Board of Education, Regular Meeting

1. 3:10I'd like to call the meeting to order and ask everybody please stand for the pledge of
2. 3:14allegiance to the flag of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisibley andice. for all.
3. 3:34Uh Leslie, roll call, please.
4. 3:36Mark
5. 3:37here.
6. 3:38Amanda Grubler
7. 3:40here.
8. 3:40Kirsten Gustoson
9. 3:42here.
10. 3:42Diana Howard here. Matthew Macker
11. 3:45here.
12. 3:46Moren Sheridan
13. 3:47here. Mike Zabella
14. 3:49here.
15. 3:50And Leia here.
16. 3:54Yes.
17. 3:57Okay. Make a motion to accept the agenda as presented.
18. 4:01Second.
19. 4:02All in favor. And it brings us to our student representative report. We have Liba joining us in place of uh Leona.
20. 4:11Um hi everyone. My name is Liba and I'm representing the student council today in place of Leona. Um I'm currently a junior and I serve as the second vice president of student council. So this Thursday, the student council is actually hosting our alumni panel, which is basically seniors from the class of 2025 will come in and give advice to our current seniors and juniors.
21. 4:38Um we are also hosting a cookie decorating party for the spirit of the um for the spirit of the holidays as well as a 7-day spirit week. Um, Grinch day is coming up and today was family picture day and thankfully we saw a lot of people show up as well as the science and social studies departments. It was really good.
22. 5:00Um the Hudson Model UN team, we recently competed at the Cap Capital Region Model UN and two out of four of our delegates won best delegate, which is the highest honor you can receive in Model UN at a conference.
23. 5:17Awesome.
24. 5:17There were 157 delegates there.
25. 5:21Um and eight committees. So that means um eight best delegate awards. So I'm really proud to announce that we made that great achievement and yeah I just want to put like academic teams like on the table. They are very important to the school community and to me personally um like model UN has been one of the most challenging but also rewarding things I've done in my high school career
26. 5:47and I just really want to put like academics teams not just model UN but like mock trial environ I want to put these things on the board and in the attention of the board. Um finally we are the student council is having a white elephant party. Um we are doing that right after the alumni panel. Um and one more thing the student council as a whole we recently presented our bathroom presentation or bathroom improvement presentation um to buildings and grounds and to the high school administration.
27. 6:23I'm happy to say that Mr. Kitzman and Building and Grounds. They were amazing. Right after the presentation, we got mirrors. It might not seem like a huge deal, but we got mirrors, three whole mirrors in the girls bathrooms, which is a huge accomplishment, and I hope to see more.
28. 6:40Um, that's all for tonight, and thank you so much.
29. 6:44Thank you. Thank you so much for being here.
30. 6:47Uh, brings us to our board reports. First, we have audit committee. Uh the audit committee met on December 15th to review corrective action plans prepared by the district office. Uh those plans appeared tonight's agenda uh and their response to the external auditor's findings. Uh the audit committee will monitor progress in implementing those plans and uh Mr. Perer the external auditor is here tonight to present results of the audit.
31. 7:16Thank you.
32. 7:16Not yet. [laughter]
33. 7:19Almost. Almost. Uh next we have facilities.
34. 7:22Facilities committee met today, December 16th. We had an update on our energy performance contract. Uh quite a number of the items have been completed while others are in process. So we're pleased to see that moving forward successfully. Uh the capital project is on schedule to get its proposal to SED which has to happen before it can go out for proposals.
35. 7:45Uh let's see greenhouse. Uh the foundation is poured, drainage and water are installed. Uh and we are able to purchase a greenhouse on under state contract uh which saves us a little time and hopefully enables us to get it in in late spring uh summer of 2026.
36. 8:05Uh we are looking into uh or or excuse me working on cooler and freezer upgrades for MCS. Uh the space is continually fully used. So we're going to uh be able to or well Tyler's team is going to be able to uh take that um and move forward with an upgrade there. It needs to go through a seeker request of course.
37. 8:30Uh the the team had met with contractors to discuss removal of the existing cooler freezer uh new concrete floor poured removal of a block wall uh which is not loadbearing and then uh we'll double the size of the coolers.
38. 8:44[clears throat]
39. 8:45Uh top of top of the list was uh you stole my thunder. I was going to say the team did some work on the bathrooms and we were excited to hear that uh they were able to move forward with that. Uh there was, as some folks know, a uh a problem with the boiler in the junior high. Uh the team uh jumped on that as quickly as they could and were able to restore heat very quickly right before uh Thanksgiving and prevent us from having to uh send the kids home. It is working stably now, but needs to have complete repairs done uh by uh and that's scheduled for uh 129. So, or excuse me, December 29. Uh so, that's going to be moving forward shortly.
40. 9:27That's all I got.
41. 9:29Great. Um when when do we think we'll have a public presentation about next steps for the capital project?
42. 9:37We were just talking about it. There's a couple of issues that uh really need to be brought to the community. uh we did not settle on a on a firm date that yes there is awareness that it needs to happen.
43. 9:47Okay, cool. Um finance committee
44. 9:53uh the finance committee had its inaugural meeting on December 1st. Uh I was lucky to the chair. We scheduled additional meetings in the coming months to facilitate the committee's role in the budget process.
45. 10:03There are a number of items on the agenda tonight um related to the district's finances. Uh they're in the consent agenda. Uh in committee we discussed the importance of regular reports. Tonight's agenda reflects um step in getting back on track. Uh part of the correct action plans that I mentioned from the audit committee.
46. 10:20Um and it's really been almost two years since the board could reliably expect uh financial reports for monthly meetings. So I see this as important progress in uh in that uh there's a budget expenditure revenue status report um treasures reports which summarize the cash activity for the month. uh budget transfer report. Uh those are used to authorize expenditures in a line other than what was approved in the original budget. Um
47. 10:48and the committee is going to keep an eye on uh finances leading into the uh next year budget season which uh is upon us. Um and there's another point uh that was discussed in committee uh regarding um the potential for changes in financial operations. Uh again, we're being responsive uh the district's being responsive to corrective action plan from its auditors.
48. 11:12Um and really for the board to have confidence that uh our financial objectives um and the health of the budget process exists, uh the district office needs to have procedures in place um to implement board policies. Uh these procedures need to lay out a process provides clarity and connects the financial planning of the district um through to academic results which is what we're all here to uh to see.
49. 11:40Um based on the feedback from external internal auditors uh commentary and planning from the district business office um you know there's steps that are going to be taken to improve the the financial management of the district. Uh and it's imperative uh that budget controls are in place that ensure that when the board approves a budget, when we make transfers um that the board can have confidence uh that everything is happening within the board's um purview over the budget.
50. 12:12Uh that might mean some some changes in how things are done. Uh but the goal is to ensure that we have reliable uh financial reporting when the board is uh reviewing you know the budget budget performance and uh ultimately our academic performance. So
51. 12:37great. Um [clears throat] great. Anybody have questions specifically about uh Matt's report or any of the agenda items he mentioned?
52. 12:48No. Excited about the addition of finance committee though to to be doing this work.
53. 12:55Great. Um next we have policy committee.
54. 13:00All right. Uh a couple different updates here so I'm going to try to keep them all straight and Diana and Mark chime in if I miss [clears throat] anything. Um we spent the bulk of our last policy committee looking at the student uh wellness policy. Uh so Lisa McGovern joined us to talk through that.
55. 13:14Um we looked at the changes that have been proposed by the wellness committee, layered on some of those changes. Next steps there are for um us to just sort of tweak and get all those changes into one dock. It'll then go back to the wellness committee for one final review and then back to policy committee in January and then should be up for uh first read in this space in January.
56. 13:37Um which is exciting really thinking about uh that work and all the work that the wellness committee has done to put into that. Um that uh was the bulk of our time. We also last time spoke about um 1120 which is the records access policy. Um we realized that that was not as straightforward.
57. 13:54uh folks on the policy committee have brought up some concerns about finding that balance between in particular what we were looking at is the cost when someone requests access uh information from the district. Um and there's a couple different cost models that can be used within that. Um and so we have some additional research to do some clarity around how that regulation works and what the options are um within that.
58. 14:16So that is something that we'll go back to the policy committee again next month for further discussion. and it was it needed more discussion than we could do in in the 20 minutes of policy committee that we had devoted to it at that moment. Um other pieces the facilities committee charter was finalized in the last meeting and is up on the uh agenda today.
59. 14:37Uh once that charter is finalized it opens up that committee to members of the community just the way we did for policy too. So stay tuned for some you know additional opportunities folks in the audience or on camera um for that as well. Um
60. 14:54other updates let's see um we are creating a subcommittee um to finalize our code of conduct work. We spent a lot of time on the code of conduct last year. We got input from staff and community members on that and we have a working draft there that built off of the the previous code of conduct.
61. 15:14Um but we want to make sure right that in this space we are getting enough input from staff from families um from students to to get to that sort of final draft there. Um, so you should have seen a, uh, info survey go out. Um, if you didn't, uh, you can follow up with us if you're interested in being on that code of conduct subcommittee that will then make a recommendations to the policy committee there to get that launched.
62. 15:45And the goal would be to do that work through the spring so that we have a new revised code of conduct come next September. Um, other things on deck for policy just for folks to be aware of are continuing to look at the the 9,000 policies which are kind of our like HR um like how do I describing those Shante? How am I describing those? [laughter]
63. 16:09Well, just policies that kind of help us direct the way that we do hiring and the process and who's involved and just so that we can have it laid out and that there's no discrepancy, you know, moving forward is is just going to be
64. 16:22Yeah. Great. So, we looked at those. Um, we also got some recommendations and some draft changes from NISBA. So, now the next steps are to come back together on those and kind of look at that. Um, similarly, the um booster policy is a new policy that we worked on two policy committee meetings ago. it is not yet on this agenda because we are still waiting on a couple updates from NISBA. So I will nudge them again on that. Um and I think that covers all of the big updates for policy.
65. 16:50Yeah, that's a lot. Um uh just wanted to circle back to 11:20. Um make sure that the rest of the board is sort of aware of what's being discussed. um and see if anybody has further thoughts that the policy committee can consider.
66. 17:08Um Amanda referred to uh New York State um outlines two different ways in which um costs for uh information requests or foil requests um can be uh build for. Um there's two versions. One is uh copies per page. Um the other is um up to two hours of work. Uh if it takes more than that then um there's a bill for the lowest paid employee um capable of doing that work.
67. 17:44Um after we talked about it for a while, it actually seems like neither of them would really uh result in any changes. Um, we don't provide photo copies. Um, the, uh, you can't charge for search time, you can't charge for redaction time. Um, so we're talking about two hours or more of just making photo copies.
68. 18:17Yeah. So um you know I think it's uh in my opinion one of those cases where you know multiple things can be true that that you know foil requests are costly and you know take up a lot of time not just for us but also um other resources that we have but uh there's not maybe nothing that um a citizens have to be able to submit foil requests um but also nothing that would really actually deter deter people from you know making excessive requests.
69. 18:49Yeah, I think one of the questions we had is a lot of these policies I think as we've done a lot of the technology policies also we're realizing that things uh 25 cents per copy there was a lack of clarity on whether or not how did that applied [clears throat] to that you know 99% of these are now digital requests right where like information is scanned in and then emailed out and so is that a per page per copy or not is one of the questions that we have moving forward also I think just in term of getting clarity on like what
70. 19:19what these pay structures actually means because if 25 cents per copy applies to digital copies, then it's likely that this other scenario of the first two hours of labor being free and after that charging the cost of the labor, it's likely that like more people would fall into the boat of under two hours of time. Um, and so I think there's there's a little bit of like clarity on what those pay structures mean for us
71. 19:44to make a decision.
72. 19:45Sorry, where did um where did you get the two models from?
73. 19:48It's New York State Law.
74. 19:49New York State Law. So it sounds like New York state needs to
75. 19:52it doesn't say that you have to. It doesn't say that you have to say may
76. 19:56those are possibility if you choose to
77. 19:59charge.
78. 20:00So we could come up with our own
79. 20:02ikaba doesn't charge they do emails and they don't charge for I mean if you want it digitally find something you nowadays you can scan you know AI whatever it is that you want and it'll take you know I don't know I'm not really a computer person but if you wanted to search emails for all of the days that Mrs. Howard took off and you just put it into a scan. Like I don't see how any of this could take over two hours anyway and it's not a printed copy. But the law doesn't say that you have to charge.
80. 20:30I I think to answer your question, I believe that you can only use those two models to charge. You can't come up with another option.
81. 20:36Okay.
82. 20:37But as far as being charged, you're not being charged for the finding the information.
83. 20:42No,
84. 20:43you're only physically being charged to produce the information to the person requesting it at that point. Yeah,
85. 20:49literally for replicating it.
86. 20:51For replicating, not for the actual research.
87. 20:53Not for digging in and finding it, not for redacting any information. Literally for like copying the final product that you found.
88. 21:00Okay.
89. 21:00Like when you went to the library and you put your dimes in to make photo copies back in back in ancient times. Um, and I [clears throat] I did speak with Will Kang briefly about this, our our uh attorney at Keenan Bean, and he did not seem to think that um reproductions uh would apply to anything other than physical copies as as it's written.
90. 21:23That's good to know.
91. 21:24And he also did mention that there are a lot of other school districts in New York State um who are struggling with the same thing.
92. 21:34Is there any way to find out how how many foil requests each district gets?
93. 21:43Did you just say ours or each district?
94. 21:45Each district. I mean, say, how many do they get a month? How many does Hudson get a month? How many does Chadam get a month? How many does Rava get a month?
95. 21:53If they were [laughter] if they were voluntarily offered by ASP, but it's not like a it wouldn't be like a publicly available.
96. 22:03It's not okay. It wouldn't be able to be like
97. 22:05they don't collect data on it on a regular basis. What [laughter]
98. 22:09just wonder
99. 22:11are we abnormal for the amount we get is a different school abnormal for amount they don't get. So
100. 22:16since you said the amount we get, aren't we supposed to be getting like notified when there's a file?
101. 22:23We've been doing them in batches. Um but yes, generally we uh we are um been doing them like month by month. Um, and it's not not something regular, it's just something that we've done uh recently as there's been uh been more for us to be aware of. Um, okay. So, I think we can take all that context back to policy um and uh see what we want to do with it.
102. 22:53Uh, okay. Uh, board president's report. Um, I want to start by wishing everybody, our rest of the board members, staff, students, and their families, happy holiday. Everybody's got a nice long break coming up. I hope everybody enjoys it and takes some time to relax. Um, secondly, wanted to um just correct a piece of information from the last board meeting in a discussion about 21st century grants.
103. 23:19We sort of lumped the 21st Century and LEAP grants together because that's the way they've been talked about in the past, but they are actually two separate grants. Um 21st Century is only around $180,000 a year, which is why we're seeing the decrease in the amount of money for um the outsight audit. Um so, thank you for uh Dr. Bailey and Matt for pointing that out and finding the correct information.
104. 23:49Um, for the superintendent search, our HYA contract is on the agenda uh this evening. It's probably ambitious to think any of us had uh other free time in the month of December. Um but I will be in touch about finding a time in January for us to kick off the process with a working session to determine um the process uh for that moving forward.
105. 24:15Um and lastly just wanted to suggest one thing to the board. Um, I think it's great that this board is asking so many important questions and engaging in uh such important um conversations. Um, Robert's rules of orders suggest that when debating or asking questions, everybody asks uh one question at a time to maintain an equity of voice. Um, so we could try that out and when we have questions for a presenter, um, start on the left with Mike.
106. 24:51Uh, everybody gets one question to ask. Um, we'll just keep going around the circle until all the questions are done. Again, not meant everybody gets a chance to ask all their questions. Just keeps uh, the voice of the board um, as diverse as possible.
107. 25:11And that's all I've got.
108. 25:13Thank you. So next we have some presentations. Our first presentation is our uh 2024 2025 audit from Scott Pruer.
109. 25:53Um, thank you very much for having me present tonight. Um, I just want to go over a couple things. I want to thank the district office for all their cooperation and courtesy throughout the audit. Um the district office was kind of going through transition during the process so it made a little more difficult but they were able to really work hard to get the information.
110. 26:08Um the report gets bigger and bigger every year and they um did a good job of doing that. Um I also like to say I like I we already got the corrective action plan and I was looking at the agenda earlier and I saw that stuff that we recommended was already in that. So that's that's like we like to see um going forward that it's already been it's already been impleed at least some of the things that we already talked about.
111. 26:30Also like to thank the audit committee um for taking over an hour or so back in November to discuss the financial audit and the recommendations that we um we put forward. Um it's taking their time out there to go through it. Like I said was over an hour that we met back in November.
112. 26:47Um so looking at the at the audit um the district got an unmodified opinion. They had no material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies and no areas of non-compliance. The financial statements of the district were presented fairly in all material respects with generally accepted accounting principles and the extra classroom u report was on modified on a cash basis.
113. 27:07So looking at I kind of did a summary um for the last couple years and looking at the financial analysis um the district's assets went up from compared to 24 over to almost 17.3 million compared to $4.3 million in liabilities almost $13 million of fund balance and reserves. Um and like we kind of go through looking at the reserves the district does have. Um they do have very useful ones.
114. 27:31Um, and we kind of recommended that besides the ones you do have now that you're in a capital project, kind of look at a capital reserve going forward for your next one. So you're kind of start saving money for so you don't have to, you know, you have money to put towards the project right away. Um, we discussed that one that was discussed in the audit committee too. That was one of them. And the other one's an insurance reserve, which is a reserve to cover any other claims um, that are not covered by insurance policies, anything out there.
115. 28:00So those are a couple that we went through. We kind of looked through kind of went over what you had and then what was in each, you know, what was funded in the amounts. So like kind of went through um a couple of them that you could actually increase funding based on the level of what your your district is at. Uh so you do have like adequate resources, but like you said, there is potential for other ones out there and you can increase them.
116. 28:23Um your unassigned fund balance is over $6 million, so you're over the 4%. So that's gives you some leeway to do those other reserves that are out there. Um so that's something that can be considered especially when you're going through your budget process. You kind of look at the reserve plan at the same time. What do we need for our coming budget? What do we what will we need in the future? Um so that will be part of that one. Um how you ended up there for the year.
117. 28:52Your your revenues came in your over your expenditures by over a million dollars. Uh biggest one was that your revenues came um they came way over what was budgeted um in a couple different areas which we like to see. Um charges for services which means you're billing out and getting money for any service provided by the district and getting it, you know, putting it out and getting it timely.
118. 29:15The other one is use of money and property which means you're not just holding [clears throat] the money, you're investing it wisely, getting the most return on what you can. You'd be surprised by districts kind of just leaving the money market and like your earn might earn 1%. But you know there's potential out there that you can get the higher rates and you guys your district does that.
119. 29:34Um and there was a couple other nonpropy that were property um taxes which came up over what was budgeted. Then you had sale property and compensation for loss because that on the other side you spent 99.5% of your budget. So you pretty much spent all of your budget. um you had very little leeway the last couple years before that you were 97.5 and 97.6.
120. 29:54So that's kind of where the range where you want to be. 94 to 97 is where you want you luckily you had more revenues that so that even though you know you spent most your budget you were still able to come out with um come out ahead and my that's what we like to see um looking at your financials and kind of like mass all the different things that the board would get is that being able to provide a solid educational program on a long-term basis by providing adequate resources and facilities then having a strong financial condition um provides that um couple other items looking at uh the audit your school lunch program had an operating loss of almost 60,000 but you're one of the few districts we do several district a lot actually a lot of districts um that actually are self-sufficient so you do not need general fund to run your programs um your cafeteria program you're you're able to a lot of schools have to have general fund put money into the program to cover cover cost Um, even with the loss, you still had over $500,000 still in your fund equity for um the school lunch program.
121. 31:04Uh, a couple other items. Looking at your federal programs this year, this past year, you had federal programs of 2.5 million and state of 1.3. Um, both were slightly, well, federal was slightly down because the ARP the COVID money ended in September of 24. Um but you still have a s significant amount of federal programs.
122. 31:27And then the last piece, um you do have a debt service fund and you have over $865,000 in that and that can be used in the future for during budgeted purpose to help offset principal and interest payments. Um so um looking at your district, you're in good financial health. Um, it's like I said, it's good to see that some of the recommendations of more of the processes are already going forward and you see it on the agenda. You have all the financial reports out there and that's that's was one of our recommendations is I'm getting that so you have more have access to financial data and able to make decisions. Um, is there any questions comments?
123. 32:08I have just a random question and I I can't even remember where I saw it, but somewhere I saw under instructional it said teaching special program. What was that?
124. 32:18Um that's special education.
125. 32:20Oh, special education. Gotcha.
126. 32:22Yeah. And the c like you see on the report those are that's how the state wants to call them. So
127. 32:26that's fine. I just was confused about Thank you.
128. 32:32Great. Any other questions? Thank [clears throat] you so much, Mr. Sper.
129. 32:38Thank you.
130. 32:38Thank you.
131. 32:39Happy holidays.
132. 32:40Thank you.
133. 32:51Okay. Next, we have a Montgomery C. Smith presentation from uh Mr. Brenamman.
134. 33:00Good evening. Mrs. Hanley is also here. Yeah,
135. 33:05it's tough for me to stay in one spot, Lance. Um,
136. 33:07and he's got a big mouth, so that's okay.
137. 33:09Right. Exactly. Um,
138. 33:11sorry.
139. 33:12It's okay, Diana. We, um, so I wanted to come tonight to talk about, um, MC Smith and looking at where we are, where we're going, um, and where we're focused. You know, as we talk about our school, we are, um, identified as a TSI. So, that's a targeted support and improvement, um, for two populations. Um, it's for our Hispanic and our multi-racial. Um, I don't know what I just did. Um, yeah, that concludes my presentation. [laughter]
140. 33:42Um, so these are the weighted averages. This was just to put out there so that it is there. This is for your consumption to look at if you would like. It shows you our performance. It shows you our ELA, our English language proficiency and our chronic absenteeism. Um, one of the things that we feel strongly as a building and I know as a district is that attendance matters. Attendance is a huge piece of our ability to educate the students here.
141. 34:13And so I know it's been every building that has come here has talked about attendance and you know we are looking at increasing decreasing our chronic absenteeism um by 5%. Right? We want kids to be there. We want to increase our math and ELA scores by 5% as well as align instruction to um focus on data. So what does that mean? Um we're looking to add have 35 students who are in the green if you will who are there on a regular basis and we are focusing on that by weekly attendance meetings.
142. 34:46We meet once a week with our attendance monitor, our psychologists, our school social workers, assistant principal, and we sit down and we go through the list and we say, "Geez, we're so glad to see Brian is, you know, he hasn't had an absent in the last two weeks." And we talk about what can we do to provide incentives to our students because, as we know, I mean, for a lot of our elementary kids, we want to have them dying to come to school. We want to incentivize that because they don't always have control of coming to school.
143. 35:20We meet with families on a regular basis. I think at this point, last I knew, we had about 17 family support plans that we have created and we really look at those as being strength-based. We bring the parent in and we say, "What can we do to help you? What are the challenges in getting your child to school?" Um, you know, [snorts] and there's a variety of things. We've done everything from knocking on people's doors in the morning, doing wakeup calls to just, you know, helping to talk to children, providing counseling at school.
144. 35:47Um, anything that we can do to support those families, we are willing to do as a school. And we know the struggles. I mean, I'm a parent, let me tell you, it's it's not always easy to get your kid up and out of bed and to school with all the priorities that go on in life. Um, and then [snorts] we also have intend attendance incentives. We've done an attendance. We've done lunches for the grade level that has the best attendance. We've done a lot of different things to try to support our students and incentivize being at school,
145. 36:22increasing our ELA and math scores. Um, we have a school leadership team that meets once a month and we meet for about an hour and a half. Um, at Montgomery CSmith, we have had this school leadership team for as long as I've been there. I mean for when I started and you know it's one core thing that I feel is extremely valuable is to get the teachers and to get everyone together staff and talk about what's going on in school. How can we look at improving what we're doing?
146. 36:51One of the things that we talked about is the kids aren't writing enough and the kids aren't reading enough. Independent reading, the research is clear, shows that it will improve students fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and just ability to perform as well as writing. We look at our New York State test results and our biggest struggle are students writing, right? We they can answer the multiple choice and we get to the writing and we are focusing on how to process that data. How do they take what they read and you know inform to answer the question? So that is one of the things that we felt was important.
147. 37:28We are looking to increase parent engagement. We want the parents at the school. I see all these parents here and you know miss you with being at [laughter] our school but you know we we want you at we want the parents there for everything. We want to show off. We are really excited. We're going to have a parent ruler night this year where we're going to invite parents in to make a charter with their students.
148. 37:47For those who don't know, ruler is a program, a anal program that talks about how do you want to feel at school and every classroom has their charter. We have a staff charter and we want families to be engaged in that too. Um my son who is now in fourth grade has used ruler throughout and I had no idea when he'd come home and kindergarten and tell me you know he was in the green and this was the feeling word. it is really something that we are able to utilize in our building and we want to get the parents in involved with that to support them.
149. 38:21Um we have also um we have data meetings three times a year and we also have our PLC's where we started to bring more of that data into those meetings to talk about what is it our students are struggling with. Let's disagregate and look at is it a certain standard? Is it a certain skill? What is it that the students are having the biggest struggles with?
150. 38:46You mention what a PLC is. PLC is a professional learning community. Um, we've talked about that a lot here, I know, but the teachers at MC Smith meet every other week in grade level groups. Um, our self-contained teachers, they meet to talk about the things that are gerine to them, right? And what I mean by that is what do they want to focus on with their students? We all as staff and as educators want better for our students. So we talk about what can we do to support and sometimes it's behavioral, sometimes [clears throat] it's academic, it's a variety of things, but our focus is on students and the culture and climate of the building.
151. 39:24And then our a huge focus this year has been align instruction to focus on the standards using data. We have our programs, right? We have CKLA for ELA. We have Eureka Squared. They are not the magic bullet to just put that in front of a teacher and in front of a kid and they are going to learn. That's we need to look at what do we need to focus on? What pieces do we need to use? We're taking New York State testing data, analyzing what we've seen and then taking that to talk about instruction um at all our grade levels.
152. 39:55The our professional learning views this year have become working meetings. They're coming in with their binders and their books and they're sitting down and talking about, you know, if Dr. Bailey and I both teach fourth grade math. We are spending those 40 minutes talking about how are we going to teach for the next month? What are we focusing on? What are we seeing as the biggest, you know, trip ups for our students? What skills do we need to go faster on? What do we need to go slower? What do we need to review? we are having those conversations and I'm really glad you know this is um it's been a huge movement forward and you know I always kind of say what is measured will be done right so we are looking at measuring and documenting the tiered interventions that are happening in the classrooms so our reading teachers our classroom teachers they are all documenting their tier three and tier two interventions and when I say that tier three interventions are the intensive intervent inter interventions that happen daily for a period.
153. 40:54And tier 2 interventions are something that generally happens on an every other day basis, but there is flexibility as you talk about that because everything's a little different, right? There's not one hard and fast, but what we look at is what are we doing to help the student is having the struggle. If the student is testing in the 10th percentile in reading, what are we doing to support them and move them forward?
154. 41:22So that is in a nutshell what we have been doing at MC Smith, what we're focused on. You know, I know myself and our staff. We are passionate about it. Passionate about our supporting our students and wanting to give them everything that they need each and every day at school. So I open it to questions and I guess it starts with Mr. Zabella.
155. 41:40Okay. So I've asked this question before. We all we're seeing this is what we're going to do. This is what we're going to do. This is how we're going to do it. We need to get to the root cause of why we're having this these issues.
156. 41:54So, like you mentioned, if a student is chronically absent,
157. 41:59you go talk to the parent and say, "Hey, what's the problem?"
158. 42:03Yep.
159. 42:03What are their answers?
160. 42:05I mean,
161. 42:05who's like, "Oh, my kid was up playing games all night or I'm too tired to get up and get them going."
162. 42:10What are their answers?
163. 42:12Yes.
164. 42:13Issues. Yes. And beyond. I mean, you know, my child gives me a hard time in the morning. We have transportation issues. The alarm didn't go off. I mean, there's a lot of issues. Drilling down to that, what we found is much more granular.
165. 42:26Okay.
166. 42:26And it's a struggle and you know, we're we are looking at we are focusing on as much as we can providing support to everyone. Um, but you know, we we do have poverty in the district and we do have it does poverty shouldn't matter. I mean, right,
167. 42:41is it a student issue or is it a parent issue? that that I mean I I can't I I yes it's there there are parts of both right I mean you know historically like there there are some that you know there are some places that attendance is not as important we are also seeing families that are taking more vacations you know there are families that are saying you know one of the things that I think came out of COVID was people are saying family is the most important thing and you know what if we got to take a week out of school um we're going to and so there you know we we do have a a you know a se a se segment of our population that that has become an issue.
168. 43:22Um, we have a segment that the students are struggling to come to school and we have a segment of our third graders up on Snapchat at 1:30 in the morning and they're not coming to school the next day or they're, you know, showing up at, you know, 10:30 and, you know, we we know, I mean, we know what is going on, but trying to provide the supports and interventions is a is a challenge that we're, you know, we're we're trying different things.
169. 43:47You know, I people have heard me say this board. I spent three weeks going to someone's door every morning at 6:00 a.m. knocking on the door making sure that kid was up and the next after 3 weeks that student was late again, you know, on the day that I didn't go and knock on the door. So, we're trying to figure out how we can provide supports and intervention. And I think if you read the national national news out there in education, attendance is a challenge um for for for most schools. And I don't know if it's a societal thing to be honest, but we are looking at what we can do to support our students as much as possible with that.
170. 44:24Thank you.
171. 44:26So my question mark is um what community organizations I mean used to be DSS was involved in things like this. That was a thing you know you there was fear that you know um you'd have somebody knocking on your door not the principal or even fear of the principal. Um, and is that happening? What what what what are they doing or what how can they support us? And
172. 44:50so I mean we partner with a lot of agencies. DSS support for educational neglect is voluntary in Columbia County. Um, so that is a choice whether to participate. Um, and you know we are working with promise and the Hudson department of youth and you know variety of community organizations to provide for families and support them.
173. 45:12I mean, you know, promise last year was driving two kids to school every day because they were prek and they couldn't get there and and supporting. I mean, we are working with community organizations um as much as we can.
174. 45:25Y
175. 45:28um can you just describe for us quick what uh it looks like in a class period to provide a tier one and tier 2 interventions for a teacher in a class?
176. 45:38Well, so I think that there's more than one point to that, Diana. Just let me So within our schedule, we have an MTSS time. Then we have a
177. 45:45maybe maybe you can use explain without the initials just in case somebody's listening and doesn't understand.
178. 45:50We have a multi-tiered system of supports time, a period where kids can get the the most intensive reading, you know, middle supports and then our students who are flourishing get what they need, right? So we have that period built within the day. We have a um a tier 2 period within the day which is where kids can get every other day their tier 2 interventions and in those times sometimes teachers have groups in there and then there's a regular period right so a teacher may teach the beginning of a lesson right and then they have an independent station a teacher table and collaborative and during that time when they're at the teacher table one group is working on one thing they're differentiating that instruction and during that time the teacher is able to provide that tier 2 intervention while the tier one has gone on in the same period.
179. 46:40Um,
180. 46:41building building off of that, can you talk a little bit about the like data points then that are used in the data meetings to know if the tier 2 interventions are working and how are we, you know, moving our data year-over-year to see more students reading on grade level and doing math on grade level before they move on to the middle school.
181. 46:58I mean, so what we've now moved to NWA, so that is a change in our testing. We previously used testing called FastBridge um which you know NWA should give us a more accurate picture of how the student is going to perform in the New York State test and give us that picture of that. Um we utilize um what uh um oral reading fluency is another measure that we lose use to look at kids because the research will show that if students are progressing in reading their oral reading fluency is you know they increase their oral reading fluency.
182. 47:31Um, in math we use utilize NWA as well as we utilize some of that fastbridge. Um, we use some of what I'd call pass which is like phonics tests for our younger kids and for some of our struggling readers to dig deeper. um you know as we talk about you know measuring as they're going forward we do look at you know their um their national percentile scores and we look at where they are in um let's say a reading which would be a comprehension measure that we previously used.
183. 48:01we would look to make sure that that student is showing growth um over year to year or that their oral reading fluency is showing growth and then if it's not we um we have those uh monthly grade level meetings where teachers are discussing how they can support one student. We're looking we're seeing you know we're having those broader conversations and then we get down to our individualized multi-tered system of support meetings where we do talk about individual students. Um, so you know, we start at those data meetings that are three times a year and then we move to provide more supports if we're not seeing that progression.
184. 48:37Thanks.
185. 48:40On attendance, um, you've been, uh, for lack of a [clears throat] better term, busting your hump on attendance for the past several years. Um, and and I know that you've talked about many of these initiatives being things that you've been working on. Um, how are we doing year-over-year and and how does this year fit in? I know we're only about a third of the way through the year, but how's that going?
186. 48:57So, we are in in a great place right now comparatively. Um, last year we crashed out in June. Like that was that's what I'd say. I don't know what happened across our um buildings, but June we we we had some struggles with students coming. So, we need to look at that.
187. 49:13Um, how are we doing? We've we've um we really held flat for for two years. Um, we did see less students in the red, but between our red and yellow um we had a similar number, you know. So um we are looking at what caused that right and I think a portion of that which I when I was a part of the calendar committee I talked about we had that huge break around Memorial Day and I don't know that we recovered in some ways with students attendance.
188. 49:43Um I think the junior high has seen great progress. I know you know over year to year um and we have seen progress and I think the the high school has as well. I mean we are seeing progress. I could put together a report and send it to Dr.
189. 49:58Bailey and give you guys exact numbers on all the buildings if that's something you would want in the new year. Um, you know, it's just a matter of pulling that.
190. 50:16[clears throat]
191. 50:17Um, just to clarify on Amanda's um question. So what you're insinuating is that you were sort of the what we were tracking last year with FastBridge when you saw New York State scores this year didn't really correspond.
192. 50:34Yeah, I would agree. Yep. Cool.
193. 50:36We we would see kids who would be considered, you know, in the 50th percentile on our fast bridge and we were seeing ones on New York State test scores. So, you know, they were they had skills but it wasn't it's not translating. And I think that NWA is going to give us a more clear understanding of what that is, you know, and I mean once again I would be happy to come back with some sample reports once we give the next and you can black it out and you can see it's more intuitive. It gets gives recommendations on what Mark needs, right? Like it says here are the things he's shown proficiently. Here's what you need to work on with this students student. So once you've given that second round of testing, you should end up with a more um uh something that can help to guide your instruction in a better manner than we got with FastBridge.
194. 51:19Okay.
195. 51:20Um Mike,
196. 51:22I'm good.
197. 51:23Morning, Diana.
198. 51:26Um can I just make a quick comment? It's not a question, but
199. 51:29um I I just appreciate that you're still with us because I mean I was on your interview committee when we got you and I'm just tickled that Jill's with you because she's literally a Blue Hawk. So you can see that walking into your building. You're just brimming with love and attention. And that's all I really wanted to say. I'm going to talk about today a little bit later, but I know you're going to disappear and you just play back the video later. But thank you.
200. 51:59One more data question. Um, did you all make any based on the fall map data like you said that that appears to be like more actionable data that you were able to use?
201. 52:08Um, did your school leadership team make any adjustments based on the fall data that you're hoping will like show up in midyear data?
202. 52:19I would I would say not the school leadership team. I would say more it's on the grade level that I am hoping. We we dug through that data and spent two uh two full periods talking about that with that and looking at what does that mean like you know and we took it and we I give the example of like fourth grade took CKLA and said oh my goodness we can't wait till the fifth you know we're not waiting till March to get to this they took one of the pieces and moved it forward because they saw that that was a huge need for those students
203. 52:49thanks
204. 52:51Kirsten Um, all right. I'm going to jump the gun a little bit, but I did see the the nice head scores and it stuck out to me that the third graders last year outperformed everybody else by 14 points. Was that something you would have predicted or is there a reason that you think that happened?
205. 53:11So, I'm I am not surprised that cohort um had uninterrupted schooling,
206. 53:18I would say. Um I you know that that fourth grade group is your group that had the most interruptions. But that being said, we still need to educate them. I don't try to use that as the excuse anymore. But I was not at all surprised with that third grade group because they are, you know, they have excelled at, you know, since they've been here,
207. 53:38right? So they're the ones that started in 2021 postco, right? That makes sense.
208. 53:44What do you mean by the interruptions? co like we we went out March 17th and n we didn't know what to do. Okay. We we threw together videos and taught what we could and and I mean we worked hard. I would say I probably worked harder that time than ever. I was at my computer at 6:00 a.m. till 6 p.m. every day. But
209. 54:02the third grade the third grade group is
210. 54:04the fourth grade group. Correct.
211. 54:06Okay.
212. 54:07Yeah.
213. 54:07The fourth grade had the most interrupted like kindergarten and just you know.
214. 54:11Yeah. What's interesting is it's not reflected in the the state scores.
215. 54:17Um,
216. 54:19uh, Moren, you good?
217. 54:20Nope, I'm good.
218. 54:21Diana, anything else?
219. 54:23Amanda,
220. 54:23I'm good.
221. 54:25All right. Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate.
222. 54:27Thank you for having me. Thank you, D.
223. 54:28Thanks, Mark.
224. 54:32[laughter]
225. 54:38Okay, at this time uh we do have a need for an early executive session. Uh for the purposes of discussing the employment history of a particular person or persons, uh we'll try to be as uh quick as we can. Uh but make a motion to ex enter executive session at 6:53 p.m.
226. 54:58Second.
227. 54:58All in favor? All right, we'll see you shortly. Are we going back here? Uh, make a motion to exit executive session at 7:19 p.m.
228. 1:21:08Second.
229. 1:21:09All in favor? Uh, brings us to our personnel agenda.
230. 1:21:15Um, any questions or comments? Okay. So, I make a motion to approve personnel agenda items A 1 through six and B 1-6.
231. 1:21:32Second.
232. 1:21:33All in favor. Um, like to congratulate uh Mr. Campbell and Miss Silox on their tenure approvals.
233. 1:21:47[applause]
234. 1:21:52And we also have a new staff member to welcome.
235. 1:21:56Oh,
236. 1:21:59you want me to read it?
237. 1:21:59Yes, please.
238. 1:22:00Okay.
239. 1:22:00Sorry, [laughter] I don't have my laptop.
240. 1:22:02I would like to welcome uh Mr. Marcus Laapierre as the new computer service specialist. He was born and raised in Connecticut and moved to the Hudson Valley in 2024. He attended Tungstus Community College and received an associates degree in science for cyber security. He's very excited to continue his career in the IT field at the Hudson City School District.
241. 1:22:21In his spare time, he works on a home lab, which is a home miniserver, building and maintaining computers and web design and computer programming. He looks forward to developing a relationship with the staff and the students in the district.
242. 1:22:33A fun fact about him is that he is an avid reader with a preference for fantasy series. He also enjoys fishing, playing video games, trading card games, botany, and taking care of his betetta fish. Welcome, Mr. Laierre.
243. 1:22:53Is he?
244. 1:22:58[laughter]
245. 1:23:01Well, thank you. Uh, you'll be enjoying our fantastic IT team. Look forward to having you. Thanks for coming tonight.
246. 1:23:07All right. [laughter] Uh, brings us to, uh, public comment. Leslie,
247. 1:23:15first we have Joe Mazone.
248. 1:23:17Okay. Thank you. Just want to remind everybody each speaker gets three minutes to speak. Uh we're unable to uh entertain any comments about district personnel or students and we will not be able to respond to every comment because we want to take the time to research and have the proper answer. Um so please don't expect a response tonight.
249. 1:23:36Uh hello everyone. I'm Joe Mone. I work here at the uh at the high school as a special ed teacher and I think a lot of you know that I've been busy trying to organize a uh trap team for the Hudson City School District. Uh a team in formation called the uh the Hudson Bluehawk Clay Target Club.
250. 1:23:53Um parents are here. Um the kids are over there in the corner. Um John Sheldon is here from the Hudson Fish and Game Club. Um I've been doing this since September and uh it's been quite successful. Um we have about 10 kids for who are interested in starting this club.
251. 1:24:11Uh we had an open house on October 18th and 40 people showed up. Um the the the team from Maple Hill came and did a shooting uh trap shooting demonstration. Uh the team from Takonic Hills, they came and did a trap shooting demonstration. Uh we had a great time.
252. 1:24:30We had hamburgers, we had hot dogs, the kids got to mingle with each other, speak with one another. Um we got a couple um students to sign up from our district to join our team that's in formation right now. Um it was a great day. We raffled off prizes that were generous generously donated by the community.
253. 1:24:47Um and um the 10 kids that we have, they're over there. Um and they um they've been very dedicated to uh trap shooting. They've been coming out on the Hudson Fish and Game Club is open to beginning trap shooters on Sundays where they're learned uh where they learn firearm safety, uh range etiquette, and um you know, safety first.
254. 1:25:08Uh they also learn marksmanship and they've been working on their skills. These kids have been very very dedicated to wanting this team. You have no idea how badly they want this team to uh start and have this club to begin. Um, they've been they got to the point where they became so good at it that they started shooting Friday nights with the public.
255. 1:25:30Uh, the Hudson Fishing Game Club is open uh Friday nights starting around 5:30. Uh, and I just want to let you know, um, everyone here, if you ever want to come out on a Friday night to watch the kids in action, please do so. Um, they really like it when they when they see their teachers or people who work for the district watch them do their thing. Um it's very exciting. It's it's great.
256. 1:25:54Um we've had some teachers come out and some staff and and personnel from our district that came out and and watched the kids supported them. Um they had a great time. The kids loved it. Um but uh the one thing I want to say is that that time is of essence. It's very important that um that the that the club gets approved.
257. 1:26:15Um a team handbook has been made. Um so that that is all set. Um, I'm I'm certified by the USA Clay Target League uh to be a coach. So is John Sheldon. Um, so time is of essence.
258. 1:26:28The um registration for the uh spring 2026 um high school uh trap season starts in February. Um we have to start fundraising. We can't do anything unless we're an official club unless we have a letter of approval from the superintendent. Um, so I'm just asking if you guys could uh do that for these kids so they can go out and compete in the springtime. Um, they'd really appreciate it.
259. 1:26:59Please give them this early Christmas gift. Um, that's all I really have to say. Um,
260. 1:27:06if anyone has any questions,
261. 1:27:07I know Dr. Bailey has some, it's been a topic of conversation. I know he has some updates in his superintendence report, uh, which directly follows his public comment. So, okay. um make sure you guys know what's going on um and can certainly reach out to him uh to get a status update in the future.
262. 1:27:23And as far as safety is concerned, um not only did the kids learn firearm safety at the range with John and I, but uh the kids have also done the New York State um hunters New York State hunters education course online, but the club is going to have a uh safety another in-person hunter safety course again at the end of the month.
263. 1:27:45The boys and the girls on the team, they're going to need to come. But this course is free and it's open to anybody that is interested in getting a hunting license. So any kidding
264. 1:27:56even if they don't want to shoot trap, they can come get a get licensed for um small game, large game, and bow. Cool.
265. 1:28:04So it's a two-day it's it's a two-day course. It's free.
266. 1:28:08Launch is provided. So
267. 1:28:09great. That's amazing. Yeah. I don't think the safety we think we're we're happy with the safety measures you've outlined. Um Dr. Dr. Bailey will talk about some of the, you know, just like procedural and contractual things that we need to work through to make sure you guys are good to go.
268. 1:28:22Okay.
269. 1:28:23Yeah.
270. 1:28:24Thank you.
271. 1:28:25Any anything else? Any other questions?
272. 1:28:27I just have one comment. Um, I did attend a couple weeks ago and talk about dedication. It was 20 degrees out.
273. 1:28:34Yeah.
274. 1:28:34And the kids were out there doing it.
275. 1:28:36Yeah.
276. 1:28:36Uh, I was very impressed by the organization.
277. 1:28:39Yeah.
278. 1:28:39Of how it was done. I went as a nothing to do with the board. I wanted to see what it was all about.
279. 1:28:44Yeah. Yeah. And I was very impressed with the with it and they were definitely re uh receptive to us being there.
280. 1:28:50Yeah.
281. 1:28:52Great. Thank you. We appreciate you being here.
282. 1:28:56Next we have John Sheldon.
283. 1:29:04Good evening. I'm John Sheldon. I represent the Hudson Fishing Game Club. I'm a board member along with Joe. Everything Joe said is is what we're we're doing. I'm here because we're trying to get that letter so we can start the process of getting in the spring league.
284. 1:29:22I am also offering the hunter safety courses January 31st and February 1st. I got to put them into the state's computer next week and it's going to be open. It's a closed course, but it's going to be open to anybody from the school, from our club, and kids, friends if they want to do it. It's a two-day course. Like I said, lunch is provided. I'm going to do a gun on Saturday, then a bow on Sunday.
285. 1:29:51The kids, great kids, great. They love it. Like I said, they were out there in 20°ree weather. I didn't want to shoot. They were out there. They they wanted it. We opened up the club. Our club is all for the children.
286. 1:30:05And that's just it's a good thing like to see it forward. But we need that letter so we can start getting shirts made. You know, we got to start the fundraising deal. And you know, there's still a lot of work to go on. And that's basically it. And it's they shoot with their parents, too, which is great
287. 1:30:27competition. Like I said, there's no benchwarmers. Everybody's score counts. and it's the safest sport around.
288. 1:30:34Awesome. Well, thank you. Appreciate you being here. Like I said, we'll talk through uh the process uh very shortly.
289. 1:30:42Thanks. [clears throat]
290. 1:30:54Hi everybody. I'm Colton Bloomer. Um, I'm one of the kids that are doing the trap shooting with uh the rest of my team. Uh, it means a lot to us. It's it's a lot of fun. We enjoy it. We're dedicated to it.
291. 1:31:11We're out almost every Friday or every Sunday shooting as a team. We love competing against each other or just to see if we can do our best. I mean, there's a score of 25 straight and It's It's hard to get and we're all trying to get there, but like John said, every score counts. So, um we're just enjoying it and having fun. So, it mean a lot. So, it's approved. Um
292. 1:31:39Awesome.
293. 1:31:41Well, thank you. It means a lot that you guys are here and uh you know, wish you guys all the luck and we'll, like I said, we'll talk through uh the the steps that still need to take place and uh keep pushing it forward.
294. 1:31:52Thank you.
295. 1:31:53Of course. Thanks guys.
296. 1:31:57Thank you. Thank you.
297. 1:31:59Hey Mark, I have a question for you. Uh if you're on a activity like this, does that fall into any of the attendance policies?
298. 1:32:12For data like
299. 1:32:13no for for participation in the clubs. Yeah, inner scholastic sports and I presume our extracurricular clubs here have an expectation of attendance in school in order to participate and unquestionably drew you drew a great line Mike that
300. 1:32:28when kids are engaged in
301. 1:32:30and that's where I was going with that. Yes. I mean that could should be we're talking about
302. 1:32:34tent issues
303. 1:32:36if you're part of a club maybe we should say
304. 1:32:38no question yeah
305. 1:32:38you need to be attendance. Okay.
306. 1:32:41Yep. Agreed. [clears throat] Next we have Nikki Geneito.
307. 1:32:47Hi everybody. Nikki Jito. I am just following up on questions I've been asking since the last budget meeting. Um
308. 1:32:56it's so that people at home can hear you.
309. 1:32:58Can you hear me? I'll speak up. Um I asked the last budget, last year's budget, how many jobs didn't come through to this job? Do we have an answer on that yet or can I get an answer from my question from last April one?
310. 1:33:19One.
311. 1:33:20No, I don't Nikki. It's it's I know the proposal from what I've heard the proposal said 18 staff members. Is that about right?
312. 1:33:28It went down after that. Um but it was supposed to be around eight. Um to my knowledge, one instructional staff position was not rehired and it was due to a reduction in student population in whatever discipline that was. But um I don't don't believe there were any reductions in the teaching assistant unit. There were no reductions in the administrative unit or in the clerical unit or in the custodial unit.
313. 1:33:54Yeah. And and if I'm wrong, I'm going to come back and tell you that. Um, and Matt's report about the finance committee and the processes in the central office are all related to that. There has been no process for posting positions, boards approving positions, budgeting positions. None of those things have been interrelated. So, it's been very hard to track and answer questions that you have. Um, so putting these practices into place and making sure that everybody in the district is following the same protocol for hiring a new position or abolishing a position or budgeting for a position. Making sure all that takes place is what we need to do so that we can start answering these questions a little bit more easily.
314. 1:34:38And and we don't ordinarily answer in such detail, but this there's a mysticism around what you've asked, Nikki, and the board's on the agenda tonight is an indication of how things should be going forward. There's a position being eliminated that needs to be done through an action of the board and you know one of the administrative positions is being eliminated. But if any of any any role in the district if it's not going to be if it's being removed from the budget the the board should be taking public action around it which then would transmit to the public exactly what happened and what didn't happen.
315. 1:35:14So I I understand all that.
316. 1:35:16Yeah. The budget that we had delivered to us as the public said one thing, we couldn't get an answer. It's the first time I've gotten answers since last April.
317. 1:35:31Yeah. It's one of the reasons why we have a finance committee now to make sure that this budget season is based on what is actually happening in the district and that the budget actually represents a plan uh moving forward. So really hoping that this budget season looks a lot different and that we're able to tell a full story of what is going to be happening moving forward.
318. 1:35:52So are we.
319. 1:35:53Yeah, understood. [clears throat]
320. 1:35:57Next I have Jen Daly. [cough]
321. 1:36:13Evening. For those who don't know me, my name is Jennifer Daly and I'm a 1994 graduate of Hudson High and I've been an educator for 26 years. Normally, I show up to discuss a pressing issue in the district, but not tonight. I'm here to advocate for a group of outstanding individuals that have been working extremely hard for the past few months. My daughter Mary is one of those individuals. She is with me tonight. She is a bright young lady and high honor student.
322. 1:36:45She's an avid ambassador. She just earned her second class rank in scouts last night. Very proud of her. She plays sports and now wants to be on the trap team and she wanted to be recognized by her school as a sport and supported by our board and our district. Why trap shooting? Maybe this might answer some of the questions that you may have.
323. 1:37:10Obviously, pardon me. Some people hear the word shoot and automatically cringe because social media and mainstream media make guns taboo. This should not be the case. I say this not only as a mother, but as the wife of a man who was shot through the lung in the heart at the age of 12 and still believes in the value of understanding firearms and gun safety.
324. 1:37:33Trap shooting is not just a sport. It is an activity that promotes physical fitness, mental well-being, and social interaction. Whether for recreation or for competition, the benefits of trap shooting make it a valuable pursuit for individuals of all ages and backgrounds. [clears throat] Trap involves a high level of concentration, discipline, and focus that can lead to resiliency. And Lord knows, I wish I had that in my ninth period class. This attitude can help translate itself into the classroom and could increase their focus on education.
325. 1:38:10These programs provide physical activity. They teach discipline and responsibility. They educate students on recreational shooting and hunting. They encourage safe handling of firearms. And as uh stated, there is a gun safety uh course that's involved and they're taking it again. And being in person to do that is way better than just taking online. I don't agree with New York State on that one.
326. 1:38:33Uh the program requires hunters uh to and encourage them actually to in use ethical practices when hunting, comprehensive knowledge on how to use a firearm safely and respect for their environment and that also translate in other places.
327. 1:38:56Trap shooting encourages a sense of community. It creates an opportunity for friendship and bonding over various competitions. Children who have a network of friends and a sense of belonging are mentally more stable and they develop crucial communication skills. And Lord knows these kids are on their phones all the time. They're not on their phones. I'm almost done. I promise.
328. 1:39:19It also can develop leadership skills that are crucial for future endeavors for these for these kids. Keep in mind that this program was designed to give students the opportunity also to learn gun safety, but also as another sport that allows anyone to participate regardless of their gender and athletic ability. You don't have to be able to run a five-minute mile to do this. I wanted to stress this point. It's open to everybody.
329. 1:39:46Please consider approving this program and whatever hoops that have to be jumped through, just jump through them for them, please. Other districts in our area have a program. most notable is Takonic Hills. Feel free to reach out to them if you have any questions. I'm sure they'll be happy to answer. I know my own cousin went out to uh the competition, where is it in Michigan?
330. 1:40:08Um and did really well.
331. 1:40:11Uh so, and they've been successful for the past six or seven years. So, feel free to reach out. I'm sure their superintendent
332. 1:40:16would be happy Yeah. to help you.
333. 1:40:18Absolutely.
334. 1:40:19All right. So, thank you for your time and consideration of this matter. This is a great group of kids. All right. Yes,
335. 1:40:23we don't want that to go by the wayside. Thank you.
336. 1:40:25Thank you for being here. Yeah, appreciate you all being here. [clears throat] [applause]
337. 1:40:33That's it. Okay. Uh brings us to our superintendence report.
338. 1:40:38I'm going to talk about trap first before anyone leaves [laughter] me. Um we of course um we love hearing the stories from the kids and from um the leaders who have led that and the parents are enthusiastic and I apologize that there's been any miscommunication but the board is has expressed full support for this endeavor.
339. 1:40:58That's not the hiccup. That's not the thing that has uh has us here uh not yet approved. Um there's a process involved. This is a new club being formed and it belongs in a collective bargaining agreement in the district and Joe has been phenomenal. Mr. Rzone has been phenomenal at creating the documents that were required because I think the presentation was September October and uh we bounced off our attorneys and our insurance company and what they said was they needed we needed to have that handbook that was reflected reflected the US clay target association and he provided that in spades.
340. 1:41:35So that that partnership with the um Hudson Fishing Game Club and Mr. Mzone has been stellar. Um which leaves the last thing which is just um meeting with that unit and creating the possibility for the club to exist in that collective bargaining uh and then come back to the board with the charter um and um and creation of the club.
341. 1:41:58So, I'm optimistic that all those timelines that you've projected will be able to be met, you know, as we we go forward. And quite frankly, like I'm just trying to I've figured out in between then and now how are clubs formed here, right? That's a new process as well. And I think actually some of the people other people in the room are learning it as a new process.
342. 1:42:23But um please know that uh your enthusiasm and your passion um and preparedness has been heard loud and clear and um we're going to you know finish this path and get you where you need to go. Do everything in our power to get you where you need to go. Yeah. Thanks for coming out.
343. 1:42:43Yes. Thank you all. [applause] [clears throat]
344. 1:42:50I wanted to reflect a little bit on the presentation that uh Mr. Brenamman offered. The state scores uh came out recently. The 3 through8 scores and regent exam scores came out recently. They're publicly available on the New York State Education website and we're going to be uh sharing those more publicly on our website and uh drawing people through our Facebook page.
345. 1:43:13Um, and one of the persistent problems with state scores is that the assessments are given essentially in May and we don't see the scores often until um September, October, sometimes even November. They're not released to the public. It's very difficult to plan, you know, in response to something like that. But I would say that our scores aren't where we want them to be.
346. 1:43:41[clears throat] Mark highlighted third grade. I really appreciate Mr. Ben's responses and it's true kids who were whole who were able to be here in school are going to be have a different you know success rate than those that were still trying to recover from that time where they didn't have an opportunity to be in school.
347. 1:43:58But I would argue no one likes where our scores are and and we have a lot of room to grow. And in talking to the leaders today I said there's almost no better place to be. I don't like that our kids aren't performing where they're where they need to be, but we have the capacity to move move them drastically.
348. 1:44:19So, we'll be sharing more of the data around those things that Mr. Brenamman talked about and the other principles over the last two months of what the data is telling us in pursuit of doing that. I do have faith that um when we're sitting here at this time next year that you will see um more success and if not acknowledgement that we weren't and that we're going to do something different because what we tried didn't work.
349. 1:44:47The other thing that's going to come out um soon out of embargo is designation status uh TSI which is a target school uh meaning that there's areas there are certain demographic groups that needed specific attention [clears throat] uh because they lagged well behind either the rest of the population in Hudson or the same populations throughout New York State.
350. 1:45:10And I think it's uh multi multi-racial and Hispanic were the ones that jumped out the elementary school. Um so designations will be made public soon as well. Right now elementary is TSI targeted. The junior high is TSI and the high school is local meaning that it's local.
351. 1:45:29Um I don't know how do you explain it? Um the state isn't watching us. We're just expected to continue to, you know, work on on things on ourselves. We don't have to submit a plan or anything for the high school.
352. 1:45:46Um, so we have a ways to go, but we are going to make the scores very public because if we're going to demonstrate growth, people need to know where we're starting from.
353. 1:45:57Budget development um has already started. We started meeting with building principles and with department heads and u I think we we acknowledged some of the failings of last year's uh budget was there's hundreds of budget lines within every school budget and some of them can vary drastically. Let's say uh transportation is perfect example uh fuel costs or the contractual costs for transportation go up significantly or go down. They've never gone down, but I like saying that. Um, and um, those things are not resolved by simply rolling over a budget at 3%.
354. 1:46:37You have to say roll over budget 3%, but transportation has to increase 100% because that's the escalation of cost. So, we're going to be looking at the budget in a much more line by line version than let's just roll everything over and hope it works. Because I appreciate that Scott said that we weren't in the red last year. I think he said 99.7. We spent 99.7% of what I think was about $56 million.
355. 1:47:10That's not normal. Ordinarily, a school would finish the year with two to 5%. He said 98 was a good percentage, right? So you have 2% left over. Finishing with $200,000 left is terrifying because we're not allowed to overspend.
356. 1:47:31And it's important to recognize as we bal as we created this year's budget above the revenue that we generate, we allocated over $3 million of our savings. And we did that last year and spent 99.7%. and we did it the year before and we spent 97.8 or something. I I'm just I want to point out that we have um escalating costs across in everything, right? We all do in our in our own lives. Um and it's way too close a margin.
357. 1:48:06So, we need to be very conscientious of how we're planning. We have the Stronger Connections Grant which is rolling off at the conclusion of this year. It's about it's a little over a million dollars um that we're using to fund after school programs and tutoring and um supporting some staff salaries. That money is going and it's a federal uh grant that we do not believe will be reinstated.
358. 1:48:32So, I just I want to let you know the work is going to be hard, but it's going to be gratifying because you deserve to feel as though you're in control of where the money sits and how it's being spent. The other thing we talked about is all the budget transfers that happened at the end of last year and will continue to happen this year. Because when you don't look at individual budget lines and say we need to raise this by 15% and we can lower that one by 10, when you don't do that, you have to move money all over the place.
359. 1:49:04So, the board deserves to be in control to see, you know, to to have our our financial status reports accurate and the public needs to see that we're being good stewards of the money that they've tr entrusted us with. Um, so it's exciting.
360. 1:49:23I got to say Christy every day is excited that this is her budget that she's working building with the finance committee and the leaders and the staff. She's excited because when she came in March last year, that was not her budget. That was a tail end of this process. So, um I think it is an exciting time for all of us because to for for Hudson to to be stable and to be thinking five years into the future, which you should be thinking for facilities, uh for finances and for academics, this is the foundational piece.
361. 1:49:54So, um, one of the first presentations that you'll have from us is where do we stand? What are what's in our reserves? You're going to hear about our reserve plan, what is, uh, in our unassigned fund balance. Um, we we keep finding about out about new pilots every day, but if we can give you a report on pilots, which are people who are paying uh, payments in lie of taxes.
362. 1:50:17So businesses when they come in it's usually something that helps them establish themselves at a fixed rate for a set number of years. Um but when they roll off that has an effect on taxpayers as well. Um our bond councils told us when our loans are rolling off for construction. It's relevant for the board to know that as well because those are directly linked to our ability to do construction projects or buy buses if you choose to buy a bus. if you went crazy and decided to buy electric bus, um knowing when our our bonds are rolling off is relevant.
363. 1:50:50So, we want you to be as informed as possible. The finance committee is going to be a great tool um for the board because they'll be all the way up to their eyes in all of the details and we hope to be able to give um you and the public um what you need as we're seeking to develop um a good budget for next year.
364. 1:51:15the code of conduct committee. I think in Amanda's report, she talked about that. I I did send out an invitation um to staff today with eventually the correct day that they're meeting. The dates were right, the day was wrong. Um and I think we have um five or six people signed up already to be a part of that committee. This is an extension of the work that was done last year. We had a lot of staff and some members of the community who contributed to that. Um, so we're going to build on what they discussed and hopefully bring it home.
365. 1:51:46Uh, because the most important thing around codes of conduct is they have to be living. They have to be relevant to the students who live here and um, if they're not revisited on a annual or bannual basis, they get stale pretty fast. Um, one of the things that you'll likely see um, at some juncture, one of the important things of it is going to be an analysis of how has it worked. So looking at the data of discipline data, where are the highlights and where are the hot spots?
366. 1:52:15The communications committee advisory committee met for its first time uh last week I think um okay it could have been two weeks ago. Life is a blur but um we are going through a survey that we're going to deploy to our public um and um we expect to do that after our January 6th meeting. Um, and it's going to be exciting because um, we talked about like uh, we have a new communications person who will be starting later this week. Again, a new new again person.
367. 1:52:49And, um, communication is foundational. If we're not able to communicate with our populace, we're in big trouble. And, uh, I I know that we're not meeting the expectations or the needs of our our community right now. So, again, room to grow. It's going to be very exciting for us. [clears throat] And I think I think that might be it.
368. 1:53:13Dr. Bill, I have a quick question for you.
369. 1:53:14Yeah, Mike.
370. 1:53:15Um, according to what Mr. Bman said, there's a big divide between third and fourth grade as far as test scores and things. Should we expect to see that when it's fifth and sixth and seventh and eighth, ninth and 10th, or should the upper class start getting closer or excelling?
371. 1:53:36Should we expect to see that all the way through? What New York State New York State evaluates on two things. When we land as a targeted school, two things have happened. The overall performance is not as high as it needs to be in comparison to other schools. The other thing they're measuring is growth.
372. 1:53:54So, um, a student who might score a one out of four, they could be a low one this year, they could be a high one next year. We could get out of TSI status and have those students still be a one or a two uh, out of four just because they've demonstrated growth. So, we're going to be measured on both, but I think statistics say you're going to see a lag for forever. Okay, that's
373. 1:54:20all the way through. And
374. 1:54:22some miracle happens. The kids trudge through junior high. They make it through and uh with some success or a lack of success both on tests uh state tests and maybe in their academics in school and the stakes get different. They get to nth grade, everyone can see the finish line for a regent exam and a and a diploma. for somehow uh some of those kids who have struggled with ones and twos, some of them actually figure it out and they manage to make it to graduation just because it's a different recipe,
375. 1:54:54okay,
376. 1:54:55than everything that was before it. So that's going to be probably the biggest time when you'll see some of those kids actually
377. 1:55:01when they transfer. Okay.
378. 1:55:02I mean, I would just like push on that a little bit, right? That threequarters of the kids in our district right now are ones and twos. So we need to be talking about that. Not that like some of them will push through to graduation, but we need to we need to get a whole bunch of them pushed through to graduation, right? Like the the our state test scores right now show that the majority of our kids are ones and twos. And I think that we like
379. 1:55:23we know that those kids can do better than that. And I so I just think I want to like
380. 1:55:28I want to make sure we're naming that those kids that are ones and twos in third grade like absolutely
381. 1:55:33okay
382. 1:55:33can and should be expected to close those gaps and do what they need to do.
383. 1:55:38Okay. True. Thank you.
384. 1:55:40Yeah. Thank you. Anything else? Thank you. Next up, we have our consent agenda. Um before we get into it, any questions or comments on the consent agenda? Um, I did have one question just uh we had the repair reserve item on there that was removed. Um,
385. 1:56:12yes.
386. 1:56:14So, I have not received the quotes yet for um what needs to be um for the expenses for the repair reserve. So, I didn't I wanted didn't want to keep it open-ended. I want to have exactly the the amount. So, that's why that has been removed. So Tyler gets the quotes, lets you know, and that's how much we funded.
387. 1:56:34Right.
388. 1:56:34Okay. Gotcha.
389. 1:56:36Yeah. Sorry. We have about $600,000 in a repair reserve. And Christie taught me something I didn't know. That money that's spent out of the repair reserve um that isn't preceded by a public hearing must be repaid to the reserve. Um, and I we have a question to our attorney because this was an emergency expense whether or not there's any um flexibility in that.
390. 1:57:00Um, but we'll we'll see. There's a chance that whatever the deal is um 30 $40,000 for this repair, we may have to pay it back to the reserve from our revenue from this next year's budget. Great. Um, okay. So, we do have a few small changes. We're going to pull item E. Um and then uh we have a hand carry um item Y which is the amendment to the agreement for the executive director of human resources.
391. 1:57:35Um so I can make a motion to approve consensus agenda items A through C and agenda items
392. 1:57:45A through D
393. 1:57:46A through D. Um and uh consensus agenda items F through Y.
394. 1:57:53Second. Second.
395. 1:57:54All in favor? And then uh we'll make a motion um to approve consensus agenda item E.
396. 1:58:09Second.
397. 1:58:10All in favor?
398. 1:58:11I'm just gonna excuse myself for conflict of interest. Great.
399. 1:58:15All in favor? All right. Uh so brings us to old business. Um we have our uh 2526 board goals which we discussed at our last meeting. Um the uh changes that we made following our discussion are highlighted in yellow.
400. 1:58:37Um the main first one was change of the curriculum review where we decided to just identify priority areas for improvement and define core responsibilities for a new executive director of teaching and learning focused on curriculum evaluation and instructional quality and ongoing monitoring of student outcomes.
401. 1:58:56Can I assist and edit on that one right now?
402. 1:58:58Yeah,
403. 1:58:58we just changed the title.
404. 1:58:59Yep. It's curriculum and instruction now.
405. 1:59:01Oh jeez. Okay. Um
406. 1:59:03I was just looking at that. [laughter]
407. 1:59:05Uh so we'll make that change. um student support and wellness uh review the wellness policy and the work of the wellness committee um was the edit there. Um and then um we changed the way we're celebrating success for student and teacher achievement while involving them in board presentations um about building initiatives. Um besides the error in the title there, anybody else have any other feedback? Oh.
408. 1:59:39Um, are we are we capitalizing student and teacher just to emphasize?
409. 1:59:47Yeah. Well, just we're celebrating them.
410. 1:59:49All right. [laughter]
411. 1:59:50Student.
412. 1:59:52Um,
413. 1:59:53their names.
414. 1:59:54Yeah. Uh, okay. Um, next slide. Uh, this was a suggestion from Kirsten. Um just on this participation and a vi uh visibility we had it as one monthly and Kirsten pointed out that some months some of us will be more involved and some months some of us will be less involved.
415. 2:00:15So just making it an annual goal. So changing it from once a month to eight events uh during the school year.
416. 2:00:24Sounds good.
417. 2:00:25Okay. So, I will make those two uh um two changes and we'll vote on it next uh next meeting.
418. 2:00:37Um okay, next we have our board activity calendar. Uh it should just be a new business, not old business.
419. 2:00:44It's there twice.
420. 2:00:45Yeah, it's there twice. Didn't catch that. Um so, we've heard from uh each of our buildings. Um, we uh now have our New York State test scores available. Um, and would love to just have a conversation with the board on what we want the rest of the year to look like.
421. 2:01:06Um, what other presentations would be helpful for us, what updates we want to receive throughout the year. Um, also approaching budget season, so we've got some specific milestones to hit from that with that. Um, and yeah, what do we think would be helpful?
422. 2:01:21I think we can have a conversation about um you know the types of uh data and input we'd like to receive and then come back with them uh scheduled at the next meeting so that everybody knows what to expect.
423. 2:01:36We do need to have a presentation on the capital project which we talked about earlier.
424. 2:01:42Okay.
425. 2:01:42Yep.
426. 2:01:43I I want to say February just to make sure Tyler has adequate time to prepare for that.
427. 2:01:47We talked about it a little bit today.
428. 2:01:49Okay. Um, I'd be interested in scoping out some of the data that tracks towards the building level goals. Um, and I don't know that that needs to be a long presentation every time so much as it is like a data update,
429. 2:02:02but I would love to see something maybe it's another column in this document. um that says something like we are going to get you know attendance updates by monthly and those will just be real short and be like here's the percentage here's our average daily attendance here's the percent chronic absenteeism here's how this compares to last year here's how we're trending in the right or wrong direction right um similarly I think we've got the NWA map testing three times a year I'd love to like see the results of that again that tells us if we're on or off track towards like New York state goals um the state test scores when they come out obviously um and then like what's the data that we're looking at to see if we're on or off track to our high school graduation goals.
430. 2:02:39So, percent of kids passing course is percent of kids passing January and June regents. Um, again, I don't think this needs to necessarily be that the building principles like coming and presenting for 20 minutes every time, but I think just snapshots of tracking those things that we said were the goals that we're working towards would be helpful to put with a regular cadence.
431. 2:03:02That all sounds good to me. I would like to hear from the director of special ed to make sure that we're in compliance in that area.
432. 2:03:15Like on the continuum of service, Diane,
433. 2:03:20just whatever that she feels necessary to uh present to make sure we're in compliance.
434. 2:03:26Yeah,
435. 2:03:26that'll be important part of the budget process, too. So maybe we can marry that. Um one thing that came up in discussion um earlier uh that again is not a presentation but is a milestone that we should be tracking is um tenure status of of staff. Um and we might have passed the useful milestone for that this year but um should make sure we get at least another discussion about it and date on the calendar that we don't forget about. Do we have a shared decision-making team?
436. 2:04:07Because I think the last I heard there was no team at um oh shared decisionmaking plan. There was no team at the junior and senior high school.
437. 2:04:17I believe you're right, Diana. There's teams, but there's not like a purposeful shared decision-making team.
438. 2:04:22Okay. I don't know um when the last time the district um did any updates to the shared decision-making plan. I haven't seen that.
439. 2:04:32I can look though. Um, Matt or Christie, from a finance perspective, are there any other big milestones that you think we should have in mind?
440. 2:04:55Um, we're not seeing the full thing here, but
441. 2:04:59we can probably put our heads together if there's something to add there. We did just approve the
442. 2:05:04budget calendar, so
443. 2:05:04Yep. Yeah. included those milestones from the budget calendar. I assume we're not going to schedule a presentation for the community budget workshop meeting. That's usually a little bit of a an extended meeting anyway.
444. 2:05:22We Yes, we have done them in the past in conjunction with the regular board meeting. Um I know there was talk about maybe it being a separate meeting um this year. Um you guys talked about that in finance.
445. 2:05:35Did you? I don't recall talking about it.
446. 2:05:38Yeah, I don't remember discussing.
447. 2:05:40Um, so then let's just say if they're not separated, let's not add a presentation on top of that. I think it's a little bit of a
448. 2:05:48becomes a very Yeah.
449. 2:05:49You don't February
450. 2:05:53uh March.
451. 2:05:53March.
452. 2:05:54Well, I guess February and March are both the way that works out. So then that would that would mean altering my recommendation that we see talk to Tyler in February and maybe we ask if he can talk as early as as January.
453. 2:06:06Okay. might be beneficial actually Kirsten because that window between January and February is when we want to be ready to submit to the state. That's true. So that's good timing to try January.
454. 2:06:19January. Okay.
455. 2:06:21Um and I did have um we haven't discussed it, but I did have in here in January a review of the um New York State academic test results. I don't know if that's the right time, but I mean to your point, I think everybody in the community needs to be aware of what they are and we need to um you make sure we're all taking the same assumptions away from it.
456. 2:06:48I think that's the right time because it still leaves two to three months before this year's state test also. So like for the discussion to be talking about like what are the initiatives, what are the things that we're doing to track towards improving those scores this year.
457. 2:07:04Great. Um, any other suggestions you would have, Dr. Bailey?
458. 2:07:11Uh, Chrissy had a draft budget calendar that included all of the NISBA recommended timelines, which
459. 2:07:19that's included here. Yeah.
460. 2:07:20Has a lot of there's some other things that wouldn't be board um board action, but it would be just timeline stuff that it doesn't have to be on the board calendar.
461. 2:07:32Okay. Um just to give you a sense of pacing, what ordinarily happens is when we're presenting, like I said, the first presentation you hear from us is the state of the state. Um what do we have? What do we expect perhaps to have going forward? Sorry. And then um traditionally done is you'll have the the more um mechanical programs first transportation um facilities because they're easier to pin down identify doesn't have to do with student you know enrollment and as you approach u March April that's when you're going to hear more information about instructional programs because then we're making decisions around class sizes and uh programmatic decisions based on annual reviews for students with disabilities.
462. 2:08:20It's it's a complex process. So um not that you won't hear some of those things in in February as well, but know that um we'll be able to like give you a sketch of where each of those presentations will land so that you know you to get the questions in your mind that you're interested in or information that you need delivered to you you know during that presentation. So, we'll share the our draft vision for those um presentations. And part of the reason we haven't already is we just talked about the schedule of meetings with the finance committee meeting and we weren't sure if it was going to be during board meetings, separate workshops and things like that. Um but we'll share a draft with you and then it's going to be moved around as appropriate um over the next month.
463. 2:09:08Great. Um, and Cheryl, do you have any smart school updates that would need to be provided at specific times?
464. 2:09:16Not yet, but once we do, we can let you know.
465. 2:09:19Okay.
466. 2:09:20Um, but we will be doing our three-year district technology planning. So, at some point, I will need to come to present to you.
467. 2:09:27Okay.
468. 2:09:27And that'll probably be in the spring.
469. 2:09:29Okay. Great. Then Christie, I know last year the ESSA um grants presentation and survey kind of snuck up on us, so we just make sure we get that in there, too. Okay. Well, this be a a work in progress and a living document, but you know, let's uh you know, try to think more about it and make sure that we plan um the rest of the year as effectively as we can because we've got one, two, three, four, five, six.
470. 2:10:07Mark, can I add
471. 2:10:08seven boardroom left? Like one more thing I'm thinking is the surveys that sta survey staff and students and families just around sort of like culture climate pieces like when at some point we should take a look at that and see if we're you know making gains in those as well.
472. 2:10:24Yeah. What are those called? Um
473. 2:10:26that was panorama.
474. 2:10:26Panorama. Yeah.
475. 2:10:32What was it?
476. 2:10:33Panorama. Oh,
477. 2:10:34there was the that's the
478. 2:10:38would have that data.
479. 2:10:39Yeah. Like are we tracking a couple of those questions year over year or something?
480. 2:10:44Yep.
481. 2:10:47Okay. All right. Um well, again, anything else that comes to mind? Um we'll keep adding to this and work with uh Dr. ability to um schedule the rest of it out. Uh brings us to policy.
482. 2:11:13Um do you want me to go through these? What do I uh
483. 2:11:16Yeah, for the 8635 data protection and security.
484. 2:11:22Um so second read of this one. This one has a couple edits from the um lawyer. since it was last up for the first read. Um they mostly I'm going to merge data privacy with computer use in my head. Um they are they were mostly just like sort of semantic updates um that made sure that the language was as clear as possible there um from the last time that we read it. Um, so what does it look like to to be thinking about computer use and instruction and and making sure that that's done in a way that's safe and supportive to our students? Um, and want me to just keep going through them?
485. 2:12:04Well, no, this one's up for a second reading. So, if nobody has any other questions or comments, we could um move to adopt it.
486. 2:12:15I have none.
487. 2:12:16Okay. Um, so I make a motion to approve second reading of policy 8635, data protection, privacy and security. Policy 8635R, information and data privacy security breach and notification regulation. Policy 8635E1, parents bill of rights for student data privacy and security. And policy 8635E.2 to third party supplemental agreement and adopts policy 8635 uh 8635R 8635E1 and 8635E2.
488. 2:12:52Well done, sir.
489. 2:12:53Thank you. [laughter]
490. 2:12:54That's a mouthful.
491. 2:12:55Second.
492. 2:12:55All in favor?
493. 2:12:59Uh 8636
494. 2:13:03AI. So this is our new policy this year. This doesn't have any changes from when it was up for a first read. So this is a policy that a subp part of the policy committee worked on several months ago. So it's exciting to get it up and running around like responsible use of AI.
495. 2:13:20Yep.
496. 2:13:20In an ever changing landscape of uh AI in our Yeah. everything.
497. 2:13:25Yeah.
498. 2:13:27Questions, comments.
499. 2:13:32Okay. Make a motion to approve the second reading of artificial intelligent policy 8636 and adopt policy 8636.
500. 2:13:40Second.
501. 2:13:41All in favor. Uh 4526 computer use and instruction.
502. 2:13:49Great. Uh these do have some updates from the attorney. Um they center mostly around shifting some of the antiquated language that was in the NISBA policies. We didn't tackle that in policy committee, but things for example like calling this a mobile computer as opposed to a laptop um is an update that we have made or calling it the mobile web instead of the internet are changes that are now in there. Um so again it's about like cleaning up the language but no subsidive changes in the content of what we're saying can or cannot happen with regard to computer use and instruction.
503. 2:14:20Yeah. A few of the other changes were all based on the way that people obtain files. So prior referred to CDs and floppy discs and drives us into 2025
504. 2:14:31when now most people download things.
505. 2:14:32Yeah.
506. 2:14:34Uh any questions, comments? Okay. Okay. So, make a motion to approve second reading of policy 4526, computer use and instruction, 4526R, computer use and instruction regulation, and 4526E computer use and instruction acceptable use policy and adopt policy 4526, 4526R, and 4526E.
507. 2:14:59Second.
508. 2:15:00All in favor? Facilities Committee Charter. Another exciting one. [laughter]
509. 2:15:14You're being facious.
510. 2:15:15No, no, AI is exciting. And this is exciting because similarly to the um what what we've done with policy committee, we're expanding the membership um so that there are ways for more community and staff members and parents to be involved in the work of the district, which I think is a great thing.
511. 2:15:38Um the changes that are currently there that you see um are the changes that Tyler had added in just in terms of like clarity of language. Yep.
512. 2:15:50And the biggest thing for this too is we need to figure out what number it is which
513. 2:15:54yes
514. 2:15:57don't know how to do that actually. We'll find out.
515. 2:15:59Question for our NISBA partnership. Um and hopefully they will speed up their response time for us.
516. 2:16:05Yep.
517. 2:16:06Um I think it should be two whatever we numbered the finance committee. I I have seen it before where other districts have um like a blanket subcommittee policy and then in that case all of the committee charters would be um underneath that with the exception of of audit. Um but we don't really have that um structure set up and and finance received. Uh
518. 2:16:43yeah, I think that was the question was do we like tag it to the
519. 2:16:47to the policies that they supervise or do we create its own section for
520. 2:16:53the committees, right? Like the policy committee charters charter is under the like policy on policies 5280 something like that. Um, and so we may need to think about I think I think this is why it's worth asking the like NISBA partnership who's helping us sort of think through if there's a best practice in terms of how these do they fold under the sort of area like does this go within the finance policies or does this go in this other category?
521. 2:17:20Yep. Okay. So, we'll find that out. Anybody have any other questions or comments? All right. So, we'll bring it back for another reading once we have those questions answered. And then we have a 6830 expense reimbursement.
522. 2:17:38Yep. Um, this one again has some tweaks um from the attorney um that just sort of they don't change. We made the substantial changes to making sure that the the process for this matched what was happening in the district and matched the in a way that was like most efficient for staff members to have access to this without putting up like as much money up front. Um, nothing changed in the substantive nature of that, but there is just some like clarity of language.
523. 2:18:06Kirsten doesn't want me to say that.
524. 2:18:07Um,
525. 2:18:09stylistic choice.
526. 2:18:10Um,
527. 2:18:11perfect in the document.
528. 2:18:12Christie, maybe I'll connect with you on that because I think that what happened there actually is in in trying to tweak to the language the lawyer wanted, I think we may have over complicated. So, if I connect with you on that and we make sure that it goes back to what
529. 2:18:25clear
530. 2:18:26makes Yes. [laughter]
531. 2:18:28All right. All right. So, we'll bring that one back for an additional reading. Thank you. Um, public forum Leslie. Did anybody else sign up?
532. 2:18:39We have Shannon. It does make sense.
533. 2:18:43Yeah. IRS.
534. 2:18:48That's right. Shannon's right now.
535. 2:18:50Hi. I'll keep it brief. It's late. Um, I wanted to speak for two reasons. One, I wanted to speak because Libbo was being very humble when she was giving the results for the model UN conference before. She in fact is one of the two people that won best delegate.
536. 2:19:05And Lia has awesome.
537. 2:19:09Liba has been doing model UN since she was a freshman. her first conference was at Harvard and she has been a consistent and very very very well researched and very um she doesn't think so but she has a lot of confidence and she's an amazing delegate an amazing representative to Hudson when we go to any of the conferences around the tri-state area. So I wanted to acknowledge her for that. And then the second thing I wanted to say was I also wanted to acknowledge Colton because Colton is 15. He's a sophomore. I don't know how old Joel you are, Colton, but I know you're a sophomore. And he came and spoke to you publicly for the beha on behalf of his club. And I think to see that passion for that activity and to see a student be able to come and speak to adults at such a young age and advocate for themselves is so amazing. And I know we've heard a lot of things about our district today that are negative, but we have amazing students and I just wanted to acknowledge both of those students tonight. That's it.
538. 2:20:04Thank you. [applause]
539. 2:20:05Thank you. All right, brings us to board.
540. 2:20:13Oh, more. I'm sorry.
541. 2:20:15Uh, Lindley,
542. 2:20:25good evening. I haven't been at a board meeting in um 13 years. I've been retired from Hudson here for 13 years. I am back because I'm now a grandmother and I do have a grandson who's getting involved on the trap team. So, I'm here to speak for that. But I would like to give you some historical perspective because uh I was employed here in 1993 as a science teacher and I brought with me in my bag of tools uh my qualifications to teach the hunter education course for the department of conservation of New York State. So, this this institution allowed me in Mr. Scarp's room in the back corner to teach Hunter Ed bringing in shotguns, rifles, handguns to teach the 10-hour course with my with my other comrades. And we could do that very nicely for about 10 years. And then it fell out of disfavor.
543. 2:21:15And I don't know why we got this idea that not educating would help that we would just forget about the problems of having guns as part of our tradition, but then we weren't acknowledging it. I have to applaud these young men and women equal having the ability to do this and they have you know made the commitment and I really would like to show you that if you looked at that group of kids you have urban kids suburban kids multi-racial kids it brings the rural kids together and I have been saying this since I got here in 93 we have an issue with bringing all of those beautiful groups together and they're all equal do a good up. You need to support these kids. You got me motivated to come back. People want me back to [laughter] the board. Negatory, but I'm supporting kids like I always have been there for my kids.
544. 2:22:09Thank you very much.
545. 2:22:10Thank you very [laughter]
546. 2:22:18um Hersa Chowry. Okay, sorry I'm a lot smaller. Um, hello. I'm Havsa Chowdery. That's H A FSA. Um, and I'm a senior at Tech Valley High School. I just wanted to come to the board and say thank you for the opportunity to let me go to the school for the past four years.
547. 2:22:45I've gotten a lot of opportunities at Tech Valley and I've gotten so much um experiences that I just would not give up give up and I just wanted to express my gratitude forward because you are allowing students like me who are generally more independent. I'm sure a lot of my teachers, I'm not sure how many are in this room, um that I've had in the past will let you know that I've always been a strong student.
548. 2:23:14Um but I've also always been really independent. Tech Valley is a projectbased school um that allows students to work on teams and with different business partners. I've just finished my biggest project of the year which was working with um a business partner from Accenture um working to connect benefits to beneficiaries or potential beneficiaries and I feel like I wouldn't have gotten the experience or um just the connections in general without being able to go to Tech Valley.
549. 2:23:54So, I was just I just come here to express my gratitude and um allowing me to have this opportunity to say that I' I feel like I've been thriving in a place where I've learned to speak publicly and not be afraid of who I am and express myself.
550. 2:24:13Thank you for that.
551. 2:24:14Thank you. Thank you for coming. [applause]
552. 2:24:21And that's it.
553. 2:24:22Great. Thank you all for speaking tonight. Um so board discussion. Anybody have other thoughts um news to share?
554. 2:24:32I have
555. 2:24:32I do.
556. 2:24:33Oh, let's let the Diana go first.
557. 2:24:36Letter go first.
558. 2:24:37Oh, thank you. Uh so first I I'll start with the trap club since that's like the hot ticket item for today. But I did go with Mike down for um Thanksgiving weekend to the trap club and he already spoke about that, but I'll I'll go nostalgic here.
559. 2:24:52Uh because growing up in Hudson, we used [clears throat] to go ice skating at Oakdale and um what we would do is uh go inside the uh beach house. They had a fire going and we had cocoa and we would all be freezing and hanging out together. And um aside from shooting, you know, that's what I felt when I walked in that that little hut you got over there. That's what was going back in my head.
560. 2:25:16But um so someday we'll talk more about the trap club and you know you'll see the videos that I took from that night. But um you know I I I thank you for allowing us to be there. So also I do want to say that you did mention that there was an open house and we didn't know about the open house otherwise we would have been I would have been to the open house.
561. 2:25:40Listen you're all invited to come out Friday night. Okay. Open invitation. anyone that went to see what was
562. 2:25:46Hey, uh I got the floor, mister. You had you had the you had the floor.
563. 2:25:51I'm not trying to steal your phone.
564. 2:25:53No, also he got a perfect score um that the night that we were there, too. So, ju just just to say perfect score. All right, so that was the trap club and you had enough attention. So, I'm going to go to the next one.
565. 2:26:02Um so, my husband and I went to the Festival of Wreaths. Um, and the first thing that I noticed was the chickens walking in and I was like, "Oh my god, this is so important. You guys know how I feel about that." Um, so like that was the main highlight was seeing chickens over there. I I I couldn't imagine that.
566. 2:26:21But so so three things I'll just skip over to the principal's award. Um, so I we were all invited and I have a free schedule, so I went over um today. And um like I said, once you go into that building, you know that it's an elementary school and everybody's happy and you just feel like you're part of something.
567. 2:26:39And the whole room smelled like fresh donuts. And I just found out that they do them fresh there. So that's amazing. Even though we talked at the policy committee about how we're not supposed to have donuts, but we can censor this later, right? We can censor this. Uh [snorts] but it was really nice.
568. 2:26:57So, the kids got their awards and t-shirts and things and thank you for inviting me to that. But also Jill grabbed me and said, "You got to see what's going on upstairs." So upstairs they had a workshop with Harringtons where the kids and the teachers were on the floor banging out nails making birdhouses. Oh, and I did
569. 2:27:16tool boxes. I thought they were birdhouses.
570. 2:27:20So that was okay. So anyway, but I did share pictures with them and ask them to put them up. So, [cough] um, those [clears throat] were,
571. 2:27:29and I don't want to hear anybody say, "Oh, you got my bad side." Because if you're on the floor banging nails with a kid to make anything, I mean, that's your good side. I don't care what side it is. Uh, but if you would just take a look at the pictures. Look at those donuts. They made those donuts. That looks like Dunkin Donuts. That's amazing.
572. 2:27:49The cafeteria staff made.
573. 2:27:51Yes.
574. 2:27:52That's very cool.
575. 2:27:53Right. That whole time I was thinking, man, I just should have asked for a transfer. [laughter] We can censor that later, too. Right. But it was fun. Thank you. And that was all I really wanted to share.
576. 2:28:02Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing, Diana.
577. 2:28:06I had the pleasure of attending a whole bunch of conference uh concerts last week. So, the some of the little kids at the elementary school, the bigger kids at the elementary school, and then the junior high school um plus uh conferences um and just seeing the the music program from first grade through junior high and then also seeing all the visual art that's up in the walls like all over the elementary school on conference night is just really really incredible to see. So, like shout out to all of the staff that work on the the holistic arts programming um that our kids in the district get.
578. 2:28:44Dr. Bailey, sorry, I forgot to mention, I didn't see on my list here. Uh I want to engage the board in discussion around substitute pay rates at the next meeting. Um we are constantly in need of subs. Um, we know that that's true of most school districts.
579. 2:29:01Um, and we I just wanted to codify some um maybe make adjustments to some of the salaries, but also um clarify um our practices around what we pay substitute teachers who are here less than 90 days, more than 90 days um certified, uncertified because we know with so many changes in uh leadership, it's difficult to to know what was done with continuity. And we certainly want to for to be fair to everybody in the district, we want to apply things with continuity, but I'll I'll bring a written proposal next time that we can discuss.
580. 2:29:45Sorry, we'll forget about that.
581. 2:29:47Thank you. All right. Anything else?
582. 2:29:52Well, Moren was at the festival at Reese because I saw her there and I was at the concert, too.
583. 2:29:58Was at the concert as well. All wonderful activities. MC Smith always has it going on.
584. 2:30:09Just curious, how did uh Harington's get involved in that project?
585. 2:30:13Uh last year about this to construction. [cough] [clears throat]
586. 2:30:54Can you put those pictures up so we can see?
587. 2:30:56This isn't the first year you've done that, is that? I'm pretty sure. I say I'm pretty sure I have one of those at home for my fifth grade.
588. 2:31:01Very large makeup kit. [laughter]
589. 2:31:04Was there any expense to us for that?
590. 2:31:07Okay. I know Harington's is very good that way. Uh especially with like eco scale projects and things. They're very active in the community for helping out.
591. 2:31:18Okay. And what was the kids response?
592. 2:31:22Yeah.
593. 2:31:23And the Harrington's people were on the floor too banging the nails with the kids. All right. Um, upcoming meeting dates. Uh,
594. 2:31:38I'm sorry.
595. 2:31:39I don't have any. So, we're just going to, uh, freestyle. I know that there is a board of education meeting on January 16th at 6 PM in the high school auditorium.
596. 2:31:52Uh, Tuesday,
597. 2:31:52the 20th. Tuesday, January
598. 2:31:5713. [laughter]
599. 2:31:59Uh, policy committee.
600. 2:32:01Thank you.
601. 2:32:02Want me to do it on my calendar?
602. 2:32:03Okay.
603. 2:32:04Finance committee Monday the 5th.
604. 2:32:06There we go.
605. 2:32:06Okay. Um, communications committee, the advisory committee will be on the 6th and code of conduct will meet on the 12th followed by another finance committee meeting because it's budget season and policy committee will meet on the 13th of January and the next board meeting is on the 20th with a facilities meeting immediately before. Can you possibly retroactively stick those dates on here? Because I actually do check this.
606. 2:32:37I can
607. 2:32:37check back on this to remember where dates are.
608. 2:32:41Well, good. [laughter] All right. Um, we do have a need for a second executive session uh to discuss the employment history of a particular person or persons. Uh, make a motion to enter executive session at 8:31 p.m.
609. 2:32:57Second.
610. 2:32:58All in favor? be no further business uh after this executive session. Thank you all so much for being here and I hope everybody has a wonderful holiday.
611. 2:33:07Thank you. Thank you.

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