are the main lessons I should get out of this thing um the first one I guess is is don't use too many of those presentations you hard to see back here you know and and so on and uh I also want to thank the lady I'm not sure if she's still here or not the teacher who gave that presentation there you are I I see you I hear what you're saying and I I agree with what everything you said.
1:52:36but anyway um what I wanted to basically Come Away with here was that the teachers the resources you have here are the most important ones are your teachers but not them you've got nothing and you shouldn't forget that and you
1:52:48shouldn't forget that that these kids when these kids come here their history educational history will be founded in what they do in kindergarten first and second grade and I know from personal experience because I have a grandchild who had suffered in kindergarten with the lack of self-esteem because he couldn't read well couldn't do anything like that and it was a nuisance for him so I'm sure that that in my experience and I started teaching her by the way in' 67 so I'm probably older than most of you people here um at any rate and I retired in 94 so I've been out quite a bit but things some things have change and that's one of them is that you've got to prevent you've got to prevent the kids from falling through the cracks and you got to do it early on and you got to have a lot of age and that was one of the major problems that we always tried to address and we had trouble because age when I taught the concept was well I know they're to expensive we don't want to have them here we don't need them well that's wrong you need them you should have them whatever the expense is for the reason the other thing is uh uh taking the kids when I went to school I went to platsburg for those of you who went to the state system and we were taught that you take the kids where they are and take them as far as you can don't apply any phony standards that they can't meet like when I was teaching they said oh every kid should be able to pass the Regency yeah if you kept them in school for five more years at the grade level you might make it but if a kid can't do that you better recognize that and deal with it realistically as best you can and that's an important thing and I'm not sure I heard that tonight that's real maybe maybe I did I didn't
1:54:22the other thing I think is kind of interesting when I was a board president the newspaper called me up and said come on down for an interview we want to talk about the difference the gap between white and black achievement so I went down there and there four or five people sitting there and they were very hostile to me you know you could just see it when I walked in you know this is not going to be a fun interview at any rate they kept saying well uh there's a big gap here how do you explain it I don't have all the answers so I said to them this is a Register Star when they published in the city here how many black people do you have working in in your building and they looked at me and they didn't know what to say and I said do you have anybody in management no midle management no reporter no anybody here at all yeah we got one black eyye and there in The Newsroom doing the presses and all that kind of stuff there's your problem these kids who get out of here have to have expectations that if they put their effort and work in here and work hard they're going to be able to succeed in society and that's I think is one of the breakdowns that I look around here at that the minority groups I think you guys have succeeded because Society has changed somewhat but not enough so anyway I want to thank you for the effort that you put into this
1:55:33I also want to just mention again about the teachers um I was summer school principal I was assistant principal at johned for a year um the summer school was quite an experience when Mrs uh or doctor I'm not sure if prestopino was here I saw an article in the paper about starting summer school and I called her up and I called superintendent I'm sorry at the time but anyway she called me back and said we've never done that before I said yeah you have I was principal of summer school in ' 88 '89 so the background and the history that you guys had at the time was incomplete and so I'm saying I'm Ling back to my start in ' 66 my first job was Kindergarten I'm sorry make that first grade A half a year lady was expecting and I went in there I'm going what the hell am I doing here I don't know what I'm doing here you know and I had one little girl who was autistic but we have no name for her she never said a word I give her a hug she'd never respond I had a little boy who was in the third grade reading level and here I'm I'm being told well well you got to deal with all these kids and all in between it's tough to do it if you're a teacher and especially if you have no AE okay and then if you have unrealistic expectations about well here I looked at the evaluation form my God who created this monster this is this is terrible but the teachers are your are your best talent nurture them let them grow help them out
1:56:55now a quick word about the evaluation just then all sit down shut three minutes can I give 30 seconds more one more thing one more thing okay we we went to a conference in Albany on evaluation six or seven school districts and we sat down and tried to figure out what's the best way to improve teacher performance the only thing they agreed upon was that the present observation system doesn't improve teacher performance at all it's a rating system whether you're good enough or not good enough okay so what we tried to do and I it didn't succeed totally because we got to work it out work was let the teachers rise their own system not report it to the principal but if you got a problem and I did I always hated to do to do classroom decorations and P boards I hated so I went to find somebody else who could do it and it was between me and that lady and that was it thank you for the time thank you
1:57:58Wayne Kenny evening um I've been writing stuff down quick tonight so I hope you'll indulge me a little bit if I'm a little over because um I want to add to the data presentation and hopefully set shed some light on some of the things um first what was missing from the data presentation was the high school college classes we offer which there are two 2 4 6 8 10 college classes we offer that students are in and again when you break
1:58:27that down it's kind of even between the different subgroups I don't want to go into it but if you'd like the data um you also have to keep in mind when you're SK when a high school schedule is completely different completely different monster than when you schedule Junior High elementary kids don't always get what they want.
1:58:50okay we taught two regions our science classes last year in the junior high as honor classes we didn't offer two this year at the high school I have an African-American student sitting in a regular biology class right now that should have been in the honors because he passed the class passed the Regents it's very smart but because of what he chose for electives the honors class doesn't fit in. so a lot of times you got to take a grain of salt with the number of kids that are in AP college classes it's going to depend on what's being offered when it's offered if it's going to fit into their schedules.
1:59:32um as far as the presentation with the high school scores increasing that kind of emphasizes my point from last meeting there's no accountability on the students until they get the high school for the majority of them they're just getting ped along as I told you last time but when they get here they have to take now they have to take tests they have to pass them we get freshman in every year and we say you're going to have to take a regent exam they go well it's a state test I can opt out not anymore you got to take regen is you need to pass them.
2:00:06the reason geometry and Earth Science are down when they looked at those numbers not everybody from living environment goes into Earth Science a lot of the kids to go into Earth Science and geology already know they've passed one Regent exam and that's all they need to graduate so they just focus on passing the class they don't focus on passing another test they're not seeing the importance of that score on their college transcript even though we tell them.
2:00:31um a bigger problem right now is probably the chronic absenteeism um in case you haven't seen the news lately that's a big thing across the state chronic absenteeism has increased across the state this thecas here I have a we today was the 25th day of class I have a kid who's already missed 19 days that's 10% of the class he's probably done I hate to say that but that's a reality we need to face why are the kids not here why are they not going to class and the answer cannot continue to be well they don't like the teachers or they don't like the class they need to be there.
2:01:08um one last thing I agree with Leia about diversity in the district I agree with her and I've said this before um where I grew up not a lot of diversity big change when I came here 25 years ago the African-American students the Asian students they've taught me a lot more about their cultures and backgrounds than I ever learned in high school Global Studies which I've always felt was important I've enjoyed that over the years um but again that diversity is going to change from year to year in class to class which is also going to affect the numbers in your data so you need to keep that in mind thank you.
2:01:50thanks [Applause] thank you everybody.
2:02:06up coming important dates October 22nd 2024 policy committee meeting 5 to 6 High School library October 22nd 2024 Board of Education me high school library 6: p.m. November 5th 2024 for education in high school library at this time we do have a need for executive session for the purpose of reviewing employ of the employment history of particular personal persons and no further business after this thank you thank you again thank you all for being here thank you thank you someone a motion take a motion to go take session second.

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